UCLA Extension Boot Camps

I came in with a background in Research, and I was considering a career shift into Software Development. This program was the best fit for me, given my circumstances. This program was fantastic, and I felt that at every level the instructors, TAs, and support staff were dedicated to our success. The challenges that I faced during the course were the sheer volume of information that was thrown at us. I had the great fortune to have a really great instructor, Omar Patel, who helped guide us through a lot of the very difficult topics.

While I found the course to be easy, I had some exposure to coding and software beforehand. However, I still found it very challenging because of the sheer volume of information that needed to be absorbed. Still, I don't think that there was any other way to learn this much information in this short of a time period. For prospective students, I would highly recommend making sure that you can dedicate the time necessary to succeed.

For career support, I'm currently still in the job search. However, I am encouraged after meeting with several industry insiders and career professionals who have offered me mentorship. They were very impressed with how much I had learned, and I think that that reflected very well on the course as a whole.

My biggest challenge during this course was being able to manage my time effectively. I worked full time while going to class, and I found time management very difficult. However, that was to be expected. Overall, I felt that this program was a very positive experience.

I recently graduated from the April 2017 - Oct 2017 Part Time Cohort. I have to say this was easily one of the best investments I've ever made for my career. Prior enrolling into the Coding Bootcamp at UCLA Extension I was researching many close competitors but UCLA was the best choice for several reasons: Cost, MERN Stack, Reputation, Part Time Options.

Upon enrolling in this bootcamp I had 2-3 months of coding experience under my belt and I have to say this program is extremely fast paced and intense. The rate of learning is unlike anything else I have experienced but it's the only way to make a serious career transition. Every week it's like climbing a new mountain as there is so much to learn and absorb. It requires full commitment inside and outside of the classroom to succeed.

What I enjoyed most about the program was the support from the instructional staff. We had a top notch instructor - Cameron Manavian who had 15 years experience in the field and several teaching assistants who were full time software engineers. No matter how difficult the class was - they were with us every step of the way and I don't think I would have been able to succeed without them.

In addition I saw myself grow as person and overcome enormous challenges while building strong relationships with classmates. It was a very positive learning environment and much different than your traditional college classroom. I fully endorse the Coding Bootcamp at UCLA Extension and believe it's a high quality program. Although I'm still in the job search process, I have returned to the program as a TA for the Nov 2017 cohort which I did not even think was possible for a fresh grad. 

If you are considering this program - I highly recommend it. My best piece of advice is to fully commit to the program while in it and trust the process which is not always enjoyable. This program teaches very in demand skills and it's worth your time. 

BTW - Alex Garret is a great student success manager if you get the chance to work with him. He will steer you in the right direction no matter what background you are coming from. 

The Coding Boot Camp experience at UCLA was an amazing experience where I made invaluable connections with both peers and professionals alike. I am known for being very wordy and rambling, so I'll try my best to keep myself concise. Just as a general background information about myself before the program, I'm a UCR graduate of 2015 with a Bachelors of Arts in English in Literature. I had zero experience in anything to do with programming before this experience, and now I'm employed with an established financial tech company in DTLA, and learning tons (DevOps, Full Stack Development, Automation, etc). 

Curriculum - Being a complete novice with all things web development, this curriculum turned me into a capable programmer qualified to get interviews and getting job offer(s). There was a wide range of students in this program, one was a professor in data science, some in the cohort had also taken other boot camp courses (General Assembly) and/or online degrees (i.e. Udacity), some with a Computer Science degree, and some who already had several years of experience in the tech industry as developers. I felt that for serving such a wide audience, the curriculum was capable of teaching people with no experience and those with experience equally well. If anyone seemed to fall behind, the instructor was willing to set aside time outside of their own regular office hours. 

One thing that one should consider is that the curriculum (even in a part-time program that's extended over 6-7 months), the topics are mainly taught to a point where you will have a good understanding. Mastery or even advanced skills comes from one's own work ethics, and drive to educate themselves on said topics further. One of the many reasons why I think part-time coding boot camp was such as wise decision is that it gave me time in between the lectures to truly absorb the material and study it, rather than cram it in a single day. 

