University of Denver Boot Camps

I finished the coding boot camp in February of 2022. Overall, I had a good experience. 

There were about 30 people in a class and 1 instructor and 2 TAs. The course was remote and taught over Zoom used with Slack. I was able to learn multiple concepts needed to become a Full Stack Developer. We would get assignments that we were put in a breakout room to complete and get experience after the instructor finished teaching the concept. The instructors and TAs would join the rooms and help us with any difficulties.

Some other perks I found helpful was the fact that I was assigned a tutor who I could work one on one with for an hour every week, I got experience collaborating with other people on projects,  I received feedback on my career materials, and I got assigned a career coach I could meet with after graduation to assist with the job search. 

Only complaint I have is that some of the other people in my class were lazy and not very intelligent and wouldn't help with projects and managed to be a burden. I don't mind helping people out when they run into problems when they pay attention to what I am saying and learn. I had some people who I helped out in the Boot Camp who were genuinely trying to improve and ended up becoming better after I helped them and it made them willing to help me out but I wasted hours trying to teach certain people simple concepts that they couldn't understand after they wouldn't put any effort into the class. This isn't entirely the fault of the school as they had a process of checking the people who applied. This is something that will happen anywhere though and it is good to know how to handle situations like this in life.

I am able to recommend the Boot Camp and say that it was helpful for me. I am currently seeking a job and can say that I have received good help with programming and job seeking.

I took the 24 week course, and it changed my life. It was lots of work, but well worth it.  Five months after graduating and applying to about 110 jobs, I found the job of my dreams. I almost doubled my original salary.  I already have a BFA in Art/ Graphic Design, so it really fits in well with my job field. I especially excelled in the web design/ coding section, and this is what really got me my current job. Portfolios are everything and your LinkedIn profile. Take advantage of the career assistance because they really help clean you up and get you ready for career changes. Several of my classmates found better jobs or advanced further in their current places of employment. Many of them excelled more in the UX section, and found great researching positions.

I do not recommend this program if you are a beginner, the class actually starts upon enrollment with what's called PRE-WORK, it's not graded, but it gets you to the level necessary for the class. I expected to start class on a specific day, I had no idea there was 15 assignments I needed to complete to be ready, I got to #5. When class started it was much higher than beginner, the instructor moved fast through the lessons, the breakout rooms were a joke (the blind leading the blind), on day 2 my instructor actually popped into our room and smirked as we did the assignment incorrectly, after the breakout room she did go over the assignment and showed the class the assignment correctly done, but I was still lost. In class #2 (8/18/21) I found out we had a homework assignment due on Aug 28, but the TA's wouldn't go over it until the Sat Aug 21st class, so if you didn't understand something like me you stayed stuck until the next class. Tutors are 50 minutes a week, and the only times my tutor had open (before the homework was due) was when I was at work. You really just stay stuck until the next class. I was thoroughly disappointed in just the first 2 classes, no effort is made to go over the material to make sure everyone knows it, I felt like the Instructor and Teaching Assistants just followed a schedule and went down a list, you really have to teach yourself, YouTube videos are more informative than this class.
I actually changed jobs and cut my income in half to have a work schedule to fit this class only to drop it by the drop/add date so I wouldn't be stuck paying 10k for something that clearly was not going to work. My advice to any beginner considering this program is to look somewhere else, this is NOT for beginners, they'll just take your money. If you have 2 incomplete homework assignments or a failing grade on 2 homework assignments, you get dropped, so once you fall behind, you stay behind.

