General Assembly as a Tech Educational Tool

What is General Assembly?

General Assembly is a tech bootcamp that helps people launch new careers in tech. Often considered one of the top tech bootcamps with a prestigious reputation, General Assembly has taught 97,000+ students over 12+ years. According to their Linkedin Alumni page, their grads have been placed at top tech companies like Apple, CashApp, Mastercard, and more.

What Does General Assembly do?

General Assembly offers coding bootcamps and short-courses to help people launch new careers in tech or advance their current tech careers. Students can attend online or on campus if they are in New York.. Classes are delivered live online in a cohort based model where students get to learn from instructors who are practitioners in their field, in order to build real life projects that showcase the skills they’ve learned.

While known for their full-time bootcamps, General Assembly also offers part-time, full-time, and even 1-day courses. General Assembly teaches almost exclusively on tech skills for: software engineering, UX design, data science, data analytics, digital marketing and product management. In addition, they have more specific aspects of these topics, like front-end development, Python programming, and other specific technical skills.

General Assembly teaches students the in-demand skills needed to work in the industry and get hired. This means an emphasis on hands-on project-based learning. Students build projects that they can add to their resumes and portfolios to help with their job applications. Those in the full-time immersive programs also have the opportunity to work with a career services team as they get closer to starting their job search.

Their full-time bootcamps run for 12 weeks, meeting 9am-5pm Monday – Friday. Alternatively, part time programs run for 32 weeks and meet two days a week for 2-3 hours each class session. Their short courses can run for just one week while meeting full-time, or run for 10 weeks meeting part-time.

Who is General Assembly for?

The GA bootcamps & short-courses are beginner-friendly for people from any background who share one passion: advance their career with the most in-demand tech skills. Whether you’re new to tech or looking to advance your career, GA has a proven path for you. Their Admissions team can discuss your background and learning goals to advise if the GA programs are a good fit.

What Does General Assembly Cost? How Much Work is Involved?

Full tuition for full-time bootcamps is $16,450. Students who pay upfront get a $450 bootcamp. Part-time courses cost $4,050 and students can choose to pay this upfront (with a $250 discount) or with loans.

Discounts and scholarships are also available. Through our partnership with general assembly, you can get access to a series of exclusive program offerings, including $1500 off any of their bootcamps or short-courses. If you’re interested in launching a career in tech, schedule a call with the GA Admissions team and ask them for the free workshops, events and discounts.

General Assembly offers a wide variety of payment options. Probably their highest profile option is the “income share loan” (ISL) — this option allows full-time bootcamp students to pay once they land a job. Made possible via Edaid, students pay only $500 upfront. Then they pay nothing until they land a job paying at least $40,000. After landing a job, students pay the remaining balance over 24 installments. While appealing on paper, this means paying 1.6%-10% of your income over two years. That could be 1.5x original tuition. Note that the General Assembly ISA is not available as an option for part-time courses.

A simpler option might be paying installments. General Assembly allows students to divide tuition into two, three, or four easy payments while in the program.

Interest free loans are available as well via Climb. Students can choose to start paying immediately (over 18 or 24 months), or pay 12 months later over 36 months with $500 down payment.

Students can also take out interest loans through Ascent, Climb, or Meritize. Students who pay via loans can choose to repay immediately, defer payments, or choose an interest-only option. Interest rates range from 6.5-15%, with terms from 3-5 years.

After submitting an application, prospective students connect with a General Assembly admissions rep. In this conversation, they determine whether or not the course is a fit for their experience and goals. Then, prospective students in the full-time immersive course have to complete an admissions assessment to ensure they are prepared. After they have been accepted, students must pay a downpayment to secure their spot in the program.

Reviews and Ratings

General Assembly reviews are positive to mixed. General Assembly is on the SwitchUp list of best bootcamps in 2020 and generally listed on almost every top bootcamp list. Many grads found success with General Assembly are now working in roles directly related to what they learned in the course, as shown on GA’s outcomes report.

Like most bootcamps, reviews on Reddit are mixed to positive. Grads who quickly landed jobs rave about the program, while those who struggled seem more critical. One General Assembly review on Reddit was impressed that “instructors were phenomenal” and “GA has you working with Outcomes [career support] starting in Week 1… I felt much more prepared for the job market the day I graduated”. Another General Assembly grad on Reddit was satisfied with their placement and beginner friendly curriculum, but felt the curriculum might not full prepare grads for more advanced technical topics, saying “GA is a great beginners’ bootcamp… but when you graduate the bootcamp you won’t be very advanced.”

On CourseReport, students rated the school highly, but some students had issues with the speed of the curriculum as well as frustrations surrounding frequently changing and inexperienced instructors. The general consensus is that GA works best for self-starters who are motivated and willing to put in the work.

How Does General Assembly Compare to Pathrise?

General Assembly is a bootcamp with courses for people who are interested in learning a completely new technical skill, like UX design or software engineering. At Pathrise, job-seekers in our program should already have a background (or at least technical skills) in the field they are interested in so that they can participate in and fully benefit from our technical workshops.

While we require fellows to have technical skills, we don’t necessarily require them to have job experience. You may benefit from completing a program like General Assembly first, then joining Pathrise to get placed at a job. To help you get the skills you need to join our program, we offer $1500 off any General Assembly bootcamps or short-courses, as well as other exclusive offerings to get you up to speed. Schedule a call with the GA Admissions team and ask them for the free workshops, events and discounts.

All of our sessions at Pathrise are live, as well as recorded, so that job-seekers in our program can review them afterwards and continue learning. Our program is flexible. There are only 2-4 hours of group sessions per week and fellows can schedule 1-on-1 sessions as needed. Our program is personalized to work on the specific skills that people struggle with the most.

Specifically, Pathrise focuses on technical and behavioral interviewing as well as resume and LinkedIn optimization, portfolio building and strengthening, cold email and reverse recruiting lessons, and negotiation templates and guidance. Job-seekers in Pathrise find a job, on average, within 3-5 months of joining the program. The Pathrise income share agreement (ISA) means that fellows don’t pay anything until they land a job they love and start working.

Pathrise is a career accelerator that works with students and professionals 1-on-1 so they can land their dream job in tech. If you want to work with any of our mentors to get help with your technical and behavioral interviews or with any other aspect of the job search, join Pathrise.