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Instructors - I've had Omar as my instructor and it was with his successful style of teaching that I was able to absorb content so quickly, all the while being able to research and create more projects (I went into AR/VR games, a little bit into ML but never published to public repo since it was a pet project, and much more exciting projects). It was through his informative lecture and guidance, that I was able to absorb a great volume of content in a short amount of time. 

Another thing to consider is the fact that Omar took extra time outside of his work hours to help students, something that I think should be commended to the highest degree as it shows true passion and support for students' growth. Many instances of him launching Zoom meetings on Sundays or other days to review and go over any questions anyone had throughout the curriculum (from other schools across the country too). Stellar dedication and wisdom from years of experience in the field, what more can you ask for a mentor? 

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Job Assistance: This is the portion that I think many people have been pretty harsh on their reviews with. Without getting too specific, our program initially had another career counselor who was in charge of our UCLA cohort. They were engaged during the first week of the course, but as soon as the third week came around, they disappeared and communication was close to null. It was later announced that we would be getting another career counselor already in charge of a huge program at another school. 

Judging simply from the background story, anyone can guess that only means that this career counselor would be in charge of multiple cohorts, not just a single set like it was designed to be. So why did I give this program's Job Assistance score an amazing score of 5 stars? It's because the individual in charge of various cohorts including ours, Jenna Fuentes, did a stellar job even with double or even triple the amount of responsibilities she had compared to the norm. 

Much like the course (including the curriculum itself), you get what you put into the job search. Jenna set up a comprehensive session that seemed to target as wide of an audience in the graduate pool. I think it's a flawed to rate Job Assistance low based on job placement after graduation since the junior-dev job market is quite competitive with so many other boot camps producing developers, along with the typical pool of CS graduates and self-taught programmers. 


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To be perfectly real with those looking into getting any form of accelerated path into development, if you're in it to get a job as soon as possible. Just know that it's competitive and you need to put in the effort to get as much return on your time invested in this program. But like any other job market, if you have friends/familiy members in the industry, you will likely get an easy-way into the industry yourself via referral (from what I've noticed from majority of those that got employed fairly early). So definitely listen to your career counselor and instructor on networking as much as you can, or be prepared for the job hunt. Good luck to future aspiring developers joining this program, and just realize that taking a program like this will give you invaluable skills that you will likely benefit from even outside of a full stack development position.

The Good:

1. You will learn a lot. You will learn important skills. You need to be mentally prepared for this and adapt your work schedule to keep up accordingly. You will keep on learning after the course. However, you must be prepared accordingly. Watch JS tutorials. Read JS books. Finish the courses on code academy and if you want more preparation, get the highly reviewed $180 dollar courses on udemy when they’re on sale (hint: they’re always on sale for $10-$15).  

2. You will meet people in the same boat as you and at the end of the class they will be your future network. Each class has their own Slack channel for communication with each other. Don’t be afraid to message each other for help or support. You’re all there to learn and be better and more empathic developers.

3. The instructors and career service people are knowledgeable and nice. Really, I’ve never met a better group of people who wouldn’t go the extra mile for their students. Go to them for support in case of breakdowns, personal issues, etc., and they’ll understand. They’re all very nice people and you should get to know them on your journey.

4. Resources. You’ll receive many resources on what to learn, how to learn, what to put on your resume, how to structure your resume. The responsibility is going to be on you to go through these resources and study them, and take them seriously. You’ll be expected to do a lot of research on your own especially when it comes to creating your own projects.

The Bad:

1. If there’s something that I wish we did more of, that would be pair programming. I believe the programming is constantly evolving and they’re instituting it more in future programs, but I wish my cohort had done more pair programming challenges. Some people did not understand the importance of communication in programming, and I think many could have benefited from the lessons that pair programming can teach.

2. On that note, technical communication could have been emphasized more. We did do whiteboarding in classes, but more emphasis on technical jargon would be useful for future technical interviews at companies.

3. Certain topics on the curriculum were skipped over and I’d have appreciated them going over some SEO techniques. Some of them can be easily researched. 

