UNC Charlotte Boot Camps

Have been waiting a while to post a full review of this program and attempt complete neutrality. 

During this cohort a ta was replaced, the student success manager was replaced, one ta was seemingly absent half the cohort and grading took months.Yes, it was mentioned a couple times that this was the lowest performing cohort so far, but I don't think that falls solely on the students.

To those considering this bootcamp regardless of the reviews, I encourage you to take the full-time course. From what I've noticed most of the students that succed, do so from attending the full time course. 

Personally, due to location and finances I had to attend the part-time course. 

To start: The curriculum comes with a fairly robust repository and even part-time it is still very fast-paced. 

When expressing interest in the bootcamp you will be showered with praise about the programs ability to change your life and put you in the perfect position to make a quick career change providing you with all of the tools you need to do so. It's nothing more than a sale's pitch to coax you into spending 10 grand, and the assessment you have to do to "gain entry" is just an illusion of legitimacy. The only thing you have to do is sign the check and the only thing you truly gain from this program is a foundation and a sliver of the experience you will need to get a job. The rest falls on you. Depending on why you are considering this program, if you are attending solely for a quick career change I would advise you to save your money and find online resources like Udemy.

At the start of the cohort we had, maybe 40 students? I can't even remember, but I'm fairly certain at last 10 dropped. For the first few weeks you will be covering some relatively trivial material, and after the refund grace period is over the curriculum will hit full speed. 

By the end we had probably 30 students, if that? Out of those, 4 months after graduation, of the ones I know of 2 people have front end positions and 1 has a part time gig teaching kids Javascript. I think there might be a couple more that found employment solely because they attended the class via recommendation of their employer and moved around internally. So, I'd wager about a 20% placement rate 4 months after graduation. 

The instructors were good but lead busy lives outside of the cohort and typically rotate weekly, and generally don't review your work unless requested so it generally falls to the ta's.

The ta's were really hit or miss, with some of them seemingly apathetic and bordering condescending, and most of them will have been former students of the bootcamp. There was a general sense of apathy among not only the ta's but among fellow classmates. Homework will generally get a good grade as long as its submitted and a majority of it could not be graded for a month or more. For the ta's and the instructors, this cohort is more of a side gig and thus not high priority, which is understandable.

In terms of the curriculum, in the Charlotte area most of the opportunity you I have seen personally is for Java, C#, ASP.Net, and Angular. While there was a brief discussion on ASP.Net and C#, the majority of the curriculum focuses on HTML, CSS, Javascript, and Node. The curriculum culminates with the M.E.R.N. stack, but discusses MySQL as well as MongoDb. 

As for personal gripes, the parking (which I believe has been resolved now) was an issue. There were times when the shared lot closest to campus was either closed or at max capacity, which can be pretty frustrating for someone who isn't familiar with the area or accustomed to Charlotte traffic. The bigger issue with this, and perhaps the location in general, is the fact that there were a couple classes that were canceled due to Sports events that would have made the campus nearly inaccessable. This coupled with cancellations due to holidays means that you are not only losing out on the classes you've paid for but also being pinched for time learning the material or some material is minimalized due to the schedule constraints.

On that note, this bootcamp is really only beneficial in terms of structure and the 10 grand you spend is great motivation to learn. As far as the curriculum goes, outside of a repository and a bit of terminology or best practices and design philosphy exposure, unless you need that structure and motivation to ensure that you independently learn, I would highly advise you to learn on your own with the help of Udemy and online courses. 

In the end, obtaining employment will fall solely on you and your ability to network, or creating a portfolio that presents work that sets you apart from other candidates based on code alone. (Assuming your consideration gets that far, which if you're attempting to use recruiters, I can promise you it won't because you are nothing but a sheet of paper and statistics to the vast majority of them until you have already been gainfully employed.)

