UCLA Extension Boot Camps

Do NOT take this course...Do NOT make the same mistakes I made.

Trilogy people are EXTREMELY helpful, always there to help you  - literally calling you two, three times a day to ask if you made your decision and if you were ready to pay for a deposit...Always helpful until you pay for the class and no longer can get your refund.

We are promised TAs who will be avaiable to help...they were not. I was in the Tue/Thu class and we were not lucky with our "help." Meanwhile Mon/Wed class had the BEST TAs. TAs were not accessible on Slack, and when you asked them questions, they never really had answers. 

We were promised support with the "sucess manager" - ours (JP Alferos) was a liar (caught him lying TWICE and I have records on emails) and he left (got fired?) halfway through the course. We then had NO support for awhile...

The reason I picked UCLA was because I thought that having the "UCLA" on my resume would carry a little weight AND because the office told me class would have about 20 students. I regret it so much and I am still paying for my mistake. Trilogy folks never told me or anyone else that two classes would merge on Saturdays and therefore making the class much bigger and harder to get help from TAs.

Our instructor (Omar Patel) wasn't the greatest either. It seemed like he didnt want to be there at all. Every class, for a lot of subjects he'd teach us, there was always a "I hate this," "this is so stupid" and so on. How can someone who doesn't seem interested at all be there teaching us when we paid 10k to take this course? We had a sub a couple of times (Clark) and he was the best. He was always excited to teach you and had a positive attitude - completely different from our main instructor who seem to hate a bunch of the subjects. He was also never prepared. Once topics got harder, instead of spending a few minutes before class to go over the material, he would troubleshoot and confuse us even more than what we should - he kept saying that it was fine, that we should see him troubleshoot, that we'd go through that in the real world, and I appreciate that, but I didn't pay 10k to watch you move from file to file, trying to find out whats going on and hope that we are following him - spoiler alert: WE WEREN'T.

Save yourselve the headache - save a bit of more money and go take the course at GA. Truly smaller size class and I felt they were WAY more supportive with students.

I wasn't going to waste my time reading reviews, but I thought if this review could stop ONE person from making the same mistake I made, than it is worth it! 

I took this course from January to July 2017, the instructor was Omar Patel. At the time I was working as a retail manager and thinking to change my career. I thought this is a good chance to learn how to write to code, and chance to get an entry-level job on the tech field. It starts well they send us a homework package for the start I believe I did the ok job since I never write code before, then it started to be more complicated as expected. My problem with the course they only did 10% of what they promised, once you go their website it shows they partnered many tech companies and it may be an opportunity get a job or internship there, it didn't happen. I was never able to have a chance to send a resume or any kind of contact with companies. They promised to tour these companies never happened, we suppose to have people come and talk to us every other week but the only couple of people showed up. It's been told us it needs a lot of self-effort which is true but how come an instructor doesn't follow up his student's progress and development until the end. The instructor only helps people have potential or have previous knowledge, he got paid projects for them, separate them from the class I doubt he has financial gains for that, I was expected to mix people know less and more together to help them learn each other.  The student success manager Alex Garett is another disaster, he doesn't even know whats going on in the class shows time to time and events only. Teacher assistants, they probably joined the class before then you and have some experience but they can insult you every way if you can't write code, those young fellas easy can overlook you without knowing anything about you and your background. Overall it was the worst 10k that spend plus the time, I trust UCLA's name on it but the course held by the trilogy. I accept that it's not everybody's cup of tea but still they have to put some effort into you as well not people have experience with this before. I don't even want to talk about their 'awesome' career services cuz it was awful :). 

The course material is very interesting and the way the class is structured is pretty good, it takes your hand with baby steps even if you have no background about coding or engineering. The instructor "Omar in my case" stressed about the concepts way more than the technology used which is very helpful as you can venture in any language you want on your own.

I would extend the period where we learned ES6 and React but either than that I think the course's pace was pretty good for me. I ended up with 2 Full-Stack web apps and a mobile app, which was a great experience.

I highly recommend the course if you want to learn something new and even take a new career route.

I debated whether to attend the UCLA Coding bootcamp for 2 years before finally pulling the trigger and attending. As a UCLA alumn with a B.A. in Psychology and a 14 year background as a web designer and Wordpress Developer (non-coding), I figured that the bootcamp would be a natural evolution of my skills and would give me a better understanding of development and the further ability to create more meaningful and useful applications. 