4. More selectivity would probably be good for the program and the students. It seems like many students couldn’t hack the program and just disappeared. Some students also stuck with the program but seemed like they didn’t learn much from it from lack of trying. I believe they’re making the entrance more challenging, but they should really emphasize to prospective students that their hands aren’t going to be held the entire time and a lot of work would be required before the program even starts.

The Ugly:

1. Looking back at your code from the first two months and realizing that you have to refactor most of it to make it look presentable to other people.

TL;DR Learn to code, code all night, meet cool people, make friends, hang out in Westwood, get a new job, work hard, play hard, and keep learning. 

It is overall a great course for  aspiring web developers. They tried to touch every aspect of web development currently in market. However I am sure that they are going to get better and better in coming sessions.  During my session I was made to understand lot of web development with examples. The only  thing found needs fine tuning is .. Real Business scenario. As most of the examples were based on games only and also the data driven web development was not very much in sync with real world  

Coding booting exposes students to a lot of technologies. For those that thrive in a formal class room setting and being able to interact with teacher hear other students this is the course for you. Omar P. if your lucky enough to get him is an solid instructor thst has really master the craft of engaging student and has the ability explain complex concpet in a simple manner. Cheers to him!

This course is tough! They say the class is part time however the work load can easily take 20 - 30 hours a week to complete. If you have a family go ahaead and just tell them you'll see them in six mounths since you'll spending all your free time coding. Plus having a full time job and taking this course is extemely challenging and physically taxing. Every week you're learning new technologies and just as you begin to feel comfortable with the matrial your start working on a new technology. During this difficult times I found working/pair programming with  other students and TA's assist my time of fustration. 

Tip's: practice, practice, practice. Learn javscript asap!

When I signed up for this course, I was only a high school graduate and barely starting my first year in college. At first, I really did not know what to expect, and just came in ready to learn. I was learning different technologies every week, and spent long hours coding to either review the material or finish homework.The course was extremely fast-paced, and challenging. However, I was grateful that I took this course because it was a great experience. I was the youngest in my class and needed a lot of help. I received a lot of support from my instructor and TAs. They were all very helpful and took the time to sit with you to explain the material if you were ever lost. They were also easy to talk to, and made you feel comfortable when asking for help. It was obvious that they really cared about the students and were willing to go the extra mile to help students learn and understand the concepts being taught. This course not only taught me about web development but also how to manage my time better, network, and not to give up. In order to succeed in this course, you need to put a lot of time and effort. Not only by going to class and doing/following the in-class activities but also going home and reviewing the material, watching videos about the different technologies you're learning, and spending time doing homework. Expect your days to consist of coding, coding, and coding. Overall, this course was extremely difficult but definitely worth it. 

I am a EE graduate that decided to switch careers and get into web development.

What this course does for you: it provides you the structure and guidelines to learn all the fundamentals of web development. You will learn to work with many different technologies and really learn how to learn. To reiterate, you will get as much as you put in, that means bringing your own passion and work ethic to topics being covered. You will find that web development (and programming in general) is a blackhole of information. This course allows you to make sense of all the noise and truly learn. Some of the topics towards the end of the course seemed to be a little less structured but I think they will become stronger in the future. I




What this course does NOT do for you: It will not make you an expert programmer in 6 months. You are most likely not going to land a 6 figure job right after graduating. 

What you need to do to succeed: Put in the time and the effort and you will be rewarded. The help is there for people who help themselves. There is little hand holding involved. Pair program often. While working in groups, make sure you have a firm understanding of the code you are writing by trading off coding and navigating. Get your resume and portfolio ready early before graduation.

Strengths: excellent instruction and competent TAs. These are the backbone of the course and they deliver well. 

Cons: I would say the network of employers that work with the program is sparse and not particularly interested. The services are decent but could go more in depth with each student.

 

If you're serious about becoming a job-ready web developer and you're not just going on a whim, the Coding Boot Camp at UCLA Extension is worth the money. You see, web development is no joke. You can't BS your way through coding; you either learn and work the long hours to truly master the concepts, or you don't... Even with some programming experience under my belt, I struggled tremendously.

