SMU Boot Camps

Hat's off to the entire staff that put together our Coding Bootcamp experience. Their passion for helping each student succeed far exceeded my expectations. As previously mentioned in the comments, the instructors are top industry professionals, knowledgeable about the technologies being taught and offer industry insight that you wouldn't get without on campus classes. You also have TA's available, ones that have already gone through the course with tremendous success. They understand the struggles and are their to guide you along the way. Our student success manager and career services team are also very helpful. Point blank, this team is full invested in your individual success.

As far as technologies, you start with a foundation in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery. You are then exposed to more complex, but very useful tools, that help round out your front end skills before diving into database structures and back end technologies. Before you know it, you are designing a full fledge application using the MERN stack. After 7 months, you'll have an understanding of MVC frameworks, user authentication, JSON Web Tokens, React, ES6, and much more. 

The course is rigorous, fast paced, and demanding, but the hard hours are worth it. I feel much more qualified in my career transition than if I were to have studied on my own. I highly recommend this Coding Bootcamp to all interested in starting a web development career.

I had no experience coding before starting this bootcamp. My experience was soley in the financial industry. I was referred by a friend to attend SMU's bootcamp because I have wanted to break into the tech industry for quite sometime now. After going through this program all I can say is wow. The sleepless nights are worth it when you go through this program. It is very hands on and challenging to say the least. The instructional staff are professionals who have experience in the industry. You get a student success manager, career services, and access to Teachers Assistants who are willing to help you every step of the way. 

I just completed the full stack software development bootcamp. The teacher and TA were knowledgeable and patient. There were plenty of resources. I didn’t like how fast paced it was during class time. I know there was a ton of info to go through in 6 months. I wish the end of week career notes at the end of each module were all in a separate folder in order to find the information easily. I also wish there was  more communication or better structure to using career services. I wholeheartedly agree that you should not get behind at all in homework because it is very hard to catch up. It is a great skill to learn. I recommend this course only if you can truly dedicate 15-20 hours outside of school and work to study. 

The full-stack web development bootcamp was a great experience overall. I received the strong coding foundation I was looking for, and have a much deeper understanding of how software and web applications work now from front-end to back-end. I find myself able to parse API documentation and decipher stack overflow forums much better now, and problem solve specific software challenges as needed. While the curriculum moves quickly and is a large time commitment, it's set up in a very structured, easy to follow manner, and having access to solved examples and the mini projects really helped when it came to applying the work for homework assignments and projects. 

The professors and TA are very supportive and knowledgable. They would not hesitate to answer any of your questions, relating to the course or not. They even give you the best career advice to put your foot in the door, as they are the experts in their fields. The career support team and tutors are beyond helpful. If we started the first day not knowing anything about coding, on the last day, we already presented complicated machine learning models, using a variety of languages, including R, Python, Matplotlib, JS, HTML, etc. The course is indeed intense, but you wont regret taking it. 

Just graduated from the Southern Methodist University Full Stack Coding class and my background is graphic design and fashion design. So if this creative non technical person can learn coding, anyone can with the right program. The SMU part time 6 month program, was the right one for me. Great instruction from Bruce Van Horn and supportive patient TA's, Henry Winget and Tyler Calvert. This program also gives you a free tutor. William Jones was mine who was another asset to my journey of understanding and success. The class is fast pace but not unreasonable, but I recommend just like anything don't fall behind. You will be taught how to code and most importantly how to work through a problem when you get stuck. That alone in priceless. So glad I did it and enjoying the next steps of working with another added benefit, a well connected career services center.

It was a 6 month datascience bootcamp, very interesting, very informative and very useful in building a solid portfolio. There was a lot to learn in a short time so there were some modules that you wouldn't be able to fully grasp. Either way it opens the door to the datascience and It makes it easier for you to at-least understand the main topics. YOU ONLY GET OUT AS MUCH AS YOU PUT IN(if you do the work and trust the process, I believe it would be worth it).

I attended the course during the pandemic so most of it was online. Personally I think this was beneficial because the lecturers were supportive and I didn't have to struggle with travel time. On the other hand, I felt like we couldn't develop the solid bond between all the classmates(something that definitely would have happened if we met in person). Also it would be really hard if you work full time.

Hi, 

A little about me and why I enrolled in a data science Bootcamp. I attended college in the late 90s and unfortunately had to leave before finishing to join the workforce. I have been working in my current industry for 20 years although hard to advance I was able to make some advancements. However, there is a ceiling in most industries for individuals without certifications and/or college degrees. So time after time I have taken every available online resource to advance my knowledge in programming, design applications that are relevant in my current field. I have spent about 6 months in the past year trying to ensure I was advancing and found that many industries are changing fast with the vast amounts of data available and highly underused. I spent hours online learning as much as possible but, it was apparent that I need even more and began to research Bootcamps. What stood out to me is that SMU college had Bootcamp that provided more than just the training it also provided guidance in many aspects that were attractive to me. 

The course is very challenging in every way. You will be required to take your success into your own hand and put everything you have into it. The 3 day a week course work is great however, you will need to push yourself to find every available resource you can to be successful course work. I find that its 100% up to you what you get from and out of the course. 

The course opens with Excel and VBA which is great to get your feet wet, however, I would have liked more Power BI and or tools that are available as of today. however, I do realize there are many companies that are still using basic excel and VBA. Looking over the curriculum I would have liked more R or time in emerging technologies. the overall curriculum to me made sense and built on the weeks past.

I am doing my review at the end of week 13 and it has for me been such a blast! 

SUA SPONTE

When I just started the program, I was a bit nervous since I did not have much experience in this academic field. I was given the motivation from my instructors and tutors that I am doing great with the fact I have to do a lot of work on my own. There were days that went pretty good and there were other days that you fell like giving up. The  assisitance from my instructor, classmates and tutors were extremely good and there is this family-like atmosphere that made you feel that you are not alone. 

At the end of the course I can say I learnt a lot of new information which to me sets the foundation of becoming an expert in this  full stack develpment. Whether you are learnig about JS, REACT or the different databases such MYSQL or MONGO , I was thrilled of so much can be done with these information. I will say I did not regret it but you have to be GRIT it after all , success comes by working smart and perseverence.

The course moved quickly, which is to be expected in a boot camp.  The in-class work and homework assignments were appropriate for learning the material that was presented in the lectures.  The expectation that was set before I started the class was that I would need to spend at least 15 hours a weeki outside of class to learn the material.  As it turns out, I needed to spend closer to 20 hours per week to keep up.  Overall, the course was both challenging and a lot of fun.  I would recommend this class to anyone who is motivated to become a developer but needs to develop the necessary skills.