Initially, I wanted to to attend the 3 month Full-time course, but when I decided to attend, there were no more spots open in the full-time program (class size is only 25 per class), and thus I was forced to take the 6 month part-time program. I was working full-time at a law firm and it was good fortune that I ended up in the part-time program instead. Between my work schedule of 40+ hours per week, class attendance of 10 hours per week and a minimum study and homework time of 20-30 hours per week, I was exhausted and at my wit's end (more about this later). 

I had about 2 months before my cohort started and I decided to start trying to learn Javascript on my own to get a head-start. Coinicidentally, the book I read was "Headfirst with Javascript" or something to that effect. I already had a background in HTML and CSS after having taken a Macromedia Dreamweaver class at Santa Monica College in 2004, completing the HTML/CSS course on Codecademy, and designing numerous websites in Wordpress and HTML. I figured that I was ahead of the curve in that respect and since the MERN Stack (Mongodb, Mysql, Express, React, and Node.js), the fundamental  of the bootcamp, was based on Javascript, I figured getting a jump on it early would only help and would save some time down the road. It did!

- I would highly recommend learning as much as you can beforehand rather than waiting on the class to start. You will also have prework to complete prior to commencing class. I would recommend paying your deposit as soon as possible to both secure your spot and to get the list of prework to complete so that you can get ahead early -

The course moves extremely fast and you must be highly motivated to stay close behind. I say this because you never quite feel caught up. Concepts are introduced quickly. You are then asked to do activities in those subjects in class, and then you are expected to master those concepts at home or on your own time, before the next class, while required to complete your homework and projects on time as well. In fact, I would recommend at least 4 hours of highly-focused studying every night/day, 7 days a week, with weekends dedicated to studying for most of the day. There is a reason why they call it a bootcamp. 

On the first day of the course, our instructor told us to expect a few things. he said, "Expect to fail and expect to fail often. This is how you will learn. This class is the hardest class offered through UCLA extension. If you have an ego, it will be tested often but you will have to get used to failing often. To be a Full stack developer, your job is to solve problems and come up with solutions and most times there will not be someone with you who will give you the answer. You will have to find it yourself. Part of the course is about teaching you how to learn and thus you will become a master at 'Google-Fu', the art of Googling. As a developer you will spend 90% of your time researching and 10% developing code. This can be frustrating for some and tedious for all but the better you are at mastering this skill, the better of a developer you will become."

These words were so right. I did not matter how much of a background I had previously in web design. That perceived advantage lasted for about 4 weeks and then the playing ground evened out for everyone in the class. I went from confident to panic, about 3 times per week until about the 23rd week of class. I expressed my feelings to the instructors and they explained that it was important to trust the process and do the best that I could, but keep pushing ahead.

2 things here. First, the instructors were world-class. They were extremely knowledgable, confident in their skills, able to convey difficult subjects easily, and after letting you struggle for a while, were able to provide solutions to complex problems (all of them had full-time jobs as developers during the day). One of my instructors was a former student of the same school a year prior and had recently landed a new job paying over 6 figures. That alone was motivation. Before the course, he had no prior experience as a coder. He was an English teacher!

Second, trusting the process was excellent advice. What seemed impossible or extremely confusing in the beginning, became second-nature towards the end of the program. The structure of the course was optimized from past-course experience and research, regarding current trends, to make the learning process flow synergistically, with each subject building off skills learned in prior week's subjects.

In addition, as I'm applying for jobs, the skills that we learned are the ones in the highest demand from both employers and recruiters. Along with the help from the career couselors who are tasked with helping you build your resume, offer critiques on your portfolio (that you build in class), assist with your LinkedIn profile and provide additional critiques regarding your Github account, you quickly see that you attract job prospects even before you graduate the program.

I will say this. Although you learn a ton of information, you are still only scratching the surface, and you must continue studying, practicing and building projects after the course ends because you are still, only a junior, junior developer at the completion of the program. 

The class size of 25 is great because you have time to interact with both your T.A.s and instructor on a one-on-one basis and after attempting to find solutions first, the chance for them to answer questions. I was in the Monday/Wednesday class. On saturdays, we moved from a building in Westwood to a lecture hall on campus and combined our class with the Tuesday/Thursday class. This was cool because we had the opportunity to interact with 25 other people who were in the same predicament. 

