UW Coding Boot Camp

I graduated the full stack full time program a month ago, and I can firmly say it was worth it. Going in I had some experience with programming, and I’d been taking udemy courses on Javascript, so I was unsure if I should spend the big chunk of change necessary for the bootcamp, or if I should just keep going through the cheaper online courses. But looking back on it I am so glad I did go with this program…they move incredibly quickly through the curriculum, so it’s hard work, but each section builds on the previous material, so it’s constant reinforcement of the various skills. Plus, the teaching staff and other students are a powerful resource. Without them it would have taken me many, many times longer to learn the same skills, and much less comprehensively.
That said, it’s important to set a couple expectations: you won’t learn everything in extreme depth. You’ll be laying the groundwork in front end, back end, APIs, servers, databases, etc, but continuing to learn on your own is absolutely necessary too.

I did knock them down to 4 stars on “instructors”, simply because there was some inconsistency. Some of the TAs were absolutely stellar, and able to reliable point me in the right direction, and some were much shakier it terms of depth of knowledge. But all were wonderful to work with.

November 13, 2019

Love this boot camp! I’m learning so much through this bootcamp, connecting with various people, and enjoying the start of my new journey. Lots of help and support given throughout the course!

November 13, 2019

I am a current part-time student in the Full-Stack Flex program. When I entered the program, the only experience I had with coding was a couple video tutorial on HTML I had watched a couple years ago. We quickly surpassed that knowledge within the first class.

I struggled at first. It had been awhile since I was last in school and making the adjustment to the schedule itself was difficult. Combing working 40 hours a week with late nights downtown two nights a week and an early Saturday morning class threw a torando into my usual routine. Adjustments had to made. Sacrifices to my personal time were essential. I spent the first few weeks finding extra pockets of time throughout my week to work on homework and reviewing in-class assignments.

But throughout all of this, I always felt like I was surrounded by an amazing support team. My teachers, tutors and TA’s were always willing to help me out in a way that made me feel a little more confident. After a few weeks, I looked back and noticed how confident I was in the material I had learned in the weeks prior.

A piece of advice I would give anyone who is starting out on this program: if you have time, always attempt to do the more difficult homework once you have finished the easier one.

One of the first assignments was to build a role-playing game using Javascript. Up to this point, I had been doing the easy assignments which had been just fine. For this one, I decided to try the harder version. I cannot express how difficult I found doing this. I spent hours and hours researching, reading documentation and watching video tutorials and still was not able to get it to work. However, in the following weeks, I found myself actually using a lot of the functions and methods I had already researched for RPG assignment.

This has been one of the lessons I have slowly been learning throughout the program. While it can be frustrating in the moment when you keep trying different things and getting the same results, there is no such thing as wasting time, as long as you are coding. Always be coding.

Currently, I am a little over halfway through the program and I have already built an entire web application. I’m using words and phrases in my daily life that never would have crossed my mind just a few months ago. I am looking forward to completing this program and would higly recommend it to anyone that is interested in development.

November 17, 2019

The UW Coding Bootcamp gave me a great start in the programming. They offered part-time programm which worked well with my schedule. Their curruculum is comprehensive, staff supportive and interested in your success. It’s a good place to start if you have zero or low coding skills.

November 25, 2019

Computer Science teaches you the fundamentals, but not coding. I signed up for the UW Coding Boot Camp to help me get started in coding and help build up my skills further, and I was not disappointed. The program is challenging, demanding, but fulfilling; you get out what you put in. If you are looking for a program to push you and challenge you, this is the program for you. But, you won’t be alone in this journey, the support you receive from the instructional and support staff is amazing. Aaron, Jen, Arjun, Alex and Maddie are phenomenal and have your best interest in mind. 10/10 would do it again.

December 10, 2019

I’m currently attending the UW Full-Stack Bootcamp program (spring/summer 2019).

The program is only halfway complete, but I’ve been really impressed by the quality of teaching, its curriculum, and the general structure of the course. The program packs a lot of learning into a very short timeframe, but the instructors and TAs are always available to help and they’re genuinely interested in their students’ success.

The class requires a very serious time commitment, but by the end of the program, you’ll not only have a solid understanding of the MERN stack but significant hands-on experience (both individually and part of a team) as well.

I’m a definite fan of the program and can’t recommend it enough for those who want to start a new career or update and strengthen their skills.

December 11, 2019

My overall experience with the UW Full-Time bootcamp was a good one, though I do have some points to share with potential applicants. One being, when they say the program is a lot of work, they mean it! Having a BA and other certifications as well as having several years of work under my belt going into this, I thought I knew what working hard long hours looked like. This reset the bar. Expect to work every night and weekend, with very few exceptions, if you want to do well. That being said, I went into this class as a true beginner, so if you have experience you may find the work to take less time.

This class is marketed to all experience levels, as well as to Project Managers. My next point of feedback is that I somewhat disagree that that’s appropriate. 100% you will get more out of this class if you have at least some HTML, CSS, and GitHub experience, and have dabbled in at least one formal programming language (JavaScript especially). If you can take some side classes at a community college to get familiar in any of those prior to the class, you would get a lot more out of it.

From the PM perspective, this class really doesn’t teach you anything about how to manage a project. If you are taking this with the goal of becoming a TPM or PM in the technical world, expect to get your hands dirty working on projects, but don’t expect to be taught any formal frameworks or best practices. What is covered is stand-up meetings and the use of Kanban boards. On a high note, the completion of this bootcamp, in combination with my past work experience and PM Certification, has made me a competitive applicant and I have received a strong response from potential employers since completing the program.

I rated overall experience as a 4 because I expected to get more formal training from the PM perspective. I rated curriculum as a 4 because I feel it was too ambitious for a true beginner. The pre-work will not adequately prepare you for the pace and content of the course if you do not have previous experience. The instructors were fabulous with real-world experience in most cases. The job assistance (career coach) is marvelous and walks through your application materials and the application process in detail. If you sign up for the program, don’t wait to start this process; start talking to your coach early so that by the time you graduate, you can hit the ground running.

December 12, 2019