UC San Diego Extended Studies Boot Camps

Review of UCSD Extended Studies Full-Stack Development Bootcamp
By Noah Sullivan

In the past three months, I have gone from a novice with no experience in computer programming, to someone who studies and works on computer programs for over 20 hours a week. 

This may seem like a lot, but really it has been a life-changing decision for myself and my career.  The bootcamp experience is something that I am proud to be a part of. 

Not only do you get educated on a high-level learning subject by one of the best Universities in the world, but the education has an incredible amount of real-life applications. 

I have only been through half of the program at the time of writing this review, and I have already developed, and deployed a website for the public to use with my fellow students:

https://www.togoodgreens.com

Not only that, but the variety of programming languages and types of coding, such as Front-end, backend, ORM, OOP, Node.js, express, SQL, etc. make it a seriously beneficial program, professionally and personally. 

I am now taking more classes offered through UC Extensions due to the positive experience I have had with this course. 

I highly encourage other people to take this program, and explore all the benefits which it has to offer.

I was formerly an entirely self-taught developer who was in his third year of his data science career when I decided to take this bootcamp. I had been working as an analyst since 2019 after graduating with a BA Psychology and self-teaching R, but when I got a more senior engineering position, I decided to take the UCSD Extended Studies Data Science and Visualization bootcamp to shore up my fundamentals and gain valuable new tools to add to my repetoire.

So far, that has been a fantastic decision. The course is fast-paced and demanding, and I think having a prior programming background really helped me, but having the fundamentals of why code worked taught to me in a structured manner has made me a much better programmer. I've been able to take the knowledge I've gained from the course and apply it to my fulltime job, from database work to automation. In addition to filling in the gaps of my self-taught dev career, I have learned valuable new skills, particularly some elements of web development, which will allow me to build out ways to share data with the public at my job. I may not use everything this course covered on a regular basis, but having more things I am capable of calling on if needed gives me much more flexibility as a developer.

The career services have also been quite helpful. I now have a much more polished resume, LinkedIn, and even portfolio, and a solidly built out Github as well. I would encourage all students to take advantage of the career services--I have regularly been contacted by recruiters even prior to graduating the course. I feel confident that I will not need to worry about my employability, even as I am happy at my current fulltime position.

I will say that this course is on the expensive end. I think that it is worth it, but I would caution prospective students to make sure they can fully commit to the course and make the absolute best of it. The pace can be grueling, and while it is great to have actual classes, they are a commitment you must be able to make every week. It is also a lot of work! It pays off, but make sure you know what you are getting into and that you can handle it. This course is heavily Python based, and while it's my personal favorite language to work in, the learning curve is steep and it's important to be able to be the kind of person who can keep trying even if they've failed half a dozen times on a task.

Overall, if you feel confident you want a career in data science, I would say this course is a fantastic way to train for a complex and ever-evolving field.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am currently employed by UCSD Health in a data science position and was prior to taking the bootcamp, but I am not at all connected to UCSD Extended Studies and this is my honest review based on my experiences as a student. I was actually signed up for this course before I interviewed for my current job, since based off my research it was a solid program!

My overall experience is to much to express, but it came with the combination of stress, persistence, and confidence. I recall the first month on learning the starting code languages and it was actually hard to understand, but now when looking back and getting used to the repetition of seeing it each week and understanding how other languages tie well together with it made it easier by time. Even when I got stuck with each unexpected error, I gained the persistence and motivation and tell myself, "I MUST, I CAN, AND I WILL" or "YOU BREAK IT, YOU FIX IT, YOU OVERCOME IT!"  These words helped me push during those days I wanted to give up or felt the anger want to build up. The good thing is that this Bootcamp gifted me with an excellent Professor and TA that understood how to easily communicate the information to us clearly. They were there anytime, and so was the extra support tutors that were available to us 24/7. Having all this support was another reason that I didn't have an excuse to give up or fail. The class was amazing, and everyone was so nice and supportive of each other that It brought some good people together in the end. As a team, we all knew our end goal and helped each other to help ourselves to understand everything better. Me having a Specific Learning Disability, didn't stop me, ones own mindset is more dangerous to passing or failing in this course. Lastly, emphasizing, I recommend writing good notes on each language to help build the understanding better :)!

Upon applying to the coding bootcamp (full stack flex - part time), I did not know what to expect.  I knew that I had an interest in coding and was hoping to eventually change careers into this field.  But I had seen mixed reviews everywhere on different bootcamps. Initially I kept wondering if I made the right decision to go into a bootcamp, as well as if I made the right choice in bootcamps.  I was nervous, scared, and continued questioning myself on this decision even into the first few weeks of the program.  After 6 months with my cohort, I could not be more satisfied with how I feel after completing this program!

I learned so much each day, and had great support by my instructional team and peers (I am extremely grateful with how supportive the instructor and TAs were throughout - they definitely helped make this a wonderful experience).  Once it came to our final projects in the last month, I found myself having so much fun with everything!  Being able to end the course by building a full stack web app, encountering all types of challenges and knowing how to face and overcome them, and working with a team that is just as motivated and driven as you made this entire program worth it.

