Annie Liew

Review of HackerYou

I started with a promising career; working as a Mu...

I started with a promising career; working as a Multidisciplinary Web & Graphic Designer in Australia and England for solid companies. But the travel bug got the better of me and I then spent 6 years in Japan teaching English. When I moved to Canada and tried to jump back into design, the fact that I was brand new in the city and had been out of the industry for so long, made getting work a Herculean task. After some soul searching, I knew I needed to skill up. I spent no small amount of time looking into further education options.

Although I d initially wanted to move into UX design, the positive reviews on community and support at HackerYou won me over. I wanted a course that got you a job and after attending info nights and free workshops all over the city, I found HackerYou extremely welcoming and personable. The large number of women made it very inclusive and I also appreciated that they had a process in place that didn t just accept EVERYONE. I believe environment plays a huge part in success and in that respect, anyone I studied with would be passionate and committed. The common thread after speaking to numerous alumni was, Do it. You won t regret it.

It wasn t an easy decision huge financial commitment! But when I finally bit the bullet for the Part-Time Web Dev course, my instructor, (former HY grad & instructor, now Shopify superstar, Sylvia Nguyen) made it so much fun that I fell in love with something I once saw as a necessary evil part of the job. I m not completely new to coding as my work in web saw me designing & building websites for clients, but I have absolutely no regrets taking Web Dev Fundamentals as well as Advanced. I upgraded my outdated knowledge and learnt current industry best practices that made me excited about the future of code.

I applied for the Immersive course, not really thinking I d get in because it was sooo competitive. Then I got the acceptance call! Honestly, I wouldn t have passed the tech challenge had I not taken Part-Time before. Doing part-time also gave me confidence in the teaching style, curriculum and quality of instructors.

Bootcamp was no walk in the park; sleepless nights were the norm and JavaScript was an exercise in picking yourself up again and again. But the support was there: The bootcamp team were beyond encouraging and there were games, extra-curricular help, stand-ups and weekly salad clubs to look forward to. Not to mention, my cohort was the absolute best, kindest, most wonderful group of humans EVER.

My review ends happily as two weeks after graduating, I got an offer from an agency and started work the week after. At the time of review, I m still at Beyond Bootcamp and learning advanced JavaScript from yet ANOTHER amazing instructor. The curriculum and school work hard to get you employed. But you have to be proactive as well.

Attending this school was one of the best things I ve ever done for myself. HackerYou gave me more than just my first job in tech as a developer. I also gained a family, a community and a future that I m really excited about!