I took the part-time version of this course (~20 hours per week), but I imagine the full-time one would be similar in its approach and results, just much more intensive. For half the course, I had a full-time job, and during the second half, I committed myself fully to the course.

Here are the pros, the vital benefits of the boot camp:

1. Structure = ACCOUNTABILITY. The greatest value in the course is that it forces you to sink or swim. Web development must become a priority in your life. It no longer is an afterthought or an aspiration; you will live, breathe, and dream in JavaScript. Having to go to classes, answering to an instructor, getting graded, working with group members and fellow students will do that. At first, it's a shock especially if you're lazy like me, but you grow into the habit of learning this new skill.
2. The instructor and TA's were suprisingly helpful and competent. They knew what they were teaching, and they were very pleasant at the same time. You always wonder if techies are going to be weird, but these folks were very approachable and endearing. Their advice was always helpful, and their mentorship, which still continues to an extent even after you finish, is invaluable.
3. Course content was well-structured and had a very logical flow. One lesson transitioned with ease into another, and the way they laid out the tech stack made a lot of sense. In hindsight, it was very apparent that whoever built the curriculum knew what they were doing. So, if you truly pay attention and practice at home on your own time, you will be job-ready by the end of the program.

I attribute what I know as a developer to this program, and if I had to learn what I learned on my own, with no assistance, I imagine it would have taken much longer (honestly, a year or more). The guiding nature of this program brings you tricks, tips, and best practices, which are small individually, but over the length of the course, they add up to make you a strong and well-rounded junior developer.

Also, please take the course seriously. It will be so easy to slack off. Imagine if you were NOT paying attention in the first few weeks; because the concepts build on each other, you basically have to do some extreme catch-up OR you lose all the value you can get out of the program due to your stupidity. It's like making a jump from one rooftop to another: either go HARD or go HOME, lest you break both ankles.

Some cons:

1. Depth is not their strong suit. Although there are so many topics to cover and just not enough time to really get into the nitty-gritty of everything, I would have liked a more in-depth treatment of certain topics such as JavaScript and React. These are more advanced topics and are difficult to follow, but I believe teaching or having these materials available to students would have been super helpful, especially for the job hunt. This is where books and other video courses online filled the gap.
2. I realize it is supposed to be a beginner-friendly course, but it would have been awesome if they had some supplementary lessons on Internet marketing, SEO, web design, analytics, and other very practical aspects of building websites and apps. I am realizing after the fact that this knowledge would have come in handy. If you are planning to launch your own websites, make sure to research this stuff on your own.
3. Job assistance was lackluster. They are going to get you up and running with the very basics: your resume and LinkedIn game will be scrutinized. There are career assignments and activities that will force you to work on your networking and interviewing skills. However, "job assistance", in the way I wanted it, never really came. Ideally, I would've LOVED to be put in a room with 100 recruiters who are actively looking for junior developers just like me, but I would have settled for just 20-30. The amount that actually came in was a slow trickle over the length of the course, and I don't know if any of my classmates were able to capitalize on those very few leads. For me, those leads didn't convert, but I guess that says more about me. However, the staff were super helpful with career advice. The one saving grace that I can offer was that the instructor took us out to external networking events, and helped us talk to people. Our success manager actively passed us job opportunities and linked us with important people. I just wish that they threw more substantial networking events for us, ones where we can just give out our resumes like candy. However, it was a good lesson in understanding that you can't rely on external parties to promote yourself. You have to adopt a go-getter attitude to land that job or anything worthwhile in life.

Despite flaws, this boot camp is worth it.

I first took this course because I wanted to gain more knowledge in web development. Even though the course was really challenging but I did learn a lot of different technologies. The experience was awesome, I got to meet other classmate that came from different background but we all want to learn and have the same goal. I did recieve a lot of support from the instructor, tutors and classmate. To current and future student, you need to put in a lot of effort into reviewing in class materials and homework. You need to have time management in juggling reviewing and homework, also I would recommend codewars to gain advancement in programming. Omar is a fantastic teacher, he's really hand on and engaging. He will goes the extra mile in explaining the lesson and checking in with you to make sure you are not struggling in class. I would definitely take his class again if I can. Overall, its a great course and a good learning experience. 

