Case Western Reserve University Boot Camps

The program was initially advertised as a sixth-month in-person full-stack Boot camp program designed to make the novice career ready.  Due to the Corona Virus pandemic and subsequent closer of Case Western Reserve's campus, the class became a remote learning experience.  This change in venue greatly devalued the program.  Classes were essentially lectures.  The instructor was resistant to questions from the novice learner during the lecture.  In fact, the instruction seemed geared more towards those in the class already in tech professions. The instructor often times went off on tangents during instruction that may or may not be related to the lesson.   I can only speak for my experience, but this format left me often time lost and hopelessly behind in the class.  On occasion, the TAs would pull the students into a breakout room during the instruction, once again creating an environment not conducive to learning.  The majority of meaningful learning, for me, took place by watching free tech coding videos on youtube.  At some points, additional resources were provided by the Boot camp administration, but this occurred infrequently and inconsistently (only 2-3 times during the six-month experience).  After successfully completing the program, I feel no more prepared for a tech career than when I began. 

The Full Stack Web Development course I was engaged in from January of 2018 to July of 2018 was definitely a great experience.  The class was mixed with a nice blend of those who have had some coding/programming experience, those who worked in the field, and some who may have never even touched a computer before, let alone having any knowledge of coding.  I took the course Monday and Wednesdays during the evening, and then Saturday morning to afternoon.

My instructors were extremely knowledgeable in the topics that were covered day by day.  Whenever I had a question(whether it was before, during or after class), they always helped me find a way to come to a solution.  The teaching assistants were great too.  Walked around the class during activities to make sure we understood what was currently being worked on, and guided us to find any answers we may have had for the activities.

The activities, homework assignments and even the projects were all challenging and enough to make me go beyond my limits and still acheive success, which is what the cohort was all about.  Succeeding.  And all of the staff members(instructors, TAs, SSM) made sure that succeeding was the main focus for each and every student.

The only thing I would say that could possibly make the cohort a little better would be to modify the cirriculum agenda.  There were some topics and technologies that were either taught out of order, or briefly went over just once and never really touched again.  Which would make for some confusion for those who would have a hard time grasping certain concepts.

As for the career services side of the program, they were very helpful.  There were many times I had questions on how to perform to the best of my ability during interviews; what to ask/what not to ask, what to expect and how to conduct myself.  Helped me discover some tools to utilize during my job serach(e-mail scraping for example).  Overall, career services was definitely worth it.

I would definitely recommend anyone looking to get into this field, and want to gain the education and skills of web development to go thru this bootcamp.  

The CWRU Full-Stack Web Developer Bootcamp was wonderful. What really made it shine was the committment of the instructor and the TAs. They were honest yet encouraging from day one. I had come into the program with a limited amount of self-taught coding skills. i was immediately humbled by the amount I had to learn.  

In addition to the academic portion, the bootcamp teaches you to work within a development team.  The 3 group projects are great real-world simulations of creating, developing, and presenting an idea from beginning to end. Through these projects, and other activities, we were able to also build our networks.  

As for the cost, I am fortunate enough to say it more than paid itself off. By the middle of October (cohort started at the end of July), I had been hired by a custom dev company. Today I am using almost all of the technologies that were used throughout the bootcamp.  

Lastly, I also loved how it was very accommodating to my work/family schedule.  With a 2 small children and a full-time job, the 3 days a week over a longer span definitely worked out well.

With no tech experience and being burnt out of a social service job, I applied to this bootcamp on full faith that I would be able to learn something new if I had great teachers and I worked hard. The full stack developer program at Case changed my career path for the better, and I am a happier, more hardworking, and smarter person for it. I graduated at the end of January 2019, and on February 18 I started working as a front end web developer at CodeRed in downtown Cleveland.

The instructor and TAs in my cohort were all super knowledgeable and supportive of their students. The course load was pretty good for a part time program, averaging one homework project per week that usually took me 8-10ish hours to hammer out.

Only con I would say is that the coursework at times felt obsolete. For example, we learned Handlebars, which isn't a framework I expect to use again, but it did teach me the basics of building a website out of separate components, which is useful for writing apps with Vue, React, and most recently, ASP.NET Razor.

