Michigan State University Boot Camps

I never imagined a year ago I would be pursuing a career in software development. At my previous place of employment I noticed I would get very frustrated at the UI/UX and overall software that was used. I noticed the issues it caused our customers as well. Once I connected the dots and found my passion, I started researching for bootcamps in software development. MSU's Online Coding Bootcamp really caught my eye. It was a very flexible course that allowed me to continue working and provide for my family. In addition to the attention in providing up-to-date technologies and languages to learn, great instructional staff, and career support - it was a no brainer! I am so happy with my decision to attend.

I have had a successful marketing and communications career, from serving as a Marketing Director to teaching Marketing and Communications at a Tier 1 research university. I started a new position and was tasked with improving and optimizing our digital marketing efforts, which encompassed website, email, SEO, and social. I quickly realized that with all my experience, I maintained high-level roles in digital marketing efforts. I never executed the creations, posting, launching, updating, etc.; other team members did. I needed to turn my weakness with digital marketing into a strength in a short time, and this boot camp made it possible. The proven curriculum and structure of the course, knowledgeable and supportive instructors and TAs, and all the assistance and added value from career services I received were well worth the time and cost. I recommend this boot camp to anyone ready to invest in themselves and their future in digital marketing.

I took MSU's Full-Stack Web Development course from January-July of 2022. I ended up graduating with a C+ average.

As a disclaimer, this is an important subject, as I went into the class to change fields (non-profit to tech). That is not an easy task, and you should expect difficulty in the transition. I spent time going through Free Code Camp's curriculum to prepare, and that absolutely helped.

That being said, I'll first offer my advice on what to do in the course that I wish I had been better at, and then get to the negatives. Because trust me, there are plenty of negatives.

1. It'll take longer than you think to keep up
- When I applied for the course, it said that it would take 15-20 hours per week to get through everything. For me, in the second half of the class, it was closer to 40. I struggled with the hours quite a lot during the course, but there really is no substitute for sitting down and plugging away at the material. And be sure to practice writing code as you go along. I fell into the trap of just reading instead of practicing to keep up with the breakneck pace of the class, and that absolutely screwed my retention later on. The BEST thing you can possibly do is write down code and check on it with the TA's and classmates.
 
2. Resources are there to help, but you need to stay on top of them
- There were 3 main resources available to help: Office Hours, tutors, and a class Slack. I spent a little time in office hours, but desperately wish I had gone to all of them. The tutoring system, while helpful, was only 1 45-minute session per week, so it was underwhelming. And while I also wish I was more involved in the Slack, it also felt like a very flat and un-nuanced way of asking for help. But it is there, so you should try to use it.

3. Get used to feeling wrong - it's part of the learning process
- If I could go back and change anything going into the class, it would be this. I felt stupid and lost a lot of the time, and this instilled in me a deep sense of shame that drove me away from the resources I mentioned before. I wish I had spammed my bad and incorrect code to the Slack constantly so that the instructors could help guide me sooner.

So if there's anyone out there like me, please take this to heart: you are NOT stupid, it's a notoriously difficult subject to learn, and you're trying to cram a ton of it into 6 months. Cut yourself a little slack, do what you have to to maintain some balance in your life, and REACH OUT TO OTHER PEOPLE FOR HELP.

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With all of that being said, there was quite a lot about this course that I didn't like. I hope my previous points illustrate that I am coming into this with a level of self-awareness, and these criticisms are coming from an attempt at balanced objectivity. Here are what I think were the biggest negatives of the boot camp:

1. Instruction had a distinct lack of enthusiasm/direction
- Classes were twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday, 7-9 pm. I didn't get much out of them, outside of the breakout sessions, when TA's really shone as a highlight of the class. My instructor seemed profoundly unenthusiastic about the subject, and started teaching the wrong week's material multiple times. It was clear that he inherited the material instead of creating it himself, and that dynamic created a consistent feeling of apathy.

2. Online-only class flattened the learning experience
- This was my first time going through an online-only class. If I can help it, I won't ever do it again. I felt disconnected from what was happening much of the time, and this created a sense of isolation that was extremely unhelpful to retaining the material. I was lucky enough to live near one of my other classmates who, along with a friend of his that had gone through a similar bootcamp, helped get me up to speed after I fell behind. I wouldn't have passed without their help.

So if you find yourself in this class, I again would recommend reaching out to the online resources, to create a dialogue and cut down on the feelings of isolation. And if possible, meet with people IRL. It helped a lot more than I realized at the time.

3. Course material was outdated
- It kind of comes with the ever-updating nature of the field, but a lot of the reading material was outdated or unrefined. New updates to JavaScript were implemented within a year of our class starting, and those were not reflected in the course material at all. This lead to class-wide confusion, especially in the last third of the course. It would've been nice if the instructors were a little more aware of these changes and did things to adjust, but that didn't happen in any comprehensive way.

