UNH Coding Boot Camp

This program truly does a great job of taking any individual from spinning up their first simple HTML "Hello World" page, to spinning up server-side JavaScript applications, all in 6-months. 

The pace is fast, but the instructional staff provides an exceptional level of support and opportunity for catching up/ extra learning. The most impressive part is how well of a job the instructor/ TA's do at breaking down complicated concepts or even logistics, and applying in it the right way to an audience who (for the most part) is learning programming for the first time. 

The technology learned is very modern and coveted by employers. Walking away from this course, you will have the ability to really go in any direction with your career. You will have the ability to devleop full stack apps (everything from server-side to front-end), using the most up-to-date frameworks/methods. There is an added upside in that you work on three group projects, giving you experience in an agile-scrum like environment. Working in that type of environment alone is a huge plus for your career/ overall way of accomplishing tasks. 

For me personally, the main benefit of this bootcamp aside from self-teaching online was the overall knowledge obtained from the class involved smaller, but important logistical skills. Becoming a power user of the command line, understanding version controling such as Git, deployment best practices, are all skills learned throughout the program that make you a much better developer. 

I highly recommend this bootcamp for anyone who has an affinity for technology and is willing to put in the time (both in class and out). You won't regret it! 

I just completed the UNH Full Stack Web Development Bootcamp and it was a very positive experience.  I have 20 years of developer experience working at a large corporation, but I felt stale in my job and wanted to learn some newer technologies.  This bootcamp really did the trick as it re-lit my passion for coding, so I am really glad that I took the course!

When I was deciding if I wanted to enroll or not, I had 2 issues that I worried about.  One was the time commitment, especially committing to every Saturday for 6 months.  The other was the instructors; I wondered if UNH could get qualified instructors because  some of the technologies are so new that not a lot of people have expertise with them.

The time commitment is significant - I spent about 25 hours a week during the first half of the class, and about 40 hours a week during the second half of the class on class time and homework.  But it is for a finite amount of time so it is do-able.  Make sure you are prepared to put in the time, because you get out of the course what you put into it.

The instructional staff was excellent so I worried for nothing on that one.  The Instructor and Teaching Assistants were all knowledgeable and able to communicate difficult concepts to a class with a wide diversity of backgrounds.  Also, they encouraged collaboration rather than competition between students, so that made the whole experience a lot more fun and was a huge benefit to learning.  If I had a question on homework, I could put it out to the class and someone would help within a few hours, either another student or the teaching staff.  And this collaboration reflects the open source culture and a real work place, because wherever you end up working you will probably be part of a team, so to learn how to operate within a team is an important skill.

UNH partners with Trilogy Education for this Bootcamp.  Although the program is new to UNH, Trilogy has been doing it at other Universities for a long time so the curriculum is pretty well nailed down.  It is very fast paced and challenging and you learn a lot of information in a relatively short time.  However, you don’t learn Java in this course.  It is misleading for UNH to mention Java in the course description because we only spent 3 hours on Java.  You could easily dedicate an entire bootcamp to learning Java and object oriented concepts, and if that is what you want to learn this is not the right program for you.

There is a career services component to the course also, since most people will be looking for a job when they complete the bootcamp.  I found this helpful because I haven’t looked for a job in about 15 years, and the job search process has changed in that time.  There is a Trilogy career curriculum which I found very helpful.  However there was a lot of turnover in the career counselors, so that was a disappointment because you were working with strangers and never really had a chance for them to get to know you.  I would rather have had 1 or 2 people helping me, rather than the 5 or 6 different career counselors that we ended up having, as a result of turnover.

I thoroughly enjoyed this course and got a lot out of it.  I have already recommended it to friends and mention how great it is to everyone who asks.

I was looking for a change. I have been working in some form of customer service since I was 15 years old and it is getting old. I'm also a single dad and living on a customer service rep salary is  almost impossible. I saw the ad for the bootcamp on Facebook and took a chance. Honestly I feel better for it. I'm excited about a new career as well as the flexibility to work where ever. I have aspirations of moving to Ireland and will certainly be using what I learned at bootcamp to make headway and possibly work for a company in Dublin or Galway. I want to thank Mason and Bryan for their time and expertise as well as Adam and Josh the TA's we had everyone has been wonderful it was a great experience and worth every penny 

Background/Expectations:    I come from a programming background, I've been in the industry for quite some time but needed a skills refresh.    This program fit my needs because it was fast paced, technologically current,  in-person and outside of core daytime job hours.   I've been around the block a few times, so I expected to be "the oldest guy in the room".  I was pleased to see that in my cohort there was a cross cut representation of age, gender and experiences.   Some were complete novices and others were very seasoned professionals trying to get some new skills.   Any apprehension about being in the right place vanished immediately on day 1.

