UC Irvine Boot Camps

Data Visualization and Analysis boot camp that updates the participant with modern, relevant technical skills over a 6 month period.  The assignments are always challenging, and the knowledge gained is invaluable.  The best thing about this course is the value the instructors and the TAs bring to the students.  I've completed my MBA program at USC, and the way the class is run reminds me of my professors and classes at my MBA program, which projects as a professional environment.  Classes are always engaging, and more often than not, the instructions are geared towards understanding and not lecturing.  During COVID, the challenges of transitioning to an online structure was less than ideal, but the instructors and TAs did well in supporting the students.  Although I wished I had more interactions with the other students in person, we were still able to build relationships with our Zoom meetings.  Our instructor, Joy, and the TAs, Hoan and Tarique, were just phenomenal in their guidance and support.  I have graduated feeling that I'm now armed with technological skills that will be invaluable in my future job environment.

Now, I am moving towards my career guidance part of the program, and I intend to take advantage of all that is offered in support of finding my dream job.

Full stack web development course was 3 months full-time from Nov. 5 - Feb. 14. VERY intense so you need to be prepared to work 30-40 hours OUTSIDE of class to keep up. I wouldn't recommend working a full-time job during this time. It was hard work, so be prepared to study every night and let family and friends know your week-ends will be busy. Teachers and TAs were FANTASTIC!! Our teacher, Taylor Blanche is very knowledgeable, helpful and even had weekly 2 hour zoom calls after hours to address questions or topics that people weren't clear on. Great class!  I highly recommend it for learning web development skills vs trying to do it on your own.

There are so many different bootcamp out there, but I am so glad that I landed my on UCI Data Analytic Bootcamp!! The bootcamp allowed me to equip with newest tech skill to enter data world, and the program provide variety of aspect to better explore student's need, like getting a buffet we get to choose what to keep in the plate. But the highlight of this entire bootcamp experience was actually our instructor and his team support him in the back. We had so much to learn in the course, but because we had a great teacher that everything was made possible. The instructor so willing to help student that he consistently host review session so everyone can have their chance to get more question answered. In addition, our TA were all very passion about their own work, so they were able to convey that energy and to help each student in class. Lastly, the career services and the student success manager REALLY look out for each of us, and making sure we had all we need to thrive. It is really hard to find people who actually care, and do all their best to support you in all level. 

The bootcamp is not a easy thing, it does require student to put in a lot of effort and time to be able to really get a grasp of it. With the program set up and the support from career service, I am more than ready to face new challenge after the program end.

I will STRONGLY recommend this Data Analytic Bootcamp from UCI for anyone.

The coding boot camp here was such a great experience. Although the course was fast paced, the instructors and TAs really do a great job spoon feeding the complex concepts to help you understand what you're doing. 

The staff really does their best to help you develop your skills and cater to your learning style. I do recommend putting in the extra time to practice and study to better understand each and every topic/concept. 

This program helped me in my career change and has helped me create what I could've only imagine come to life. 

The UCI bootcamp is a great investment for developers interested to add web technologies to their toolbelt.  It offers a good challenge, and bring you up to speed in We development using Mongo DB, Express, React, and Nod JS (MERN).

I am a software developer falling behind in web technologies. This bootcamp brought me up to speed. Yes, is hard to have to work and attend classes, with homework and projects, but it really pays off once you reach the finish line. The transformation is amazing. I am impress of how much I learn and put to practice.

I can highly recommend  this bootcamp, as is back up by a serous institution as the University of California – Irvine.

I had some design background, but I wanted to pursure a higher understanding of the research and testing methoods of UX Design. I looked into a lot of different programs and I felt that the 6-month program at Trilogy's UCI Boot Camp was the most benificial. 10 weeks is not enough time to digest all the information that you are going to get in a boot camp like this. I also felt that the UCI name attached to this program would be wel recieved and more respectable (I learned that a lot of the 10 week programs have gotten a negative stigma for how quickly they pump students out). 

The class went great, there were only about 30 students and everyone was very motivated and excited to learn. The instructor was amazing and had an extensive knowledge and tons of real-world experience in the field. We meet 3 days a week and had plenty of time between classes to study materials, complete assigments and still have a job and a life. 

