Devmountain

I did a lot of research before applying to DevMountain. I'm from the Bay Area California where you can literally walk into a coffee shop and pitch your idea to some person you find sitting on a couch coding. With that being said, I had a lot of people to talk to in regards to Coding Bootcamps. I got mixed reviews with the usual outcome being, College grads (Engineers) with mixed feelings and self taught (Engineers) saying yes to Bootcamps. Prior to DevMountain I had taken college programming courses and also paid online courses. Those courses were great but rarely offered a Full-Stack project. After visiting the DevMountain website and actually seeing what some students with no prior coding knowledge had built within a 3 month span really impressed me. 

Yeah there's Coding Bootcamps all over the Bay Area but I really wanted to be immeresed and DevMountain offered free-housing! why would I want to sit in 2 hours of traffic after class when I could spend that time still studying and working. Plus having roommates who were in the course and mentors around just seemed like the best bet for sure. 

DevMountain was one of the best decisions I've ever made. No, I wasn't a top student, some students had more background in coding, some students really enjoyed back-end and some students enjoyed front-end. With a fast 12 weeks, I saw it really come down to students sticking to technologies that interested them the most. DevMountain isn't a place thats going to hand you a new career or write half of your project for you. You really get what you give. For those who think DevMountain wasn't the right choice for them, to each his own. We all have a different learning styles, and some instructors had different teaching styles. I will say that some lesson instructions were really hard to comprehend and could of been written out in a clearer context, but never would I blame instructors, guest instructors or lessons to my lack of understanind a concept. If you really wanted to understand a new concept the resources are there and Jeremy made it clear that his students are his number one priority and he's there to help until you understand it. If you put in the work you'll get the results, just don't be unrealistic, and don't be too hard on yourself. If you are struggling, the DevMountain staff is full of support, just don't expect support if you don't raise your hand or ask for help, instructors will assume you understand and continue with their lesson. 

If you're wondering about job results, I started my job hunt as soon as my cohort ended and I continued to study while unemployed. Within 2 weeks I had multiple offers, because I was actively looking and I did feel prepared because I was still putting in time to code. Out of my offers I chose an internship where I could continue to work and learn along side a great development team. I am no longer an intern and now a Software Engineer for that same company. I actually don't use the MEAN stack at my job but DevMountain gave me the confidence to learn new technologies and I am loving every day of work. Jeff Chapman from the career-building team has actively been in touch during my job hunt and even after landing a job, so that's proof that the DevMountain staff is there for you. 

DevMountain was an awesome experience I met great friends, students and staff. Utah is one of my favorite places now, and that's coming from a California boy who loves to Surf. I highly reccommend DevMountain to anyone who is serious about learning and willing to put in the work, even if that means staying later or studying on the weekends. If I can do it, you can do it too. 

Many bootcamps offer the same good things. In that sense, Devmountain is like any other: Good way to jumpstart a career in some type of tech field. What makes Devmountain stand out and why did I choose it over one of it's competitors? A) Value. B) In-person. C) Compact
I almost didn't sign up for a bootcamp and wanted to do it myself with online courses. I couldn't really justify a remote camp because why not just do it through udemy otherwise? So I wanted something I could attend in person both for accountability and for atmosphere and environment. I also wanted something affordable.
The fact that the course was only 13 weeks was another big plus. I wanted to be done, and be working on my own projects and looking for a job. So this course gave me what I was looking for.
And hey, another huge perk? I was able to live in the student housing provided. :) The course was great! I would recommend it.

Devmountain's part-time web development course has been an ideal choice for me, enabling a seamless transition back into the workforce while managing motherhood. The Part Time web development course strikes a perfect balance between acquiring new skills and fulfilling childcare duties. With supportive staff, practical learning tools like monitors, and interactive whiteboarding sessions, my experience has been exceptional. These resources, along with the hands-on approach and dedicated practice time, have significantly improved my web development skills and confidence, making Devmountain an excellent choice for career advancement.

After completing Devmountain's Coding Basics course, I promptly enrolled in the 16-week full time React Web Development Boot Camp. I knew of people who had taken this specific course and obtained employment immediately post-graduation. I come from a long career in healthcare with no prior coding knowledge prior to enrolling at Devmountain and, although it was difficult to fully grasp the concepts, the instructors were extremely patient, available, and helpful to ensure I would complete every project. The curriculum was great, I have all the recordings for future reference, and I definitely feel more confident at the end of the program than I did on day 1. I loved the group activities and pair programming. It was a fun and interactive class! The student success manager and outcomes team were incredibly supportive and available when I needed to discuss my progress, apprehensions, and issues. They encourage you to continue to reach out after graduation and offer to help during the job search. I didn't realize the tech job market would be so difficult to get into at this time, but I know that if I continue to utilize Devmountain's resources, staff, and instruction, I should be able to find tech employment soon.

I really enjoyed attending DevMountain. Personally, I felt like the structure of things were much better in the first half, and that the online content during specs did not match super well with projects, but I am still glad that I did it. My main critique would be that for the portion that was online and without a dedicated instructor, if the videos followed course material that they were made for it would have been much better. It was hard for me to know what things were going to be applicable to projects from videos a lot of the time and ended up focusing more of my time on the projects and just supplementing with the videos.

