University of Richmond Boot Camps

I am very happy with my decision to enroll in University of Richmond’s Cybersecurity Bootcamp. I have no previous experience working in IT so I was a bit concerned with making a career change. From the first week of class I felt like I had found what I was looking for, a program to set me up for an entry level position in cybersecurity. 
John Hui has been my instructor for this Bootcamp. He is very knowledgable on the topics covered and is willing to give real-world examples to help you learn. John is a master at giving you just enough knowledge to find answers on your own. Often a cryptic response to your question will lead you to an “Aha!” moment. This sense of discovery is very gratifying and pushes me to learn more. Truly an amazing teacher! 
During the course I learned many new concepts about Cybersecurity and got hands-on experience with all kinds of software. The syllabus will guide you through controlling a computer in the command line to building an entire functional cloud system and beyond. 
The course materials, assignments, projects, and career resources are a complete package. From the start, I feel I’ve had what I needed to succeed. Everyone with the Bootcamp has been very professional and more than helpful. Never did I feel like I couldn't ask a question. Even though I still have another week in the course, I am confident I have the skills to find my desired position. I would recommend this course to anyone wanting to break into the Cybersecurity field. 

The main purpose of starting at the University of Richmond Cybersecurity Boot camp program was to make a change in my current career. I needed a fast pace but well-rounded and structured environment where I could learn, but yet be challenged and leave being confident and ready for the new career path I will be embarking on, and I got that and much more. 
John added value to being in this program by getting me out of my comfort zone and showing the importance of challenging myself, and not being afraid of making mistakes. Someone once said, "a comfort zone is comfortable, but it doesn't bring change". John brought change to every class session from the first day of class until the very last class. On the first day of class, John mentioned how important time is in general, but also in this program, and I was determined to respect that statement as he is a role model of being on time and organized. This was a significant change for me especially because I knew that I might be inconsistent with keeping to time, but I was able to accomplish that goal. Other changes include the drive, zeal, and inspiration of knowing and understanding the subject matter before and after every class. I had zero knowledge about the cybersecurity field, but as we built on each class, I went from being nervous to being confident. That's how effective John's style of teaching is. it's phenomenal! John asks questions, he doesn't just give you answers because he wants his students to understand. He patiently makes you think for yourself, until you figure things out, but be prepared along the way to embarrass yourself in a good way when he begins to ask you questions (I've been there and done that, but I was excited when I finally figured things out). I have learned that questions make you ask more questions, which lead to an intelligent answer no matter how it comes out. John stands out as an excellent instructor because he enriches the curriculum with the excitement he brings to each class. He is always available and responds promptly to messages at any time of the day even outside office hours. John treats students according to each of their needs, as he takes the time to understand each student's personality to relate to them effectively. To summarize this all up, if anyone else asked me for a recommendation for John as an instructor, my answer will be: 
John fully understands what he teaches which transcends to all his students, it will be one of the best choices you ever made.

A year prior to writing this, I was in a 4 year computer science program and felt it was lacking what I needed. I wanted to know the concepts behind security as well as gain experience but without the fluff of a Bachelor's. A friend in the field referred me to this boot camp and upon review, I immediately signed up. In the course of a single semester's time, I have amassed knowledge that fills my resume and obtained skills that I see all throughout cyber job postings. While this program has been well designed and carefully thought out, I owe an exceptional amount of gratitude to the instructor, John Hui. This boot camp has given us the opportunity to master imperative skills, but John went above and beyond to teach us to be problem solvers. He starts the program teaching us, and ends it guiding us to teach ourselves. He has been not only instructive, but inspiring; a quality I wish I saw more in education. I am incredibly fortunate to have learned from this person, and I am excited to put his teachings and wisdom into practice.

Overall, a great experience.

I started the boot camp with experience in the field of data analytics and visualization. I worked as Business intelligence analyst looking to further improve on my technical skills and to better understand some industry technologies. I knew excel very well, adequate at SQL and was familiar with Tableau as I used these tools at work. These tools are adequate to get into the data anaytics space but my desire is to get into the Data science space without spending more time and money in a typical college setting. I needed to understand more than just the usual excel/sql/tableau experience I had. I wanted to understand better programming languages and concepts such as Python/R; Big data programs such as spark/Hadoop; Statistical analytics and Machine learning; advance data visualization along with understanding data structures in order to deal with unstructured data issues that many in the industry deal with. This boot camp helped me with that knowledge.

Please go into this understand that THIS IS A BOOT CAMP. This is to say that you WILL require much time needed outside of the classroom to do a lot of much needed self studying and catching up. A lot more than would be required at a typical college setting. There is a lot to cover so it goes by fast. Thankfully, that is mentioned many times before and during the start of the boot camp for anyone enrolled to understand what you are diving into. I did my research, I looked through the curriculum and understood what I was getting myself into and the knowledge I would gain from this journey/experience. And that is exactly what I received. 