I found this course in a time in my life when I was in a very tough place and needed to grow. And when I looked into the program it became the right decision more and more. I came into the course with no knowledge of software engineering but came out of the course feeling so confident and powerful. You have to make this course work for you! What did you come here wanting to accomplish? Who do you want to become? How do you want to grow? Just because you sign up don't think that's the end. This course is about hard work and dedication. It's about consistently going out there and building those dreams you came in wanting to accomplish. If you're ready to change your life, yourself and your career make the commitment and take this course. The instructors are great, the staff is dedicated and everything that you need to achieve your goals is provided. The only thing needed is heart and you'll make it happen. 

I am so happy I took this course. I had always had an interest in coding and web design but was somewhat scared to take the leap into it. I remember starting the class nervous and worried — since my background was in marketing/writing. However, I was quickly met with challenges and a vast amount of support from the team at the coding bootcamp.

One of the biggest challenges for me was breaking code and making mistakes. I was scared of mistakes but I quickly learned to be comfortable with making mistakes and ultimately learning so much in such a short amount of time because of my new comfort and the support of the TA’s and instructor. No matter how mistakes I made I was always met with encouragement and support.

This program is great for those who want to continue working full-time. I would say the six month program is one of the few coding bootcamps that you can do while continuing to work. The support of the both the instructor and the staff helped me transition from my marketing manager position at work into a junior web developer.  I am so happy I chose to take this course, although it was challenging, I was able to have fun and actually looked forward to every class.

The Coding Bootcamp was one of the most intense yet amazing experience I've had so far in both my education and working career. The entire faculty has been very supportive and have provided students with enough help to be successful in class.

Coming in with very little experience with programming, this program has definitely increased my knowledge and enabled me to create simple websites to very functional applications. As a designer, It enabled me to access different realms of advancement and has truly increased my expertise making me a more valueble candidate for employers.

Please take note however, it's a Bootcamp, you better be ready to put in the work or you're going to get your butt kicked.

This full stack web developer bootcamp is the best decision i had made for my career. I was planning to attain grad school; but then choose this bootcamp instead to learn new technology. I have a bachelors degree in computer engineering, even though i didnt know how to properly make a full stack application. This course taught me how to make a full stack web application using all the new technology (MERN stack) and it enabled me to quickly grasp other relevant important technologies like MEAN stack as they are one and the other. The instructor, tutors and career support is phenomenal; they always respond to my pings/queries in less than an hour when i am not in class. 

Instructor (Omar Patel) was extemenly helpful and have a tendency to explain things in simple terms,terms that we can easily understand and hard to forget. Tutors were also very helpful in teaching and solving queries. I mostly worked with Jonathan (tutor), he's great and always tries to push me to learn other things. Career support is also helpful, they organized many career sessions where you can meet with potential employers. 

I strongly recommend to take this course at UCLA extension to the people who wants to change their field to IT or who wants to improve on their programming skills. I engouraged many of my friends to take coding bootcamps instead of studying a course in the college because bootcamp gives you practical knowledge while college course gives you theoratical knowledge.

TL;DR

Ignore bootcamp stereotypes, focus on yourself and what you want.  The harder the struggle the better the payoff, if its too easy, step it up! This bootcamp will definitely challenge you but reward you by introducing you to new things, people, and ideas.

If you're here it means that you're searching around for some way to better yourself and either improve on skills or learn new skills for a possible career. I was in the same boat about 9-10 months ago, searching for a place where I could learn something entirely new to help change my life around.  

Fresh out of highschool, I was accepted into Cal Poly San Luis Obispo's computer engineering program, I thought I would be able to keep up but I soon had to drop out due to my grades and other difficulties.  Shortly after, I spent 4 years getting a bachelors degree in IT and working customer service/help desk jobs, not being able to break into the industry doing what I wanted to do for the next few years. After changing direction and doing web design for 6 months, I appreciated the work I did with that and wanted to pursue that but only found out (at the time) in order to get into web design and development you needed a Computer Science/Engineering degree.  I kept hearing this everywhere I went so I did research and wanted to go back to school, but since I already had a bachelors degree, alot of places were limited and would not let me apply.  Schools not for everybody I guess right?

