Case Western Reserve University Boot Camps

 I was eager to upskill and take the next step in my IT career, and this opportunity immediately sparked my interest. With a background in IT and computer science, enrolling in this course felt like a natural progression. Although the program was intensive and spanned six months, I thoroughly enjoyed the learning experience and the hands-on assignments. The instruction team provided great support throughout the journey. Staying disciplined and keeping up with the assignments and projects is key to successfully navigating this fast-paced program 

The program was initially advertised as a sixth-month in-person full-stack Boot camp program designed to make the novice career ready.  Due to the Corona Virus pandemic and subsequent closer of Case Western Reserve's campus, the class became a remote learning experience.  This change in venue greatly devalued the program.  Classes were essentially lectures.  The instructor was resistant to questions from the novice learner during the lecture.  In fact, the instruction seemed geared more towards those in the class already in tech professions. The instructor often times went off on tangents during instruction that may or may not be related to the lesson.   I can only speak for my experience, but this format left me often time lost and hopelessly behind in the class.  On occasion, the TAs would pull the students into a breakout room during the instruction, once again creating an environment not conducive to learning.  The majority of meaningful learning, for me, took place by watching free tech coding videos on youtube.  At some points, additional resources were provided by the Boot camp administration, but this occurred infrequently and inconsistently (only 2-3 times during the six-month experience).  After successfully completing the program, I feel no more prepared for a tech career than when I began. 

The Full Stack Web Development course I was engaged in from January of 2018 to July of 2018 was definitely a great experience.  The class was mixed with a nice blend of those who have had some coding/programming experience, those who worked in the field, and some who may have never even touched a computer before, let alone having any knowledge of coding.  I took the course Monday and Wednesdays during the evening, and then Saturday morning to afternoon.

My instructors were extremely knowledgeable in the topics that were covered day by day.  Whenever I had a question(whether it was before, during or after class), they always helped me find a way to come to a solution.  The teaching assistants were great too.  Walked around the class during activities to make sure we understood what was currently being worked on, and guided us to find any answers we may have had for the activities.

The activities, homework assignments and even the projects were all challenging and enough to make me go beyond my limits and still acheive success, which is what the cohort was all about.  Succeeding.  And all of the staff members(instructors, TAs, SSM) made sure that succeeding was the main focus for each and every student.

The only thing I would say that could possibly make the cohort a little better would be to modify the cirriculum agenda.  There were some topics and technologies that were either taught out of order, or briefly went over just once and never really touched again.  Which would make for some confusion for those who would have a hard time grasping certain concepts.

As for the career services side of the program, they were very helpful.  There were many times I had questions on how to perform to the best of my ability during interviews; what to ask/what not to ask, what to expect and how to conduct myself.  Helped me discover some tools to utilize during my job serach(e-mail scraping for example).  Overall, career services was definitely worth it.

I would definitely recommend anyone looking to get into this field, and want to gain the education and skills of web development to go thru this bootcamp.  

The CWRU Full-Stack Web Developer Bootcamp was wonderful. What really made it shine was the committment of the instructor and the TAs. They were honest yet encouraging from day one. I had come into the program with a limited amount of self-taught coding skills. i was immediately humbled by the amount I had to learn.  

In addition to the academic portion, the bootcamp teaches you to work within a development team.  The 3 group projects are great real-world simulations of creating, developing, and presenting an idea from beginning to end. Through these projects, and other activities, we were able to also build our networks.  

As for the cost, I am fortunate enough to say it more than paid itself off. By the middle of October (cohort started at the end of July), I had been hired by a custom dev company. Today I am using almost all of the technologies that were used throughout the bootcamp.  

Lastly, I also loved how it was very accommodating to my work/family schedule.  With a 2 small children and a full-time job, the 3 days a week over a longer span definitely worked out well.

With no tech experience and being burnt out of a social service job, I applied to this bootcamp on full faith that I would be able to learn something new if I had great teachers and I worked hard. The full stack developer program at Case changed my career path for the better, and I am a happier, more hardworking, and smarter person for it. I graduated at the end of January 2019, and on February 18 I started working as a front end web developer at CodeRed in downtown Cleveland.

The instructor and TAs in my cohort were all super knowledgeable and supportive of their students. The course load was pretty good for a part time program, averaging one homework project per week that usually took me 8-10ish hours to hammer out.

Only con I would say is that the coursework at times felt obsolete. For example, we learned Handlebars, which isn't a framework I expect to use again, but it did teach me the basics of building a website out of separate components, which is useful for writing apps with Vue, React, and most recently, ASP.NET Razor.

If you're interested in tech and you're comfortable on a computer, I would really recommend this course.

