Devmountain

I enrolled in the Immersive UX Design program at DevMountain's Salt Lake City location. At the time, I was living in the Bay Area and moving to Salt Lake for this course was a huge decision. The fact that it was going to be their first full time cohort gave me a little pause, but after corresponding with the enrollment staff and looking into their curriculum I decided to go for it. I just graduated and can honestly say it was one of the best decisions I've made for myself! The program was fast and intese, but incredibly thorough. My instructor Brandon Beecroft was absolutely phenomenal and was able to somehow be the best teacher each one of us needed. We had plenty of help when we needed it, and plenty of autonomy to do our own work. While I do have a background in research, I haven't had much background in design but it wasn't necessary for this course and I'm pumped about the possibilities moving forward. You don't get a grade or any type of certification at the end, but the portfolio you create during the course serves as proof of the skills you've developed.

After graduating just 3 weeks ago I've already gotten job offers. I credit that to the awesome mentors and connections our teacher helped us to leverage, and the training we got from Meaghan on how to build effective resumes and LinkedIn profiles. For anyone considering make a career change, I'd highly recommend DevMountain. 

Quick Back Story

I want to start this story with full disclosure and a note for anyone out there who is reading this and has ever thought, "im not smart enough for this" or something to the like. because I myself have thought that before, and sometimes, i still do. But i want you to know that I attended Devmountain to change my life, and it helped me do just that. 

I went into this school with 2 weeks of coding experience. TWO WEEKS, people. In retrospect, i probably should've studied a little longer and maybe had a tad more time under my belt before applying but i didnt, and i succeeded, so oh well to that thought.

The Curriculum

They have a lot of ground to cover in your short, 12 week stay, and you feel it. The content is very fast paced and sometimes you'll feel pretty overwhelmed. Sorry if i'm scaring you, what i'm trying to say is that you need to want this for yourself. This can't just be a "skill" you're just going to learn and put in your back pocket for future use. I mean i'm sure you want this if you've already applied and paid for the course. 

The reason i bring up the difficulty is that I wasn't entirely aware of how hard this was going to be, I'm an average joe whos never coded before and by the time i was only a few weeks in I was able to write basic apps using Angluar, jQuery, Javascript, CSS and HTML. It was all very cool to me. By 6 weeks we were all able to write somewhat more advanced apps using more advanced tools like NodeJS, and SQL. I wasn't the best in my course, nor was I the smartest but I did ok because i wanted it, and because I had people to lean on. Which brings me to my next point.

The Teachers and Staff

The teachers and staff at Devmountain are the most memorable to me. They're thorough, they're caring and they're blunt. Which you need sometimes. If you're not doing so well you dont want someone just telling you you're doing fine to be nice. You want your moneys worth! and thats where they really shine, they will tell you when you're doing something wrong or inefficiently and present you with a better way, or give you advice on things to read, or practice. They're supportive and kind. When I felt like i wasnt getting it, or i wasnt smart enough someone would come along side me and pick me up. It was the kind of comfort I needed to make it through the process when i was filled with doubts. 

I deeply enjoyed the help and guidance i received while attending Devmountain.

Outro

Devmountain is tough, but because i wanted to succeed, and i wanted to learn, i did. Devmountain changed my life and gave me a career i can finally be proud of. I left Devmountain on December 16th with experience and knowsledge to show employers that I was worth there time, and guess what? I had a job by January. 

DevMountain was the best decision I have ever made, It was hard, and my whole family had to sacrifice to get me there. But I'm in a place now that I could never have reached without the experience and skills that i acquired at that school.

I went to DevMountain in Provo, UT (Nov '15) because I wanted little to no distractions in my learning environment. It was the best decision I ever made. The instructors were amazing! S/O to Jeremy! And the mentors were unbelievably helpful - most of them would stay late and help out, off the clock. That is something all of us were so thankful for. They went out of their way to make sure we understood the cirriculum.

There is also free housing. You do have to pay a housing deposit, but you get it back once the cohort ends. The housing was so comfy and great - especially if you're a girl, because you most likely get your own room since almost no girls attend. When I attended the school, there was a total of 4 girls, and only three of us lived in the housing.

DevMountain needs more girls!

The school is in an old candy factory and it's absolutely beautiful. I love older buildings - so much character.

DevMountain provides free soda and coffee, as well as free breakfast every Friday.

