UCLA Extension Boot Camps

This course is extremely helpful in starting a career in software development by learning new material at a great pace and providing you with as many resources.

The class curriculum is flexible and can change dependent on student learning flow and the industry's evolving job requirements. The initial class schedule is based off the needed logic/material to learn basic web programming. As the course moves forward, the teachers and career advisors become open to any suggestions or changes that will help you to better understand material at your pace and/or increase your likelihood of finding a job. I really liked how students were able to vote on learning certain topics in the class and were given many opportunities for reviewing the material.

The teachers were also always readily available to help. In class, they are open ears majority of the time. They have a professional graps on the material and are very open-minded to the all levels of student experience.  Although they have their own jobs outside of class, they do try their best to respond to their student's messages/inquiries.

The homeworks and projects were engaging and range in difficulty. Students are typically given two different levels of homework, beginner or advanced. You have the freedom to choose one or both, which helped many students choose their own pace. As someone who has learned a different programming language before, the advanced homework was definitely doable for even the beginner programmer. It all depends on your learning pace and work ethic.

The career curriculum is just as helpful as the class material. The career advisors are constantly providing students with online resources, in-class sessions and bringing in accomplished developers/businesses to provide insight. The career sessions taught the class how to write resumes, search for jobs, speak in interviews and everything in between. Gabrielle and Alex, the career advisors of our cohort, were always welcoming and never batted an eye to any of the students. They will take time out of their day to meet or speak on the phone about any comments, concerns or suggestions.

The best thing about the course was being able to balance it with a full-time job. There were times when my time was very limited, but the pace of the course really helped me keep up with the material. The course requires you to keep an open mind and to constantly keep working hard for what you want.

I highly recommend this course over many other bootcamps as they have shown sincere caring for their students. Whether you never studied programming before or have been doing it your whole life, there is definitely something you can learn from this course. As long as you work for it, you are guaranteed to achieve your own success.

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I recently completed a cybersecurity bootcamp, and I couldn't be happier with my experience. This bootcamp is an excellent choice for beginners who want to delve into the world of cybersecurity. My instructor, Tony, was not only patient but exceptionally skilled at explaining complex topics in a clear and understandable manner. I gained a solid understanding of the basics of cybersecurity, thanks to Tony's guidance. I highly recommend this bootcamp to anyone looking to start their journey in cybersecurity. Read less

I have taken this UCLA WEB DEV FULL STACK PART-TIME course without any prior coding experience. My instructor was Diarmuid Murphy along with instructor assistant Meg Meyers. I want to say thank you to them for having so much passion and patience while teaching us. Great job! At the end of the course, you will learn how to build full stack web applications, with the most concurrent coding experience needed. The group interactions develop real life skills for communicating with co workers or future clients. One big advice i can give anyone is please take your time before starting the course learn HTML and CSS which may take around 3 weeks. Also, learn Java-Script basics. By doing this, you will have a much smoother learning experience. During the course, key to success is repeating what you learned that exact week. Do not worry take this course it is 100% worth it. It taught me not only coding, but that i can learn new things. The pressure makes you stronger!  Read less

To the person reading this, congratulations, you've made it this far and have taken the first step in pursuing this very nascent dream of delving into the complex and alluring world of cybersecurity. Perhaps you're like myself, who initially came to the program from the vastly different world of sales and marketing, or you've been moving up the ladder in the realm of IT, or, as is sometimes the case, you're motivated to impact the world in a positive and fulfilling way and recognize the importance of cyber defense and the many roles and positions available in this constantly growing and evolving field. 

This course changed my life, in ways too powerful to describe. On a personal note, a week before the course began, I was laid off from my job on a random Monday morning, with my items already in a box, carelessly discarded and left feeling lost, shocked, and confused as to where to go next. With my stress at an all-time high and the safety of a salary to help finance the rigorous studies forthcoming now gone, I came into the course already overwhelmed and doubting myself, almost doomed to fail before I began. I quickly realized that this defeatist mentality would get me nowhere, and sure enough, I turned a negative into a positive and used these hardships in a constructive way to double down on the chips, go all in, and give this program my all. 