I am a developer who works mostly on Windows Desktop applications.  I wanted to learn Web development.  This is a challenging course if you don't know javascript but not overly complicated.  For new developers, they suggest spending 20+ hours a week outside of class time on homework, projects and studying.  I probably spent 4-6 hours a week and did well on all assignments.  This class was very hands on and also has group projects.

There is also a career services component to the class.  There are webinars on interview best practices and professionals to help you with your resume and LinkedIn page.  I just wish it was a little more personal.  Most of the help was remote and done through comments in Google Docs.  The career services is also accessible for 3 months after you graduate.

I really valued the time and money spent on this course.  

     As of today, I’m half way through the 24 week, part-time Bootcamp for learning Full Stack Web Development. So far, I have learned how to code in HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, Node.js, Command Line, Git, and currently learning MySQL database. This program has been a challenging yet rewarding experience for me.

    I have always been interested in learning about coding. Over the years, I have attended a class for basic programming, read books about coding, and watched videos on coding applications. Trying to be self taught, I became overwhelmed with all the coding jargon and never got very far. When I turned 52, I decided that I wanted to finish out my career doing something different. I couldn’t see myself attending several years of college to attain a degree in computer science, so I began researching coding classes in my community and came across CWRU Coding Bootcamp. After reaching out to CWRU about the Coding Bootcamp program, I new this was the program for which I had been searching: a program that only takes 24 weeks to complete at an affordable cost.

    At the CWRU Coding Bootcamp, the instructor, assistants, and staff go above and beyond to ensure that you succeed. The instructor, Tom, has a high degree of knowledge in Web Development and is very passionate about teaching. The student success manager, Kim, genuinely wants each student to succeed. Whenever I email Kim with a question or an issue, she responds in a timely manner. The TA’s are available during class as well as outside of class to answer questions. The Career Services Team assisted me with understanding my local job market and drafting my job search materials. Although I have struggled to find time to work on marketing between working full-time and coursework, I find this to be a valuable source.   

    The program includes one hour of tutoring weekly at no extra cost. At times, I struggled to get through the activities during class, so I took the opportunity to work through some of the class activities each week with the Tutor remotely from home. I found this to be very beneficial for me in order to keep up with the fast pace and to complete the homework assignments to the best of my ability.

    At the start of the program, when learning HTML5, CSS3, bootstrap, and Javascript, I would get frustrated and sometimes think I was in over my head. Although the material was unlike anything I had done before, those languages are now easy for me to write code. That is what I like most about this program: you have to struggle in the beginning and push yourself. Then what you can’t figure out on your own, you will know where to find the information. They can’t teach you every little detail in a few hours because you wouldn't remember it all anyways. Once I realized this, my frustration went away. I like the way the program starts out with learning HTML, CSS, Javascript, then each week from there adding something new. Within a few weeks of starting class, I was making Web Applications. Within 3 months, I completed and deployed a real world Web Application for a group project with 3 other students. I spend about 20 to 30 hours a week studying material and doing homework outside of class. I drive 2 hours round trip three times a week to class and work on average 50 hours a week. I enjoy learning Web Development, and although it can be hard work at times, I find it exciting and rewarding.

    In summary, CWRU Coding Bootcamp has a great staff and is structured to teach you what you need to know to become a  full stack Web Developer in a short period of time. Going into this program, you must be willing to attend all the classes, put forth the effort to do all the required work, and sacrifice a minimum of 20 hours a week to studying and doing homework outside of class. If you put in the effort, you will be making web applications in just a few weeks.

I have attended the CWRU 24 week long Full Stack Web Development program and it was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life. The instructional staff is very knowledgeable and passionate about the material covered and they are more than willing to help out with anyt concepts. While it is true that no prior coding experience was necessary, I do feel that it would be beneficial. There were also some concepts which I wish would be covered more in depth and with more attention but overall, I am very pleased with my experience there!

I had a great experience in this course learning about new technology that I have not approached before. The instructor and TAs are very helpful throughout the course and they are available most of the hours. I appreciate the way they help fellow students by walking through the error and explaning along way rather than just throwing me the answer that I am looking for. 

Throughout the course, I have been given multiple assignment that require me to develop application in different programming languages, and I enjoy working on most of them. By the time I completed the course, I am confident that I have the skillset to develop web application that I always wanted to work on. 

The career service provided is top notch, Aubrey has been on top of things and helping me on my resume and preparing me to on my interview skills. 

The program is a great for becoming proficient in web development. The instructor and TA's are very knowledgeable and very helpful. You can come to them for help before and after class, as well as through Slack after hours. Kim the Student Success Manager (SSM) is awesome and truly cares about her students succeeding. The career services help you have a good resume and online presence. They also help prepare you with mock interviews and practice interview questions. At the time of this review I have not yet gotten into seeking assistance in job placement. It's a great program with great staff that want to help you and see you succeed. If you decide to enter this program I recommend looking into HTML, CSS and JavaScript ahead of class. They cover the topics well but knowing some of the stuff beforehand will definitely give you a leg up. I would definitely recommend this program to anyone looking to get into web development.