4. Post-class support has been horrible
- Now here's where I unfortunately have to be the most negative: Post-class, support has been minimal, delayed, and sporadic. Around the halfway point in the class, we were encouraged to start engaging with the Career Services branch of our resources, to work on building resumes, optimizing LinkedIn, etc. I did engage with CS's development steps (there was one Office Hours that was  dedicated to it), but updates were extremely slow, sometimes taking multiple weeks for a reply. At time of writing this review, it's 6 weeks post-class and I'm just now considered "Employer-Ready" and transferrable to a career coach. It's abundantly clear that Career Services is understaffed, and needs additional resources to be truly useful.

Speaking of 6 weeks post-class, we JUST got our certificates this week, after multiple inquiries and complaints (We were told it would take 2-4 weeks, and the actual certificate is a shoddy PDF). For those people that are relying on the certificate to get reimbursements from their employer, that is blatantly unacceptable. Our "Student Success Manager", who as far as I can tell was only in charge of sending emails with that week's material during boot camp, was absent from any kind of meaningful discourse. And when these concerns were brought to her by who I would consider the star pupil in the class, she was dismissive, petty, and rude. She deserves any kind of negativity that comes her way, she deserves it.

Overall, again, I still consider this a worthwhile venture, as my previous career path was not optimistic. I just wish the class was set up in a way that was more supportive, and the post-class resources weren't so downright terrible. If you're still reading at this point, I would recommend taking a free online course through Free Code Camp or Codecademy until you hit a wall, then look for programming courses in your area that you could feasibly go to in-person. Good luck out there.

This bootcamp was by far the best class I have ever taken. In class we learned about real life skills and tools that I will be able to speak to in an interview, and use at a future job; we collaborated with classmates that came from all different backgrounds; we worked on presentation skills; we learned how to use so many different platforms and were given so many resources; and finally, through the entirety of the course we were supported and encouraged to grow by our instructor, Alecia, and all of the TA's. Not to mention the access to a Career Materials Advisor and a Career Coach is sublime in my opinion. Could not recommend this class enough for someone considering going into Digital Marketing. 

I've worked in a research laboratory for several years and faced a lot of frustration in terms of work and advancement opportunities. After a particularly harrowing experience at work around advancement opportunities, I started looking for new jobs, but there weren't a lot of opportunities for laboratory specialists in my area. I talked to my partner, a software developer with 7+ years of experience, and they told me that I should consider taking a coding bootcamp. They said that the IT field is a great one for people to transition over to from non-IT-related fields and that a lot of the skills I used in my research position could be directly applicable. They told told me about several local bootcamp programs to go check out. I compared A LOT of details across the different programs. How did graduates review the programs? What were the costs? Was there financial aid available? What sort of topics did the bootcamp covered? Were there night classes so that I could continue working my job during the day? Eventually I landed on the Data Analytics and Visualization Bootcamp at Michigan State University. I knew from my job that a lot of the curriculum topics were ones I'd actively seen data analysts in research utilize frequently, so I felt the topics would be valuable. I wished that there were more scholarships available like some of the other options I'd seen, but there was an interest-free, short term payment plan available through Climb Loan.

I started the program back in December and officially crossed the halfway point recently. I was initially pretty intimidated by the program after seeing some of the sample schedules for people working full-time jobs. The Student Success Manager told everyone in absolute seriousness, "Some of you may have friends and family... tell them it's only 6 months."

The first few modules weren't too bad since they were basic Excel and they were mostly trying to get everyone on the same page. Things picked up QUITE quickly after that. I went into this bootcamp with some coding experience (we use R in my job to analyze research data) and I think that's helped me to keep up with the fast pace a lot, but course-related stuff takes up a lot of my time right now, so I don't make too many plans with friends and family these days.

The skills that are taught are awesome though. Everything I've learned, from JS to SQL to Jupyter Notebook, I've been able to readily apply to my day to day work. The modules mostly offer great instruction and in layman's terms instead of highly technical jargon, which helps A LOT. Every week my partner (again, 7+ years in software development) asks what we're working on and time and again they've said, "I'm glad they're actually teaching you practical stuff and not a lot of the useless, bloated stuff I learned in undergrad that I never touched again."

The program also offers a TON of resources, both for the classwork and for career help. All of the Zoom classes are recorded so that you can look back at them later. They do a great job of having a variety of examples to work on in class and they make sure to upload the solutions. The instructors and TAs are very responsive and knowledgeable. My peers are awesome, engaged, and supportive. There are lots of opportunities for office hours and they'll even assign you a personal tutor if you need one. I'm only halfway through, but it's been a really positive experience overall.

