How did you find your time on the bootcamp?

Northcoders was intense, but it's the intensity and constant challenges that made it an amazing experience. I can honestly look back and say that joining the Accelerate course was the best career decision I've ever made.

What were you doing before the bootcamp and what made you apply?

I did many, many things before joining Northcoders - but I never found anything that genuinely excited me. Learning the basics by myself inspired me to take it to the next level and join the course.

What was the support like on the course?

A bootcamp is nothing without it's tutors, and I was so relieved to discover that Northcoders tutors are incredible. They always provide help in a way that forces you to challenge yourself, never giving you the easy answer. We were always encouraged to ask questions and I felt really happy with the standard of tuition overall.

How much support did you receive from Northcoders with your job search after the course?

The support on the whole was really good. I'm based in Leeds and Northcoders surpassed my expectations by organising weekly meetups with me in Leeds and actively growing their employer connections here. I was super happy with the job I managed to land due to their hard work.

What advice would you give to anyone thinking about applying?

Code deals with a lot of abstract concepts. So while I totally would recommend learning to code by yourself at first, I don't think you can recreate the experience of living and breathing code in an environment that pushes you to the absolute limit. Learning to verbalise these abstract concepts with your peers and participating in lectures every day really accelerates your learning to a level which is quite hard to understand until you actually experience it. So, I recommend having a dabble yourself (Team Treehouse is awesome), but if you realise you love all things 'code' then I couldn't recommend the entire Northcoders experience enough.

Anything else you would like to add?

I'd just like express my appreciation to everyone who helped me out during this whole experience. I definitely had some 'wobbles', but I always felt like I could express my concerns at the time and I always was really happy with the resolutions. 8 months ago, I didn't even know what programming really was. Now, I'm on the cusp of starting a job that I'm super excited for, and I'm super-confident in my coding ability. It's totally mindblowing and I can't thank you guys enough :)