Learn Academy is a San Diego-based coding bootcamp that focuses on web development. The curriculum is structured to provide intensive training for beginners and junior developers. Students who have attended Learn Academy also receive support with their job search and complete a guaranteed internship with a local tech company.
The bootcamp stands out with its student-to-teacher ratio and small class size. Read our comprehensive Learn Academy review to find out if it’s the right bootcamp for you.
Learn Academy Quick Facts | |
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Cost | $14,500 (4-month Intensive), $249 (Weekend) |
Start Dates | Sept 7th (4-month Course), Aug 13th (Weekend) |
Locations | San Diego, Online |
Courses | Web Development |
Available Programs | Online, Full-time |
Learn Academy offers a web development program for people looking to switch or advance their careers. Both the four-month and weekend bootcamps teach full stack development through hands-on projects and pair programming.
Students on the four-month bootcamp will also be required to take an internship with a partner company and gain excellent support with their job search.
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Learn Academy is definitely worth it if you’re an aspiring web or software developer willing to put a lot of work in. Learn Academy focuses on both backend and front end web development.
Students who enroll in the four-month program are guaranteed to gain relevant work experience through a one-month internship. It offers career services like interview practice and resume reviews.
However, Learn Academy only trains students to become full stack web developers. Students who want to break into other tech fields like cyber security, UX design, product management, and digital marketing may not be able to find a suitable place in the bootcamp.
Learn Academy has not published its job placement rates. However, students receive a range of career support to help them land a job at the end of the program. During the program, students receive help to develop their resumes, assemble their portfolios, refine their interview techniques, and build their networks.
The bootcamp invites experts from the industry to come and talk to students. Students also gain real-world experience that helps them stand out among their peers through the internship program.
No, Learn Academy does not currently offer a job guarantee. However, students are guaranteed an internship where they benefit from on-the-job experience and training.
The bootcamp has partnered with 10 to 15 San Diego companies in the tech community. After students complete their classroom training, they will then attend interviews with three to four of their internship partner firms before being matched by Learn Academy.
Learn Academy’s intensive four-month course costs $14,500 while the weekend bootcamp costs $249. The final cost of the program may depend on the financing options available to students.
This coding bootcamp offers different financing options for students, including scholarships, deferred tuition agreements (DTA), or a loan from a lending partner. Students can also pay the full amount upfront.
Learn Academy has several scholarship opportunities for students who qualify. These are designed to reduce your financial burden and widen the path to tech.
It has a scholarship worth $4,000 for women. Learn Academy also offers a $2,000 scholarship for people in underrepresented communities. If you have a bachelor’s degree, you can also apply for a scholarship of $2,000.
Learn Academy’s deferred tuition agreement (DTA) functions similarly to an income share agreement (ISA). You only pay back your tuition costs once you have secured a job and start earning.
With a DTA you pay a fixed monthly amount, rather than a percentage of your earnings. At Learn Academy, you only start paying back your tuition after you secure a job paying more than $30,000 per year. You’ll then pay $345 per month for 48 months. You can halt the payment if you lose your job. It will resume once you are employed again.
Learn Academy’s lending partner Meritize provides loans to students who cannot afford the tuition fees. Once the loan is approved, students can defer payments for three months after the completion of the program.
Learn Academy bootcamp students can pay in monthly installments by choosing loan financing or the deferred tuition agreement.
Although Learn Academy does not accept GI Bill, the bootcamp has been included in the Veteran Through Technology Education Course (VET TEC) program. It means that off duty or near off duty veterans can use their GI benefits to cover their tuition fees.
Learn Academy has one campus located in San Diego. Currently, all its courses are provided through online learning.
The online programs offer the same level of teaching and career support as in-person programs.
Learn Academy has two courses for students who are seeking a career in web development. You can start by enrolling in the weekend or prep course if you don’t have any programming experience. Those with coding experience can bypass this prep course and head straight to the main bootcamp.
If you are not familiar with programming, you should enroll in their prep course. It will get you up to speed on the basics of web development and prepare you for an immersive bootcamp program.
This program prepares you to become a full stack web developer. It features a three-month coding education and one-month internship with a local company where you get to apply the skills you learned in real-life scenarios.
In four months, you will learn both front end and backend development. The 640-hour coding curriculum will ensure that students learn how to build web applications from scratch and deploy them. The main frameworks and programming languages include Ruby on Rails, Javascript, CSS, HTML, GitHub, Git, and pair programming.
The program will start with the basics before introducing more intricate concepts. You will learn something new every day and get opportunities to work on practical projects. The projects you create will become your portfolio which you can use to apply for jobs.