I enrolled in the University of Denver's Full Stack Coding Bootcamp after realizing that, for me, the fastest, most efficient way to get into the tech industry, was to immerse myself in code, and develop a professional network that ultimately led to my new role. This is the beauty of this Bootcamp. It's fast paced, and connects you with your future co-workers, and professional contacts! The people you meet in the Bootcamp are nearly, if not, more so, valuable than the subject matter. You cover todays most relevant tech in a logical manner that allows you to progressively build your skills until you ultimately have everything you need to deploy full stack applications. I found it incredibly rewarding. Be ready to put in a lot of work. But if you do, and go in willing to take instruction and ask questions, I promise, you will thank yourself for it. My wife and I just had our first baby and I knew it was time to put the time and effort into my career. Career Services is another great reason to enroll. I received an offer to work full time, remotely, for a tech company paying double what I made before. Do yourself a favor and invest in your work ethic, passion, and future.

I signed up for this course to obtain the skills I would need to help me combine my financial analysis background with more specific technical skills, especially as the financial services arena is getting even more data-centric.  The Bootcamp was incredible. It was a lot of work, but I learned a lot.  I cannot say enough about the quality of the instructional staff.  They made sure that we actually learned what we came to learn, in a way that was very supportive. The Career Services group has also been really great to work with. For those who sign up, my best advice is to stay on top of the assignments and keep a consistent schedule with your tutor.

I have a background in database technology and data analytics, but was looking for programming skills so that I could begin developing custom apps for my clients.  I worked on courses on Udemy, Coursera, and YouTube tutorials, but could never get all the pieces together.  

The DU bootcamp put it all together.  In 6 months, part time, I was able to go from not knowing what an IDE is (that may be you right now) to being able to build a full stack web application with the confidence and knowledge that the only limit in my development career is my imagination.  

We covered all major components of full-stack applications, including html, css, frameworks, express, mySQL, MongoDB, Node.js, and React.js.  I'm writing this three days after completing my final project, and I couldn't be more thrilled with the program.  So much so, that I came here to let you know it is a quality bootcamp, and delivers on everything promised.  

I did not use the career services, as I have a job already that I love, but there is extensive support for those looking to get a job after the bootcamp.  The instructors, tutors, and support staff are all professionals and deliver on the mission of teaching you to code and getting you employed.  

The other students in the class were amazing, and from varied background and skill levels.  We all learned from each other, and formed relationships that are continuing beyond the bootcamp.    

The biggest challenge in this is that it is a lot of work, and you need to spend 20 to 30 hours a week between class and assignments if you want to get the most out of it.   The program that I took was all online, and that took nothing away from the experience.  Zoom is a great tool, and our instructor would code us through the solutions after we worked in breakout rooms on them.  There is a lot of coding in this course, and it is very well structured.

I can't really think of any drawbacks to the program.  It taught me everything I wanted to learn and how to find and learn the things that will allow me to become a better programmer in the future.      

I would 100% recommend taking this course to anyone who is serious about becoming a developer. I ended up landing a job as a Web Developer a month after completing this course. It's very educational, they teach you some very useful stuff about JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, Databases, MySQL, MongoDB, React, Express, and Node.js. Stuff I did not know before. They teach you the latest technologies and ways of doing things. So if you are looking for a career that involves those skills, languages, and technologies then this course is for you. 

Going in, I had a little bit of coding experience as an intern and a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration but I had a lot of trouble getting a real job full time as a developer because of a lack of experience and no CS degree. I couldn't even get an interview, they'd just look at my resume and say we have chosen someone else as it is a very competitive industry and these positions are not easy to land. But I'm happy to say that this Bootcamp made a difference and it helped me get a job as a Web Developer. It was totally worth the money and time.