The career services was very helpful and the Career Director that was assigned to me was a great help in preparing for applying and interviewing for new jobs. She was a very valuable resource through my process and was crucial to me getting a position. 

I was hired a as UX Designer 4 months after completing the program. 

I was looking for a quick ride to success to compete in the field of web development. This program provided me with what I expected, hoped for, and even beyond. With it's fast paced, well organized, and comprehensive aspects, It was the most resourceful, efficient, and effectual 6-months in my life. From a first had experience, I can tell that Triology and their amazing team have proven success with this program. I would definitely recommend it for others and advise them to take it seriously because it is a life changing experience. This boot camp requires a lot of work and dedication, but it is worth every single effort and sleepless night.

You'd be better served just teaching yourself, since this is pretty much what you'll be doing most of the time anyway.

After spending some time trying to teach myself to code for some work projects, I figured it was time to get some professional training and be more efficient in my learning. This course was pretty much the only one that offered a classroom experience and part-time option for working professionals, and it had decent reviews. I also assumed that since this course was affiliated with a prestigious university, namely UCI, it would be legit.

Man was I wrong. I'm part-way though this course, I've always been top of my class, and I get most of the material, but this course is shit. It's not organized, I mean really not well structured at all. It's also put on by Trilogy Education, not UCI. They offer pretty much zero resources of their own so everything you're looking at is what someone else put together and it's just not coherent.

For $10k, I could've hired an experienced developer to teach me more in a few weeks than I will in 6 months. What a monumental waste of time. I have walked away with some new knowledge and skills, but it's because I put in a lot of work outside of class and taught myself, or worked with TA's on the side. So dissapointing. If I can save just one of you from such a terrible experience, please listen. DO NOT TAKE THIS COURSE.

In early June, 2018 I applied to the UX/UI boot camp at UC Irvine.  I went through a standard application process and worked with advisors who were helpful.  After being admitted to the program, which was set to start Aug 18, 2018, I paid a $2,500.00 deductible and signed a contract with Trilogy Ed. One week after submitting payment and a contract I was notified that the program was moved to September.  Then, two days later, I was notified that the program was cancelled until further notice.  This happened the first week of July, and I have yet to receive my refund.  Today, 7/30/2018 is the first time I have official confirmation that I am even in the process of getting my money refunded.  This was a huge decision for me both financially and in my current career, and this program blew it off as nothing.  I advise future applicants to beware of placing their trust in this program after my experience.  

I was working in finance and wasn't satisfied with where my career was heading. Fueled by a love for technology and a desire to help build the future I decided to pursue programming. After studying on my own for a year, I wasn't connecting the dots I needed to reach a professional level. After much consideration I decided to take the plunge and join the UCI Full Stack Bootcamp. It was one of the better decisions I've ever made; the bootcamp accelerated my learning and by the time I left I felt confident and competent. Both the curriculum and the teachers are first rate, with tremendous focus on bringing you up to speed with modern processes. Shortly after graduation I had my first job in the field and am ecstatic with my prospects, the future is looking bright. Thanks Trilogy!

Alessandro

Intro:

I am a graduate of the fulltime July cohort for the Fullstack Web Development path and can safely say this was easily one of the best decisions I have made in my life thus far.

Pre-Bootcamp: 

A little bit of background first - Prior to the bootcamp, I had a Bachelor's degree and a two years of managerial work experience. Long story short I decided to leave my full-time job and pursure a career as a computer programmer.

Around this time last year, I was scraping the internet trying to find any information I could on coding bootcamps. The number of potential coding bootcamps I could attend were endless and making the decision to choose between one or the other became overwhelming.

A friend of mine told me about the UCI bootcamp and I was immediately interested in knowing more. After looking everywhere online I couldn't find any reviews about the bootcamp because it was a brand new program.

I ultimately decided to choose the UCI Coding Bootcamp over other bootcamps because I believed having completed a program associated with UCI on my resume would be more valuable in the long run. It was a gamble as the tuition was not cheap, but looking back, it would have been a shame if I let this opportunity pass me by because of the tuition cost.