It wouldn't be fair for me to write a review of this course without first mentioning my professor, the always punctual, consistent, professional, passionate, devoted, and inspiring Tony Schreiner, who, more than anything, was the key to me falling in love with cybersecurity. A good teacher can make or break a subject or student, and in the case of Professor Schreiner, his teaching and passion for cybersecurity reverberated through the screen; more than reading PowerPoint slides and logging off as soon as class ends, Professor Tony motivates and inspires, offers his plethora of real-world experience to compliment the often heavy nature of the software's used, and is as patient and devoted to his students and their personal success as he is to his own. And while he will be the first to tell you that success, whatever that may mean to you, is only matched by the effort you put forth, I can guarantee that if you show effort, drive, and focus during this course, Professor Tony Schreiner will go above and beyond to prepare you to succeed in the field and stand out amongst your peers. If I can be even half the professional he is in my career, then I will already stand head and shoulders above the rest. More than a professor, he is a mentor, and if on that first day of class, with your stomach in knots wondering if this is all too much and maybe you should turn back while you still can, you're greeted by him, consider yourself very lucky, and just know you are in the best of hands for the next six months.

The support you receive from the T.A's, who, in my experience, were all graduates of the program, is second to none, and if you have any questions at all, you are sure to receive assistance from someone who has walked the path you're on. The support from the career center, the guidaance cousnelors, and the direction given were all instrunmental in allowing me to anrow down my scope and delve into the more promising career avenues.

The course itself is advertised as a "jump in the deep end", meaning it'll be loaded, technical, and require concentration and focus if you aim to succeed; while this may be true, I would, in keeping with the "aquatic" theme, categorize is as more of a planned walk from the shallow end, to your knees, then the tippy-toes, and finally full laps in the complex and treacherous waters that are cybersecurity, while the lifeguard looks on. The lessons learned in week 1 will carry over into week 2, and week 3, and while week 4 and so forth will all be different, each more exciting and head-scratching then the last, the fundamentals learned previously prepare you to understand and master the chapter of the week and leave you prepared for the next. 

As I write this, I am not too sure what do with my free nights anymore. Without realizing it, I became quite attached to this course and the familiar faces in the Zoom chat. I am not sure what the future holds, however I am sure that with what UCLA and Trilogy Education provided I will be capable of anything.

If you are considering this program and course, you've made the right choice. As a proud graduate, I can assure you that this was the best decision of my life, and I am ecstatic to see where it takes me in the near future. Perhaps one day I'll even be a guest speaker, working in the field; only time will tell. But the good news is that, with the base given to me by this program and my CompTIA exam right around the corner, success, while never guaranteed, is highly probable.  Read less

I attended the “very expensive” cyber security boot camp which advertised high success in getting a job after the class. I took the class and then passed the Comp Tia security plus certification and cannot find a job. All entry level programs want someone with a Bachelors degree or higher. They tell me this bootcamp does not meet their standards and they are indicating this course may be useful for people already in the field. This course alone does not lead to a job in cybersecurity. I’m very unhappy that I took out a loan to take this class and worked hard to learn the material and did not get a good job to help me pay it back.  Read less

I have always wanted to build my product and have come up with many good ideas to start my own business in the past few years, but my first attempt failed, and I lost two companies and the products.

In my research to find out what I was doing wrong, I read about product management, which helped me understand what was wrong with my products.

“I was building the products for myself, not the users.”

I decided to learn more about it, and by doing little research, I was sure this Boot Camp was the best starting point for me, where I could start learning with confidence and without needing a related background!

I was very nervous about the first session, but I felt like I had known everyone for a long time, just after being in the class for 5 minutes.

The most outstanding point of this course was that I was never ashamed of not knowing things, and I felt very confident asking the questions repeatedly. 

The instructor and TAs would answer the questions in an understandable way to everyone.

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I'm really happy with the bootcamp. I chose to join in person part-time and dure to covid it turned to be online. In my opinion everyone was really prepared to teach online and the education received was great. The bootcamp is really fast pace, there are times were one can get frustrated, but that's part of the challenge and they told us that from the very beginning. In order to succeed, students must be really dedicated. Great job of the bootcamp personnel and instructors to fit all that we learnt in 6 months, great class structure. Read less

I am a 40 something going back to school. I found the UCLA Cybersecurity Bootcamp from a Google search and have been very satisfied with the experience.  The teacher and the TAs are very knowledgeable and want the students to succeed!  I initially signed up to become a certified ethical hacker but have reconsidered my career and will be pursuing Cloud Architecture.  The Bootcamp will definitely help you decide what career path you want (and don't want) to take.  The key is to make sure you study outside the class too.  Making your own reference guides, checking out YouTube, and revisiting the lecture notes are the keys to success, well at least they were for me.  When you sign up for this program, you are also signed up for job assistance. Be ready to polish your resume, LinkedIn account, and your brand statement! Read less