Some guest instructors were questionable, and not very good. But our lead instructor always made sure we went over the material if we didnt like the guest instructor.

The Job assistance is one of those things: If you do not ask, you shall not receive. You have to be active in your job search. Nobody is going to throw a job in your lap, and I think some people expected that. Not sure why. But Jeff worked extrememly hard to get everybody 'job-ready.' And there are constant postings in the #Jobs devmtn slack channel. Jeff has also gone out of his way to get people interviews and introduce employers to students he think would be a good fit for the company.

Sometimes the ciriculum was a little all over the place, but I liked it. I only rate it as a 4 star because we werent being taught backend technologies that companies around us were using (really just the Database). At the time, we were taught MongoDB, but they do not have the same ciriculum today. Today it is better ciriculum.

There are a lot of perks going to DevMountain at any location, but I have worked at two of their locations, and Provo, UT is by far my favorite atmosphere.

Attending DevMountain, I had pretty much zero coding experience. I had played around with some HTML and CSS in my younger days, but had never written a line of JavaScript code. I am, by my nature, a skeptical person, and the idea of 13 weeks being enough time to prepare me for a career in tech was difficult to believe. Thankfully, I had friends who have done it, and encouraged me to try. I'm glad I did.

I constantly see people, when talking about their code-camp experience, say things along the lines of "you get out of it, what you put in". If it is a cliché, it is so for a reason. I am as good an example of that as any. I completed DevMountain 17 weeks after I wrote my first line of code, and had a job in less than 3 weeks after that. I had no experience and no proficiency beforehand. All I had was a positive attitude, a willingness to learn, and put I in the work. DevMountain provided the guidance and curriculum to take me the rest of the way.

Along those lines, my only advice to anyone looking to attend DevMountain, is be prepared to WORK. It's called a boot-camp for a reason. DevMountain is intense, but it has to be. There is just so much to learn, but if you are willing to work your butt off, you CAN do it. It's the best decision I've ever made, and I would (and have) recommended it to anyone looking to get a start in the tech industry.

I was looking for a place to learn the skills I'd need to start a new career. I didn't want to just dabble in learing iOS development. What attracted me to Devmountain was the hands on/action oriented curriculum. Starting with the pre-course materials and from day 1 of class, we started building apps. They have a great mixture of "theory" and application. I was also excited to learn that I'd be shipping 2 apps to the app store during the program. It is a very fast paced program with a lot of material to cover so it takes a lot of focus and hard work. Overall a great experience!

DevMountain was exactly what I needed. The part time class is very obviously less time than the full time class. The full time students I talked to on campus were there all day every day putting in a mountain of hours. I wish I could of done that, but I can't leave my current job right now to enroll in a full-time class. But the part time class is less than half the price as well so I think a part time student's time with mentors and teachers correlate exactly with the pricing. The time I did have in class with teachers and mentors is great, and they do a good job of explaining concepts clearly. They have a lot of great information and they really know their stuff. I would have liked to see more structure to what is taught through the videos. For those that don't know, alot of concepts are taught previous to class through videos, and then it is taught and worked on in class. I didn't feel like there was a lot of time preparing and thinking about exactly how to teach through the videos. But I heard they are redoing the videos right now because of many students leaving feedback on the videos. But I really appreciated that the mentors and teachers knew their stuff and are very willing to help in class. Thanks to DevMountain, I am taking on contracted work while still at my previous job (at a startup). I help business development at my company but put in 20+ hours into development through my contracted work every week. My plan is to eventually transition into development as a career or at my own startup one day. My experience was definitely positive.

I came into DevMountain having only minimal coding experience (one college intro course in C#). I didn't know entirely what to expect. However, they were very upfront about what your experience would be like, and how it would be tough. The instructors and instruction is rock-solid, and having the help of mentors is unbelievably useful. The one ding I have is that some of the mini-projects you work on need to be updated/revamped as some of them are very unclear. Other than that, you gain a ton of knowledge and have the opportunity to build a few projects of your choosing to implement the skills you picked up. 

At the end, you have a week of instruction and portfolio building designed to aid you in your efforts of finding a job as a developer. They have staff that are dedicated to helping you find work as well. Through some of their help, I was able to land a job as a front-end developer 6 weeks after completing the course. 

Cheers DevMountain! Me love you long time.

