UT Austin Boot Camps

Here's the TLDR, I would absolutely recommend attending this boot camp, with the caveat that you have to be realistic about time management. If you don't have to work while you attend, or if you work but have minimal commitments to loved ones, then you can get tremendous value from this boot camp, more than many college degrees would yield. If, on the other hand, you have to work a full time job and have kids or a significant other competing for your attention, then you may not get as much value out of the course. Just be honest with yourself, but if you have the time, this course is a phenomenal investment.

Here's the full review.

About Me: I had been teaching myself to code on and off for almost two years before starting the boot camp, and as soon as I heard of it, which was a day or two after it was launched, I applied and was accepted. The prior coding experience I had due to my self-study was tremendously helpful, so I would advise you to have as much self-study as possible before applying, but it is definitely not necessary to succeed, as several of the students that have already landed jobs did not have prior self study. Today was the last day of class and I'm glad to say that the future looks very bright.

Overall Experience: I felt privileged to attend the boot camp with the folks that I was lucky enough to have as my classmates. It seemed like everyone in the class, including the TA's and the instructor, had an interesting story and was an overachiever in one way or another. We had a Fulbright Scholar, a CPA, and a national skee ball champ, just for starters. It was an eclectic bunch and I'm really thankful to have met these folks and gotten to work with them. I'm actually quite curious as to what they'll be investing their energies into in 5 or 10 years.

Instructors: The instructor and the TA's for the course were great, they all really knew their stuff. Also, they always arrived early to class and left late, so we had a ton of time to pick their brains on anything. They were always available for me to reach out to, not only on class content, but also on bigger-picture topics like career advice, and I really appreciated that. All my instructors actually worked full time jobs as web developers in addition to their roles in the boot camp, so they had their fingers on the pulse of the web development scene in Austin. They're really good people...it's hard to convey this, but it's more than a job to them. For reference, I was in the Tuesday/Thursday class with Roger Le as the instructor and Jedd Fenner, Josh Madewell, and Allen Wes as the TA's, but on Saturdays the classes joined together into one large class, and I was lucky to have Holly Springsteen and Rob Daly as TA's then as well. For brevity's sake, I'll just say that if you get the chance to learn under any of these folks, rest assured that you're in good hands.

Curriculum: The curriculum is focused on the MERN stack, for which there's a strong market in Austin right now, but it's very flexible to the market's needs, and changes were made to the course's curriculum as we were going through it. When you think about that, it's really amazing, no college course I've ever been to has been responsive in real-time to the needs of the market, and that's one of the things that sets this course apart from a college course. Through this course, in addition to learning web development, you'll also become extremely confident in your ability to learn anything, which is an invaluable skill in today's economy as it allows you to chart your own path.

Job Assistance: This boot camp does not come with a job guarantee. That said, several students landed well-paying jobs before we even graduated. Two girls landed what could be described as their respective dream jobs. For the most part, career services consists of help with polishing up your resume and cover letter, introductions here and there based on your interests and background, and requiring you to apply to a certain amount of jobs per week once the course finishes. We also have industry speakers come to class on Saturday mornings and share what it's like to work at their companies. I started the application process about a week ago and I already had an interview, which I can directly attribute to my cover letter, resume, and my portfolio and the contents thereof, all of which have been substantially improved due to my having attended the boot camp and my having taken advantage of career services. I'll say this, having completed the boot camp, as I read job descriptions I find myself reading requirements and thinking, "Hey, I can do that!" And if I can't do that, I think, "Hey, I can learn that!" It's pretty swell.

I hope this helped you make a more informed decision, and if you have the time to invest into yourself, don't hesitate, enroll in the course!

I got called by a very long-winded 'Admissions Advisor' for this program, 1st time during work hours at my job so I asked him to call me back the next day. The time we had agreed upon came and went, so I started playing a chess game online thinking he was not going to call. He ended up calling and asking me if I had time to chat (no indication this was any kind of formal interview) so I told him I did, although I was a bit distracted due to my game. He asked if I had any questions, so I asked a series of questions over a 10-15 minute period about the curriculum, admissions requirements, coding languages covered, placement rates for graduates getting hired, coursework, program cost, etc. For some reason about 15 minutes into the conversation he seemed to think that I was having 'doubts' about the program (I never expressed doubts). At this point I had asked all my immediate questions -- and also was a little thrown off by the fact that he kept raising 'doubts' -- so I asked him whether he could just please send me the application and allow me to send further questions via email. Then I asked if he had any questions for me.