My advice to prospective students: 
1- keep up with the work (6 months seriously goes by super fast and covers a ton of content; stay disciplined to fully get the most out of it - I would study 20+ hours a week outside of class time to grasp each concept and get extra practice in).
2- utilize all resources (the bootcamp offers great resources, including your instructional team, tutors, and career services to help you with everything; also youtube, udemy, stackoverflow, and google help with reiterating concepts that you may not understand right away).
3- make connections (you are not alone, and majority of your cohort will have similar feelings through the journey – you all will be nervous, excited, frustrated, passionate, angry – you will get through it all together and it feels great supporting each other).
4- speak up and reach out (I'm the type that can be very shy, but I knew that if I was going to be successful with this career change, I would need help; I would reach out to my student success manager, career director, and the career material advisors whenever I had questions or needed advice; they were very helpful and were a big part in building my confidence).

I feel confident in being able to take the knowledge that I now have to start my career change to find a job, and will never stop strengthening my skills! 

As with any learning the amount you get out of a program is proportional to the amount of effort you put into your program. This course is designed for people that can be self-directed in researching and learning new code. You have to be curious about tech going into this field, because the ability to research the obscure errors you may encounter is vital to your success in the program and in your new career. 

This program currently focuses on MERN stack covering: JS, Node, Express, SQL, Mongo, and React. There is very little time spent on algorithms and writing tests. There is a bit of these subject covered and mentioned in the material but it is up to the student to supplement the learning materials. In some ways I wish these topics were covered in more detail but there are online programs that can help you get these skills regardless of bootcamp. 

The program offers an instructor, teaching assistants and a tutor and they provide plenty of support. There is also career support throughout the program and an alumnae Slack to connect with. 

Cost wise this was my best option as I couldn't afford to quit work to attend a bootcamp full-time - and finding an online bootcamp was incredibly difficult... until COVID changed everything. This program offered the sweet spot of being associated with a known university, offering live-online classes at night after work hours, and being a shortened program of 6 months - it came in at $10,000 

Hopefully all bootcamps will realize that offering an online program helps students develop a vital skill: remote engineering teams need to understand how to collaborate effectively. This program was done on zoom and through slack and our project teams were able to effectively meet up, pair program, and have study group sessions without any issue. I was able to leverage this in the interview process for my job - knowing how to work effectively remotely in a time of COVID was invaluable. I hope this one continues to offer online as an option for future cohorts. 

I accepted a promotion to a software engineering position with my current employer as a result of this bootcamp and the skills acquired. 

 UCSD's Extension Bootcamp for Coding will be a highlight that I will remember for the rest of my career.  I just graduated in September 2020 as a part time student.  I came into the background with a slight background in HTML and CSS, and I read a book on basic Javascript concepts prior to starting class.  Having that knowledge prior to starting the program was IMMENSLY helpful because it allowed me to stay one step ahead of whatever the next topic was.  The first month was mostly a review for me, but things really picked up when we got into Node.js and the backend technologies. This program moves FAST, so if you're a slow learner, I'd definitely think hard about signing up.  

The only cons is mostly due to the COVID pandemic.  Some of the lessons felt a little under prepared, but I give a ton of grace here because of the given situation.  But overall, if your mind is set on getting into web development, I couldn't recommend this program more highly.  There's so much I can say about this experience, but if you're thinking about doing this, here's what I recommend:  

1. Buy a book on HTML, CSS, and Javascript (I recommend the Head First series), and read through all of it before you even think about signing up. Then, build some small, vanilla projects with what you've learned.  If you don't enjoy it or feel like the books are too much, you will struggle a lot through this course.  But if you do this, you'll be one step ahead and have a good grasp on whether or not this field of work is for you.
2. If you're dating/married, have a serious conversation with your loved one (AND yourself) about the time commitment and set expectations beforehand.  If you actually want to get a job after bootcamp, you'll be spending close to 20 hours a week on average for this course if you're part time. If it's encouraging, I did this with a wife and a 4 month old and about 30-50 hours of part time work in addition to bootcamp.  If I can do it, you can do it.

 Here's the awesome part.  Through some serious grinding, networking, and the help of the TAs and instructors (MASSIVE shoutout to Shamira, Beth, Brian, Brandon, and Michael!!!!! Give them all a raise!!!!), now I'm a part time Front End Developer for a startup company in Silicon Valley, and a full-time Software Implementation Specialist/Software Engineer for a startup in San Diego.  I got hired WHILE I WAS IN BOOTCAMP and was able to increase my annual salary by 160% by the time I graduated.   In the end, I definitely recommend UCSD's Extension Bootcamp.

 I decided to participate in this Bootcamp because web development has always been a passion of mine. I have been self-taught for years, but there are some things that are better learned in an environment like this. The best part of this experience has been the collaboration between the students and the instructor and the TA's. My advice to anyone considering taking this course would be to do your due diligence before starting the course. Have some coding experience under your belt. Don't go into this cold. 

Hello Everybody,

Its never too late to change! A very brief period can have a huge impact on your futures. Trilogy is offering an amazing opportunity to enable our generation to adapt to the job market evolution. For me, and after six months only, I can confidently say "I am a full stack web developer", where I used to say "I don't know anything about web design". 

