Burlington Code Academy

I had a wondeful and eye opening experience at Burlington Code Academy. The education was fast paced and immersive, much like the industry that I was being prepared for. There were definite moments of doubt, but the intructing team encouraged me to see the problem solver in myself and never gave up on me. The course opened up a new world of understanding to me in both software and internet that I would not have been able to achieve in such a short period of time at a regular school.

November 4, 2019

It was about this time last year when I first heard about the Burlington Code Academy (BCA). After making the decision to leave an industry and career that wasn’t for me, I signed up for the part time class that BCA offers. I then continued on to take the web dev bootcamp, that following summer. And to cut to the chase, I graduated from BCA’s program in late August 2019 and landed a full time salaried position at a local web development agency less than a month later. A job I wouldn’t have been qualified for, just 8 months prior.

What Burlington Code Academy Does Well:

Exceptional Instructors and TA’s who are willing to go the extra mile.

The founders of the school are both highly motivated to see you succeed and will also go the extra mile to see that happen.

Giving students a strong foundational understanding of coding.

Classes are well structured with Lectures, Labs, and Projects.

Listening and responding to student input.

The courses teach relevant technologies that are being used by today’s tech companies.

Connecting you with local employers and tech leaders.

The Capstone Project and final presentation were great real-world experiences.

What Burlington Code Academy Could Improve Upon:

Prior to class beginning, communicating the commitment that is necessary to succeed.

As a class going over higher-level solutions to projects and labs. Exposure to advanced solutions helped me improve my problem solving skills.

At the end of the bootcamp more time should be spent on coding and less on the tangential material that is meant to broaden our horizons. I enjoyed it, but with the condensed schedule it ate into too much capstone project time.

More movie nights 😉

All in all, Burlington Code Academy delivered on their promise to teach me how to code, and enable me to change career paths, in a very short time. It was quite the undertaking and requires a full commitment from you as the student. However, if you put your head down and focus, BCA will lead you to success. I owe them a big thank you wouldn’t be where I am without them.

November 5, 2019

I think with this program, you really get what you put into it. This bootcamp gives you the tools to learn more about whatever you want on your own, get a job as a junior developer, or do some freelance work.

The thing I liked most about BCA was their focus on projects. Every week you work either in a team of two or on your own to create an app or program. In the beginning, you’re just creating command line apps, but eventually you make web apps that run in browsers. This makes the classes centered around solving problems and learning skills directly relevant and useful for creating apps.

The main thing I think the class could improve on is how class time is spent in later lectures. Sometimes an entire app would be explained all the way through without much interaction from the class or with limited demonstration of what is happening in the big picture. Early on in the class, lectures include plenty of ~15 minute “labs,” which allow students to try out new skills and test their understandings. These labs occur less and less later on in the class, unfortunately.

I think perhaps this could be fixed by focusing each lecture on a narrow and specific individual skill or way of solving a problem, along with an example and a way for the class to try it out on their own. Alternatively, projects could take up more and more of the week as the class goes on, and lectures could be specifically centered around getting the class started on certain parts of their apps.

That being said, I think that BCA will rapidly improve and be able to fit more and more material into their already fairly comprehensive curriculum. These bootcamps are very new and people are still learning the best methodoligies around teaching them. If you want to learn to code in a short amount of time with a great group of people and avoid the headaches of figuring everything out on your own, this is the best option.

November 10, 2019

I’m really excited about what BCA is doing in the community and for its students. Personally, the class helped me advance towards a more technical role in my current position. The school has created a support network for its students and also engages the local development community in order to support events and programs that help advance technical careers in Vermont. I think they’re doing great things, and I think that a class with them is time well spent.

November 11, 2019

I had a legal career I was proud of but I wanted to take my passion for technology further. Not only did I learn what I needed to learn to get a great job as an Enterprise Architect with the State, I became part of a community that I continue to grow in.

November 11, 2019

I really appreciated the positive atmosphere at Burlington Code Academy. We were encouraged to have fun, support one other, take breaks, and experiment and grow in our own way.

The instructors we had were top notch and came with lots of real-world experience as coders and coding teachers. And with the small class size, they were very accessible, so I was able to ask questions whenever I felt confused or just wanted to learn more.

The projects they designed for us were fun and challenging. Getting to work with other students through pair programming, peer code reviews, and the longer-term capstone project taught me so much because my eyes were constantly being opened to new ways of approaching a problem. It was also helpful in the job search to already have working full-stack applications in my portfolio.

I like the course’s emphasis on Agile development principles because so many companies use Agile. It made my transition to a new job in software easier because the Agile process felt familiar from my time at Burlington Code Academy.

The skills I gained at Burlington Code Academy allowed me to break into the field of web development and work every day at a job that I enjoy.

December 29, 2019

The intro course I took at BCA gave me confidence, as well as hard skills in software development with JS. If it wasn’t for this course, I can say for sure that I would not be where I am today.
BCA is a very welcoming place, and they do a great job at getting a wide ‘variety’ of students. Having many different type of people from different backgrounds that all had a passion to learn development in JS was very beneficial to my own learning. There was a sort of feeding off each other that I had not experienced with any other courses.

January 10, 2020