Learn Academy only offers its programs on a full-time schedule. For the four-month program, students are required to commit to at least 40 hours of studying per week.
You don’t necessarily need any previous experience to get accepted into Learn Academy. However, you will have to demonstrate your passion and ability to learn. You should be prepared to attend an interview as part of the process.
Learn Academy has not made public its acceptance rate yet.
Learn Academy has a simple application process. It involves a written application form and an informal interview. Successful candidates are admitted into the next available program.
Learn Academy has a fairly informal interview process. The interview could include questions related to your passion, motivation, skills, and experience. Be prepared to answer the common bootcamp interview questions, and make sure you do your research first. Below are some sample questions that could pop up during the interview.
Learn Academy is an excellent training bootcamp for people who want to pursue a career in web development. Learn Academy has small-size classes that ensure a balanced student-to-teacher ratio. It also employs pair programming learning methods to encourage students to work together, so they learn to collaborate in a working environment.
Learn Academy’s intensive curriculum ensures that students complete 640 hours of coding training and three months of intensive learning where they acquire knowledge to develop online applications from scratch.
If you want to break into the tech industry, a coding bootcamp is the best place to start. Learn Academy will fully prepare you to make the switch with its intensive program. Plus the guaranteed internship will give you real-world experience and increase your chances of finding a job at the end of your training.
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Anonymous
If you’re a hopeful web developer or engineer in San Diego, Learn is the only bootcamp I recommend. A couple primary reasons: 1. internship and career services 2. program’s willingness to change.
The internship experience speaks for itself. To have the opportunity to apply classroom skills to a functioning business is so important. One of the biggest barriers to finding employment is job experience; the internship does help address that deficit. Learn’s career services is also a real strength. A week of the program will be devoted to preparing you for a job search, from the obvious things like creating a new resume to the less obvious, like taking LinkedIn head shots. I do not know how else I would’ve pulled everything together and very much appreciated Bryan’s guidance.
I also mention the program’s willingness to accept feedback as a highlight – and it absolutely is. Prior to attending Learn, I worked at a university managing a program and have real understanding of how difficult it can be to modify classroom focus or process. Learn does a really impressive job of soliciting and responding to feedback. Every cohort changes – new projects, new format, emphasis on new skills – which is incredibly difficult to do. It does help them stand out; each cohort gets better.
As a final note, I do think it’s important to stress that you will not get everything out of Learn if you do not put in the work. Most career switches take about 18 months. Learn’s program, including internship, is 4 months. I do believe that in order to be most successful, you have to put in extra time outside of Learn’s allotted 40 hours/week. It is an intense program and requires focus for success. Know that the job market is tough for junior developers or engineers, but if you do the work, it pays off. I encourage you to control your fate as much as possible. Take advantage of learn alum, meetups, their recommended prep work, pairing programming, access to teachers and each of their unique strengths.
Learn is great. They will work hard on your behalf. Full recommendation from me.
November 2, 2020
Anonymous
Learn Academy is a fast-paced program for getting practical experience with many different relevant technologies in a short amount of time. The immersive portion happens quickly, students are exposed to Git, data structures, and we were pair programming daily through the day’s projects. The curriculum is structured for layering in new technologies, and before you know it, you’re familiar with relational databases and doing a deep dive into the inner workings of Rails.
The instructors are fantastic. The student to teacher ratio is very favorable for student-teacher interactions, and they were consistently pivotal in getting me on track with the material on pace to get through the assessments. There is a lot of information, so be 100% prepared to have no life while you’re working through the curriculum. I thought 100 hours a week would be an exaggeration, but I was consistently logging 95-100 hours each week studying the material straight through the weekend.
The past four months have been a grueling yet highly rewarding experience. You get out of it what you put into it, and you have to put a lot into it if you want to get through the totality of the curriculum, but at the end, you will have the skills and confidence necessary to land your first position as a developer.
November 11, 2020
Anonymous
My time at LEARN Academy was one of the best experiences of my life honestly. I came into it expecting to be good. But it ended up being great! I knew it would be challenging, which it was. I knew it would be hard at times, and it was. And I knew it would be a lot to take in, in such a small amount of time, and it was.
LEARN Academy and their instructors teach the content in way that makes it stick in your head. It is fast paced but as long as you are willing to put in the hard work and proper effort, you will pick it up very quickly.
Additionally, LEARN has you develop applications to practice the content which really brings everything together. Working with other students in the cohort is one of the best ways to learn because you’re all learning the same content, at the same time.
One of the best things about LEARN is their career services. You are taken on a startup crawl in downtown San Diego so that you really get to see what tech companies are really like. After that, they help you practice technical interviews, real interviews, and prep you for your internship at the end of the cohort.
