Devmountain

Kind of long but my honest thoughts…

Attempting to change my career, I was studying web development on my own every evening, and with my brother every weekend (driving 2.5 hours to do it) and it was definitely slow going. I was seriously looking for a faster way and found coding bootcamps were becoming really popular. I talked about it with my brother and he said that if he were in my shoes and had the opportunity to do it he would definitely go because what I was doing was the "slow boat to China!"

One, in particular, caught my eye. DevMountain in Provo, Utah had housing included! That was my ticket. Without the housing included I just wouldn't have been able to afford it all. Also, not only is DevMountain NOT the slow boat, it is a fast-paced, information-fire-hosed-in-the-face kind of learning that I would never have thought could teach me much. Can that kind of learning actually stick? Well, it does, but it is all up to you. Seriously. At DevMountain you learn then do, then learn more, then do more, and build on what you learned and did, and do some more... Non-stop! But that is the secret sauce. The idea of "learn a little and do something with it" really helps it stick in there somewhere. 

Then there is the fact that you have a Mentor instructor there all the time. Get stuck, can't find an answer fairly quickly on Google, or elsewhere, call over your Mentor and he/she will walk you through figuring out your problem and then you're off to the races again. You definitely learn a lot here. But it also comes at a price. That price is diligence, hard work, long hours coding. I generally arrived at the school between 7:30 and 8am (turned on the lights) and didn't leave until sometime between 10 and midnight. And no, I wasn't the brightest one there just because I had a good work ethic. Everyone is different and that is just what it took for me.

There is another price... when you're done with the 12-week bootcamp you are NOT done. Nope. You need to keep building projects and don't stop until you have a full-time dev job and don't have time to do little projects. But I'll bet that if you truly love to code, you will still be building your own little projects even then. Also, don’t fool yourself into thinking that this is a magic tunnel into an awesome web dev job. It is definitely a path to that industry, but realize that it will still take time and work to get there. It took me just over 4 months to get a dev job after graduating from DevMountain. But I think I could have been ready sooner if I had diligently kept building something new all the time, which I struggled with.

So take a deep look at yourself, see if coding is truly what you want to do and if that kind of dedication is within you. Realize that a coding bootcamp is a place to launch yourself, not a place to be given anything. You will earn every bit of knowledge and skill you come out of there with.

Go forth, and build something awesome!

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.