I would like to emphasize that if you are attending this bootcamp in hopes that the certificate you will immediately qualify you for any position, know that it won't. The certificate means nothing. What does, is the portfolio you build from the skills you learn and the connections you make during the class. Speaking to recruiters or asking to be considered for positions with just the bootcamp alone as a fresh graduate will generally net you 0 interest, and as the career services will encourage you to do, networking is key. Attend events, lie through your teeth, "fake it till you make it," and learn interpersonal skills that can get you into a position and hope for the best.

Also, although you may be invested in your learning, a good portion of your classmates may not. There will likely be a fair number of people that do not invest the time they should, take it as seriously as they should, or apply themselves as they should but still graduate solely because they met a very leanient quota and paid their 10 grand. Unfortunately, those may also be the students that gain employment sooner than you solely based on their charisma or sheer networking persistence. This is one of the issues with these bootcamps, as the credibility of the certificate you worked for becomes invalidated by the impression your less-invested classmate left on their new employer.

So, summarized:

Overall Experience: 3, because despite my frustrations it was a unique experience that lays a great foundation. Just don't expect anything other than a foundation, and do not expect that upon graduation you will have gainful employment without tactful intepersonal skills and networking. 

Curriculum: 2, based on the area and the typical requirements for even junior level positions favoring Angular, C#, Java, etc. Trilogy boasts about keeping cutting-edge curriculum, but from what little I've seen the positions available, even nationwide, just do not seem to support this.

Instructors: 4. A bit of a hit or miss per lesson and generaly already established professionals that have been in the business for years. Great people and very helpful during the cohort, but definitely seem to have favorites and little interest in your success upon graduation. Again, understandable because they're busy professionals with higher priorities. If you do attend, I would advise you to make a leave a good impression, as the fastest way to employment is networking and with the instructors being leads at some of the largest companies in the area and fairly well connected you really want to ensure that the impression you leave during the class is the same impression you would leave in a work environment. As to the TA's, we had a couple that were consistently invested and eager to help, and some that classmates felt hesitant to approach for help.

Job Assitance: 2. It's difficult taking full advantage of the Career Advisor portion included in the tuition due to the strenuous nature of learning new material on a weekly basis within class. You are essentially given a list of learning resources, interview prep resources, and a list of "partners" in the area. Your resume and online profiles like Github, your Portfolio, and LinkedIn will be reviewed by someone with a few minor tips on how to make yourself seem more hireable. But in all honesty, I haven't found any of that beneficial. You have no way of knowing how in-depth an employer will look at your LinkedIn, so an in-depth summary about yourself seems frivelous. Your resume starting out will only be as good as the projects and skills you have listed assuming you use one of the provided recommended templates that is included with the career portion of this program. As for your github, remove any sign of attending the bootcamp or your work being class-related and make detailed Read-Me's but the instructors also mention this during the class. As to your portfolio, you are initially assigned a homework replicating a fairly basic portfolio page. I would say this review portion was the least helpful out of the career services. In terms of actual Job Assistance outside of those resources, you will get weekly emails for positions from Trilogy partners for positions that list tech you don't even learn during the bootcamp, sometimes require more years of experience than you have, degrees that you don't have, or positions that you feel so outlandishly underqualified for that you wonder why you're even getting an email about them. I would say that the career services portion of this program is pretty much dismal and closer to a 1, but the advisor seems fairly invested and checks up regularly. But overall, the job assistance critiqued separately from the advisor has consisted of a list of online resources, emails about available positions (one of which is Revature which is essentially another bootcamp and spams positions on every job board in every city across the Nation), and a quick review of your Github and LinkedIn to ensure that your profiles read professional and not student. 