Up to now he had asked ZERO questions about my own background. He told me that based on our conversation, which he referred to as a 'screening interview' despite no hint of this in his introduction and a total lack of him interviewing me, he thought that I "did not have the temperament, personality or background for the program" (he still at this point knows nothing about me, other than my name and that I am female, and based on the qualifications he listed I would think I'd be quite competitive; I have a masters from a top 20 university, a strong background in analytical courses and enjoy what coding I've done) but basically seemed to be trying to shame me for being distracted at the start of the call HE was late for. On top of all this, he had the mannerisms and ennunciations of an 80s car salesman throughout the call, making me feel uncomfortably as though he was trying to sell me something, and throwing into doubt the legitimacy of the program for me until I read the reviews online. And as the icing on the cake, for all this I had to resign a rated chess game on my account. I can't speak to the quality of this course and I'm sure the actual classes are great, but this really threw a sour note on my perception of it.

As with many of these reviews I will certainly follow up once the course is over. We are currently in week 18.

I can't speak for other students in the class but I can tell you my story. I started this course with no web development knowledge at all. I spent a couple of hours on freecodecamp before starting this course and I have watched online courses like Harvard's CS50 but I didn't know where to start when putting together even the most basic website.

I found that this course has walked me through the most basic first baby steps of web development and then rapidly given me the tools and explained how to use some more advanced concepts to create real, practical, modern websites. I learned more in the past 4 months than my entire 4 years as a student at UT.

The first month of the class was spent learning HTML, CSS, Bootstrap and the basics to create the front-end of a website. Towards the end of that month and into the next month we dived into Javascript, jQuery, API's and some lesser known database tools (Firebase). After learning how to build a responsive front-end we moved towards Nodejs, MySQL and Express. We just started learning MongoDB this week. 

Instructors in the course have been excellent. We have had guest instructors occasionally and I have noticed they have been testing the waters with these guest instructors to see if they would be able to handle the job as instructors for their own cohorts. I have seen a few guest instructors end up as instructors of their own cohorts and one of our TA's was promoted to instructor for his own class as well (well deserved). 

I've seen other reviews on this website that question the effectiveness of certain instructors but as a student in the Tues/Thurs class I can say our instructor has been extremely effective and I've enjoyed every minute. The instructor from the Mon/Wed class seems to be skilled in teaching his class as well and when he has hosted the combined class on Saturday I've found his sense of humor to be top-notch.

Regarding other expressed concerns on this site about the availability of instructors, I feel like their availability is on par with my expectations. From applying to this course to going through the interview to the first day in class the expectation was set that this course relies on self motivation. These instructors and TA's can guide us and teach us and they'll be there along the way to walk us through but 99.99% of learning is going to come from putting in the time and effort. The TA's and instructors have been available when I need them and stay behind after class for hours as well as offer office hours throughout the week to come to them when we have problems. It's true that most of the staff is employed full time outside of this course but it hasn't restricted my access to them. When reading reviews on this website please know the expressed concerns by other reviewers over staff availability has been greatly exaggerated. 

Throughout the course we have been asked to provide feedback through weekly surveys. I provide this feedback but not to the detail that I am expressing on this website. I felt compelled to write a review because it's important that any potential students understand what they can expect from this course. Biased reviews by students that aren't placing 100% effort into the course should not prevent aspiring programmers from jumping on this opportunity. This was the best career decision I have ever made.   

 

DISCLAIMER : This review is not final. I'll be returning upon completion of the course to provide a more complete feedback.

At the time of this review, we are currently halfway through the course. 

OVERALL EXPERIENCE : Thus far, the bootcamp has been great! The course structure is built and designed as such to allow someone to have a full-time job whilst studying this course. Many other bootcamps are structured in a fully-immersive format. Had this bootcamp been fully-immersive and required me to quit my job I would not have signed up for it.

Currently, the vast majority of classes are being held at the Norris Conference Center off of Anderson Lane. While I have no complaints about the facility, I do wish they would have kept it at the Joe C. Thompson building on UT campus.

Being that this is class zero, I fully expected there to be minor issues and/or changes along the way.

 

CURRICULUM : The curriculum is, for the most part, fantastic. I do like how a curriculum change was made in the beginning of the course to replace Angular.js with React.js due to shifts in market demand as well as the fact that Angular was/is in development for a complete re-write for version 2.0.

That said, on more than one occasion they have had to combine two or more days worth of classes into a single day. This accelerates the learning curve to a point where you can have trouble grasping the concepts, execution, syntax, usages, and limitations of a given technology or method. This coming from myself, after having spent 15 months prior to this class self-teaching myself web development through various online resources. I can only imagine how lost some of the other students might feel if they've had no prior exposure to coding or web development.

Throughout the earlier portions of the class, I've had a lot of students ask me for help with the weekly homework/class assignments. Due to the pace of the class, many if not all of the students spend more hours studying outside of the classroom then inside of it. I guarantee you will fail this class if you limit your study hours to classroom only.

