Tech Elevator

During the summer of my senior year pursuing a Computer Engineering Degree (May 2023 - Aug 2023), I had the privilege of participating in a meticulously structured and enriching educational experience. Armed with a strong foundation in the field, I found the course to be both accommodating for beginners and challenging for those with more seasoned expertise.

I am uniquely positioned to address the perennial debate between traditional college education and the intensive bootcamp approach. While I hold my alma mater in high regard, it's important to debunk the notion that a bootcamp is equivalent in difficulty to a Computer Science or Engineering degree. My summer course, although intensive, provided me with significantly more flexibility to maintain a well-rounded life – a luxury I often found scarce during my university years.

Drawing a distinct comparison, my academic semester encompassed a demanding load of subjects, including Cal 3, Embedded Systems, Algorithms, and a Capstone project that required mastering a new backend framework on the spot. This workload underscores the stark contrast between the two paths. The college experience placed a higher onus on independent problem-solving and time management, fostering a comprehensive understanding of diverse programming languages and algorithms. In contrast, the bootcamp immersed me in an accelerated and all-encompassing learning environment, emphasizing a specific language and framework. However, success in a bootcamp is contingent upon one's dedication and effort, and the subsequent job search presents its own challenges.

In summation, both avenues have their merits. The traditional college route cultivates resilience, self-reliance, and a broad spectrum of technical proficiencies. Conversely, a bootcamp necessitates swift and intensive absorption of knowledge, focusing on specialized skills. Securing employment post-bootcamp demands personal commitment and perseverance. Ultimately, the journey you choose will shape your growth, and while not without its challenges, triumph is attainable in either scenario.

I am thrilled to give Tech Elevator Java Bootcamp a glowing 5-star review. My instructors were extremely knowledgeable and provided great guidance throughout the program. I feel well-prepared for my career change upon completing the TE bootcamp, and I am excited to put my new skills into practice. Overall, my experience at Tech Elevator was fantastic, and I would highly recommend this program to anyone looking to enhance their technical skills and make a successful career transition. 

 After my interest peaked in coding, I decided to go "all-in" and picked Tech Elevator as my bootcamp of choice after hearing good reviews from number of friends. The curriculum really offers a solid base for entering the development realm, and I really enjoyed the 30 week timeframe as it offered more time to digest the material. However, you get out of it what you put into it. If you study a lot and make an effort to truly learn and grasp the material, you'll do well. If you scrape by knowing the bare minimum to pass your assignments, don't expect to get a job soon after graduation. The part time program is very low-key, and although the syllabus outlines policies to follow,  they are not strictly enforced. Many students neglect to attend class and pair programming sessions, leaving other students hanging, but there were no noticeable consequences for this behavior. It sometimes felt like the institution was more interested in our tuition payments than our success or their reputation. A number of students also had issues with the availability and quality of the instructors, and while I will admit that my cohort got the short end of the stick, this was not a huge issue for me personally since I am a good self-learner. The academic fellows are SUPER helpful and are the life support of the program. I did learn learn a lot and received 2 great job offers through match-making, so the program was definitely a good investment and worth it for me; however, if you're not a self-motivator and/or get a lot out of lectures/visual teaching, the part-time program may not be for you.  

Pros:
 -Good curriculum -Help is usually available in a decent time frame from the Academic Fellows -Matchmaking is a great way to get your foot in the door to jumpstart your career 

Cons:
 -Poorly enforced policies -Faculty issues (hopefully this was just a series of unfortunate events for my cohort...) -End of module projects are not graded, so many people get away without doing/completing them -lack of individual projects to showcase to potential employers 

I started this bootcamp with very limited knowledge of programming/software development and now I can say 6 months later I have my first job in the technology field as a software developer. I was an in person student at the Pittsburgh, PA campus. The campus is very nice and you have 24/7 access while attending, complete with table tennis of course! The Pathways program at TE is wonderful! They really get you ready for those first few interviews and teach you so much. Listen to them and don't dismiss those sessions! The technical instructors were fantastic! It is a lot of information to gain in such a short amount of time. I will say it is not about memorizing but about figuring it out and piecing out the puzzle. In the beginning when first starting the program the days can feel very long and like you need a ton of help but as you move through the program you will find that you need less help and you now what you are doing. My number 1 tip when starting this program though is to check out the plugins that you can add to your IDE/development environment. Rainbow brackets really helped me at the beginning of the journey. Overall, definitely worth it! Everyone is supportive and they want you to succeed. If you're on the fence I would say apply. I have already referred quite a few friends to the program.