Curruculum:

The curriculum worked very well for me and remained up to date with the latest technologies. The entire course is broken down from day one so you can see exactly what you will be learning and when you will be learning it. We even changed some of the learning material as we went if the instructor thought a particular technology was outdated.

The pace was perfect for me. Each new technology we learned was broken down into small programming activities. When it came time to do a project at the end of each week, you can reference these small building blocks to assist with putting together a real working application.

The only thing I wish was included in the curriculum would be cloud technologies like AWS. We used Heroku which is great for quickly deploying your application but a dedicated cloud technology section would have been awesome. (I wouldn't be surprised if this is now included in the most recent curriculum).

Instructors:

This is the main reason why my experience at the coding bootcamp was so valuable. I really got lucky with having Taylor as my instructor. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how good the curriculum is or how good of a programmer an instructor is. If that person is incapable of teaching then I might as well have paid $10 for a Udemy course and called it a day.

Luckily, Taylor was a very knowledgable programmer and an excellent teacher.

Taylor teaches with an intelligent and patient demeanor. He made himself approachable and encouraged his students to ask questions. I could tell he truly enjoyed his job and did his best to help his students succeed.

In addition to Taylor, I was also very lucky to have Sean and Daniel as the class TA's. They were both very capable, intelligent, and dedicated to helping the student's learn. Before the bootcamp began I was a bit skeptical on whether or not 1 teacher and 2 TAs would be able to handle a group of 25-30 students. This ended up not being a problem for me at all as they were always available to answer any questions I had. 

Often times I would have a more in depth question and needed some guidance with a project. Taylor, Sean, and Daniel were always willing to schedule a time for office hours to point me in the right diretion.

I hope UCI Coding Bootcamp management realizes how valuable these three are to the organization because my overall experience could have been entirely different had I ended up with a different teacher and TA's. 

Overall Experience:

The 3 months I spent at this bootcamp were as valuable as the 4 years I spent in college. It was a lot of hard work and I had many late nights, but I loved every second of it.

Let me start, the instructors and support staff were great from top to bottom - Michael, Ben, Kyle, Teresa and Sammy.  My apologies if I forgot anyone.  But the curriculum is sorely lacking and absolutely none of it prepares you to be a full time developer.  It starts off great but they need to focus more on fundamentals.  They dive way too deep into node packages that can be learned in a day.  Stay away, stay very far away.  Do not be fooled by the affiliation to UCI.  Most of my cohort has not found a job.

I attended the part time coding bootcamp from March-September this year.  I found the Instuctors to be outstanding.  Ben and Michael really knew their stuff.  The TAs Kyle and Tim were great too.  They were helpful throughout the course.  The cohort covers a lot of ground.  So, be ready to put in your time studying.  They recommend 20 hours of outside class study time each week.  In my experience, it's absolutely necessary if you want to absorb the content and keep up.  

Jenna was very helpful in the career services department.  Although, it seemed like she was in the position of a very cometent person being streached very very thin.  I've heard that the school is bringing on additional resources and personel to support her in the future.

This program is very new, and so I can see a few flaws but this is a really great fit for me. I was extremely nervous about dumping a lot of money in a coding bootcamp, but if you want to get into tech this is definitely worth it. Let me start with my main that I had.

This, along with a lot of other coding bootcamps definitely seemed like a scam to me. For this program, I really wish that they didn't make it feel like such a scam. The whole phone ""interview"" and "You have been accepted!!" is really bogus. If you want it, you'll get accepted. Why lie about it? I believe this program would get so much better attention if they were just honest and straight up. Here's the cost, here's what we expect from you, and here's what we give you. That kind of honesty will bring more people than trying to make everyone feel like they're so lucky!! 

That being said, this program is definitely worth it. Since it was only the second cohort ever, I only had to pay 8,500. I did A TON of research on coding bootcamps in general before making the decision to drop all this money. But I found that 8,500 is relatively cheap. Anyone who goes through these coding bootcamps will get a job, due to the high demand for programmers in the field. So it is a cheap price to pay for a 6 month path to a whole new career. 