They say that no coding experience is needed for the data analytics boot camp, but students with no coding experience are at a severe disadvantage starting in week two.  Unfortunately, students are only allowed to drop during week one.  Students that have previous coding experience have no trouble getting through the material while those with no experience quickly fall behind.  By the time students that are new to coding realize that the course is geared towards more experienced students, it is too late to get a refund.  The time estimates for each module are very misleading as they are based on students that have some level of competency in coding.  Any potential students that have no prior experience should probably double or triple the time estimates.  Potential students should be extremely cautious about the one week drop period.  The first week is basic excel then the course goes straight into coding at break-neck speed. People that already work in this field or have a computer science background seemed to excel, while those of us that were new to this field got left in the dust.  It is very misleading that they claim no prior experience is needed. 

The camp was a really good experience, Adriana and Yuyang were a fantastic instructional team.  I think I would have liked a bit more focus in the curriculum on math/statistics, but I learned a lot about Python and machine learning and feel that the coding skills acquired will be very marketable.  The biggest asset of the course is the academic support available.  As mentioned, our instructional team was great and their communication with students was extremely helpful.  As well, the 24/7 tutoring slack channel was very valuable.

I decided to join the Triology bootcamp through Case Western Reserve University because I had been paying close attention to where the future is progressing. It only makes sense to me to be on the right of technology moving forward or get left behind. I've always had and extreme interest in how the web works and what better way to fulfill that curiousity than to dive head first into a bootcamp. I was extremely nervous in the beginning but as I'm now halfway through the course, I'm becoming more comfortable in my own skin and confident that I made the right decision for my family. The thought of being a software developer/engineer in the near future fuels me to stay focused and to fight harder for my future.

The amount of support and resources we are provided with has been unparalleled. I'd like to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for all of their hardwork that they put into making this bootcamp happen. I could go on forever but I won't. Make the right choice and join a Trilogy bootcamp near you. I promise you won't regret it!!!

To make use of employer-sponsored tuition reimbursement program and level up for the next phase in my career in Data, I enrolled myself to this course. 
I am writing this review halfway into the program, therefore I do not yet know the outcome as it relates to my career from this course. Nonetheless, this has been a very rewarding experience so far. The curriculum is intense and rigorous and will require serious commitment which they make very clear during enrollment.
The Homeworks is the best part, it reinforces concepts taught in class and allows one to explore deeper. I strongly recommend doing the optional part of the homework too. 
The curriculum is wide than deep, every three weeks you will find yourself learning something new(language/database/technology).
Plenty of online resources are provided every week to help us with further understanding and learning.
In my case, both the Instructor and TA were very knowledgeable and approachable. They were able to answer all my questions and concerns. The instructor would always encourage questions and take examples from real-world scenarios to keep the class engaged.

For prospective students I would say, be prepared for a grind, this is not "let's have some fun" course.

 

I felt overall the experience was invaluable, where I came from the beginning of the camp to the end was a massive difference. The Instructors and TA's were knowledgeable and helpful, they offered plenty of encouragement and understood how difficult the camp is. The pace is extremely fast and the material is challenging but they give you the room to grow and develop if you put in the work. The student manager really listened to you, responded to any issues or requests and tried to work with you to help you succeed. I would only recommend to people who go in realizing that the course asks a lot of time, effort, and frustration depending on your skill level from you, but will be extremely rewarding as you see your skills and comprehension start to grow. 

The CWRU Coding Boot Camp was an overall great experience. As a mid-life career change, I had decided to go into IT and entered the Boot Camp with very little coding experience,  but after 6 months of hard work, a lot of fun and meeting some great people, I came out a competent web developer and am in the process of establishing a tech startup  based around our final Boot Camp group project. 

I felt the Boot Camp curriculum and teaching was very structured and focused, taking us from web basics in HTML and CSS, quickly through to Javascript and JQuery, then databases (SQL and MongoDB) and on to server-side programming with Express and Node. For me, the icing on the cake was learning React, which quickly became my preferred language. At each stage, knowledge was consolidated with homework exercises and group projects, the final project pulling together everything we had learned, and working in a small team, to create a real-world application from scratch.

That is not to underestimate that it is really hard work, the pace was often very quick with lots of ground covered quickly in class and many of the class activities and homework sessions were challenging. You have to put the time in outside of class, and I found myself studying and coding at least 20 hours a week at home in addition to the face to face sessions just to keep up, often a lot more to really be on top of things. Having said that, the support from the instructors and from our student support manager was faultless and they were always available for help via Slack, for extra tuition before and after class or just a pep talk when it all felt like too much!

