Devmountain

DevMountain was a wonderful experience, but don't confuse wonderful with easy. The amount of material being taught is enormous and the concepts are challenging to rap you head around in the time you have. The curriculum is well structured and thought out which pushes your ability to retain more than you could believe. The people are amazing, the staff is great and you'll leave better than before. Along with teaching you skills you're also given a road map to follow to help push your abilities and hireability. I would highly recommend DevMountain to anyone that wants to take one of the first steps of getting into the development industry.
 

I was apart of the UX immersive bootcamp. The courses were okay, the teachers and mentor were helpful. I left feeling like I could have spent my money better elsewhere however. The job fair after the course had no support fo UX designers whatsoever. No one prepared us for what the job hunt would look like. Our whole class was confused after getting out as to what we needed to do next. This meant about a month before anyone was able to get a clear grasp of what to do. If we had been given more direction we could've saved some time. I felt the course would've been better if they taught us some HTML/CSS as well. It seems a lot of the jobs out there require experience in this area. 

DevMountain is a great school for those wanting to learn straight up full stack web development. I was a student at UVU before I found DevMountain, and the program I was in was not teaching me what I wanted to learn with web development. I had a friend tell me about DevMountain, and I looked into it. After researching it for a bit I applied and signed up for there after hours web course. During the 4 months I was in the course, I learned a lot, but I also didn't feel like I learned all that I should have learned. It took me an additional 4 months to finish the group and personal projects, since we didn't do those in class. I got lucky and was able to work full time on finishing all the projects and job prep to get badged after the course had ended. I really learned all that I needed to while working on my personal project, and helping wiht our group project. But the work I did in class set a great foundation for me to understand what I needed to do for the personal and group projects. This is a great school and I would recommend it to anyone looking to go into this field. 

I had a great experience at DevMtn. I decided to go to better myself and take advantage of the rapidly growing tech field. They have great instructors who are always willing to help whenever you ask. The mentors that stay with each cohort have been through the course so they know what you're going through! It's definately not easy but it's the best decision I've made. The first two weeks are the hardest but if you can make it through, you should be golden as long as you stay on top of it. 

I am currently enrolled in the UI/UX immersive course and will graduate at the end of April. I have loved my experience and look forward to taking the skills I learned and turn them into a career. It's tough work but totally worth it in the end. If you consider yourself a designer and want to challenge yourself, the immersive UI/UX course is extremely rewarding. The mentors and instructor genuinely help to see you succeed and were extremely helpful in helping me step up my game. Thanks DevMountain!

I ended up going to the first cohort in Phoenix in November and while I owe a lot to Devmountain I think this review will help other people learn from my mistakes. 

Here are a few issues that I found while I was there:

1. There are no markers to which to judge your progress. You have afternoon projects to do every day and the only gauge you really have is if you understand the content or not. We kept being told "dont worry once personal projects come around you'll get it". However about two weeks before class ended we had a react assessment and all but about 2 people failed. They ended up giving us the other 3 tests to take home over the weekend because they knew most of us would not pass on the first try with those either. I feel like those tests would have been more useful before our personal projects so that we could know where we needed to improve before class got out.   We all thought we were doing pretty well until we realized school was almost over and we couldn't build a simple to-do list. At that point there's not a whole lot you can do.

No one is going to tell you if you're behind.  In fact, they'd probably rather not because deffering loses them money. If your mentor doesn't meet with you weekly  make them. They know where your skills should be from week to week.

That being said though, study the crap out of things.  Assume that if you don't understand something that you're behind. They don't give you homework besides 20 minutes of videos to watch so do some Udemy courses.  Redo the afternoon projects.  I realize now that I wasn't doing enough outside of class.  Even if your classmates aren't studying do it anyways. You may feel like you're doing well but like I pointed out before we all thought we were too. Devmountain's instructors aren't always 100% effective but its beneficial to learn new things while you have access to mentors. 

2. The job prep, at least in PHX, was really rushed.  A lady came down for a day and a half and put on youtube videos of how to apply for jobs.  We also had to email our resumes to some people in Utah and they gave some feedback.  I didn't find it overly helpful and I definately would have liked that time to learn instead.  

Other general advice:

• don't go during the last third of the year. I think someone else said this but almost no one hires november-january.  It can be really demoralizing to be broke and jobless over the holidays
• There's a bunch of bootcamps popping up all over and the market is being saturated with Jr Devs.  Make sure this is something that you really want to do before you invest. The industry is growing, but at least from what I've seen on job boards and slack channels most people need mid-senior level developers.

All this aside, I did have a lot of fun while I was there.  Our cohort was all very chummy and the housing was A++.

 I do have a great job now too doing software QA in Boise. While I'm not making a huge developer salary yet I love going to work every day which is not something I've had at my previous jobs.  I graduated in the middle of November and I started my new job Feb 1.  I think a little more than half of my cohort has jobs now too.

THE GOOD:

• My instructors and the staff at DevMountain were easy to get along with and talk to. I really appreciate them!

• I learned a handful of skills and tools for the trade.

• I got to listen to and participate in presentations and QandA sessions with quality guest speakers.