One of my biggest fears was how I could do this coding bootcamp while working full time? If you are working full time, and you are concerned about not being able to do this, trust me. THIS IS POSSIBLE. I was thinking that if i work 40 hours, class is 10 hours, AND they recommend atleast 20 hours outside of class. That's 80 hours of work a week! It's not that bad. If you're like me, and passionate about learning to program, programming outside of work is really not that stressful. It feel more like a hobby, then it is work! You get to build cool games, meet really cool likeminded people, and collab on them to make creative projects. I am legitmately excited to come to class! So if you are full time and worried about the time crunch, do not worry! I highly recommend this to anyone who has to work full time to pay the bills and still wants a career change. 

Another big concern that I had, was why choose this program over a Online Coding Bootcamp? I was actually looking a the Viking Code School as an option, it was considerably cheaper. I think it came down to roughly only 4,000 but demanded more hours. After going through the pre-work, I quickly found that doing things online just simply cannot replace the in person experience. You overlook all the little things about having an in person class that matter so much. Meeting and learning from your peers, getting to know your teacher and TAs in person certainly feel a lot better. I just felt that doing it online would not help me nearly as much as doing it in person. Which is tough, because there isn't many in person PART TIME coding bootcamps out there. If there are, they typically are short and specialize in one language (and are very expensive!)

It is now August, and I have to say I am really impressed with the program. At the end of the day, almost every coding bootcamp will find you a job if you really want it. I think that's important to note because you shouldn't be trying to pay 20k for a program just because you're concerned about not getting a job. If you want a job, and you put in the work, you will find one.

As for this class curriculum, it is very well rounded. They are definitely full stack, and the career help start right away! They have counselors always there ready to listen to any of your concerns. They also host awesome events like tech panels where employers come and talk! It's a lot of fun, and we are currently just starting the group projects. The teachers for each class both have a lot of experience, and are very nice and helpful! There are two classes (forrest and Caeser). I feel like they could train the TA a little better, and have more organization, but I certainly don't blame them since the program is so new. At the end of the day, I am learning A LOT and i'm already feeling very comfortable coding. 

5/5 would recommend to anyone! I'm just trying to give an honest review to anyone out there. If you're worried about the career change, scared of dumping the money, and fear that everything is fake out there. Don't worry, I was in your shoes. I can tell you though, the job marketing is extremely well. And this course will definitely give you the guidance if you're like me and scared to learn on my own. If you take this program, you will find a job! The career service team will even help you find a job in another state if you request, they are very accomodating. 

I hope this helped anyone who is curious! I apologize if my writing is all over the place, i'm going off the top of my head right now. 

I would caution against even filling out an application. Like others, I did the easy little tests and phone interviews. I was "recomended for enrollement," and then they emailed a poorly worded, hokey credit card form asking for my $2500 hold money. They worded the email in a way that made you think you owed them money, so pay the invoice and hold your seat in the class! In a separate email they sent a auto-fill form -- with just a couple clicks you accepted all the terms of enrollment, and were bound to the company. 

I never filled these forms out and never accepted or signed a thing. I even spoke to the rep confirming that I did not actually owe anything and that until I actually enrolled I was still in decision-making mode.

So, after reading enough about the company and weighing my options, I simply emailed the rep a "Thanks but no thanks," letter explaining that I declined to enroll and would pursue my coursework online via Udemy and Udacity, and that I appreciated their time.

She called me a day later, and "Congratulated me on pursuing my education in code." I was a little confused becuase she made it sound like I enrolled in the school. I told her thanks and sorry I couldn't go forward with UCI extension. I told her if things ever changed I would let her know. She acknowledged this and said it was ok and she understood.

A week later on they send an email (probably automated) as follows:

"Dear Natalie

This is a notification that your card will be charged in 2 days.

Thank You"

I don't know if this was an atuo email, but it seemed pretty shady. From the enrollement email to the weird "Congratualtions" phone call to this... it's like they were trying to play dumb and act like I was enrolled.

Just avoid this type of annoyance and find some other bootcamp. Learning Fuze in Orange County has a pretty good reputation. Go there. Stay away from these shady sketchy people.