A lot of redundancy but I wanted to be concise with my review. Bottom line is, 4 months after graduation and I'm left with the feeling that I may have just spent 10 grand on something that I could inevitably regret. If money is not an issue to you, then I would say yes to the bootcamp if you are just looking to gain a good foundation or are already knowledgable and are just looking for experience with this particular tech stack. If you're looking toward this as somekind of saving grace or a way to set your life in a different direction because you saw an add on Reddit and got hyped up on Trilogy sales rep Kool-aid, lower your expectations and consider other investments. Take the plunge if you choose, but know that the certificate means nothing and this program is purely a foundation. You will still have to research best practices on your own. There will stil be many aspects of each of the techs you review during class that you will have to learn on your own to make you "employer competitive." You will have to do much more than link your class homeworks or projects on your portfolio to attain recognition. You will have to rely on networking and charisma to set you apart from the hundreds of other bootcamp grads saturating an industry that would seemingly rather trade seasoned developers looking for an office with more ping-pong tables than mold juniors just looking to get a foot in the door, learn, and prove themselves.

I took the 12-week Full-time Coding Bootcamp in the Summer of 2019 at a UNC-Charlotte Extension program supported by Trilogy Education Services.

The course is a solid program that provides a study in Full-Stack programming rooted in daily coding activities.

My biggest takeaway is that I now have an efficient workflow for coding...and this is huge...before the class I was pecking away at trying to "do something" with success limited to the wordpress environment. Now, I can confidently manage my computer resources and make my time matter when I code. 

The final project is a web developers recipe for success.

I am able to develop  "Full-Stack React Client-Server REST API driven JWT authenticated App" structures: this is World-Class State-of-the-Art 21st Century App making power.

The most helpful part of the program, in addition to an instructor with industry-proven skills, is the additional support available during each and every class session with the assigned tutors (3) as well as 1:1 tutoring available outside class hours.These resources are priceless and I leaned on them heavily and benefited greatly.

Yes, 5 days a week, 4 hours a day in the classroom or 20 hours every week for 12 weeks ... in addition, I personally spent at least an additional 40 hours a week at home reviewing the day activities, doing homework and working on maintaining pace with the class instruction as an informed student. In other words, I spent at least 60 hours per 7-day week  or over 420 hours in the 12 weeks practicing and working on becoming a better coder. For me...a very satisfying way at working on becoming a better me and again for me...this is what it took for me to get the most out of the program.

Again...it's about using the resources that are available in the program.

In addition to the coding...there is career assistance with people tasks to help you on an individual basis...I benefited greatly with the feedback to my networking messaging and my resume. There are multiple zoom session every week with national career coaches and bootcamp alumnae that connect nationally with other bootcamp participants (coding, data analysis and cybersecurity). If you listen attentively, there are nugguts of gold in each and every zoom session. Since the background of bootcamp participants is so varied, you'll hear discussions that make the job search strategies real...real people helping other real people... live ... plenty of guidence on how to present the bootcamp experience in the best manner possible to gain employment in the industry.

 Look...if you're still reading this and you've been looking to gain some coding skills in an accelerated environment...and you want to add the following to your list of achievements:

...Recent training includes Full Stack Development from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte (Trilogy Education Services). The intensive full-time 12 week (240 hr) curriculum included front-end and back-end technologies through a dynamic full-stack curriculum: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, React.js, Node.js, C#, Database Theory, Bookshelf.js, MongoDB, MySQL, Command Line, as well as Git...

then commit yourself to your success and make the transition like I did to become a junior-level qualified Full-Stack Coder.

I hope that by sharing my experience that you'll take the step, accept the challenge and work on becoming a 21st Century cutting-edge entry-level coder like I did...

Robert Zuniga

...diligently engaged....a coder for life...

My decision to pursue a computer programming career was driven by the desire to strengthen my thinking capacity in that programming teaches you to analyze a problem, break it down into small pieces and then tell the computer how it should solve the entire problem. You tell the computer how to solve the problem by giving it a set of instructions in a language that can be compiled or changed into machine code (binary digits) which is understood by the computer.

