UCLA Extension Boot Camps

I recently graduated from the Trilogy/UCLA program. UCLA, and other schools, are partnering with a company called Trilogy. The owner is a former educator now capitalizing on the boot camp hype. He knows nothing about programming himself.

I was originally sold on the program because it was part time over 6 months rather than full time over 3 months. This seemed to me a better way to really absorb the material, because it's not realistic to code 12+ hours a day for 3 months and retain much, like many of the other boot camps try to do. The brain just doens't work that way. I was also sold on the UCLA name thinking it would hold more weight than many of these code schools, which are all incredibly new and don't have much of a reputation in the real world.

Ultimately, I made a poor decision. While the program started off reasonably well, towards the end, the last third of the program (2 out of 6 months), it pretty much fell apart, for the following reasons:

1) The curriculum kept changing. Originally we were to learn Angular, PhP/Laravel. But sometime through this was changed to React, React Native, and Java. Ok, no problem you might say. Except that each of those complicated topics got no more than 3 days of attention. So the time used to cover these topics at a very introductory level was pretty much wasted.

2) Overall the curriculum tries to cover too many topics. You cover a lot of topics but at a very introductory level. And the time weighting for topics is distorted. For example, you spend the first couple of months doing basic HTML/CSS/jQuery/JavaScript, but then breeze through topics like Node, Express, databases, React, etc. Sure, you have to set the foundation in the beginning, but you can't breeze through complex topics and claim they've been taught.

3) There is a big gap between teaching and learning, meaning that the typical process for any given topic goes something like this... "Here are steps 1-3...now go do the homework/projects incorporating steps 8-10. Figure out steps 4-7 on your own."

4) Instructors are hit and miss. Some instructors are incredibly involved, both in class and outside of class, other instructors show up for class and that's the only time you hear from them. So outside of class it's up to you and the other students to figure everything out. There are "office hours" before and after most classes, but when there are 30 or so students in each class, there is only so much attention you're going to get.

5) Project work can be hit and miss and it completely depends on which people you are teamed up with. I ultimately had a very poor project experience because on two of three projects half of my teams decided they just had no interest in making an effort. There are no negative ramifications for students not participating other than they don't learn. So of three projects I was supposed to have I ended up with a single project to present. That's not very impressive to employers when over a 6 month period you were able to pull together one project, a project that was done over a single two week period.

6) Project work is very, very rushed. You typically get no more than 2 weeks to develop a full project, and while you are working on your project you are bombarded with new material that you are expected to fully digest and in some cases were expected to incorporate into your in-process project. This was just ridiculous. As such, most of the material taught during project weeks was competely ignored by most students.

7) Demo day, which is the day you get in front of "partner" companies, was less than impressive. Less than half of the students (out of 60 or so total) participated and of those only a couple got offers from those partners. Other than that, I don't know of anyone that has even had an interview with those companies.

8) Career services consist of the boot camp making sure you're sending out a bunch of resumes and some guy in another state sending you daily emails of job links, even though he knows nothing about your market, what you're looking for, etc. Some people have gotten jobs, but many others have sent out well over 100 resumes and gotten little to no response. Some people already had jobs and aren't looking. You have a mix of experiences. But overall the program, even the UCLA name, appears to carry no weight in the market. This could vary by market and school.

One helpful thing Trilogy has implemented is weekly continuing training sessions for graduates and current students alike. The topics include both new topics not covered during the program as we all job search tips, like how to write a resume, cover letter, how to focus your project portfolio, etc. But ultimately it comes down to sending out a ton of resumes and networking on your own, as you would expect for any job. Don't expect direct job placement from the program.

Overall, what the program provides is some structure around learning. But just keep in mind that you're only getting a very high level introduction to a bunch of topics and will not come out of the program being well-versed in any one topic, unless you can become so on your own time. The students that did well are those that had some experience coming into the program. Most of those with no experience struggled a great deal or rode on the coattails of the more experienced folks. Even the experienced folks sometimes had problems.

I'm sure the program continues to improve because my cohort complained quite a bit in the weekly surveys and during class. And hopefully Trilogy is listening. But personally, based on my experience, I can't recommend the program.

PS: You'll notice all of the glowing reviews of the program (I know all of these people) and you'll notice the wonderful response from the program. Remember, they are trying to sell you to enroll. And honestly, the program doesn't do well with negative feedback. Much of the response during the program was to push the blame back onto the students. I don't know any other business that works this way.