In terms of advice for prospective students to help be as successful as possible, stick to the advised schedule as much as you can. The homework for a given module usually isn't due until a week after the related classes, but I would STRONGLY recommend doing them the weekend after the related classes. As someone who has been all over the places in terms of getting stuff done 2 weeks ahead versus the day it's due, you're really going to want that buffer in case you run into issues so you can ask the class or instructors. I get it that, sometimes, life gets in the way and you gotta do what you gotta do, but staying on schedule as much as possible is going to relieve a lot of stress. Also, commiserating with your classmates, either in class or on Slack, will do a lot to build camaraderie and support. There might be times where you feel like you're the only one struggling to get it, but I promise there are AT LEAST 5 other people struggling along too.

I had no prior experience with digital marketing before starting the BootCamp. It easily expanded my knowledge, teaching us modules in logical order. Also, there were in-class exercises that helped in the learning process. The instructor and the teacher assistant made the BootCamp enjoyable by making the learning experience easy and explaining everything in great detail. The BootCamp is truly a great experience that I would recommend to anyone who wants to get started in digital marketing.

I graduated from the Michigan State University Full Stack Web Development Bootcamp in 2022.

Overall - I enjoyed the Teaching Assistants, they were enthusiastic, supportive, and great at breaking down complicated concepts. I would give them five stars, truly.

The course is nuanced and not for everyone - it is intensive and I had taken some Codecademy courses in basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to prepare which was helpful. It is extremely reliant on what you put in to truly succeed - you have to put in the studying and review hours to truly thrive and excel. 

Our instructor did an okay job teaching us coding fundamentals - but there were times were they would trail off, ramble, or go far too in-depth on certain subjects creating confusion within the cohort.

The reason for my poor rating is as follows:

1. Significant issues with access to course materials - this resulted in folks falling behind as we did not receive access to core curriculum until two weeks into the program.

2.  Horrifying lack of accessibility with the web materials - videos lacked captioning, images did not have alt image descriptions, installation guides had out of date information, typos were evident throughout the course materials, etc. This was seriously shocking given the importance of accessibility within website development.

3. Administrative staff were slow to respond and did not address student concerns in a timely manner - this largely applies to the post-bootcamp experience.

My cohort was told we would receive our certificates 2-4 week post-graduation. It took almost six weeks to receive them and we were given no communication or insight regarding this delay. I (and others in my cohort) emailed our Student Success Manager multiple times and received generic responses that "they would arrive by the end of the week", only for that not to happen.

At the six-week mark, I scheduled an appointment with our Student Success Manager to directly discuss my concerns and frustrations regarding the delay and to advocate for those in my cohort who did not have the patience or time to continuously follow up for details, only for them to call about 15 minutes late. I had taken the call during my lunch break and I found it extremely unprofessional to be so extraordinarily late without messaging prior.

I was patronized, interrupted, and left the conversation feeling like my feedback and frustrations were not heard or taken seriously by our Student Success Manager. 

4. 24/7 chat service for support is not 24/7 as advertised - myself and others in my cohort often waited hours to speak with a Learning Assistant, or noticed intermittent delays with this service due to "meetings".

They also do not provide support or guidance on the three group projects - which was advertised to us otherwise. Many of us experienced rude, disrespectful, or arrogant Learning Assistants who would copy and past answers from Google, or patronize us for asking questions when stuck.

I recall asking a relatively straightforward question and being told they would "clone my code" - only to not receive a response for thirty minutes.

5. Career Service offerings were delayed - many folks in my cohort experienced massive delays towards the end of our bootcamp when it came to Career Services.

Some waited weeks for resume feedback so they could qualify for the next stage and ultimately, get a Career Coach. I did mine earlier towards the second half of the bootcamp, but even then, it took weeks to actually get a Career Coach assigned.

We were also told we would get a six-month LinkedIn Premium access code - as I did my career milestones earlier on, I had this access code for my use and shared this information with others in my cohort so they could get their own code after completing milestones. However, in the last few weeks of our bootcamp, we were told that this offering was "postponed" with little to no insight.

6. Group Projects caused extreme stress - it became apparent during our first group project that some folks were already falling behind in coursework and this negatively impacted group progress. 

Some folks ended up doing more than their share of work to compensate for team members who had not caught up to coursework. These experiences were exacerbated by the only "support" being offered was Office Hours before class or on the weekend - which not everyone can attend. The chat line was not an option as it is only for "module" content. 

We were graded individually, but I could tell it created stress for many (myself included) due to folks not being prepared or getting enough support 1:1 prior to the group project - I genuinely believed this snowballed due to the course content access issues early on for my cohort. 

For a $12,000+ offering - I genuinely expected far more support and diligence in how the curriculum and administrative staff handled things.