It was then I heard about coding bootcamps, but of course there was a trail of negativity and stereotypes behind them.  I looked into SO many, but none of them really fit what I was trying to accomplish or I couldn't afford them or I couldn't attend full time due to other obligations.  But there comes a time in your life when you need to drop all your excuses, forget everyone elses opinions, and just go for it.

I spoke with Alex to address all of my concerns about bootcamps, what I will be learning, possible career options, and much more.  Alex was very helpful and answered all of my questions patiently (I think we spoke for over an hour).  After talking with Alex, I was a little more at ease about the program but still somewhat skeptical. I needed to just jump in and do it.

What was great about this program was that it wasn't a WYSIWYG: it was a dynamic, challenging, frustrating, tiring, fun, and emotional experience (for me at least).  I didn't just learn "Full Stack Flex Development" or just strictly Javascript, I was taught how to learn so that If I ever want to learn something outside of development I have the ability to do so. Major props to the instructors, TA's, staff, and peers who made that possible and who gave me the drive to succeed.  

In conclusion, you're going to find a lot of places and hear a lot of things.  The decision is yours, but I am highly recommending The Coding Bootcamp at UCLA Extension because of my experience and outcome.

Omar Patel is a great professor. He's very hands on and engaging. He's very open to new ideas of teaching to better engage students and get them excited about learning the subject. He makes himself available outside of class, puts in the extra effort to get you the help you need, and wants you to succeed. With every problem, he challenges you to figure it out on your own, but gives you the tools you need to get to the end result.

The course is challenging and requires a lot of studying outside the class. You will succeed with the help provided, the TA's and Omar are great, but if you aren't willing to put in the work or seek out assistance when behind, it will be extremely difficult to catch back up.

When taking this course, expect to be challenged and expect to put in the work every week, and be ready to take advantage of all the assistance provided outside of class time.

On top of teaching the material, Omar provides a lot of assistance in finding jobs, more than would be expected of him.

Ever wanted to learn how to code? Interested in joining a supportive community? If so, then the Coding Boot Camp with UCLA is right for you! I know it was right for me in my personal experience. I had limited coding knowledge prior to joining, but after 6 months, I became confident in my ability as a junior web developer.

Overall Experience: 
Perhaps the most important mindset to have entering the boot camp (or any boot camp for that matter) is that you need to put in the time to learn not only in class, but outside of class as well. You get out as much as you put in after all. With that in mind, the program was designed to help you help yourself. Every week there is a homework assignment designed to challenge you and expand on the lectures in class. There are also 3 projects where you work in teams; these projects are meant to start your portfolio for your career search. 

Curriculum:
The curriculum for this program was made to give you the strong foundation you need to continue learning even after the boot camp. The pace is quick, but you'll get the hang of it so long as you put in your hours coding. The curriculum starts off with front end technologies, then back end. All of which you learn are in demand technologies based off of market research. The instructors also tend to send you additional resources (like video tutorials, articles, etc) related to the curriculum. 

Instructors:
With their own personal knowledge and experience in the tech community, the instructors can really give you insight into the job market and the sort of skills you need to expand upon to make yourself competitive. I really enjoyed learning from my instructors and appreciate how they went above and beyond to help me out. I never once felt like I was on my own when I was learning, and I always knew that they were there for me if I needed help.

Job Assistance:
The career assistance is really focused on helping you find opportunities to interview for. Going to interviews itself is always a learning opportunity. If anything, I think the one thing that has helped the most in this aspect is the community. Your fellow classmates, instructors, and counselors all have resources they share with you to help you enter the tech industry. It's really up to you to then pursue them. Not even a 3 weeks after I completed the program, I already found a job where I can use the skills I learned in the boot camp. 

Basically, the Coding Boot Camp with UCLA has been worth every dime and penny. No regrets there!