 

INSTRUCTORS : I wish I could rate this as a 6 out of 5 for the Monday/Wednesday instructors. I feel in part that the mixed reviews may be due to the different teaching methods and styles of the Tuesday/Thursday instructors. I'm in the Monday/Wednesday group, and as such will refrain from commenting on the teaching styles and methods of the Tuesday/Thursday instructors. 

Our first instructor is Jim McCoy. He's been involved in web development since 2007 if I recall correctly. His sense of humor carries over into his teaching style, and I find his lectures easy to follow along with. He'll freely admit when there's a method or concept he's unfamiliar with or a question that he feels he can't provide a satisfactory answer for.

Our second instructor is Holly Springsteen. Involved in all things web dev since 2011 or so (Again, going purely off of memory.). Her teaching style is succinct, concise, brief, and to-the-point. Which works great when class time is limited and you have a lot of curious students asking questions to which detailed answers could take hours. She knows when to hand you off to google and when to sit you down in front of a whiteboard for a lengthy eplanation. 

Our third instructor is Rob Daly: He graduated from a bootcamp himself sometime within the past 2 years. And as such, has a firsthand knowledge of challenges and/or concerns the students have. The opposite of Holly when it comes to questions. I once asked him a single question about the React.js library, which resulted in him spending 15 minutes going over the entire lifecycle of data in React.js.

I could not have asked for better instructors.

JOB ASSISTANCE : Job placement is not guaranteed upon completion of this course. Nor for that matter, is the job assistance itself. You are required to maintain a 90% percentage in class attendance and homework submissions(Miss 3 homework assingnments within the 6 months of course material and they are under no obligation to provide job assistance). 

That being said, Jeremy Bergerson our Career Director and Candace Salim our Student Success Manager have been doing an excellent job. We have guest speakers from various companies all at least partially involved in Web Development almost every Saturday. Some of the companies who have had a representative or speaker attend one of the Saturday classes thus far include IMB, HomeAway, JustOnePay, StackOverflow, Help.com, and Data.World. (I'm sure there were a few more that I've neglected to mention.) 

Job assistance has not been a major focus of the course thus far. (remember, we still have 12 more weeks.) I'll have to touch back on this in another 12 weeks.

 

I'll be back.

 

Hello everyone!

I am a student in the 10th week of UT Coding Bootcamp - I love it so far, here's why:

1. I really like my instructor, Jim McCoy, he makes learning fun, and keeps the class engaged with humor. He explains concepts so well that those with little experience (me!) can still grasp the complicated subject matter. The teacher for the other class, Roger Le, is also a super knowledgable, helpful academic staff member.

2. They teach us real world application building using best in class tools like: git, github, sublime text, heroku, ghpages, and more.

3. My classmates are super involved, sharing cool tools we find on our own, and going above and beyond coursework requirements to learn as much as possible.

4. I enjoy learning how to learn as a developer through extensive google searching. You kind of wonder, why am I paying you so much money to learn how to google? But in reality, this is what you'll be doing at work - and it's surprising how satisfying it is to figure out how to ask a question appropriately.

5. The TAs I've interacted with: Holly, Rob, & Josh - all top quality. They'll help you understand key concepts, but won't hold your hand through the process so you learn how to learn on your own next time.

6. Career director JB is amazing. He develops relationships with companies & individuals and delivers quality speakers, networking opportunities, and real world advice for finding a job after the program. I have been supremely impressed with his dedication.

7. Last but not least - it's part time. I can keep my job, (and keep my bills at bay...) while learning at night & on the weekends.

I tried self study on sites like: codeacademy, team treehouse, and codeschool before enrolling in this course. My learning has accelerated tremendously since entering this class.

We're only 10 weeks in, and I am already comfortable with a wide variety of technologies like: CSS, HTML, Bootstrap, JavaScript, jQuery, API research & integration, Heroku, Git, Github, etc.

In conclusion I would just like to say that it is not easy. You will have to dedicate large amounts of time outside of the class to study & learn on your own.

If you aren't prepared to come early, stay late, and always be coding - I wouldn't recommend it. But if you are ready to take the plunge, this is a great pool to dive into.

Good luck :)

-Lisa

I signed up for the Graduate Learning Certificate Program through UT Austin for AI / Machine Learning and it has been a very frustrating experience. The materials have not been up-to-date, the mentor through the first 1/2 of the program was barely understandable, and now they have extended the program end date from mid-Dec to mid-Jan. In addition, they micro manage you by forcing you to attend a Saturday class weekly at 9:00 am in order to get credit for it, even though it is recorded and could easily be watched later for credit. PGP-AIML-BA-UTA is the name of the program.