Catch the train! And don't stay hanging to drain ...

Hello,

My name is Leeland and I am a graduate of the April 2018 cohort for the part time full stack flex program. This program prepared me technically and mentally for my career jump from a restaurant manager to a software engineer. I had no prior experience with coding and I was taught the necessary tools in order to apply to developer positions. The curriculum is top notch and involves a modern tech stack. They go through the MERN stack and there are multiple full stack applications that are built throughout the program. It is crazy to believe that I went from creating a static html page to buidling a React app. The best part about the program is how invested the instructional team are to your success. My instructor prepared us with knowledge and best practices that will be relevant in our job hunt. The TAs are also very knowlegeable and willing to help when you get stuck (Trust me, I got stuck a lot). I believe that those who continue grinding out and work hard will succeed in this program. I had no relevant experience, but I was able to land a job a little over halfway through the boot camp. The instructional team helped me by asking mock interview questions as well as white board questions. It is great that we learn modern technologies, but the difference with this program is that they teach you how to learn and solve problems with code. "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teacha man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." could never be so true! I would highly recommend this program to anyone trying to make a career switch!

A well designed and challenging program. Be prepared to work really hard if you want to maximise your investment and you will not be disappointed. I have learned so much in these 24 weeks compared to trying to learn coding on my own. The level of support that I've gotten from my cohort and teaching staff is top notch. 

All 3 projects that I've developed during the course are ready to be shown to employers by the end of the program. You will get to learn from scratch to building industry ready full stack projects that will value-add to your portfolio.

Coming from an IT background with around 10 years of data analytics experience, I've never worked as a developer professionally but always wanted to pursue a career in coding. I've landed myself a full-time position as a front-end web developer one month after graduation and this will not be possible without this excellent course.

I'll take the course again in a heartbeat!!! Keep up the good job!!

Hello! my name is Goose and I'm a recent graduate from UCSD extension's coding bootcamp  last September 2017. My focus was to learn and challenge my self to become a full stack engineer.  The bootcamp provided me with all the tools and knowledge that I needed to know to achieve my goal of becoming a full stack engineer.  Coming from a CS background with some techincal  profesional experiences in software development, I  still learned tons of professional used technologies and challenged me to think differently.  I tried almost everything to learn how to be a full stack, from online youtube videos, books, udemy classes but I felt that I was copying code instead of learning how to use the concepts.  UCSD extension's coding bootcamp forced me to not only know the syntax and technology but also the proper use of it through homework challenges and projects.  For me my favorite are the projects that we had to start from scratch.  Rather than just copying sample codes, we had to start from ground zero to a working MVP web application. They also thought us how to research and think differently in terms of Computer Science in what algorithm to use and smarter solutions to a problem.  UCSD coding bootcamp also offered career help.  From one on one practice interviews, whiteboarding, up to job search and advice.  When I had trouble finding a job and being intimidated with job descriptions, the career councilor helped me alot from resume revamp , accepting an offer, up to negotiating a pay.  I am now starting a full stack career this November with an awesome starting pay.  Thanks again UCSD extension coding bootcamp.  I hope someday I can be a TA or instructor with my professional experience.  

I got a ton out of this course, I'll try to highlight some of the best and worst things.

 

Pros:

1. Top tier instructors. These guys know their stuff and are always extremely helpful. They even began to take pride in us and our coding towards the end lol.

2. TA's have your back. I remember before the class started someone asked something like "how patient are you guys if I can't learn fast enough?" a TA replied "I can stare at a wall for 12 hours and not get bored". This is true.

3. The career support throughout the class is optional, but you'd have to be insane not to opt in. They will teach you skills that will help your career. Even if you aren't looking for a job, you need to take advantage of this knowledge and support. You don't need to wait until the end of the course to start testing your career skills. I was receiving job offers before the class was even over. If you feel ready, tell your career instructor and they will happily point you in the right direction.

4. The class content was amazing. They don't just teach you content, they train you to use your resources to be able to teach yourself. In my opionion this is what being a developer is all about.

5. Academic support. There is an entire group of people dedicated to helping you if you ever start to feel behind, all you have to do is ask. I never took advantage of this perk but I know a few people who got private tutoring sessions.

Cons:

1. The cost. This isn't a cheap course. I was able to justify the cost by thinking of the salary potential. I got a promotion at my work as a result of this course. Because of this I didn't take advantage of the post-course job assistance.

2. The time. You can't get the benefits without effort. You need to dedicate not only time but also a ton of frustrated learning hours. Hang in there.

 

If you have the time, money, and dedication, this course will teach you skills that you can use for the rest of your career. You get out what you put in so jump in with both feet and be ready to work hard.

As a nerd, I've always wanted to learn how to code seriously. There are many coding boot camps in San Diego, but I find this one to be the right price point and a bit cheaper than most (about 2k-3k). It's also part-time during the evening so it fits my busy schedule.
 

I've already had a Bachelor's and Master's degree in education policy, so I wanted coding to add to my skill set and not just a second Bachelor's in Computer Science.
The boot camp was a great experience. They really found instructors and TAs who are masters at their coding and software development craft. The most important thing is that there were really patient with me while I attempt to learn some of the basics of HTML/CSS/Javascript. They didn't make me feel stupid at all! 