Overall, LEARN Academy is the perfect bootcamp if you’re looking to become a software developer. I came into it having went to another bootcamp a few years back and there really was no comparison. LEARN is a hundred times better than the bootcamp I went to before. I recommend LEARN Academy to anyone interested in getting into the industry!
November 26, 2020
Anonymous
Hey All!
I came to find LEARN academy having had about 3 years of professional experience in Product Management and Database/Manufacturing operations. I had been doing basic SQL (self-taught) for 2 years, loved it but found I was missing knowledge of the other tools that go around it. I did research on a number of schools, Hack Reactor, Thinkful, and LEARN… finally ending up at LEARN.
Why I chose LEARN?
It’s local in SD and I thought it would be nicer to have an actual class room to go to every day with people to interact with. The price was on the lower end of the ones I researched at 12.5k. They offered a guaranteed internship with a local tech company for a month after the 3 month curriculum ended.
What I got out of it?
Ultimately I think the biggest take away was the structure of what Full-stack was. Backend vs. Frontend, linking the two together, translating data into real world UI’s. LEARN teaches React on the frontend which is obviously a hot tool and something that a lot of employers are looking for these days. They drill how to do self discovery as there’s only so much that anyone can cover in 12 weeks and LEARN did a good job of teaching patterns for learning… ultimately stressing that this is just the first small step on a long journey. You don’t go to a bootcamp and wake up a Software Engineer, there is a huge amount of work that needs to be put during and after the program to ultimately realize you’re true potential and goals. The people that I saw fail in the process were not paying attention daily, not invested, and somewhat entitled. The individual is responsible for the information they retain and put to use, the institution is responsible for delivering the advertised curriculum. LEARN delivered the curriculum and more… The internship was crucial. I got to do mobile development with React Native, building a full chat interface. This is where you build some industry connections and see how production apps function in the real world. It’s a soft entry into job searching and while it’s not promised, I saw some of my fellow students get picked up by their internship companies. The career service manager is fantastic. I am a year out and I speak with the past career services manager and the current career services manager regularly. Rob the founder is always open for communication on Slack (I don’t know how he finds the time to answer everyone’s questions, it’s quite amazing). In my eyes they have really created a community here in San Diego, I look forward to the events and I’ve become friends with not just my individual cohort, but people from all different years and experiences.
Recommendation?
YES. 1000x Yes
December 1, 2020
Anonymous
I come from a kinesiology background and needed a change. I had my fitness business online but I decided to take the technology portion of it more seriously. I did not want to go back to college to start all over so I decided, after lots of research, I wanted to go to an immersive coding bootcamp to jump into a new career.
Before attending Learn, I saw that they have a weekend course called Jumpstart. I attended and got a really good sense of the course work and how the class would be set up. After Jumpstart, I decided it was going to be a good fit to attend Learn Academy and the bonus is that the money spent on JumpStart goes towards your tuition.
The course is hard by taking a lot of brain power while also staying optimistic/humble. At Learn I felt like I had my classmates and my teachers to help me when I got stuck. Now, after having a professional job as a developer, all the soft skills you need for pair programming and learning in a semi-stressful environment is necessary! I work remotely and I constantly need to know how to work well with others and learn new things with other developers. The team at Learn strives to set you up for success and I am very happy I decided to attend Learn Academy!
December 7, 2020
Anonymous
Attending LEARN Academy was easily one of the best decisions I’ve made. I took a fairly traditional path after High School by attending University, receiving my BA, and working 6 years in my degree field. However, I quickly became bored with what I was doing and I knew I needed to make a career change. I was debating on going to back to school to get a second BA, but I was hesitant due to the time and resources it would require.
About the program:
LEARN Academy is not easy. It is not something you can come to for a few hours a day and expect to understand everything and land a job at the end. It takes hard work and dedication. With that said, the staff and instructors truly care about your education and career and go above and beyond to ensure your success. But it ultimately relies on you and how much you are willing to put into it. Although you can start the program with little to no experience, I highly recommend having at least a basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The program moves fairly quickly and it can be difficult to keep up if you are not up to speed. Doing your prep work is key!
LEARN’s career services and internship program is what separates LEARN from other bootcamps. The career services are with you every step of the way and are always available, even after graduating. It’s honestly some of the best career services I have ever received. They will help you with resume building, cover letters, interviewing, networking, etc. At the end of the program, you are given the opportunity to intern at a development company. These are real, local development companies and you go to real interviews.
Overall, LEARN is a fantastic program if you are serious about web development. They will give you all the tools you need to succeed and they provide you with excellent support along the way.
December 28, 2020