I would advise not to go into this class with no prior coding knowledge, skills, or abilities because this Bootcamp is not exactly cheap. There were a few dropouts that I noticed and I think it might be because they could not handle it because coding is not for everyone. Before signing up for this program, if you have 0 knowledge or experience coding then I would suggest trying building your own website on your own time just to try it out and see if you can self-teach yourself about the basics of HTML, CSS, Javascript, GIT, servers, and databases. If you can self teach yourself how to build a super basic website by using resources available for free online, push it to GitHub, and deploy it on a live website like Heroku with a backend database with no instructors or direct help, just using Google Search, Stack Overflow, documentation, and YouTube tutorials, then this Bootcamp will be like cake. But if you have absolutely 0 experience and this is your first time ever doing anything with HTML or CSS then this Bootcamp might become very difficult. Going into this, I had 2 years of internship experience in IT and that experience included quite a bit of code writing and development so I have been around the block a few times going in and I knew this was perfect for me. I already knew basic HTML, CSS, JavaScript, as well as other subjects such as Java, Python, SQL databases, web servers, and mobile app development. That experience really made the Bootcamp easier and it really gave me the confidence that this was a perfect career path for me. I don't think this would apply to someone who is just exploring their options and finding out if this is what they want to do.

They tell you the Bootcamp is going to be difficult and that it's meant to be overwhelming to you. Again, if you have 0 experience and know nothing then it probably will be difficult. But if you already know what you are doing and if you already have experience developing apps, databases, and learning programming languages then this Bootcamp won't be too difficult. The homework assignments are very easy, simple, they hand you things on a silver platter, and they give you great opportunities to deploy stuff online that you can eventually demonstrate to potential employers in an interview. That's a very good thing because the company that hired me was looking at the stuff that I had built and deployed online during the interview process and viewed it live during the interview. The company that hired me also needed someone who was good with JavaScript and frameworks such as React.js and the new skills this Bootcamp gave me have really helped me perform well with this new job.

Advice for people signing up: If you are going to go through with this program and you are looking for a job, definitely go through the career service program. The career service professionals definitely know what they are doing and give golden advice in regards to your resume, LinkedIn, portfolio, GitHub, what to say or do during the interview process, and they apparently have a job search board and are willing to be a reference for a job. I didn't need the reference or the job search board because I got one on my own, but they did a great job at helping me rebuild my resume to be competitive in the industry and to fine-tune my LinkedIn, GitHub, brand statement, and portfolio.

To give some constructive criticism: I would suggest updating the curriculum more often. The curriculum seemed like it was already over a year old. I think they should update the curriculum as often as possible, and I know this is the same curriculum that other colleges use throughout the country for their own Bootcamps. The thing is programming languages such as JavaScript and frameworks such as React are constantly changing, adapting, and improving day by day. I noticed some of the package.JSON files had really old versions of technology and it seemed like the curriculum was last updated in 2018-2019. It also seemed like some of the stuff they taught was over a year or two old. I would suggest updating the curriculum at least once a year and maybe once a month. I mean don't get me wrong, they do a great job updating it. The fact that they taught React Class Components AND React hooks, and they even had a lesson on how to upgrade from Class Components to hooks. Why is this important? Because react hooks are just better, more efficient, and easier to read/write than Class Components. Also because a ton of people are still using React Class Components and they might need to update it to hooks to use fewer lines of code and less redundancy.

To the Bootcamp: I would also ultimately suggest refining the curriculum's example codebase. There was one lecture where they were demonstrating MVC design and ORMs such as sequelize and I noticed they gave an extra step on one of the layers that was just pointless. it really was pointless, I even asked the instructor why did they add in that extra step, and even he agreed to me that the extra step was pointless and it was the curriculum. My point being is that the curriculum is not completely flawless and does have some "?" moments.

I would also suggest always making group projects optional and give students the solo option. some of us are just trying to get through the Bootcamp and don't need some amateurs who don't know what they're doing slowing us down. It is good to get that group work skills. But some of us don't need it. Thanks for letting me work on my project alone. It gave me the chance to develop something that was outright impressive for my capstone and to use it as a demonstration for potential employers.

Overall, as I have said before, I would give this Bootcamp a 10/10 and would 100% recommend it to someone who is really serious about writing code for their career and wants to become a developer but they need more skills, experience, if they are a computer science major, or if they aren't and computer science major and they are having troubles getting an interview or a job. If that is you right now, then this Bootcamp is perfect for you.