This course is not EASY!!! It requires time and dedication. But don't let this discourage you, the faculty team is supportive and knowledgeable. The instructor, Omar Patel, is amazing at presenting coding concepts and teacher's assistance makes themselves readily available for office hours.  

This course is part-time, but you'll have to study and work outside of class to grasp the concepts. It is recommended that you put in 20 hours/week, at times you'll be frustrated and doubting your intelligence. But happens to most students, I had felt this way once or twice during this course but I survive and you too can do same. 

To do well in this course you'll need the following:

1: Time Management: Allocate time to study the material, do not rely on being spoon fed for material.

2: Resilience: This is going to be difficult with a lot of material being thrown at you. Just remember your ultimate goal, and how this course is going to help achieve this goal. 

3. Open-mind: Learning to develop is completely different and new and requires a different mindset.   When learning these skills step in with an open mind and explore a new perspective of thinking. 

If you are looking to start a career in development I highly recommend this course. I've done my share of research regarding coding camps before picking this course and I am happy with my decision. This program offers great curriculum and value.

1) Overall Experience

I had a very positive experience.  As i mentioned before,  my goal was to get a job in tech as a developer and this program helped me do just that. There is no magic involved, just like with anything else, you get what you put in. Before starting the program I had basic understanding of HTML and CSS, and very very basic understanding of JavaScript. Upon completion of this program I knew how to build full-stack JavaScript applications.

As I said before, just like with any other Boot Camp, you are going to get what you put in.

2) Curriculum

The curriculum is designed to teach you in demand technologies. The curriculum does a good job of covering everything from the front-end to server side. The projects and homework in the curriculum will give you relative freedom and creativity to build applications that are based on the in demand technologies. Most importantly it will teach you JavaScript in depth, from on screen interaction to server side scripting and data manipulation.  

3) Instructors

The instructors and TAs were awesome! ALL are professionals in their fields. The instructors and TAs are very passionate and engaging. I never had a problem getting help from them. If ever there was something I did not understand or a problem that at the time i could not overcome they would go out of their way to help me.  

4) Tips for success

I've had close to 0 programing experience before this program, and a few weeks upon graduation I've already secured a contractor position.

What can I say? You get what you put in. If you have 0 programing experience just like I did, be prepared to go above and beyond, doing the minimum is not going to be enough. That goes for ANY boot camp, not just this one.

Take some time prior to the start of the program and take some online courses

(There are plenty of free courses available online). That will help you get the ball rolling and help you spend more time building apps and projects rather than trying to understand the syntax of the programming language. Ask plenty of questions, I can guarantee you that if you have a question about something there is at least one person that has the same question!

During the program I would encourage you to continually learn topics of interest on your own.

f your aptitude is high and you feel that you are not being challenged, figure out a way to challenge yourself. See if you can incorporate other technologies into your projects or homeworks.

Practice , practice and practice!!!! The only way to actually learn programming is to build stuff.  

This program is great for all levels of students, from first time coders to students with CS degrees. The program is really well designed and structured to build upon the previous weeks lesson and assignments.

Even though this is "part time", it is very much a full time commitment. While I have a CS degree and have been coding for some time, full stack was still new and at times it was a challenge to keep pace with the homework assignments AND work a full time job. Working fulltime and enrolling in this program is possible, but I would highly recommend discussing with team at UCLA Extension if you have the technical foundation to work full time and complete the homework and projects. Classes are essentially total approximately 12 hrs per week, then you will be working on your homework and projects between 10-30hrs per week. Even if the homework is easy, the more you put into this program, the more you will get out of this program. That goes for both the technical AND the career building aspects of this program.

I was already employed as a backend developer and took this program to learn the overall "stack" and the tools and technology involved. While the specific technology taught is not part of my day job (I code in python), learning Javascript and NodeJS, along with the essential base engineering for web appliations has greatly improved my abilities at my current position. The career building information was also fantastic and has given me a great foundation how to present my skills and apply for a new job when I'm ready.

This program was worth every penny spent and very happy to have enrolled and recommend it highly!