Do NOT take this course...Do NOT make the same mistakes I made.

Trilogy people are EXTREMELY helpful, always there to help you  - literally calling you two, three times a day to ask if you made your decision and if you were ready to pay for a deposit...Always helpful until you pay for the class and no longer can get your refund.

We are promised TAs who will be avaiable to help...they were not. I was in the Tue/Thu class and we were not lucky with our "help." Meanwhile Mon/Wed class had the BEST TAs. TAs were not accessible on Slack, and when you asked them questions, they never really had answers. 

We were promised support with the "sucess manager" - ours (JP Alferos) was a liar (caught him lying TWICE and I have records on emails) and he left (got fired?) halfway through the course. We then had NO support for awhile...

The reason I picked UCLA was because I thought that having the "UCLA" on my resume would carry a little weight AND because the office told me class would have about 20 students. I regret it so much and I am still paying for my mistake. Trilogy folks never told me or anyone else that two classes would merge on Saturdays and therefore making the class much bigger and harder to get help from TAs.

Our instructor (Omar Patel) wasn't the greatest either. It seemed like he didnt want to be there at all. Every class, for a lot of subjects he'd teach us, there was always a "I hate this," "this is so stupid" and so on. How can someone who doesn't seem interested at all be there teaching us when we paid 10k to take this course? We had a sub a couple of times (Clark) and he was the best. He was always excited to teach you and had a positive attitude - completely different from our main instructor who seem to hate a bunch of the subjects. He was also never prepared. Once topics got harder, instead of spending a few minutes before class to go over the material, he would troubleshoot and confuse us even more than what we should - he kept saying that it was fine, that we should see him troubleshoot, that we'd go through that in the real world, and I appreciate that, but I didn't pay 10k to watch you move from file to file, trying to find out whats going on and hope that we are following him - spoiler alert: WE WEREN'T.

Save yourselve the headache - save a bit of more money and go take the course at GA. Truly smaller size class and I felt they were WAY more supportive with students.

I wasn't going to waste my time reading reviews, but I thought if this review could stop ONE person from making the same mistake I made, than it is worth it! 

I took this course from January to July 2017, the instructor was Omar Patel. At the time I was working as a retail manager and thinking to change my career. I thought this is a good chance to learn how to write to code, and chance to get an entry-level job on the tech field. It starts well they send us a homework package for the start I believe I did the ok job since I never write code before, then it started to be more complicated as expected. My problem with the course they only did 10% of what they promised, once you go their website it shows they partnered many tech companies and it may be an opportunity get a job or internship there, it didn't happen. I was never able to have a chance to send a resume or any kind of contact with companies. They promised to tour these companies never happened, we suppose to have people come and talk to us every other week but the only couple of people showed up. It's been told us it needs a lot of self-effort which is true but how come an instructor doesn't follow up his student's progress and development until the end. The instructor only helps people have potential or have previous knowledge, he got paid projects for them, separate them from the class I doubt he has financial gains for that, I was expected to mix people know less and more together to help them learn each other.  The student success manager Alex Garett is another disaster, he doesn't even know whats going on in the class shows time to time and events only. Teacher assistants, they probably joined the class before then you and have some experience but they can insult you every way if you can't write code, those young fellas easy can overlook you without knowing anything about you and your background. Overall it was the worst 10k that spend plus the time, I trust UCLA's name on it but the course held by the trilogy. I accept that it's not everybody's cup of tea but still they have to put some effort into you as well not people have experience with this before. I don't even want to talk about their 'awesome' career services cuz it was awful :). 

The course material is very interesting and the way the class is structured is pretty good, it takes your hand with baby steps even if you have no background about coding or engineering. The instructor "Omar in my case" stressed about the concepts way more than the technology used which is very helpful as you can venture in any language you want on your own.

I would extend the period where we learned ES6 and React but either than that I think the course's pace was pretty good for me. I ended up with 2 Full-Stack web apps and a mobile app, which was a great experience.

I highly recommend the course if you want to learn something new and even take a new career route.

I debated whether to attend the UCLA Coding bootcamp for 2 years before finally pulling the trigger and attending. As a UCLA alumn with a B.A. in Psychology and a 14 year background as a web designer and Wordpress Developer (non-coding), I figured that the bootcamp would be a natural evolution of my skills and would give me a better understanding of development and the further ability to create more meaningful and useful applications. 