Over the course of the class, you end up networking and making some great connections and friendships with the people in both classes and especially the people in your chosen groups who work on class projects with you. You are required to complete 3 projects over the course of the class, and if you are creative or outgoing you can build something unique, interesting or important using the technology you learn in the course. Some people solicited companies for ideas and received a subsequent letter of recommendation. They were fortunate in this regard, and were able to build legitimate business applications for their portfolio. The hard part is doing your research, coordinating with your partners, and completing the projects within the 2 weeks you have available. At the end you must present your project to both classes. 

The projects give you a chance to understand development in a team/work setting using Agile of standard development practices including using Git for version control. You also get a basic understanding of the pressure accompanied with completing a team project on a deadline and all of the stressors that go with it. I personally switched groups several times so that I had the experience and networking opportunity to meet and work with multiple people in my class. I was one of the only people who did this but it worked for me. 

One thing that I really liked about the course that was different from my time at UCLA, was the fact that we were not competing against each other. There was no grading curve and a portion of our grade was based on effort and proof of work, especially in a group setting. This created a feeling of motivation to work together and to help each other out, rather than working in solitude. We formed study groups outside of class. We were encouraged to find solutions to problems by asking other classmates questions on our Slack channels, and solving problems together without the instructors help. It helped foster a bond between everyone in the class and by the end, we all felt as though we knew each other and knew each other's skillsets as well. 

Throughout the 2nd half of the course, we started practicing whiteboarding algoriths that were typically given during interviews at prominent tech companies. We had the chance to try and fail these at least once per week to emulate the environment of an interview. I personally tried to tackle 3 algorithms per week in class, and 2 on my own. I feel more confident as I was able to complete 85% of them in class (with some clues and hints from the instructors) and 15% were so hard, I'm still researching the answer at the time of this review. What I realized is that in practicing algorithms, I had actually learned how to program code! I was slow at first, but grew faster each week.

I'm no expert by any means but I can say that I have become a Full Stack Developer. I know enough to build basic applications and with time and a chrome browser, I can build more complex full stack applications. I know how to use HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JQuery, Git, Restful Apis, Ajax. No Sql Databases like Firebase and MongoDb, Node.js, Express.js, React.js, Handlebars, Sequelize, and when looking at other programming languages, I am able to understand them at first glance, giving me the ability to learn new technologies faster and with confidence. 

There is a lack of developers in the world today, I'm lucky to live in Los Angeles where there is a hiring surge and high demand for developers. There are so many options for employment in so many different fields. I find the field of software development extremely interesting, even more so after having completed the course, I feel like I have gained super powers because I can now build applications to support any crazy idea I come up with. It takes a certain type of person to become a developer. You have to be motivated, detail-oriented, patient, stubborn with the attitude that you will perservere despite difficulty. Motivation will get you further than intelligence in this field.

Out of a class of 25, only 16 people graduated and completed the course. Of those, there were some extremely intelligent people who apparently lacked the motivation or ability to complete the course. I'm not sure, but the people who did finish all had the same motivation. 

As a Bruin, I personally think I made a great decision to attend the UCLA Coding Bootcamp. There are literally hundreds of bootcamps available to attend, but after doing research I found that UCLA offered the best curriculum, in the least amount of time. The price was reasonable. The instructors and staff were top-notch and experts in the field, and the results speak for themself. Other bootcamps were either expensive, explored too many stacks to be effective, were not convenient, did not carry the reputation of a school like UCLA, did not offer extensive career services, or wanted a piece of your salary for a specific amount of time once your were hired. 

I highly recommend the UCLA Full Stack Web Developers Coding Bootcamp for aspiring developers. Be ready to work. Don't quit and keep learning. 

I took the part-time bootcamp online. I think the remote aspect of it made completion more difficult for many of my peers, as a majority of the original students did not finish the program. 

If you're taking the program part-time alongside a full-time job, it can be incredibly challenging to balance work, personal life and the program's demands. This program takes a lot of support and understanding from family and significant others to see through completion. 

Before enrolling, I'd do some preemptive self-teaching, especially of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The course moves quickly, and the classmates who did not complete it often seemed less prepared for what they had gotten themselves into. They may not have done their due diligence to truly know they'd like this new career path. And given the costs and commitment to complete the certification, I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. You have to have a degree of love for programming or a piqued interest, I think, to stick it out for 24 weeks.