I was also able to find employment due to this program. I can do things like tinker with a github account and know what the heck folks are saying on StackOverflow and other coding help forums. 

I also wrote more about my experience here: https://medium.com/@minhtuyen/ucsd-coding-boot-camp-projects-63e3127d4f88

I thought the bootcamp was overall good. I feel that I learned a lot, and in fact I am going to be TAing for the next session. My only piece of feedback, and something I plan on bringing to my session, is that there should be a little more stratified challenges. I get that it is difficult to cater to each individual student's skill set, however, I think it would be beneficial to the students on both ends of the spectrum to have a little bit of bonus material, to challenge the students who are excelling and to reinforce concepts for students who are struggling. 

I never really preferred online courses and the online way of working, it just wasn't for me. I've tried many times with various LMS providers like Coursera, but in most cases, I found myself losing motivation to continue learning the selected course until, finally, I decided to leave the course. On LinkedIn, I saw a post promoting the Product Management Professional Program being organized in collaboration between the University of California San Diego's extended studies department and Simplilearn. I liked the course, and I opted for it. The course lasts 7 months (started in December and is planned to last until mid-July). So far, I am delighted with the course - from the organization of the class, the instructor's knowledge and experience, the course materials, the exercises - basically everything. The course covers the most important concepts of product management, and the instructor provides truly valuable insights based on his experience and knowledge. I find that this course provides a nice blend of live sessions (which take place during weekends) and self-learning time, which ensures that my motivation for this course is still on a very high level as it was on day one of the class.

The Cybersecurity bootcamp through 2U education was quite the disappointment. I am at individual in my early 30s with no cyber security experience who was looking to invest my money to become a cyber security professional and land a new career path.  I made it through the course at the top of my class, fully participating and devoting time to studying.  However when leaving the course I felt extremely underwhelmed and underprepared for a real job.  At the price of around $12,000 and marketing for the course advertising to "become a  Cyber security Professional in 24 weeks", I ended up feeling misled.  Post program, I was able to obtain my Security+ but the knowledge for this test was largely gained outside of the course from free online study sources. The career services are relatively weak outside of someone that tells you to apply to jobs every week etc. I was hoping to at least be connected with people withing in the field so I could prove myself. 

The instructor of my course was really knowledgeable and caring. I learned a lot from them just not enough to really help me get a job. I ran into many barriers of not having security clearance or not having enough of a technical background when it came to the job search.  Shoutout to my instructor because I do feel that the individuals I interacted with cared, but ultimately were victim to the larger organization they were working for.  I am still looking for my first job in Cybersecurity and gaining a lot more detailed, and hands on knowledge through free-training cyber security communities and cost-friendly learning platforms like TryHackMe and HackTheBox.  What I know now is that organizations don't think that highly of bootcamps, they are specifically looking for people with experience and networking connections.

If I had to do it again I would look elsewhere and save my money. 

This boot camp is definitely something you have to really think hard about. If you are serious and willing to put in 30+ hours of work AFTER class this is it for you. There is just so much information that you learn that it would be impossible to only use class time to learn. One great thing about this boot camp is the support they offer after the camp is over. You are allowed to keep the curriculum for an additional  year so you can go back and re watch and learn things over again. Overall, I would recommend this boot camp to anyone one who is willing to put in the hours.

The course is extremely fast. That is to be expected. The course I took goes over Excel/VBA, Python, Pandas, Matplotlib, Javascript, HTML, CSS, and end with Machine Learning. This is an overview but it covers a lot in 6 months. The TA and Instructor I had were extremely helpful when I became stuck with either the homework or when we jumped to a new topic. They answered the class's questions and applied their real-life experience to tie what we learn back to the real world. 

The full time coding bootcamp has been one of the worst experiences of my life.  I've studied around the clock and can't up with the pace of the class.  $12,000 and 3 months down the drain.  The instructors and staff are all very nice and helpful, and I definitely have learned a good amount during the first few weeks.  The pace is way too fast.  They should have a much more rigorous acceptance test.  There's no way I'm qualified for this.

The power of data is remarkable and I've grown excited for because of this bootcamp. Frankly this course was exactly what I needed. I had recently finished a general MBA and did not select a concentration, I bet if that school had this bootcamp I would have chosen it for concentration. The program was rewarding because it taught me a new kind of discipline, a new way to learn, and challenged me to change my habits for the better. The curriculum covers an incredible amount of content and opens doors to other parts of data and coding. I'm very proud of myself, which doesn't happen often. If you have the time, the time, the effort, and enjoy logic, take this course. The Instructors are passionate about this subject and want you to succeed. Thank you Peter and Alan. 

I am about half way through my boot camp and have learned so much but nearly not anywhere near all of what we've been taught. The boot camp is really fast so my advice is to really commit to it so that you can take full advantage of your time in school. Go over each and every activity a couple of times after class in between trying to soak up all of the  resources the instructor and teaching aids give you. 