Absolutely LOVED this experience! What a transformational program for myself and my career. The curriculum is very complete and the instructional staff genuinely cares about your success. If you join this bootcamp, try to get Omar as your instructor. Omar is very good at what he does and he's incredibly genuine. He also carves out time to check-in with every student on a bi-weekly basis to discuss career goals, and personal growth in the course. I was really successful in a lot of my interviews thanks to the prep that was embedded in during our class times too. We also practiced a Git workflow that paralleled closely with what's expected in the real world. I also got a chance to make really good friends walking out of the program. If I really had to think through one critical review it would be to incorporate more SQL curriculum, but that's an easy adjustment.

The TLDR is: 

• yes, this is an awesome program
• it has very complete and very applicable curriculum, 
• outstanding support from instructor, TAs and student success staff
• make sure to sign-up to be Omar's student, 
• enjoy the ride!

Highly recommend!  Read less

I took the part time bootcamp online. I definitely struggled most of the course but I just kept trying and refused to give up, and now thanks to my newfound skillset and one of the many webinars that Trilogy ed offered on the side for free, I've got my first job offer already (one month after course completion)! I'll be moving my family to Boston in the fall for the job! My instructors were phenomenal and I want to really emphasize how helpful they were during the entire process of learning code and applying to jobs. Not only was I working a job during the program, but I also have a toddler at home. I do believe in-class would've been better learning for me, but commuting would've been a huge headache and more difficult for me to balance with the rest of my life...so choose carefully! Online definitely had its challenges. Even though it was part-time, it didnt feel like it. We had daily homework or studying/reviewing to catch up on. Only half of my class graduated... it took serious dedication and many tears of frustration (even in class - lol) but now, at the light at the end of the tunnel, I am so extremely grateful for signing up for this course! I had no experience beforehand(0), and i still made it!! My life is changed for the better and my career is about to begin! Read less

The course at times can become intimidating, however with enough effort and determination, you will find this class to be extremely informative. 

I personally chose to take the course to understand Industry lingo and how to apply the skills I had taught myself in a work like environment. 

I learned a lot of new areas to study in Cyber Security, subjects I would have never studied/been interested in if it wasn't for this course. 

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First off I want to say that I am truly grateful to UCLA and Its staff for providing me an opportunity to better my life. My passion for Ux/Ui has grown tremendously through out this experience and the professor and TA's could not have been better.

For those of you afraid or hesitant to make the jump in giving this bootcamp course a chance I can relate. To some like myself who is not financially well off it may be a bit of a big investment, didn't graduate college for financial reasons, but like me, the financial staff at UCLA help me get approved for Sallie Mae and were very helpful in trying to make this opportunity come true for me. Now 6 months later I can't thank them enough. 

Managing a bootcamp course and a full time job was very hard at times but now that I have graduated time flew and I find it very rewarding. Over the course of the 6 months I've learned so many things and met some great people along the way and I look back at it now and realize I've gained so much more than just knowledge on Ux/Ui. I walked away from this class with a newly lit fire in my heart and some great friends.

The class itself was tough at times (could just be my 30yr old brain that hasn't been in school for almost a decade) but as long as you pay attention and ASK QUESTIONS you willl never walk out of that class feeling lost. The professor and ta's always made sure that I understood fully before moving on or provided a time to come help me to make sure I got it. Its the little things like these that they do right and has me writing this review and recommending it to you all.

Take that leap of faith, Trust your gut, 6 months later it will ATLEAST be the one thing you DON'T REGRET doing in your life. If my review has helped even one of you it was well worth it.

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I would recommend this bootcamp to anybody. Byfar, it is the cheapest bootcamp around but that does not reflect on the education you acquire.

 

I had awesome classmates and a terrific instructor, Clark! He could answer all our questions in the way that each individual could understand. Everybody in my class was immersed and interested, so their filtering system to apply for the class is spot on! 

 

What you get out of this is what you put into it. I, literally, studied 6+ hours a day, outside of class. I had zero experience going in and came out feeling confident that if I keep learning, I could be in the programming field.

 

Obviously, this will not put you into a programming position right away. DO NOT BELIEVE anybody that tells you, you can learn to be a fully functional programmer in 3 months, 6 months, maybe even 1 year. You will have to keep learning and keep making yourself a better programmer. My instructor taught me exactly that. He taught me how to teach myself so when I have completed the course, I can continue learning technologies by myself.