• The downtown Salt Lake City Campus is close to public transportation and there are monthly-paid-use parking lots nearby.

• DevMountain regularly provides tasty (mostly unhealthy) snacks and soda (always available). It's also close to a lot of quality eat out locations. 

• I'm now working as an intern and finding opportunities to work on side projects with seasoned designers/researchers (no pay).

• I'm optimistic that I will land a paying job as I continue to build on my experience and portfolio (but this could take up to a year).

• DevMountain offers and after hours course so that you don't have to quit your day job while you gain the experience you need to get hired.

THE BAD:

•  I have been out of the program for 2 months and I still don't have a paying job. All of my peers are in the same position (two of them received offers but the offers were ultimately reversed).

• I love everyone I worked with but some personalities made projects harder to complete.

• Nothing I designed was ever produced in the real world... This is not good for a portfolio. It would be ideal for students to work with student developers to produce an actual product. 

• DevMountain students have been presented with the same problems to solve cohort after cohort. This doesn't look good to employers who see DevMountain student applications.

• I was told that this course would qualify me to become a Junior UX designer (they typically make 35-60 thousand a year)... I've applied for these positions and I get rejected immediately, not even an interview. 

THE INDIFFERENT:

• This program seems to be the most beneficial to students who already have a college degree and/or for students with STRONGLY related experience.

• We received help creating our portfolios on Medium. It would have been better to learn how to create one with a personal domain. 

• The guidance we received on creating resume's and Linkedin profiles was rushed and seemed mostly geared to developers. Since finishing the program I have had to revise these heavily. 

• To get a job in this industry you have to be a fairly good people person, you probably won't land a job by applying on job boards. You have to make personal connections. 

• I feel like I didn't have enough time to practice things that were taught. The program is very rushed. Learning about things without having enough time to practice them isn't the best UX. 

I sincerely hope that this review benefits prospective UXers and the team at DevMountain, and (like Bilbo) I bid you all a very fond farewell (until we meet again). 

I have been eating and breathing DevMountain for the last 7 months (first as a student and now as a mentor). I can remember reading through the list of reviews when I was deciding to come, and it's a little surreal to leave a review now.

During my cohort, DevMountain launched a new curriculum. I've been told it was a huge improvement over the old curriculum. This kind of seems to be a pattern at DevMountain -- continual problem-solving on the part of the company to make things better. The asking for feedback is incessant. It was really refreshing to see and experience. There is also a lot of learning science at play, you'll be amazed at what you can do if you treat this like a real bootcamp and work, work, work. There is also a lot of genuine commitment on behalf of staff and management to make for good student outcomes. In other words, I don't get the sense that the staff directly involved with students are just in it to collect a paycheck.

I think as far as bootcamps go, you can't really do better than DevMountain in terms of value. Some things to keep in mind that might be helpful for some people: 

• Other bootcamps may have better connections to big coastal hubs (SF, NY). I was looking to land in Utah after graduation, and that's where DevMountain's connections seem to be the strongest (which totally makes sense). Utah is not a bad place to land, by the way. There is a huge amount of demand for web developers currently. (Google Silicon Slopes if you haven't heard of it.)
• While you will likely be able to code as well as a graduate of any 4-year Computer Science program, that does not mean that people looking to hire a junior developer will equate your bootcamp experience to a 4-year degree (even if they should). Unfortunately some bootcamp devs have been ill-prepared for interviews, etc and made it difficult for good bootcamp grads. Some companies have decided they just won't look at bootcamp grads because they are "hit and miss" whereas grads from CS programs always work out. 
• On the other hand, there are companies that have a pipeline from DevMountain and always look at DevMountain first, before anywhere else.
• I was told starting salaries for bootcamp grads are averaging 55k, which comes in lower than I was expecting. Just set your expectations accordingly.
• Hiring dies between Thanksgiving and New Years. Plan accordingly.

The only concern I have, which does not really pertain to DevMountain specifically but to the industry in general, is that the more graduates that get pumped out, the more competition there is for jobs, and the power shifts back to the hiring companies, who can pay lower starting salaries. I kind of wish that all bootcamps would cut their enrollment in half, so that the scarcity of developers keeps the value of my skills higher. Also, all of the cool tools that make our jobs easier are also cumulatively making it easier and easier for more people to code. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if the picture you have of the industry long-term feels too good to be true, it probably is. It's going to take work and skill to have the kind of life you're probably picturing. 

I loved my time at DevMountain. The course in not easy, but the mentors there are amazing and always willing to help. Sure, they don't always know the answers right when you ask, but I think that that really helped me grow as a learner because they taught me how to solve my own problems and rely less on them.

The curriculum is very fast paced. There were often times - especially in the beginning - where I would lay in bed at night trying to fully wrap my head around what we were supposed to be learning. It was hard and it was stressful, but each day is designed to push you to your limits. Pretty soon you start subconsciously writing code that you didn't even know you knew, and then you realize just how much you actually have been learning.

On top of all that, the teachers there even take the time to go through job prep with each class, to help us break into the industry.

It's an amazing program, and I'm so glad I went through DevMountian!