At this point, our instructor has been encouraging us to start applying for jobs and he's been taking the time to do mock interviews with us which is an awesome value added resource in and of itself. As much as I'd love to start applying, I am still trying to catch up with what we're learning so like I mentioned above, you really have to be committed - because even if you are, the content may or may not come easy for everyone. If it does, great. If you're like me where it takes a bit to sink it, you're going to have to really put in the time. 

I am a 2018 graduate of the UC San Diego Extension Data Science and Visualization Bootcamp. This course is great if you want to jumpstart a career in programming or just expand your skillset. The curriculum is well designed and updated regularly to keep up with the current technologies used in the industry. The bootcamp is fast paced and could be difficult to keep up with if you are completely new to programming. Although not necessary,  I would recommend taking a little time to learn some coding fundamentals before starting the course. You'll need 20 hours a week to study at minimum. The more you put into it the more you’ll get out. Everyone on the staff was very knowledgeable and friendly. The structure of the class and the opportunity to work with other students on group projects were invaluable to my coding experience.

I've taken this course from May - November 2018 part-time, and I must say, it has changed my life completely. From barely having much coding knowledge, this bootcamp has taught me ins and outs of becoming a web developer and provided clear instructions and career services to achieve my goals. I've also gotten a chance to work as a TA for this bootcamp, and I realized that this course constantly changes to provide students with the most current technologies and tools, which is awesome! If you are looking for a career change to tech, or trying to improve on web development knowledge, this course is definitely a great choice.

I have been a teaching assistant for the program since February 2019. The program exposes students with the latest web technologies and effectively prepares them for the Job Market in San Diego. Upon graduating from the program, I have been able to secure a full-time job within 4 months. The career services and teaching staff team has been instrumental in my success in the program. I believe that the true value of the program comes from the dedicated support staff. Coding is hard for someone with no prior experience. I was only able to make through the rigorous program due to the support not only during class but also post-graduation support. Continuous support and consistent number to students returning to contribute to the UC San Diego Extension Boot Camp have helped build an invaluable community and network of support. Ultimately, if a student dedicates themselves, they will find success through the program.

I loved taking the course.  I think the course has enough breadth and depth for the time allotted, and helps jump-start a career in web development.  Since the program's parent company operates nationwide, its easy to get the educational support you need at a time that suits you; you get both the benefit of a tested and up-to-date curriculum of a MOOC as well as the region-specificity of a local boot camp.  This is crucial in helping land your first job nearby to gain experience.  Overall, I had a great time and learned enough to start working in the industry!

This was one of the most challenging academic endeavors I have ever set forth to accomplish. The full-time flex web development course was so well thought out and the instructors where very knowledgeable. I thought I was in over my head at first but the teacher assistants and the course instructor instilled confidence and empowered me and everyone in my class to make it thru the heavy course curriculum. With them we all succeeded and are now proud to say with confidence that we are full stack web developers ready for what every challenge we have to face in the future. I highly recommend this boot camp for those looking to find a career in web development or even if to further your existing knowledge on all criteria taught in this course. 

Hello,

My name is Farhad, I recently graduated from UCSD Data Science and Visualization Bootcamp in December 2018.This program was a great experience. The curriculum is well designed that covers variety of tools and technology that is being used in this field, it is quite impressive to look at the list of topics that was covered in 6 months.

My background is chemical engineering and I started this course with almost no coding experience, and after six month I am able to create website with data visualizations and analysis, also was able to switch my career right after graduating and started new job as a Business Analyst which it was my main goal.

The Instructional team we had were very nice, experienced and very knowledgeable, they provided a great support, and made the whole program fun and pleasant which I believe that's where it makes a difference between this program and similar online programs, beside this, being in the class and working alongside other students and TAs gave me great opportunity for networking and learning more and more.

I highly recommend this program for anyone who wants to enter to this field or boost their career and willing to works hard in and after class.

 

This course provides an extremely efficient and practical way to make coding techniques very handy. Web development is a fresh domain that is evolving very fast. It is difficult to keep up with all the technologies out there. With this porgram, it gives you means to start up and it trains you to look for the right information and utilize available resources. 

I had an amazing experience with this course and I highly recommend this course whoever feels they want to stay in track of web dev technologies

The Full-time Coding Boot Camp at the UCSD Extension is a great value for the education that I received. In just 3 months, I was exposed to and gained an incredible breadth of knowledge on subjects including HTML, CSS, CSS Frameworks, Javascrtip, Node, MySql, MongoDB, and React. If you are looking for a fast way to jump start a career in web development, you will be hard pressed to find a better value for your time and money. If you are looking to be challenged every day to break out of your comfort zone and tackle difficult concepts in a fast paced environment, this program is for you.

I cannot overstate what an excellent experience it was to be a student in the Full-time Coding Boot Camp at UCSD Extension.

Overall this course was exactly what I expected: an overview of full stack programming, introducing me to best development practices in real-world situations, pair-programming, and building applications. As I finish up the bootcamp I feel overwhelmed by how much I don’t know, and how much I want to go back and re-learn, but I have those tools to make it happen. I know a little about a lot of different programming concepts and languages. That’s okay; I knew I would feel something like this when I started. I feel empowered to keep doing development, and I am proud of my accomplishments in the course.