I was in the after hours program this last fall. The program was great. I felt like instruction and mentoring were exactly what I needed. I had tried to learn computer programming previous to DevMountain but had failed many times. The personal guidance was invaluable.

A lot of the reviews about the after hours program on here are correct, there is not much job assistance with the after hours program. I have heard different about the full time program, they help you a ton. I was debating between the two programs. I just leveraged my mentors, instructors, and simply just worked hard to get the skills I needed.

I now have a job working at a local startup doing Front end and QA. It took me about a month of hard searching. But I definitely would not be where I am without DevMountain. So yes, I recommend DevMountain, either after hours or full time.

From an early age, I was fascinated by technology in particular computers. I was self-taught in my computer skills, which I would consider to be above average, but nothing special. Goofing around in high school, I didn't take my quantitative classes serious and avoided taking any class higher than the requirement. Consequently, when I got to college and had matured, I realized that I was now scared of math, which shied me away from a traditional computer science degree. In my sophomore year of college, I enrolled in an intro level course for web development, and I was hooked. I bought books, did any online coding I could find and even took the advance course for web development, but still had so many questions about the sites I was able to create in comparison to the sites I went to every day. Long story short, I knew that I wanted to become a developer and didn't want to change degrees, so I looked into a coding-boot-camps. I was skeptical and nervous because I was already taking out loans to go to college and I didn't know if this would just add to my debt and reap no reward. Despite my reluctance, I did my research, and for reasons surrounding location, price, and curriculum I decided on DevMountain. I finished their 12-week Full-time Web Development program and couldn't be happier! The pre-course work was substantial but provides a good foundation coming into your cohort. From the instructors to the mentors I found myself surrounded with an intelligence level far superior to the courses I had taken previously. I can honestly say I learned more in the first two days then I had taught myself in the past year and a half. Web development isn't a static industry where you're learning a specific skill that will be applicable forever; you're learning foundational knowledge about popular programming languages, which will transcend in one's ability to learn anything. It was a breath of fresh air to be in an environment, where learning was as encouraged as being uncomfortable. Questions were welcomed, ideas were nurtured, and mistakes were the best way to find a solution. If you're looking for a way into the industry, look no further than DevMountain. 

If you have specific questions or concerns feel free to contact me through email (dallin.r.parker@gmail.com) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dallinparker)

I loved my time spent in the iOS Immersive program in SLC. The curriculum gets you very comfortable with Apple Frameworks and gives you the confidence to learn anything. By the time I finished, I had two apps in the App Store. DevMt also helps you get ready for the job hunt. They give you tips and tricks for your linkedIn and resume, and even have hiring events. Also they give you a good strategy for connecting companies and getting interviews. Another good thing is that it supplies you with a network of friends for you to help each other. I love the people I met through the program. 

I graduated October 7, and am starting my first job tomorrow (November 29). So it took me a little less than 2 months. It is an internship that pays $20 an hour that can potentially lead to full employment and a pay increase. $20 an hour is probably a 25-30 percent increase from my other job, which is a great start. My other friend got an internship with a $50,000 salary with a very famous company.

My Advice:

• Do the precourse materials! It gives you the foundation necessary excel in the program. 

• Take it seriously and don't slack. Make it your primary focus so that when you start your capstone project you are prepared with most of the knowledge ready to complete your App.

• Write down App ideas everyday so that when Capstone week arrives, you are ready to pitch your ideas to the mentors there.

 • Move into the free dorms or back into your parent's house so you don't have to worry about rent money.

• Save up enough money to last you through the program and then some for when you are looking for a job. The program and the time spent finding a job was a little less than 5 months. You could use your tax return, borrow money from family, or if you are thinking about taking this program in 6-12 months, try save money every month until then. 

Overall, I loved the program and the experience. I am excited to start my job tomorrow!

DevMountain for me was exactly what I was looking for. I needed to shake things up. I needed something different in my professional life because college wasn't cutting it. I needed a way to advance in my career.

I found DevMountain online and choose it because it was affordable, had amazing reviews, and because it included free housing. It was a life changing decision, and I am happy I choose DevMountain.

I came to class. Put in the work. Did everything I was asked to do. Now, I have a job that I love, make double what I used to, and I have a very clear path of advancement. 

I would 100% recommend DevMountain and I am leaving this review because DevMountain deserves to know that. The people there, the program, and my new skills have changed my life.