Tech Elevator completely changed my career trajectory for the better and it accomplished that in only 16 weeks for a price that's much cheaper than getting a traditional degree.  The program is hard and will challenge you every day, but if you put in the work you will succeed. Trust the process.  Absolutely amazing teachers, academic fellows, and career services to support you every step of the way.  Start the homework the day it's given and do the pre-work before class and you will see your skills improve throughout the course.

The pathway program is a series of useless material, which may not be useful if you have prior work experience in literally any field. The program does not prepare you for technical interviews, which is a crucial part of the interview process for tech jobs. The 6 month job assistance offered is limited to meetings with someone from TE, who only provides generic advice. The matchmaking event was not productive, as most employers were not hiring and the few that were required a bachelor's degree. The instruction provided is rushed, but not bad. However, they do not cover important topics such as data structures and algorithms, which can be encountered during the interview process.

 I had a poor instructor, and the campus director was not responsive to requests for a switch. Overall, the program is marketed as a workforce development program, but it is not worth the cost if the instruction is not tailored to the student's needs.

At the time of this writing, I graduated 3 days ago. I was a C#/.NET Student at the Cleveland campus.

I loved my time at Tech Elevator. My classmates were great, the instructors were knowledgable, and the Pathway Director has guided me into 4 interviews and 1 offer. The cirriculum moves extremely fast, which is a good thing. It only took 14 weeks, but I feel confident going into Junior Developer interviews. I've done technical mock interviews with friends in the tech industry, and they were surprised at how well-prepared Tech Elevator has made me for a Junior Developer role.

The cirriculum is hard, and you only get three hours of lecture a day on each subject. After lecture, you are assigned an exercise to hone your skills on what you just learned. LEAN ON YOUR INSTRUCTORS AND YOUR CLASSMATES! Everyone at Tech Elevator wants you to succeed and they show it. There will be times when this program is really stressful, but the payoff is worth it.

The biggest draw to Tech Elevator for me was the Pathway Program. The program teaches you skills on how to prepare and interview in the technology space, from resume workshops to setting up a LinkedIn profile (my resume looks AMAZING now). In addition to teaching you how to navigate the tech job market, the Pathway team regularly brings in (virtually) local companies who are interested in hiring bootcamp grads. These employer showcases give students a chance to see what kind of work is available in the area and make connections with local technical recruiters. As a graduate, Tech Elevator offers 6 months of post-graduation job assistance. There are bi-weekly meetings with your Pathway Director to check in with you and help you on your job search.

Once you get to the last few weeks of the bootcamp, you have two days of company matchmaking, which was easily the most valuable part of Tech Elevator to me. You are given the opportunity to interview with 4 companies for 30 minutes each, asking and answering each others questions. I landed 3 interviews from matchmaking!

The only complaints I have about Tech Elevator are that some subjects could use an extra day and/or improved lecture materials. To no fault of the instructors, some of the lecture code they used in lectures was not applicable to what we were learning. Our instructor did their best to make a lesson that worked, and for what it's worth, they did a great job. On the pathway side, I think Tech Elevator could do a better job of verifying whether or not the showcased companies are hiring and what their tech stack is. Most of the companies that were showcased used C#/.NET, which was good for me, but the Java students felt underrepresented. I interviewed with a company that was showcased at matchmaking and completed a coding assignment for them only to find out that they were not hiring for a few months after the end of the bootcamp.

Overall, Tech Elevator was an experience that I will remember fondly forever. I made good friends, learned valuable skills, and pushed myself farther than I thought I could go. Take the leap and go all in!

Where do I start? If you’re deciding on taking the online course and end up getting [name redacted] as your instructor then please run. His instruction is very poor. He does not follow the lecture code he is given by the TE curriculum team and will try and make his own and get lost and confuse you more. If you ask a question then expect everything to be answered but what you asked him..

The pathway is just a lot of bologna. Day 1 they show you a big slide about how their is a reason as to why they are a preferred bootcamp due to their hiring partners but they only had 4 employees come see us and half of them didn’t even have any open positions. Now this could possibly be due to the economy currently but who knows right? 
They give you tons of material to read and then the following day waste your time with a Zoom meeting rehashing everything you just read when you could be coding or anything else really!

This bootcamp labels themselves as a fullstack bootcamp but really all the curriculum is mainly focused on backend with a little bit of front end. The 3rd module which is supposed to be front end spends 2 days on JavaScript and then they show you Vue which is not a very in demand JS Framework. 

I have heard wonderful things about this bootcamp but I’m assuming it was because those students had taken the bootcamp in person vs online.