I took on the Cognizant Talent Accelerator program in that it gave me an opportunity to learn JAVA and other technologies for fullstack development such as Spring Boot, JPA/Hibernate and MySQL RDBMS. The program also gave me an opportunity to learn principles of Agile methodology and a Test Driven Development approach in software development which produces near perfect software solutions. The approach taken by Cognizant Talent Accelerator program is that it allows one to become immediately employable as it gives a solid understanding of the tools that are currently used in the industry. Apart from getting a job as a programmer, the training gives lifelong skills that can be used in building your own application that can have a major impact in the way people communicate or carry out their day-to-day activities. If one is interested in further certification, the program opens that door through the knowledge and skills passed through the training which can open further doors in your career.

My experience with the Cognizant Talent Accelerator is the dedication of all the individuals involved in passing the knowledge they have acquired in the industry to the students. There are a number of tutors who provide individual guidance in the areas where you may be facing challenges which makes the program easier to go through. The support is amazing as the tutors really go out of their way to make themselves available even over the weekends. My favorite aspects of the program were pair programming which means two people working on the same machine switching roles between navigating and typing the code into the computer to develop a program. The standups on each day were also my favorite as it allows one to discuss encountered challenges and serves as the best way to recollect and explain to other members of the team the problems you are having and then getting input from the team on how to solve the challenges.

My advice to future students is not to give up when you face challenges in the program as it is geared to develop tenacity so the pressure may be daunting the first few weeks and after that things become smooth sailing. There are also a lot of resources on the internet with many examples on how to utilize the tools available for fullstack development. That with the assistance of the tutors should see you through the program and there is no telling as to what opportunities lie ahead of you upon completion of the program.

All 5s for right candidates and all 1s for me, apart from the mark for the instructors.

This is a great course for people new to programming, and/or uncomfortable to learn things themselves, and wishing to get into the Data Analytics and Visualization career.

Instructors and assistants are fantastic and go beyond boundaries to explain things and overall to help. I think the odds getting the career switch are good, given that you also do a substantial amount of out of class self-education and projects.

Important points to consider.

There is a lot of inaccurate use of “data science” buzz word – in the bootcamp’s marketing materials and even on this website. The Data Analytics and Visualization Bootcamp is not sufficient for making people eligible for Data Science jobs in Charlotte. Related subjects are part of the curriculum but are covered briefly. A Data Scientist in Charlotte means Data Science Core job type, with advanced knowledge in statistics and modelling and/or machine learning.

Nevertheless, if you are new to programming and prefer face-to-face guided learning, the course may be worth to get started, to get a broad introduction to programming, and then do some more advanced courses specifically in Data Science elsewhere, they likely will cost less or potentially may be free.

I did the bootcamp in 2018, the curriculum has changed, but based on what is still there, it could not have changed sufficiently.

Secondly, or maybe firstly, the course would be far from the ideal way to invest time and money for people which have any substantial experience in programming, or for people comfortable with remote and primarily self-learning mode. There are other options.

Career Services and the exposure to prospective employers definitely is a bonus, but there are more cost- and time- efficient ways, if you do not need to study this material in class.

The abovementioned concerns is not just my view, in general it matches the opinion of people within the training team.

The real issue is the onboarding process (a conversation with a consultant whether the bootcamp is a match to your profile and goals, the application filled out and reviewed) will not provide any indication on the above 2 points. At least it did not for me, despite me describing my goals and prior experience.

My suggestion to the team is to fix the marketing materials to be accurate, and to ensure the appropriate knowledge and careful consideration of value of the course for the applicants, within the enrolment process.

Thanks and regards to everyone in the training team!

I had an EXCELLENT time in this boot camp.  The curriculum, Instructor, and Teacher Assistants were top notch.  I would recommend this boot camp to anyone who wants to start a career in analytics/data science.  The relationships I made really gave me an insider view to the analytics and programming world in my area.  One possible improvement/recommendation from my perspective on the curriculum side of things would have been to definitely focus more on SQL(stored procedures and advanced queries).  I would also recommend teaching Python more from an object oriented programming perspective (focus more on classes) as graduates who put Python on their resume will be asked more computer science like questions as they apply to job postings.  Thanks UNC Charlotte for a great six months and great memories of a tremendous learning experience!