Initially, I wanted to to attend the 3 month Full-time course, but when I decided to attend, there were no more spots open in the full-time program (class size is only 25 per class), and thus I was forced to take the 6 month part-time program. I was working full-time at a law firm and it was good fortune that I ended up in the part-time program instead. Between my work schedule of 40+ hours per week, class attendance of 10 hours per week and a minimum study and homework time of 20-30 hours per week, I was exhausted and at my wit's end (more about this later). 

I had about 2 months before my cohort started and I decided to start trying to learn Javascript on my own to get a head-start. Coinicidentally, the book I read was "Headfirst with Javascript" or something to that effect. I already had a background in HTML and CSS after having taken a Macromedia Dreamweaver class at Santa Monica College in 2004, completing the HTML/CSS course on Codecademy, and designing numerous websites in Wordpress and HTML. I figured that I was ahead of the curve in that respect and since the MERN Stack (Mongodb, Mysql, Express, React, and Node.js), the fundamental  of the bootcamp, was based on Javascript, I figured getting a jump on it early would only help and would save some time down the road. It did!

- I would highly recommend learning as much as you can beforehand rather than waiting on the class to start. You will also have prework to complete prior to commencing class. I would recommend paying your deposit as soon as possible to both secure your spot and to get the list of prework to complete so that you can get ahead early -

The course moves extremely fast and you must be highly motivated to stay close behind. I say this because you never quite feel caught up. Concepts are introduced quickly. You are then asked to do activities in those subjects in class, and then you are expected to master those concepts at home or on your own time, before the next class, while required to complete your homework and projects on time as well. In fact, I would recommend at least 4 hours of highly-focused studying every night/day, 7 days a week, with weekends dedicated to studying for most of the day. There is a reason why they call it a bootcamp. 

On the first day of the course, our instructor told us to expect a few things. he said, "Expect to fail and expect to fail often. This is how you will learn. This class is the hardest class offered through UCLA extension. If you have an ego, it will be tested often but you will have to get used to failing often. To be a Full stack developer, your job is to solve problems and come up with solutions and most times there will not be someone with you who will give you the answer. You will have to find it yourself. Part of the course is about teaching you how to learn and thus you will become a master at 'Google-Fu', the art of Googling. As a developer you will spend 90% of your time researching and 10% developing code. This can be frustrating for some and tedious for all but the better you are at mastering this skill, the better of a developer you will become."

These words were so right. I did not matter how much of a background I had previously in web design. That perceived advantage lasted for about 4 weeks and then the playing ground evened out for everyone in the class. I went from confident to panic, about 3 times per week until about the 23rd week of class. I expressed my feelings to the instructors and they explained that it was important to trust the process and do the best that I could, but keep pushing ahead.

2 things here. First, the instructors were world-class. They were extremely knowledgable, confident in their skills, able to convey difficult subjects easily, and after letting you struggle for a while, were able to provide solutions to complex problems (all of them had full-time jobs as developers during the day). One of my instructors was a former student of the same school a year prior and had recently landed a new job paying over 6 figures. That alone was motivation. Before the course, he had no prior experience as a coder. He was an English teacher!

Second, trusting the process was excellent advice. What seemed impossible or extremely confusing in the beginning, became second-nature towards the end of the program. The structure of the course was optimized from past-course experience and research, regarding current trends, to make the learning process flow synergistically, with each subject building off skills learned in prior week's subjects.

In addition, as I'm applying for jobs, the skills that we learned are the ones in the highest demand from both employers and recruiters. Along with the help from the career couselors who are tasked with helping you build your resume, offer critiques on your portfolio (that you build in class), assist with your LinkedIn profile and provide additional critiques regarding your Github account, you quickly see that you attract job prospects even before you graduate the program.

I will say this. Although you learn a ton of information, you are still only scratching the surface, and you must continue studying, practicing and building projects after the course ends because you are still, only a junior, junior developer at the completion of the program. 

The class size of 25 is great because you have time to interact with both your T.A.s and instructor on a one-on-one basis and after attempting to find solutions first, the chance for them to answer questions. I was in the Monday/Wednesday class. On saturdays, we moved from a building in Westwood to a lecture hall on campus and combined our class with the Tuesday/Thursday class. This was cool because we had the opportunity to interact with 25 other people who were in the same predicament. 