The first half with foundations was amazing though. I had really great teachers who felt like they really cared and were putting in a ton of work.

Main
today is 03/03/2023, what a lucky day! I have just graduated Devmountain's python software engineering bootcamp. They aren't the most expensive and are very competitive. Instructor Chalon(specs) and Garrett(foundations) were amazing. Always offered a helping hand and helped me to figure out how to think like a programmer.

Part Time Students
Foundations is amazing, Garrett and two mentors who are Matt and Nathan. It was every Tuesday Thursday night and every other Saturday. Every other week was self learn and then the next was lectures. To give you a bit of an insight of my life i am a busser at a local brewery so i had more than enough time on my hands to deep dive into certain aspects so the course work for me was great and i had plenty of time.

The Switch To Full Time
First off I had time on my hands like no other. I had my foundations so learning python was a nice ease into things at first. But then after the excitement of making a killer project in foundations my schedule was lacking and i had no sense of urgency to finish. You just got a bunch of videos to watch and assignments due whenever you complete them... there were no due dates in Part Time Specs unlike foundations you had a unit review due every 2 weeks. That's really my only gripe, I just had wished specs was more like part time foundations. And so I had a conversation with an awesome counselor at Devmountain and they helped me switch within like 5 hours. I can't say this will happen for you so be wary of trying this and i don't recommend it either. I could've done the full time all the way through i just needed to realize it first!

Full Time
Full time was amazing. Fast paced, detailed, fun, difficult, frustrating, and rewarding. All of those are good things. When learning you need direction, or at least i do. I like to feel accomplished and so i did. I was able to push myself and my instructor pushed me. I can't say how much this program has already changed my thinking about school and my love for learning has been re-energized.

Outcomes/ Job Assistance
Since i just graduated they gave us a plethora of information about obtaining a job, networking and more. Taylor helped me build my resume, LinkedIn profile and scripts to get inspired off them. The Outcomes team is truly a great feature and felt as if they cared as much as i care. In which I care a lot!

Messages to future Software Engineers. Make Friends during your cohort, most of them want friends too. I made around 4 solid friendships we talked a lot, encouraging one another and helping eachother grow. 

I'll just start out by saying, I really love Devmountain. The tuition is about $10K where most other bootcamps I looked into were around $13-15K starting. I loved every bit of the Foundations half of the program. You get to build a full-stack application! The curriculum is very well laid out, and I had a lot of resources available to me. There was tons of help available to me, and my instructors/TAs were outrageously helpful. 

At first, I hated the format of the Specializations half (it's very independent learning with support from a tech-lead). But, I'll be honest, by the end of those 8 weeks I feel very prepared to learn on my own, without a teacher holding my hand the whole way. It was just growing pains.
I did have some issues with the curriculum for the Specializations half of the Data Analytics program, because I think I would've liked a week or two of learning things like Data Scraping and other visualization tools like Tableau or Power BI or even just Excel (course is set up for Python & Jupyter Notebooks). I was also hopeful for a little bit more in the way of utilizing SQL within a real database. That said, my tech-lead listened to all of my feedback and although couldn't just change the entire curriculum mid-cohort, he gave coding challenges or instruction that helped fill in those gaps for me. It was a very generous thing to do, and I'm very grateful!

I liked the Outcomes team and that they took time to meet with students individually to go over resumes, LinkedIn profiles etc. They are still available to you even after you graduate which is really cool.

I really believe that Devmountain is there to help you! What you put in is absolutely what you get out of the program. And I do feel empowered with the tools and skills necessary to begin a career as a Data Analyst. 

I had a great experience at Devmountain. I moved to Lehi, UT in November of 2021 to attend in person. I am glad I did so. I met lots of good people both staff and student. The program starts with 8 weeks of Foundations for everyone coming in and then is followed by 8 weeks of Specializations. In Foundations you are learning in person with an instructor and it is very structured. You will have instruction in the morning, lab in the afternoon and a review after that. This is great as you get to practice what you were instructed on in the lecture. In Specializations you do not have an in person instructor but are learning from video lectures that come from Udemy. When I attended it was Pluralsight. This could be a negative thing if you chose to look at it that way or it could be a positive. As a current Software Engineer in the field, very rarely do I have an instructor. I am mostly learning by doing and by researching documentation or watching tutorials etc. The exact same thing you will do in Devmountain Specializations. I have not attended any other bootcamps and cannot speak for their outcomes team but the one at Devmountain when I attended was amazing. I think most students underutilized them when I was there. They cannot do the work for you or get you a job but they can certainly give you advice and tools to succeed. For me personally this was one of the best parts of bootcamp. I had multiple interviews with companies before I even finished the program as I took everything from their weekly lessons and applied it. 

A VERY STRONG word of advice to anyone going to any bootcamp. Come prepared! Spend at least 2 -3 months on your own studying, practicing and researching material that you will be learning. If you show up without putting in any work beforehand you will most likely find it extremely difficult to keep up as the information comes quickly and ramps up in complexity really really fast.