FAQs

-- Program length: 6 months for the part-time program for people who want to keep their day jobs (they also have a full time program that meets every day – not sure if it’s wise to have a job during that)

-- Days: M/W/Sa or T/R/Sa (they combine the classes on Saturdays – cool if your main instructor sucks, bad if you really like your main instructor like I did)

-- Homework: Every week – due on Saturdays. By the time you get to the backend these H.W.s can easily take 4/5 hours on non-class days, plus 1-2 hours on class days resulting in about 15-20 hours per assignment JUST on H.W. alone. That does include a lot of trial and error, as well as poking around on the inerwebs for answers.

-- Projects: These are fun, but can be highly stressful. They always let us pick our groups which I think is important. If you are an introvert, that’s okay, just be sure to make at least one friend you can buddy up with. Just be as normal as you can be…but that’s a life skill in general that you should have before joining any class.

-- Instructors: One main instructor (who was so awesome two of my classmates are working at his company now! He let our class know about the open positions and helped with mock interviews…wow!) and two TA’s (junior to mid-level programmers who had 1-several years in the field, but still junior to our main instructor. Overall very helpful and fun to hang out with).

--Cost: $8500 one lump sum, $9500 if paid monthly. Deposit required before you get your pre-work.

-- Pass rate: I’d say about 60-75% of my class completed the course. We had a lot of people drop right around our 2nd project when we started to get knee-deep in backend material.

My main qualm with this program is the pre-work didn’t manage people’s expectations properly, and there was just a little too much emphasis on “building stuff” and not on the concepts. The pre-work was easy, and I wish it had prepared me on a more conceptual level, rather than just producing websites and games. I had coded before and I chose a bootcamp to accelerate and guide my learning, rather than me trying to figure it out on my own. I understand people in my class may have never coded before, but I think letting those people into a bootcamp is risky. Without the necessary fundamentals it’s easy to drop the course because you get so frustrated. You need those concepts when working with the back end, and heck, even portions of the front end. I also wish that our homework wasn’t so focused on building games but included a bit more on the concepts. Plus, it’s just killer building a an entire website every week on a concept you learned Tuesday or Thursday, and it’s due Saturday. If you aren’t working, or have a part-time job, then it is manageable, but if you are working full time like me, it’s tough and you have to sacrifice. I was able to get through the class but just consuming as much info as possible and spitting it back out in a H.W. and worrying about understanding it later. But hey, how much can you truly learn in 6 months? You can learn a lot, but it takes a while to be good at something, let alone be a master. Which brings me to my next point…

If you want a job following this Bootcamp you better be prepared to work your toosh off and go full speed for the entire course. It is possible to get a new job, but you really do need to have coded prior to this course, even if it’s just HTML/CSS and a little bit of JS. If you do want to get a job, they have career services… but it’s my other big qualm with this program. They hold it over your head like a stupid carrot the entire program, which is okay because it’s a way to hold people accountable, but turns out it’s really not all it’s cracked up to be. I chose this bootcamp over others because of the career services. They had promises of one on one help with your resume, pitch, cover letter, even interview prep and it’s really just a bunch of people who are an online career team who you never get to meet in person and get feedback from via Google docs. I know of other students who arranged a phone call for help but it was only so helpful. I just want people to have their expectations managed, because I am disappointed for sure. Either way, you will need to keep practicing after the class. I fully expected this, but I think some people truly think they can be making 80K/year coding at a startup or Google the day after you graduate. In reality you need to focus on the bootcamp during the duration, and then hit the ground running afterwards building projects, going-over concepts you don’t understand and honing in on your strengths. You can’t be good at everything, but there will be topics you enjoy more than others. What I did love about this course is we covered so many different languages and tools I discovered a love of working with databases. Who knew? I honestly would have never known how intuitive DB’s are for me if I hadn’t taken this class. I think I would have shyed away from stuff because it looked “scary,” but you don’t get a choice in this class haha. That, my friend, is a very good thing however, especially if you want to be a web dev. You have to face “scary” stuff every day!

Overall this is program money well spent, and the experience is worth it. I made good friends and great professional connections through this course. Doing an in-person course is so beneficial because just when you feel alone, helpless and/or overwhelmed, there is someone else who feels the same way, but there is also someone who can help. Having that support is priceless, and having these skills are too!

Overall this course was exactly what I expected: an overview of full stack programming, introducing me to best development practices in real-world situations, pair-programming, and building applications. As I finish up the bootcamp I feel overwhelmed by how much I don’t know, and how much I want to go back and re-learn, but I have those tools to make it happen. I know a little about a lot of different programming concepts and languages. That’s okay; I knew I would feel something like this when I started. I feel empowered to keep doing development, and I am proud of my accomplishments in the course.

FAQs

-- Program length: 6 months for the part-time program for people who want to keep their day jobs (they also have a full time program that meets every day – not sure if it’s wise to have a job during that)

-- Days: M/W/Sa or T/R/Sa (they combine the classes on Saturdays – cool if your main instructor sucks, bad if you really like your main instructor like I did)

-- Homework: Every week – due on Saturdays. By the time you get to the backend these H.W.s can easily take 4/5 hours on non-class days, plus 1-2 hours on class days resulting in about 15-20 hours per assignment JUST on H.W. alone. That does include a lot of trial and error, as well as poking around on the inerwebs for answers.

