Skill Distillery

I’ve just recently accepted a full-time job with a leading digital agency out of New York City where I’ll be working with large Fortune 500 companies on optimizing their web and mobile delivery. The short time that I was able to spend at Skill Distillery contributed to making that happen. From the leadership team with Cole and Bruce to the instruction with Jaime, Kris, Andrew and Cayle; this a group that is relentless in both ensuring their students knowledge is on the forefront of an evolving technical spectrum and also broad enough to win competitive employment across a variety of opportunities in the digital space.

What I’ve personally experienced to be the best quality of this bootcamp is not just the education you will receive but a group that treats their students with respect. Skill Distillery is an organization that will have your back when push comes to shove. I know firsthand. Things don’t always go as planned (they didn’t for me) but what I can say is you can count on these guys to be there for you in the end. 

Feel free to connect and message me if you have any questions: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tedkubach

If you're trying to choose a coding bootcamp, think very carefully about the kind of coding you want to do and what you want to get out of the experience. Think about the stack you want to use at your next job. Skill Distillery is a full stack Java bootcamp. We started with Java, then worked our way to the back end, designing databases with mysql and persisting data with SpringMVC and Hibernate. Next comes Javascript. By the end we'll be able to create a web application from start to finish. There are a lot of technologies to learn about to get through this process, and the learning is intense. There is a good mix of structured lectures and group and individual projects. You can be as creative as you want. The team here is dedicated, professional, very experienced, and interested in our success. They have carefully chosen what technologies to present to us, and they have carefully structured the learning experience to create the most employable and most capable developers possible. In 19 weeks. It feels very back end heavy, which is what I prefer. If you are mostly interested in front end design, you might want to look elsewhere.

I'm currently 8 weeks in at  SD. So far it's been a great experience. There is tons of information to learn, extremely taxing mentally. However, I can personally attest to each and every TA and teacher taking extra time to help me out personally. 

Coming from a corporate real-estate development background, I am surprised how much of a challenge it's been. People come to a coding bootcamp expecting many different things. SD does a nice job up updating curriculum to stay current w/ technologies that are being used in the real world. 

There are always things that could be improved upon. The school doesn't promise a job, and in all honesty doesn't "place" people. Rather, they prepare people to be successful enough to get an actual programming job and not get "placed" at a help desk somewhere.

Overall, it's been a great experience and I'm glad I came here. 

I am currently halfway through the course at Skill Distillery.  Prior to this, I was attending college using my GI Bill.  I had taught myself a little programming, but I had no direction and it was a very slow process.  I found Skill Distillery and decided to take a chance on something new, and I have zero regrets!  It has been a great experience so far, and I am amazed at the knowledge I have gained from this school.

The classes are a mix of lectures, labs, partner projects, and individual projects.  I noticed some of the other reviews said that there was not enough hands on time, and that is definitely not true.  The instructors always make sure to balance lecture, examples, and hands on time as needed.  The material is not easy, but it is manageable if you are willing to work hard.  Very knowledgable and helpful instructors and TAs are always available and willing to assist you.  There has not been one day where I went home with a question unanswered.  Overall, it is a very relaxed and friendly environment with all of the resources you could ever ask for.

Also, for the veterans - Skill Distillery offers a great value for your GI Bill, and I would encourage anyone that has the opportunity to consider this school.  I don’t think there is any other place where you can use part of your GI Bill benefits to gain such profitable skills.

If anyone has any questions about my experience here, feel free to email me at alexmp1689@gmail.com.  I will also be updating this review after I complete the course.

My experience at Skill Distillery has been top notch. I feel as if the team, the curriculum and mission are strong and resonate throughout the culture and results that the bootcamp provides. I am about halfway through the program and I am continuously impressed by the depth of topics covered as well as the responsibility that we are taking on in such a short amount of time. 

In my latest blog post on Chadington.com https://chadington.com/2016/04/12/codingbootcamp/ I have shared a more in depth perspective on my experience and what one should consider especially if they are coming from a "sucessful background" but are either looking to recareer or launch a tech startup company. Please feel free to reach out at ChadingtonChat@gmail.com to continue the conversation. Thanks!

Excerpt from my blog post: Coding Bootcamp! It was the “______” decision of my life!

...While that 4-year CS degree served as a gold standard entry point into the aforementioned career trajectory, there are certain forces at play that have changed the dynamic. The demand for a technical workforce has exploded. Specialized technical talent is hard to come by.

I've wanted to break into the web development industry for probably about two years now. After graduating college in 2008, I spent 5 unfulfilling years working in the insurance industry and then 2 years working for a small business and trying to teach myself code on the side. 

I needed professional guidance! 

Since beginning my training at Skill Distillery only 9.5 weeks ago, I am amazed at how much I've learned already and what I've been able to accomplish! 

Skill Disitllery has proven to be everything I wanted in a coding Bootcamp. It's extremely challenging but there is no short supply of guidance and personal assistance when needed. The instruction has been of the highest level I've ever experienced! 

It is challenging and certainly not easy; but if you're looking for easy then you've probably picked the wrong field! So far I believe I've been given everything I need to succeed and am confident it will continue! The days are a perfect balance between lectures and hands-on coding along with group and paired coding projects. 

It was a great decision choosing Skill Distillery! 

I am about half-way through and will look forward to posting an update upon completion! 

I'm not a math person. I'm not a science person. I've always had a book in hand, and would rather spend 10 hours reading than 30 minutes doing calculus. When I told people I was going to do a coding bootcamp, they all said, "Wow, really? That's going to be hard." And they were right - but I don't think they could have ever imagined how rewarding my experience at Skill Distillery has been.