Curriculum:  The syllabus is good,  it matches up nicely with what I am seeing in the corporate world.  UNH/Trilogy keeps refreshing the content and the instructors tweak the material to keep it fresh.   Expect to answer seemingly endless weekly surveys, but I am presuming that is one benchmark they use to tweak the curriculum, so do them accurately and pay it forward!   There were a couple of items that I would drop from the curriculum, but they weren't significant enough to warrant a concern.  (e.g., teaching Computer Science in a day, adding Java is too much, our cohort deprioritized it)

Pre-work: There was a fair amount of pre-work and an interview before the first class begins.   Again,  I suspect it is to gauge the experience of the class.   It's also good practice for anyone who hasn't been in school for a while.   At the very least it provides a means to practice the homework submission process.

Instructors:  From my point of view, this was a real differentiator.  Local technical leads from local industry really allows for a personal touch.   They were either industry profressionals, bootcamp graduates or both.  Their abilty to salt the Trilogy/UNH playbook with their industry insights, tips and tricks cannot be over-stated.  top notch.    I appreciated their adjustments to the curriculum, while never taking anything away that was promised,  that allowed us to focus on what we deemed the important topics.   I didn't use the remote help that Trilogy offers.   Our instructors and TAs were readily available and that was sufficient for me.  But it was nice to know it was there if needed. 

Classwork:  I won't repeat the detail curriculum,  that's easily discoverable.  The beginning classes had a  fair amount of powerpoints with some hands on tasks.   All good stuff, but it had to be powered through.  Soon enough it turned into in-class examples and the memories of those powerpoint days faded to a hazy memory.   Candidly, sometimes I felt there was plenty of time to get the task done and at other times, it was just too quick. (YRMV).    I think that is hard to avoid given the pace of a bootcamp and different backgrounds of the participants.    Project work were group assignments.  That adds a layer of complexity but certainly emulates more real-world conditions.   

Homework:  The homework is tied very closely to the in-class examples.  If you can keep up with the in-class examples, then the homework will be challenging but do-able.   The Trilogy method is to have you do the homework the week after you've learned the new concept.  This means you may be juggling two concepts at a time in-class versus at-home.   Our cohort adjusted the homework to be due the week you we're learning the concept.   It was a trade-off,  better focus on one-concept which was good for new-learners, but it took away from the runway to the homework deadline.  In a 6-month sprint, there is no make-up time,  you're borrowing time from Peter to pay Paul, sooner or later it comes due.   (e.g., get your homework done before jumping into deep project work if possible)

Job Assistance: Full disclosure, I rated it highly based on observation but I didn't really use it.   It was all there and fully available as the class developed and there was plenty of reach-out.   I did review the job materials and it was all the same quality of materials that you would see in the corporate world.   It is designed to put your best foot forward.  It's on my to-do list to go back and polish my print and digital identities.

Final Thoughts:   As with any new endeavor, the usual maxim "you get out of it what you put into it" certainly applies here too.  The sweet spot would be for anyone who has had a modicum of programming experience, but the syllabus promise of first-principles teaching holds true here.   You'll have to do the work, but the curriculum structure, coding examples and teaching support is all there to help you clear the hurdle.

Don't let yoursellf get behind on the homework (they do allow some skips),  if possible try to even get ahead a bit.   The second half of the course picks up speed rapidly with React.   Stay with it and it'll make sense.   Do all the in-class assignments at home and master them.   They all are foundational and in most cases build into the next item.  

With respect to the three projects.   Have some idea of what you might want to do before you get to that point.   We lost valuable time trying to land on one idea that could have been used to develop ode.   If you have some fleshed out ideas on a napkin,  it will pay off in good team planning.  Save the homework skips for the final project, your future self will appreciate the favor.

Net Promoter Question:  Would I recommend UNH Bootcamp Full Stack Development to a family or friend?  Yes,  already have.

Great experience. The curriculum is solid (and always being tweaked and tuned to make it better and keep it relevant). Scott, our instructor, was always clear, knowledgeable, and helpful. It was made clear upfront that your success is up to you and you will be expected to spend a lot of time outside class, practicing and learning additional material on your own, but they always point you in the right direction and offer plenty of support. Tutors are available and staff is accessible online.

It was hard to gauge exactly what career services would entail beforehand. You're given guidance on your resume and online profiles along with some interview prep. Our final projects were presented in a "tech fair" format, which was attended by a few industry reps.  At least a few students landed a job before they even completed the course.

Overall, very satisfied.