-- Projects: These are fun, but can be highly stressful. They always let us pick our groups which I think is important. If you are an introvert, that’s okay, just be sure to make at least one friend you can buddy up with. Just be as normal as you can be…but that’s a life skill in general that you should have before joining any class.

-- Instructors: One main instructor (who was so awesome two of my classmates are working at his company now! He let our class know about the open positions and helped with mock interviews…wow!) and two TA’s (junior to mid-level programmers who had 1-several years in the field, but still junior to our main instructor. Overall very helpful and fun to hang out with).

--Cost: $8500 one lump sum, $9500 if paid monthly. Deposit required before you get your pre-work.

-- Pass rate: I’d say about 60-75% of my class completed the course. We had a lot of people drop right around our 2nd project when we started to get knee-deep in backend material.

 

My main qualm with this program is the pre-work didn’t manage people’s expectations properly, and there was just a little too much emphasis on “building stuff” and not on the concepts. The pre-work was easy, and I wish it had prepared me on a more conceptual level, rather than just producing websites and games. I had coded before and I chose a bootcamp to accelerate and guide my learning, rather than me trying to figure it out on my own. I understand people in my class may have never coded before, but I think letting those people into a bootcamp is risky. Without the necessary fundamentals it’s easy to drop the course because you get so frustrated. You need those concepts when working with the back end, and heck, even portions of the front end. I also wish that our homework wasn’t so focused on building games but included a bit more on the concepts. Plus, it’s just killer building a an entire website every week on a concept you learned Tuesday or Thursday, and it’s due Saturday. If you aren’t working, or have a part-time job, then it is manageable, but if you are working full time like me, it’s tough and you have to sacrifice. I was able to get through the class but just consuming as much info as possible and spitting it back out in a H.W. and worrying about understanding it later. But hey, how much can you truly learn in 6 months? You can learn a lot, but it takes a while to be good at something, let alone be a master. Which brings me to my next point…

 

If you want a job following this Bootcamp you better be prepared to work your toosh off and go full speed for the entire course. It is possible to get a new job, but you really do need to have coded prior to this course, even if it’s just HTML/CSS and a little bit of JS. If you do want to get a job, they have career services… but it’s my other big qualm with this program. They hold it over your head like a stupid carrot the entire program, which is okay because it’s a way to hold people accountable, but turns out it’s really not all it’s cracked up to be. I chose this bootcamp over others because of the career services. They had promises of one on one help with your resume, pitch, cover letter, even interview prep and it’s really just a bunch of people who are an online career team who you never get to meet in person and get feedback from via Google docs. I know of other students who arranged a phone call for help but it was only so helpful. I just want people to have their expectations managed, because I am disappointed for sure. Either way, you will need to keep practicing after the class. I fully expected this, but I think some people truly think they can be making 80K/year coding at a startup or Google the day after you graduate. In reality you need to focus on the bootcamp during the duration, and then hit the ground running afterwards building projects, going-over concepts you don’t understand and honing in on your strengths. You can’t be good at everything, but there will be topics you enjoy more than others. What I did love about this course is we covered so many different languages and tools I discovered a love of working with databases. Who knew? I honestly would have never known how intuitive DB’s are for me if I hadn’t taken this class. I think I would have shyed away from stuff because it looked “scary,” but you don’t get a choice in this class haha. That, my friend, is a very good thing however, especially if you want to be a web dev. You have to face “scary” stuff every day!

 

Overall this is program money well spent, and the experience is worth it. I made good friends and great professional connections through this course. Doing an in-person course is so beneficial because just when you feel alone, helpless and/or overwhelmed, there is someone else who feels the same way, but there is also someone who can help. Having that support is priceless, and having these skills are too!

This bootcamp exceeded all of my expectations. Be prepared for a lot of work, you'll be working at a very fast pace with a new project almost every week. This is not a spoon-fed program, they teach you the basics and teach you to constantly dig deeper and learn more (You will have to spend a lot of time out of class researching how to do many of your projects) which is essential to being a good developer.

Career services is very active and involved, willing to reach out to companies you are talking to and to new prospects, letting hiring managers know where your skills and interests lie and getting the ball rolling towards a job.

If you are willing to put in a lot of time and effort, you will learn a lot and be well prepared to enter the workforce.

The more I learn about web development the more I despise and regret attending this boot camp. I could have learned all of this on my own and in a much more effective way. As a developer, I can't let others make the wrong choice and end up like many of us UCSD graduates.

First the numbers. There isn't any! How many students get jobs after the course? With my class about 3 of 25 got positions. You don't see numbers posted anywhere. A great boot camp is transparent with the numbers.

The quality of the material, similar to the free online version of Codecademy.

Teacher and TA's are great, the only positive note on the course. They really help you out.

Job placement. Still looking for work, graduate in mid-2017.