I looked at a large handful of bootcamps before deciding upon Skill Distillery. They were the only program in the Denver area that personally followed up on my application, responded to all my inquries within the same day, and accommodated my completion of the application process while traveling abroad. 

The classes are extremely hands on, extremely thorough,  and taught by phenomenal, passionate coding veterans who will work as hard as you will to ensure your success. 

This program is all about what you put into it. If you're looking for a bootcamp that pushes you past the point you thought you could push yourself, and inspires you to create projects that you never would have dreamed of, then this is the place for you. 

Hey Folks!

I am back updating my review from 1/12/16 like I promised I would!! I'm a woman of my word. 

All jokes aside- I'm not going to lie, the negative reviews that I read on this site bothered me. Paying $16,000 for a school that had a lot of negative reviews while I was still in the program, made me worry about what was to come. They made a lot of changes from the cohort before mine, and so my experience was much better than theirs.

I am honestly so glad I stayed. I had ZERO coding experience before the program, and at times, I truly did struggle and worried about whether the program was for me. But the instructors, the TA's, my fellow students, and our school director, helped me stick through it, and man is that the most rewarding experience to say that I graduated! I am so thankful for the program and people I've met.

I now will be working as a junior java developer at American Healthcare Technologies, where I was doing marketing before. 


 

I wrote the review "Grateful" and needed to write an amended review.                             (Admin, if this needs to be combined with that review, please feel free to do so.)

I just received a Job offer from a mid sized company for a Java Stack Web Developer.

(I still have 2 weeks left in the program at Skill Distillery and received the job offer.)                

I had ZERO professional experience before this school and Skill Distillery was able to assist me in getting to a place that would help me have a career in web development.

**Be aware, many of the negative reviews come from a class that was here while I attended and they quit because they said the program wasn't teaching what they thought was important.  Clearly they were mistaken.   If *I* can get a web developer job after attending school here, anyone that has a desire to write code can do it too.  

After leaving the news industry, I decided to look into a coding bootcamp.  Skill Distillery was worth every bit of money.  The instructors are very hands on, and help you through the learninging struggle when coding.  Not only are you being taught how to code, you have several projects to show potential employers your abilities. I have been told the stack they teach is very close to what is needed in for development jobs.  I might not be a veteran, but they do accept the GI Bill, which is a huge plus for veterans getting out of the military. I am about to graduate soon, and am actively looking for a job. Skill Distillery is helping me with the process, looking at my resume, my cover letters, and even suggesting jobs I should apply.

 I wouldn't change my bootcamp experience for the world!

My name is Jonathan.

I'm grateful I have attended Skill Distillery.   It's opened a whole new world of career opportunities for me to provide for my family.

I'm a Marine Corps veteran that's done mostly manual labor or a service industry job most of my life. I have very little coding background apart from this school. (Veterans...use the GI Bill here. It's worth it)

I've already had multiple phone calls and interviews from potential employers for a web developer position and I still have 2 weeks left in the program.  

The staff here are brilliant, very kind and will work with you as much as possible(no they are not bribing me to say this). They will not hand everything to you on a platter though.  If you come here to learn, expect to work and study A LOT.  

It's worth it.

A little less than a year ago, when I was in the process of finding my next move, I remember browsing this very website for information about different bootcamps. At the core of what I wanted to know was whether a program would be able to plug me into a job with the skills needed to maintain it and begin a career that I could eventually climb.

Not only did Skill Distillery provide that for me, but it was a truly enjoyable learning experience. Like some of the reviewers below, I was in the second cohort that began in July and ended in November. In a relaxed but focused atmosphere, my classmates and I got to know one another well. As Kimberly mentioned, we occasionally got together for study groups on the weekend, hung out socially outside of the school, and enjoyed each other's company. In the classroom, we recognized our individual strengths over the course of the program and gained from the insightfulness and curiosity of one another. Obviously each class will be a different set of students, but I cannot write a review without highlighting what a pleasure it was getting to know and being in class with such a wonderful group of people.

And I extend that statement to include the staff of Skill Distillery – who were open, hard-working, and care deeply about the students and the program succeeding. The instructors have been praised in reviews here: they deserve it. But here is the truth: this is an opportunity for you. This is a serious endeavor, an investment, and (potentially) a career change. The program is laid out for you to develop the right skills, with aid from instructors and TAs, but it is on you, 100%, to make the most out of the materials. Heed Cole R’s advice – one can only recommend this program (or any on CourseReport, for that matter) if you are serious about programming and technology. That’s not to say you need to have a plethora of background experience, or already be a coder, but you do need to have a passion for technology, tenacity, and be ready to work hard.

I chose this program because I was driven to become well-grounded in a tried-and-true object-oriented programming language that would provide me with a springboard from which to launch a career. I wanted to dive in to a difficult subject, invest time, money, and effort, but come out of the experience with a strong capacity to pick up new languages and technologies. That’s exactly what happened. I worked extremely hard, produced a massive personal portfolio, and impressed nearly every interviewer. I was able to apply the jobs that I was actually interested in, instead of just applying to anything I could find that remotely related to my skills. I was employed within a month of sending my first application.

At my current job, I have to understand the full stack. We do not have dedicated roles for each technology – it is thanks to the exposure and opportunity Skill Distillery provided me that I am so diversely capable. Because of this diversity, you have the capacity and opportunity to make decisions about your future career and shape your trajectory in a way that you know will be self-rewarding and right for your skills and interests.