Devmountain

I literally knew nothing about code or development. All I knew was that I didn't want to work in a call center for the rest of my life. I looked around and interviewed every single code camp in Utah. All of them. DevMountain was by far the most personable, knowledgeable and real out of them all. They don't accept everyone, but they do believe that everyone they accept has the potential to learn and grow into a developer.

DevMountain taught me more in three months than I learned in a whole semester at the community college. Since completing DevMountain I have reccomended everyone I think would be a good fit to go there. A few of my friends, who just graduated with four year degrees, will be attending DevMountain and I hope that it changes their life like it changed mine. I doubled my salary in just three months and now work for one of the largest online retailers in the world. Life isn't good, it's great.

It was an intense 12 weeks but I got so much out of it. As with any boot camp, you can't expect them to hand hold you through out the whole course. You will get what you put in. The teachers and the mentors explained clearly the concepts and they were fun to be around. I love the new Salt Lake location its very spacious and they provide snacks and water to keep you going.

They provided free housing which is a 5-10 tracks ride (VTA Trax which they ALSO provide a bus/train pass). When they mean, immersive, they mean immsersive.

They hit all the needed course materials without getting to bogged down on the details (Having encountered the detail myself rather than hearing them explain it saved them/me more time). It was an overall rewarding experience.

I got a job within 3 weeks!

I am currently in the iOS immersive cohort and one word that would describe my experience is intense. Coming from absolutely no coding background from even before the program we were learning the basics and expected to cover about 50 hrs of pre-course work. We are in class 40+ hours a week, half of that is instruction and the other is projects that are related to the daily curriculum. Overall its been a GREAT intro into iOS its impossible to cover everything in the 12 weeks but after the program we can build and app and more importantly we learn how to LEARN and use documentation and online resources to solve problems and continue developing as a developer. DevMountain is an excellent way to start the long journey into the coding world.

DevMountain is, hands down, the best value you can get for your money. They provide free housing for out of state students, the school environment is awesome, and the mentors were some of the smartest developers I've yet met in my time as a programmer. They had excellent lectures during the learning portion of the class, and then throughout the hands-on and group project time, they had brown bag lectures (optional attendance but highly recommended) that focused on really valuable and applicable topics (e.g. email sending, deployment, encryption, file uploads, etc...). These "brown bag" lectures were some of the msot valuable learning experiences I've yet had and were a real confidence boost because it's where you start to really put all your knowledge and experience together and start understanding high-level concepts as a developer. 

I landed a job the following week after I graduated at a startup company and can honestly say it's my dream job, and it's entirely thanks to DevMountain and the team there. They have a staff member dedciated just to helping students and alumni find jobs, and the majority of students in my cohort had jobs within 2 weeks of graduating.

tl:dr 11/10, best money I ever spent and now I have a legit career.

I had been looking into attending a coding bootcamp for the past ~two years, and decided DevMountain was the best fit for a few reasons. 

• The curriculum caught my attention because it wasn’t Ruby on Rails (nothing against RoR, I just found the focus on Javascript appealing).
• I looked up the instructors and watched their talks (Dave Smith is particularly awesome).
• The price point was reasonable. It was by no means something I took lightly, but was actually feasible. 
• Housing was probably the tipping point in making my decision to go with DevMountain. The rooms were nice, but more importantly, I didn’t have to stress about where I was going to stay. Other programs were around the same price, but finding a temp room on craigslist sounded sketchy at best. With everything you want to focus on, housing shouldn’t be one of them.

The program itself is extremely intense, which I had read from other reviews (for all of the bootcamps), but for some reason didn’t think others’ emphasis on the intensity was accurate (I was wrong). I’ve attended college full-time while working full-time, but this program is by far the most time consuming thing I’ve done. Being in the immersive program allows you to dedicate yourself to learn something new, and I think is the best way to go.

There were highs and lows during the course (sometimes things click right away, other times you feel like an idiot), but not getting discouraged is key. The people in my cohort were awesome and it made the ‘lows’ a lot easier to bounce back from. Find people you get along with and work together. Even if you aren’t actively pair programming, it’s nice to know that you can bounce ideas off of someone.

Summary: Great program / nice housing / awesome people / extremely intense (a description that you probably won’t appreciate until you’re in the program).

When I came to DevMountain I was completely new to coding. I had been waiting tables and teaching fitness classes… I have never been to college either. I was nervous I would be lagging behind in the classes. But No, after the first week it felt like everyone was in the same boat. The work was very challenging but the mentors were there to answers my questions and guide me along.  Now, at the end of the course I am in shock at the amount of knowledge I gained at DevMountain. I now feel confident in my abilities and capable of getting a job.

Some of the things I learned here:

Github

HTML

CSS

Javascript

jQuery

AngularJS

Node

Firebase

MongoDB

A bit of React 

REST

One of the reasons I choose DevMountain was the location. It wasn’t SF or NYC… I knew that I would be able to focus on the work in a quieter location. Also, Provo is surrounded by mountains, lakes and a ton of fun places to explore. Environment is everything for me and it has been great.

The town is mostly mormon, which I thought could be a little weird. But besides the fact that everything is closed on Sundays … all is normal, maybe even better than normal.

They include housing for out of states students which is  amazing! The housing, gym, train and closest grocery store are all within a mile away. I didn’t have a car and I was completely ok. 

If you have any question feel free to email me. wpagegarner@gmail.com.

Basically, I loved it. One of the best decisions of my life. Its worth the money and time. Do it. 

I learned more in three months at DevMountain than I would have in one year on my own.

The curriculum is on point and the atmosphere is positive. Housing is included and Provo is an easy city to be in. Everything you need is within walking distance.

The atmosphere is positive and the environment is great for learning.

Advice to potential students:

Study before hand. Don't be fooled by the admissions challenge. This course is intense and requires you to study. Spend your time wisely. Always at least pre read the material for the next day. If possible try to get started and the basic things out of the way. The days can be short when working on new and complicated topics.

And finally a cliche advice: find other students who are passionate and eager to learn and study together. There is strength in numbers. Pair program and work on algorythms.

Neil Armstrong pretty much summed up how I felt after I graduated from the web course.

I was part of the very first cohorts for web (part-time) and iOS (part-time) courses. I came out of the web course with a full-time job and a greater understanding of my capabilities. I was more motivated to make a greater impact with my newly acquired skills. I was more excited to venture out and build startups and products.

I'm happy to say, I'm on a great track all because of my experience at DevMountain. My latest venture is a startup called VerdadTech (www.verdadtech.com).

Thanks to all the instructors and mentors that helped me along the way, especially my friends Cahlan Sharp, Tyler Richards, and Colt Henrie.

Tiafau Purcell (www.tiafaupurcell.me)