Before DevMountain, I had no real programming experience. I had been trying to learn on my own using online resources, but that's about it. After getting accepted to DevMountain, I worked hard to complete all of the pre-course work, and made sure that I was practicing every single day before the first day of class. It's so important to take the pre-course work seriously and come into class on the first day well prepared.

DevMountain was an amazing experience. The mentors were very knowledgeable, and they really took the time to help you and cared about your success. The curriculum is as hands-on as it gets. You get to make apps from the very first day. You make a different app almost every day, with each one more difficult than the last. I honestly can’t believe how much I learned in such a short time. By the time I finished DevMountain, I had two apps on the app store.

Having said that, the most important thing for your success and how much you get out of DevMountain is your own dedication and willingness to work hard. They call it an immersive bootcamp for a reason. There were many, many days where I was coding all day long, from 8:45am to midnight, taking only 30 min breaks for lunch and dinner. This isn’t required, as class is from 9am to 5pm, but they tell you on the first day that 9-5 isn’t enough to truly succeed and get the most from DevMountain. You have to be dedicated enough to put time in outside of class to teach yourself using the resources provided by DevMountain and to work on your own projects when it comes time for your capstone and group project. It isn’t all just hard work of course. I had SO much fun at DevMountain and made some great friendships along the way.

Just a few weeks after graduating from DevMountain I was hired as a iOS and Mac software engineering intern at an amazing and well known company here in Utah. My salary is literally double what I was making before DevMountain, and I’m only an intern! DevMountain was an incredible experience, and if you are diligent enough to live code all day every day for 3 months, it can launch you into an amazing new career.

Bottom line, it isn’t easy, but DevMountain provides you with:

• a great environment to learn
• a solid and up-to-date curriculum
• excellent teachers and mentors
• a network of students, teachers, and alumni
• lots of resources to learn on your own outside of class
• assistance in finding a job

Typical backstory to many on here who took the bootcamp to change their career. Felt I was worth more and was feeling bored/stuck at my last job after immediately hitting the glass ceiling. I didn’t enjoy my job and I wasn’t making enough to make a dent in my college loans. 

Anyways fast forward after some soul searching and looking around to what I could do next I decided to look at bootcamps. I’m from Boston and got accepted to 3 bootcamps but DevMountain and the Flatiron School were the two that I had my eyes on. After giving it some thought and reaching out to alumni’s from both schools and getting their feedback I decided DevMountain was going to be the best bang for my buck. First as an out of stater housing is including with your tuition! That alone is amazing and secondly the course is a couple of thousands of dollars cheaper than it’s NY competitor. 

So to the actual experience I’m not going to lie, it was really hard at times. I got halfway through the program and I’ll admit I wasn’t feeling very confident regarding my progress and it wasn’t for my lack of trying. Luckily since this school is a bootcamp and they’re constantly listening to feedback and adapting to the feedback they decided to implement rolling modules! O.K. so what are rolling modules? Well traditionally you get taught the lesson for the week (mind you there’s a lot to learn every week) and at the end of the week everyone moves on to the next week to learn the next major concept. Problem is whether you understood the concept of say week 1 or not you still went on to the second week regardless of how confident you felt you understood the concept of the week you just finished. Well with rolling modules you get tested on Friday on those concepts learned during the week and based on how well you did, recommendations from your mentors and your feeling on how well you feel you understood the concepts you either move on to the following week or you’ll repeat the completed week again to better solidify those concepts. These way of learning was so groundbreaking for me because it really helped me understand the concepts going through them a second time! It’s literally almost like being able to take the course a second time but not having to pay extra for the extra experience!

I wrapped up the course, made a good impression on my mentors and teachers and got hired as a mentor myself for the next batch of students coming in. 

After my stint as a mentor which in of itself was an amazing learning opportunity I came back to Boston and within a week and a half started my new job as an iOS developer for a dev shop in the middle of the city. I literally doubled my income within a year and am now I’m constantly being emailed about new job opportunities within the area if i’m ever interested. Most importantly I love my new job and co-workers, I feel challenged at my job, I’m constantly learning new things and I finally feel like a real asset to a company…I feel respected. 

Thank you for the life changing experience DevMountain, can’t wait to stop by sometime in the future to say hi and see how my favorite school is doing.