An alternative, stick to freecodecamp.com and become a self-taught developer. Don't let your education be in the hands of somebody other than yourself. Stick to a roadmap of either becoming a front-end developer or back-end and gradually work your way to full stack. 

I am very satisfied with the 6 months program

- Syllabus is great. The course schedule are all well designed. The program covers most commonly used technologies like JavaScript, jQuery, AJAX, Node, Express, React, MongoDB, MySQL, etc. The whole process is done step by step, so all students (no matter if he/she has previous web development experience or not) start from the basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript and use it as the foundation of learning more fancy stuff like Node and React. This is very important because students not only know how to use handy packages like Node and React, but also know what is under the hood and reason for switching to these framework from plain JavaScript.

- There are weekly assignments and three group projects. Weekly assignments push students to spend time outside the classroom on the topics covered in the classroom. Group projects not only provide a chance of integrating things learned in the classroom, but also expose students to real world teamwork environment (merging conflict in GitHub and something like that)

- Instructors and TAs are all very nice. They can be easily contacted through Slack (IM used in the program) and they are happy to answer questions. Lectures are well prepared.

- Some career support like they provide tips on resumes, do mock interviews, etc., are offered. In the program, a few guests from companies like Amazon, GoPro and a few other local start-ups are invited for tech talks or sharing recruitment information.

Overall, I am 100% satisfied with the bootcamp. I’ll give some background about myself to kind of put my experience into perspective. I ended up landing a great job due to the bootcamp, but I believe my background in engineering played a large role as well.

 

I’ve been coding on a regular basis since around 2011, but it was only with Matlab and VBA. I had tried learning to code real languages (Java, Python, etc) several times, only to get to the point where I understand syntax and how to write a few functions, then lose motivation.. I also tried learning web development on my own, but got to the same point. I was lacking two things:

1.A deep understanding of how all of the languages work together (front end vs back end). I didn’t understand the benefits or even the purpose of each language. I was missing a huge piece of the puzzle.

2.Real projects that I could put my name on and show off on my resume. No employer was going to take me seriously by just having some codeacademy and treehouse tutorials under my belt.

 

I was growing more and more unenthused about my job, and I knew that coding was my passion. Upon hearing about the UCSD Extension Bootcamp, I think I was enrolled within 24 hours. The main selling points for me were:

1.I didn’t have to quit my job

2.Purpose of the bootcamp was to build your github/portfolio

3.Career assistance once the course was over

 

I’ll take a page out of Will’s post and discuss pros/cons separately.

 

Pros:

Projects: The 3 group projects in the course were probably the best things to come out of the bootcamp for me. Literally every single interview I had I was asked to go into lots of detail about each of the projects. The fact that they were coded from the ground up, team projects, version controlled with git, and were deployed. This the full cycle of a real life software (except for testing).

 

Instructors: Both George Morgan and Brandon Lyon were amazing instructors that I learned a lot from. George has been teaching for many, many years and it shows. He was comparable to (and better than) many professors in the Engineering school at UCSD. The way he would explain difficult concepts was incredibly insightful because of the way he could break it down into simpler high level explanations. I learned an insane amount of information from George about anything and everything coding. He was really accessible before and after class and was always willing to answer broader/off-topic questions about other languages or technologies. Brandon, although having a different teaching style, was a very good professor as well. He helped us learn on our own (valuable skill) by reading docs and doing your own research, which is like the real world.

 

TAs: Can’t say enough good things about these guys except they probably weren’t paid enough. They were all super helpful and ready on slack all the time.

 

In class exercises: The in class exercises were exceptional. They broke down difficult concepts/technologies into small chunks where we would complete smaller sections of an app piece by piece. These were probably the most valuable tool for me as they taught proper coding practices on top of learning the content itself.

 

Career support: Although I landed this job on my own, I learned a TON from Stacey. Her workshops and the guests she brought in throughout the course were really valuable. After the course ended, the constant feed of job leads were also nice coming from the Trilogy recruiter.

 

Cons:

The curriculum changed throughout the course. Initially we were supposed to spend a couple weeks on other languages such as Java, Ruby, Python, and PHP. I was pretty excited to go through other languages to help me get a better understanding of all of the different languages. I wanted to get a bit of practice with them also, even if we weren’t going to get a lot. However, all of these lectures were scrapped (I think there were 6 total) because the class wanted to focus on ReactJS more. At the time I was incredibly disappointed in this because I wanted some experience with object oriented languages. But after the class ended I dedicated my time to learning object oriented languages and object oriented design, so looking back it’s not as big of a deal to me.

 

Homeworks:

I think the first 3 homeworks were pretty difficult and they forced us to do a lot of learning outside of class to complete them. However, I’m sure they got a lot of complaints because from there on the homeworks were pretty much copy/pastes from the in-class exercises. They didn’t require much time or effort to complete.

 

Pace:

I feel like the overall pace of the classes were pretty slow. I feel like I could have spent 30 mins to an hour looking at the in-class exercises and got the same information as the 3 hour lecture. Obviously when we were learning a new technology it was great to be in class to get a high level understanding of the technology, but many lectures provided minimal value.

 

Overall, I got exactly what I wanted out of the bootcamp. I would take it again if I were to do it over.