I picked a 6 month Boot Camp over shorter ones as the face to face sessions in the evening and Saturday mornings were more convenient to fit around work and other commitments but looking back, one of the great advantages of the longer Boot Camp was more time to work on the group projects, which for me was really the best part. Initially, I was a bit skeptical that I would finish the Boot Camp with a portfolio of projects good enough to show potential employers, but if you put in the work and embrace teamworking with fellow students, this is both very achievable and rewarding. I also took advantage of and benefitted greatly from the Career Service which led a clear and structured program to re-orient students to the tech space and what they needed to do to be ready to apply for jobs and stand out to employers. 

In summary, the CWRU Coding Boot Camp was a good, well-structured course with instructors and staff who, I felt, were truly invested in student's success. Prospective applicants should be aware though - and I'm sure like all the Boot Camps - that they will need to put in a lot of hard work and many hours outside of the class sessions to really get the most from the course. 

 

To start this review, I first want to say how wonderful the administrators, classmates, and teachers were for the whole experience. Administrator - Kim - was always a quick message away. I felt like there was never a time where she would go longer than 2 hours without responding. She was extremely timely and was able to answer any question I had. She continues to support my learning even after the end of the class. Kim is great!

My teacher, Mike, was easy to understand and would make sure that all of his students were keeping up in class. He was able to walk the fine line of moving quickly and making sure that everyone understands each detail. Additionally, I was able to bounce ideas of Mike for projects outside of class. He was quick to give advice and insight, and has a wide range of knowledge outside of the class material as well. I felt engaged in class.

Despite all of the help from teachers and classmates, I was unable to complete the requirements for graduation in time. Working a full-time job in finance and dealing with the sudden illness of a relative in December was too much for me to finish the material in April. I WOULD NOT recommend this class to someone who is working full-time and has other committments. If you are working full-time expect to stay up late nights and work long hours to complete projects and assignments. If you are at a desk job be careful to avoid carpal tunnel as you can spend more than 11 hours a day on the computer. Overall, the class was extremely interesting and worth my investment, but there are only so many hours in a day. I would recommend this class to anyone interested that would be able to spend AT LEAST 25 hours a week working on class material. This class should be considered a part-time to full-time gig. 

The Full Stack Web Development program as a whole was very well organized. I could only see a couple of downsides. First off, the course involves teaching handlebars rather than leaping into React right away. If the program centers around the Mern stack, then the student should learn as much React as possible. Second, React jobs in Cleveland are scarce. That being said, as a whole, the MERN stack might be excellent, but it is unlikely to be used in the local market.

This program has many pros and some cons that go along with it. The biggest benefit you will receive is learning to re-wire your brain to learn to code. This can be the hardest part about coding if you see the foreign languages of different syntax on screen and get frustrated at first. You will learn to break down code and the best ways to best teach yourself to read and write it for any language you are learning in the future.
There is a major con to this course. With how quickly the world of development is evolving, the course curriculum is a step or two behind what the current job market is looking for out of a majority of candidates when it comes to what languages and applications you know. Companies are looking for developers with knowledge in Redux, Python, and C# or Java. These are languages you will not be taught in this course.  However, you will learn quickly as a developer that the moment you quit investing time into growing your knowledge base, the industry will start to slip past at a rapid pace. 
So I want to say, do not believe that once you take this course you will have a golden ticket to endless career possibilities. If anything, this is the first step, and the job-hunt grind that ensues may take some time and a tremendous amount of effort. If you take this course seriously, don't take the shortcuts that appear at times, and put in the extra hours (though they can be demanding), then you will be in a great position for getting your new career path jump-started.
 
The staff for this course is amazing. The instructor and the TA's are available whenever you need them and will walk you through any issues or questions you have, no matter how simple or difficult they may seem. 
Career services is OK. They really want to help you find a career, but its more of them teaching you how to job hunt rather than anything else. The instructor is your best solution for real advice when it comes to the job process as they all live it and currently facilitate it for their company.
Happy Hunting. You cannot go wrong with this course, but remember the golden rule post graduation, ABC (Always Be Coding).

Honestly this was a big waste of time and money. Though a bootcamp, there was never a chance to really go in-depth in certain areas and was never truly a reassurance that students understood the material. Most of my comprehension came from tutoring. The last part of the program happened to be during Covid which kinda made it worst due to the lack of focus. Overall I’m just not happy with my time and experience with the program. I feel there was some many scenarios or real like functionally of web development that could have been explained but weren’t. I just expecting more out of my investment.