If you're interested in tech and you're comfortable on a computer, I would really recommend this course.

I am a developer who works mostly on Windows Desktop applications.  I wanted to learn Web development.  This is a challenging course if you don't know javascript but not overly complicated.  For new developers, they suggest spending 20+ hours a week outside of class time on homework, projects and studying.  I probably spent 4-6 hours a week and did well on all assignments.  This class was very hands on and also has group projects.

There is also a career services component to the class.  There are webinars on interview best practices and professionals to help you with your resume and LinkedIn page.  I just wish it was a little more personal.  Most of the help was remote and done through comments in Google Docs.  The career services is also accessible for 3 months after you graduate.

I really valued the time and money spent on this course.  

     As of today, I’m half way through the 24 week, part-time Bootcamp for learning Full Stack Web Development. So far, I have learned how to code in HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, Node.js, Command Line, Git, and currently learning MySQL database. This program has been a challenging yet rewarding experience for me.

    I have always been interested in learning about coding. Over the years, I have attended a class for basic programming, read books about coding, and watched videos on coding applications. Trying to be self taught, I became overwhelmed with all the coding jargon and never got very far. When I turned 52, I decided that I wanted to finish out my career doing something different. I couldn’t see myself attending several years of college to attain a degree in computer science, so I began researching coding classes in my community and came across CWRU Coding Bootcamp. After reaching out to CWRU about the Coding Bootcamp program, I new this was the program for which I had been searching: a program that only takes 24 weeks to complete at an affordable cost.

    At the CWRU Coding Bootcamp, the instructor, assistants, and staff go above and beyond to ensure that you succeed. The instructor, Tom, has a high degree of knowledge in Web Development and is very passionate about teaching. The student success manager, Kim, genuinely wants each student to succeed. Whenever I email Kim with a question or an issue, she responds in a timely manner. The TA’s are available during class as well as outside of class to answer questions. The Career Services Team assisted me with understanding my local job market and drafting my job search materials. Although I have struggled to find time to work on marketing between working full-time and coursework, I find this to be a valuable source.   

    The program includes one hour of tutoring weekly at no extra cost. At times, I struggled to get through the activities during class, so I took the opportunity to work through some of the class activities each week with the Tutor remotely from home. I found this to be very beneficial for me in order to keep up with the fast pace and to complete the homework assignments to the best of my ability.

    At the start of the program, when learning HTML5, CSS3, bootstrap, and Javascript, I would get frustrated and sometimes think I was in over my head. Although the material was unlike anything I had done before, those languages are now easy for me to write code. That is what I like most about this program: you have to struggle in the beginning and push yourself. Then what you can’t figure out on your own, you will know where to find the information. They can’t teach you every little detail in a few hours because you wouldn't remember it all anyways. Once I realized this, my frustration went away. I like the way the program starts out with learning HTML, CSS, Javascript, then each week from there adding something new. Within a few weeks of starting class, I was making Web Applications. Within 3 months, I completed and deployed a real world Web Application for a group project with 3 other students. I spend about 20 to 30 hours a week studying material and doing homework outside of class. I drive 2 hours round trip three times a week to class and work on average 50 hours a week. I enjoy learning Web Development, and although it can be hard work at times, I find it exciting and rewarding.

    In summary, CWRU Coding Bootcamp has a great staff and is structured to teach you what you need to know to become a  full stack Web Developer in a short period of time. Going into this program, you must be willing to attend all the classes, put forth the effort to do all the required work, and sacrifice a minimum of 20 hours a week to studying and doing homework outside of class. If you put in the effort, you will be making web applications in just a few weeks.

I have attended the CWRU 24 week long Full Stack Web Development program and it was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life. The instructional staff is very knowledgeable and passionate about the material covered and they are more than willing to help out with anyt concepts. While it is true that no prior coding experience was necessary, I do feel that it would be beneficial. There were also some concepts which I wish would be covered more in depth and with more attention but overall, I am very pleased with my experience there!