The UCLA Coding Bootcamp provides an in-depth introduction into all the lanuages and tools you will need to pursue web development. If you are someone who needs to hear information, interact with educators and have structure to jump start your learning I highly recommend this course. Please note that the course is very classroom, homework and project based (no testing). This is beneficial because it will prepare you for the inevitable collaborative, team-intensive professional environment and project management tools (GitHub), however, I recommend testing yourself or asking the TAs and instructors to challenge you to ensure you retain information and develop proper thinking. I personally appreicate testing for the different type of feedback it provides; I learn where I am competent and where I need to study more. I would have liked more testing.

Furthermore, there is an incredible career support team that will help you develop all the skills and materials you need not only while you're in the course but until you land a job afterward! This is an invaluable resource as landing a job requires different skills than just technical! The "Milestones" are more like check-ins and provide just enough feedback. If you need more personalized attention and assistance definitely schedule and build a rapport with your career coach. To supplement the career services, there are online workshops for behavioral interviews, talks with industry professionals, how to write a technical resume, negotiating salary, etc.. 

Like with anything, the more you put into the course, the more you will get out of it! Be ready for class. Get sleep and eat well. Utilize office hours and career and tutoring services. Practice logic on Code Signal or Code Wars (highly recommended). You will set yourself up for success. And remember to rest, not quit.

It was fantastic experience, both professionally and personally. The program is well put together, the hours are very resonable and the instructor Clark and the TA Patrick  and Peter  are very knowledgeable on the subject.

The coaching mentor Irene is very organized as well and will give you all tools and information to get you ready for a possible interview.

Be prepared tho, this is not a walk in the park. It requires hard work in class and outside of class hours, nobody is gonna hand you a job after the class. 

The best suggestion i can provide is to completely dedicate yourself to it and give it your best shot. 

The class was great. There were times where I felt the class was moving way too fast - but for the most part it moved at a steady enough pace. I learned quickly not to dwell on a topic for too long if I wasn't fully grasping it to avoid falling behind on new/current topics.

One negative thing I felt is that some students tended to hog TA Help time and/or questions/answers during class which made it difficult to get a word in sometimes. Also some of the conversations between students in class before/after class started seemed a little inappropriate at times - maybe set better 

Would recommend the program. Easy to get to in Westwood, CA. Right next to the beautiful UCLA campus. Plenty of parking. Clark will no longer be teaching the class but I have confidence his replacement will be great.

When I first decided to look for a class to sign up for, I didn't have a good idea as to what I actually wanted to do. I did some research and found UCLA coding bootcamp. After some debating, I signed up and never looked back. After the first week, I already learned a lot more than I ever knew before. As class went on, everyday brought more challenges with lots of help that was just a question away. We would jump from one activitey to then next. If there was ever something that I didn't understand, the teacher and TA's were more than happy to help! As we got closer to the end of the class, things did get a little difficult, but with the posotive support from everyone in the school, we all made it together. I have never been to  a school that can show so much support in learning and in personal matters. 

Now that I graduated, I am activley looking for a job and I still have support. Career services helped me setup my resume, portfolio, and my LinkedIn acct to make me look professional and employment ready. 

This course was the experience of a lifetime and I met many good (virtual) friends along the way! 

Prior to choosing a program, I researched a number of options. What gravitated me towards choosing this one was both the price point, as well as the content of the curriculum. For a much lower price compared to other bootcamps, in this course you learn tools and technologies both for front-end as well as back-end development. Not only that, although the full-time course is much more rigorous and you have less time to digest the material, working through solving problems with others and making connections in class was invaluable.

I am happy and grateful to have been part of a class full of students eager to learn and work together. Our instructor, Clark, was an incredibly valuable resource and skilled lecturer. Having two TA's in the class was very effective in getting extra help both inside and outside of class. Despite the fast-paced nature of the course, the material was covered in such a way that was clear and to the point. I found that the structure of the class (lecture/activities/homework/projects) was effective in being able to learn a large amount of material in a short period.

It is important to note that there is no magical course or book that will make one a skilled developer. It takes hundreds of hours of practice. This course gave me the knowledge, tools, and skills I needed to be a developer, but beyond that, it is up to every student to take the initiative to continue to polish their skills. This course will give you just that --- the skills and problem solving strategies needed to take a dive into being a developer in the field. Beyond the course, career services does a great job in guiding and encouraging you through your job search.

Looking back on my experience from the program, I got what I wanted and more. In hindsight, I'd definitely choose this course again.