NYU Tandon School of Engineering | Bootcamps

I loved this program. Each week covered an important topic in AR/VR development within Unity.  It really covered a lot of ground in the seven months. And we walked away with a couple of smaller projects but most importantly a Capstone project which really gave me a lot of confidence to feel ready to enter the job market in this field. A lot of the coursework was also applicable to Unity development in general, for example there were weeks on lighting within the URP and HDRP, using the profiler for optimization.  And a great general but somewhat detailed overview of 3d graphic pipelines. The user input stuff was of course specific to xr since we were building to the Oculus Quest 2 for most of the course.  The first few months were a little bit lighter in load. I had a little bit of experience in Unity so that helped a lot with the first few weeks.  Once we switched into programming for VR hand interaction it felt like the programming went up a notch.  Which for me was good because then I had to go back and review and level up on my c# programming on my own to be able to debug if need be.
We had a variety of great NYU faculty each teaching the different sections. And it was also very helpful having the live sessions weekly.  There was also a lot of career help throughout and industry mentorship. 

 The biggest point I want to make is this course is really what you put into it.  I was lucky enough to be able to work on this full time which for my background felt good to be able to really put the time in to fully work through everything we were learning which was a lot. Other classmates in the program were working full time jobs in addition to the coursework and that seemed totally do-able for them. I guess it depends on your background and what you are hoping to get out of the program.  Before I started the program I had only a beginner hobbyist  level of skill in Unity (I had made one 2-d game following a tutorial) and no other technical background besides a bit of blender etc.  by the end of the program I was able to obtain an entry level tech position at an XR agency and I’m so happy about that. I love my new job. And I would not have been able to do this career change without this program. We also had some learners in the program who already had professional engineering roles and wanted to add xr dev to their toolset so it was a good mix of learners and we were all able to help out and contribute and have different takes and create different xr projects from this program that aligned with their professional goals.

I found the Professional Certificate in AR/VR Development and 3D Graphics course to be extremely valuable. Although I have not yet seen where these skills will take me, I am already very happy with how much I have learned and how much the course has covered. I'm someone who already had some experience with front-end computer science programming, but I found it hard to learn about Unity and XR development from what is available on Youtube/Udemy/etc. This course is doing a very good job of structuring my learning and going slow enough so that I really understand the basics. I think the curriculum makes sense and goes in an order that builds off each subsequent topic.

If you're someone who wants to learn Unity and build XR apps, I highly suggest this course. It gets you familiarized with all the necessary tools and gets your hands wet just enough in the math and computer science topics. Furthermore, the TA for the course has been a great resource and it's nice to have a mentor to look over your work and help you through the more challenging topics. That said, I wouldn't take this course if you already know Unity well. The first half of the course is mostly about the basics of Unity, C#, and vectors, so only take it if you need help with the fundamentals.

The Professional Certificate in UX & Emerging Interaction Design prepared me with the necessary skills for job in the UI/UX industries. The teachers and staff members are very eager to provide assistance and honest feedbacks when you ask for it with an open-mind. The coursework is beginner friendly. However, I rated the Job Assistance average because they do not provide you a job/internship after you finish the program but give help tips for writing resumes and cover letters. Also, I wished there were more times for virtual mock interviews and mock interview prep. 

This online course is pretty great for people looking for a challenge and real bang for your buck. Each week covers new topics in UX/AR/VR and the instructors rotate as well, which keeps things engaging. Workload will vary depending on the week, but more time-consuming weeks mean that you're getting more practice using the skills you're looking for. The course is organized well, with each week building upon prior weeks' knowledge. The foundations portion of the course can be taken by anyone, though it does help to have some sort of preliminary knowledge about UX and basic experience using Figma to start out. The course guides you through using Amazon Sumerian and Unity, and I like that the focus is on simply doing things and getting time with programs rather than having to be "good" at a particular program. You also use other industry standard tools throughout the course assignments, which can be tweaked and fixed up to become portfolio items. I found some of the job assistance resources pretty helpful, though since I'm still taking the course I don't have a final say about how much they can help you switch careers. You really get what you put into the course. I'm a bit past the midway point of the course and I'm enjoying it a lot so far. I like that the course is completely flexible to your schedule, unlike a lot of other bootcamps that require a 9-5 commitment. You can watch the videos and do the assignments whenever it's suitable for you (within the one week deadline for each week's assignments), so even if you have a full time job or other commitment, you can take this course. 

I have been looking to get into the world of UX for a long time but I hadn't ever found a good enough program to do so. I finally found it with NYU's emerging tech UX program. Not only is NYU an amazing accredited school that is recognized globally, but the
professors we learned from were also talented, driven, UX professionals and professors who had all the credibility in the world to teach us. I have been in school for a long time and I am very familiar with the pros and cons of E learning. This NYU program did a really great job with it. The videos were engaging, the assignments were meaningful, and the office hours were a great place to connect with our program leader and peers. I am leaving this program with great portfolio pieces to show to hiring managers that I simply would not have with this program. This program essentially cured my imposter syndrome. I learned so many new programs (amazon Sumerian, adobe XD, Unity & Figma just to name a few that are currently used in the industry. The career coaching aspect of the program was great too. I have a great resume and Linkedln In because of it now. The only suggestion or grievance I have is that sometimes the assignments were outdated (software would no longer exist - that's how fast this tech is changing!) and
sometimes they weren't explained very well and it made things confusing. However, its nothing that a quick message to the program leader couldn't fix. Lastly, I wish we got more direct feedback from graders. Our teachers didn't grade us (we were graded by someone from Emeritus) and we were graded based on a rubric. So, if we check all the right boxes we get an A. But we didnt get to know if the work we did was any good. We did sometimes get feedback in-office hours. That was great! Other than that, it was an awesome program.