 

The curriculum was great for the time allotted. I feel like some parts did not need much explaination and spent too much time on. It is understandable that you can not teach everything in the 4 hours per day, 5 days a week, in 3 months. I wanted even more work and more knowledge, thats how captivating my intructor made programming to be!

 

I did not participate in the career/job assistance part so I have no opinion about it. But they do seem to want to help every student.

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I thought the boot camp was a good experience. One thing for people taking this course to keep in mind is that YOU WILL NOT BE A SENIOR DEVELOPER AFTER TAKING THIS COURSE!

This course will give you the ground work of being a web app developer. The course is fast paced especially after Jquery (about 3rd or 4th week). So you will have to spend a lot of time codeing, refactoring, restarting, and reseaarching what you are working on.

The course definitely could use some adjustments to make.

1. If groups cannot find a client then they should be given goals to complete by the instructor.
2. Projects should be looked at before hey are presented. There were a few groups that claimed they implemented something like React but when you look at their code they did not have anything react related.
3. Homework should be cumulative. It would be better if the homework kept building up to a complete project that incorporated all the work from the class.
4. Portfolios should be required completed projects that are graded by the TA's and looked at from a interviewer perspective. This could be the cumulative from #2
5. There should be better documentation like how to docs for installation of ALL the software used in the course. It would also be good to have this as items the students can look back to as reference for other things like how to start up the server etc.
6. The assignemnt names should match whats in bootcamp so its easier to know where assignments are to be turned in to.
7. Projects should incorporate work done inclass and from Homework and be part of the requirements and what the group uses should be approved by the TAs/instructor. Ex: APIs that the group wants to use should be approved by TAs and instructors to ensure they are something that should be used. - its one thing to use a random API/NPM its another to use one that is actually usefull.
8. The in class repo should be kept up to date with current best practices. Many times the instructor for my group had to update the repo to current best codeing standrads.
9. Bootcamp spot should work better. For a web development course having the site be as buggy as it is/was is very disturbing.

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I only have high praise for this class and its instructors. If I could break down my whole experience it would be the following:

1. Coding is not easy, but they make it manageable

The course provides tons of practice materials and an instructor (Omar Patel) who makes it fun. It will take a strong determination and dedication to the course materials and what the instructors recommend to truly master the material. Do not only rely on these instructors to get you through the class. It is recommended minimum of 25 hours to truly be job ready. After the course I completely agree with that number. If you are not used to working 65 hours a week (assuming you work 40 hours a week) do not take this class. If you are set on this, you will have all the tools you need to be successful. 

2.  Get your schedule ready

The instructors recommend that you have a solid routine to master the material. They provide recommendations and coaching materials on how you should structure this. This was great because you don't even need to plan your own schedule, just follow theres. If for some reason it doesn't fit into yours, then they will work with you to figure something out.

3. They CARE

This is not a money grab program that is just looking to get you to commit and then leave you in the desert to fend for yourself. The instructors care about your success, the people in the class care about their classmates, and at the end of the day they really care about making you and the program successful. They will stay the extra ten minutes on a late Monday/Tuesday night after class, they will talk to you on Slack on weekends, and they talk to you about things outside of coding. This class will wear and tear on more than just your work schedule, but they are there to help beyond course material. 

Final Summary: Worth every penny, they give you what you need to succeed and they are a caring group of instructors. Be ready to put your head down and work but you can succeed if you do. I am a product manager and by the end of the course my engineering colleagues and other teams noticed the change in my terminology, knowledge, and confidence speaking to technical solutions. It helped take my career development to the next level.

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The course is very well thought-out and organized. The in-class assignments, homework, hw-solutions and videos are so thorough that just about anyone that makes an effort could follow along. Likewise, my instructors Clark, Elton and Paige were so helpful and way more patient that any instructor I had in college. Likewise, the classroom environment was extremely welcoming. The students in my class were all there to learn and help each other understand and progress. If you're looking for a challenging class that's equally rewarding, then I recommend this couse. Also, the building is really nice.

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This course has everything you need if you want to become a junior web developer. The teachers and TAs were great, very informative, and helpful. The information in the bootcamp is incredible, and if you take it seriously, study hard, and really work for it you can succeed as a junior web developer after doing this course with no experience previously. If you're looking for a career change, or an alternative to a degree this could be great for you. It is an INTENSE course, and not at all the same as a 4 year degree, so be prepared. You will have to study all day and night to succeed, but it will be worth it in the end.

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