Over the course of the class, you end up networking and making some great connections and friendships with the people in both classes and especially the people in your chosen groups who work on class projects with you. You are required to complete 3 projects over the course of the class, and if you are creative or outgoing you can build something unique, interesting or important using the technology you learn in the course. Some people solicited companies for ideas and received a subsequent letter of recommendation. They were fortunate in this regard, and were able to build legitimate business applications for their portfolio. The hard part is doing your research, coordinating with your partners, and completing the projects within the 2 weeks you have available. At the end you must present your project to both classes. 

The projects give you a chance to understand development in a team/work setting using Agile of standard development practices including using Git for version control. You also get a basic understanding of the pressure accompanied with completing a team project on a deadline and all of the stressors that go with it. I personally switched groups several times so that I had the experience and networking opportunity to meet and work with multiple people in my class. I was one of the only people who did this but it worked for me. 

One thing that I really liked about the course that was different from my time at UCLA, was the fact that we were not competing against each other. There was no grading curve and a portion of our grade was based on effort and proof of work, especially in a group setting. This created a feeling of motivation to work together and to help each other out, rather than working in solitude. We formed study groups outside of class. We were encouraged to find solutions to problems by asking other classmates questions on our Slack channels, and solving problems together without the instructors help. It helped foster a bond between everyone in the class and by the end, we all felt as though we knew each other and knew each other's skillsets as well. 

Throughout the 2nd half of the course, we started practicing whiteboarding algoriths that were typically given during interviews at prominent tech companies. We had the chance to try and fail these at least once per week to emulate the environment of an interview. I personally tried to tackle 3 algorithms per week in class, and 2 on my own. I feel more confident as I was able to complete 85% of them in class (with some clues and hints from the instructors) and 15% were so hard, I'm still researching the answer at the time of this review. What I realized is that in practicing algorithms, I had actually learned how to program code! I was slow at first, but grew faster each week.

I'm no expert by any means but I can say that I have become a Full Stack Developer. I know enough to build basic applications and with time and a chrome browser, I can build more complex full stack applications. I know how to use HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JQuery, Git, Restful Apis, Ajax. No Sql Databases like Firebase and MongoDb, Node.js, Express.js, React.js, Handlebars, Sequelize, and when looking at other programming languages, I am able to understand them at first glance, giving me the ability to learn new technologies faster and with confidence. 

There is a lack of developers in the world today, I'm lucky to live in Los Angeles where there is a hiring surge and high demand for developers. There are so many options for employment in so many different fields. I find the field of software development extremely interesting, even more so after having completed the course, I feel like I have gained super powers because I can now build applications to support any crazy idea I come up with. It takes a certain type of person to become a developer. You have to be motivated, detail-oriented, patient, stubborn with the attitude that you will perservere despite difficulty. Motivation will get you further than intelligence in this field.

Out of a class of 25, only 16 people graduated and completed the course. Of those, there were some extremely intelligent people who apparently lacked the motivation or ability to complete the course. I'm not sure, but the people who did finish all had the same motivation. 

As a Bruin, I personally think I made a great decision to attend the UCLA Coding Bootcamp. There are literally hundreds of bootcamps available to attend, but after doing research I found that UCLA offered the best curriculum, in the least amount of time. The price was reasonable. The instructors and staff were top-notch and experts in the field, and the results speak for themself. Other bootcamps were either expensive, explored too many stacks to be effective, were not convenient, did not carry the reputation of a school like UCLA, did not offer extensive career services, or wanted a piece of your salary for a specific amount of time once your were hired. 

I highly recommend the UCLA Full Stack Web Developers Coding Bootcamp for aspiring developers. Be ready to work. Don't quit and keep learning. 

I took the part-time bootcamp online. I think the remote aspect of it made completion more difficult for many of my peers, as a majority of the original students did not finish the program. 

If you're taking the program part-time alongside a full-time job, it can be incredibly challenging to balance work, personal life and the program's demands. This program takes a lot of support and understanding from family and significant others to see through completion. 

Before enrolling, I'd do some preemptive self-teaching, especially of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The course moves quickly, and the classmates who did not complete it often seemed less prepared for what they had gotten themselves into. They may not have done their due diligence to truly know they'd like this new career path. And given the costs and commitment to complete the certification, I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. You have to have a degree of love for programming or a piqued interest, I think, to stick it out for 24 weeks.