    My experience at DevMountain was very enjoyable. It was one of the most challengeing things I have ever done in my life. One thing that you must know is that you get out what you put in!! Even if you get accepted, keep coding! Finish Pre-Course work, make some projects, and keep challenging yourself. Understand that when you get to the job market, you are competing with Computer Science Grads. So the more up to speed on Day 1, the better!

    When I got there I was amazed by how great the free housing was. It was literally a 1 minute walk to campus in Provo, It really adds to the immmersie environment. I had 2 roommates that were some of the coolest guys I've ever met, it was always nice to be living with people going through the same daily stess as you.

    The instructors were great. During lectures, they really make sure that everyone is following him at a good pace, for those who got a bug in the middle of class, our mentors were quick to help them out and get them back up to speed. There were 5 mentors to about 29 students in my cohort. They were all very knowledgeable and approachable so there was little drop-off from the instructors. Our mentors were also former students, so they knew the struggle that we went through.

Job Assistance is the only category I did not give Five Stars. You get some mock-interviews and lessons on how to market yourself. As well the meet and hire lunch that gives you the chance to talk to employers. other than that, it was every man for himself. I would say to not just pick any job. I made the mistake of picking a very poor job for a junior dev that I quit after a month. My new job is great and I picked up Python for the job, devmountain teaches you to learn as well. So learning a language is a lot easier the second time around. 

Overall I tripled my income and I am living independently, the community among alumni and current students is great. I still visit from time to time and I'm welcomed with open arms. To conclude, if you put the work in and willing to learn more before and after the camp. You will be very successful. I highly recommend DevMountain to anyone that can do those things

Kind of long but my honest thoughts…

Attempting to change my career, I was studying web development on my own every evening, and with my brother every weekend (driving 2.5 hours to do it) and it was definitely slow going. I was seriously looking for a faster way and found coding bootcamps were becoming really popular. I talked about it with my brother and he said that if he were in my shoes and had the opportunity to do it he would definitely go because what I was doing was the "slow boat to China!"

One, in particular, caught my eye. DevMountain in Provo, Utah had housing included! That was my ticket. Without the housing included I just wouldn't have been able to afford it all. Also, not only is DevMountain NOT the slow boat, it is a fast-paced, information-fire-hosed-in-the-face kind of learning that I would never have thought could teach me much. Can that kind of learning actually stick? Well, it does, but it is all up to you. Seriously. At DevMountain you learn then do, then learn more, then do more, and build on what you learned and did, and do some more... Non-stop! But that is the secret sauce. The idea of "learn a little and do something with it" really helps it stick in there somewhere. 

Then there is the fact that you have a Mentor instructor there all the time. Get stuck, can't find an answer fairly quickly on Google, or elsewhere, call over your Mentor and he/she will walk you through figuring out your problem and then you're off to the races again. You definitely learn a lot here. But it also comes at a price. That price is diligence, hard work, long hours coding. I generally arrived at the school between 7:30 and 8am (turned on the lights) and didn't leave until sometime between 10 and midnight. And no, I wasn't the brightest one there just because I had a good work ethic. Everyone is different and that is just what it took for me.

There is another price... when you're done with the 12-week bootcamp you are NOT done. Nope. You need to keep building projects and don't stop until you have a full-time dev job and don't have time to do little projects. But I'll bet that if you truly love to code, you will still be building your own little projects even then. Also, don’t fool yourself into thinking that this is a magic tunnel into an awesome web dev job. It is definitely a path to that industry, but realize that it will still take time and work to get there. It took me just over 4 months to get a dev job after graduating from DevMountain. But I think I could have been ready sooner if I had diligently kept building something new all the time, which I struggled with.

So take a deep look at yourself, see if coding is truly what you want to do and if that kind of dedication is within you. Realize that a coding bootcamp is a place to launch yourself, not a place to be given anything. You will earn every bit of knowledge and skill you come out of there with.

Go forth, and build something awesome!

After working hard applying myself in the Web Immersive course. With the assistance of the staff it only took my 3 weeks to land an amazing job with benefits. DevMountain was an amazing experience! I pushed myself and followed the advice from the Instructors and Staff.  I had no idea how prepared I actually was when I entered the job market and how prepared I was for the interview process. Companies were impressed with the projects I had completed and how quick I was able to pick up various technologies. Stay engaged, work hard and follow the advice. They won't hand you a job but will provide you with every tool you need to succeed. It honestly changed my life! So grateful!