I started this bootcamp back in November of 2020 and WOW! 6 months sure did fly by. It's really hard to wrap my head around how much I've learned in such a short amount of time. This bootcamp was more than I expected in so many ways. My instructor, Jonathan and my T.A., Ty were amazing! Ty was the go-to guy for questions or help on assignments. Jonathan did the teaching and he really did an amazing job explaining the concepts. That's coming from someone who came in clueless! I met and worked with so many amazing people in my class that I hope to stay in touch with now that it's over. I was assigned a tutor at the beginning of the course (you can change your tutor if you want) and he helped me in SO many ways. Shout out Mr. Itua! He went out of his way in his free time multiple times to help me on my homework assignments, projects, and really just gave me another perspective of the things that we were learning. Also, everything was through Zoom. All of the classes, presentations, tutor sessions. Not sure how that will change once the pandemic is over, but honestly that didn't affect me like I thought it would. I used to think I needed the in-person instruction, but really when it came down to it - I didn't.
Before the course, I had never coded anything before. I barely knew how to inspect a page. I was a kennel attendant at a doggie daycare. Even though I loved being there with those dogs every day, I knew I didn't want to be there for the rest of my life. I'm 22 and a college dropout (lol) and simply just didn't know what kind of career path I wanted to go down. My mom actually introduced the idea of the IT field to me because it has such a high demand and the pay is normally pretty great. So I started googling and I found this University of Richmond's page full of reviews and wondered if someone like me with no experience would excel in a program like this. If you're reading this right now and not sure if you think you can do it, take it from me... you can. I went from not even knowing what HTML was to building full stack web applications. The work IS hard though and you DO have to spend at least 20 hours outside of class to really understand the all of the different concepts and technologies they're going to teach you. And sometimes you still won't understand it all the way. That was probably one of the hardest things for me. Not knowing EVERYTHING. I always felt like I had to know it all to be the best at something, but in this field you can't think that way. I'm going to spend the rest of my life learning something new every day. LOL. Our course started out with like 25 or so people and we only had about 15 left at the end. I get it. It's not easy, but if you decide to do it, make sure you're ready to make that commitment. 
Google will be your best friend. Their Career Services gives you great feedback on your resume, portfolio, GitHub, and LinkedIn accounts for you to be employer-ready throughout and after the bootcamp! I presented my final project today (woo!) and have talked to a Career Coach one time already. She was nice! We will be keeping in touch every two weeks or so until I have landed a job. I already have an apprenticeship in mind that I'm going to apply for at the beginning of June, so I'm assuming if I don't get that I will be communicating with her more often. Not really sure how that whole process works, but we'll see. Wish me luck! I hope my review has helped you in your decision making, as I was looking for a review like this before I signed up. It turned out to be a great decision for me and I hope you decide to go for it too! Thank you, UofR!

This was most certainly a challenging course. I enjoyed the way Tim taught the course. To me personally, Jamie and Sara were the most helpful TAs over the course. Christopher, the Student Success Manager, was understanding and offered help when I needed to extend due dates, as well as marking attendance. The course taught me that there are always multiple ways to view a dataset, as well as visualizing it. It also taught me that assumptions should not be made when reviewing a dataset, as it can skew the way you are able to manipulate or even visualize it. I liked a majority of topics we reviewed, but surprisingly, did not enjoy the Tableau week. I'd highly recommend this course for anyone interested analyzing data and perhaps looking for a change of careers. 

This program also comes with tutoring services, which I thoroughly appreciated. My tutor, Niharika, was fantastic. She would explain processes, if I did not understand specific functions of language I was working on. Her help was invaluable, as she would review my code when I would get stuck or did not end up with the correct answer. She would even review my projects to make them better and would Zoom call if she felt that it would be easier to explain via actual conversion versus chatting via Slack.

SN: I have yet to fully utilize career services, but plan to do so in the coming weeks. They have reached out multiple times over the program, so I would say that it is an engaging service available to all who are interested.

John is my cybersecurity instructor and he is excellent.  He has in-depth knowledge of the subject matter.  He tends to moves fast through the demo, but he alway asks if there are any questions before proceeding to the activity or the next topic.  He gives great examples or analogies to help us understand the subject.  Lord knows he has the patiences of "Job" and he is never condescending.  He is always uplifting and cheerful.  He and Thor are very supportive and encouraging.  The course is fast paced, but overall I am enjoying the course and I have learned more in this bootcamp than I have working in the field for more than 10 years.  

I highly recommend the coding bootcamp at the University of Richmond. A year ago I knew I wanted to go back to school but a four year bachelors degree seemed out of reach at the time, so the bootcamp was exactly what I needed to get a jump start in the direction I wanted to go. At every turn, the bootcamp exceeded my expectations- the level of instruction, academic support, and career support were well worth my time and the cost of the progam. I was really drawn to the coding bootcamp because the subject matter was concentrated on what I was looking to learn, and the career services help throughout the course and up to three months after graduation. This was my first venture into the tech field and it was really difficult jumping in without prior experience, but I learned so much and career services helped with interview skills, networking, my resume, and my portfolio, so right after graduation I was applying for and interviewing for positions. Just over a month after the bootcamp ended I started as a software developer and I love the work that I do now and I'm so glad I went through the coding bootcamp.

I attended the Full Stack Web Development boot camp at UR for a career switch. I used to be a high school science teacher and I simply didn't love that job. I decided to complete the boot camp and career switch in motivation to find a job and work that I truly felt passionate about. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this course, and it has allowed me to make a huge transition in my life! The total program really does help you if you're interested in switching careers, simply getting started with web development coding languages, or if you're just interested in learning new things quickly. 

While the boot camp moves very fast and can be very demanding, this program is incredibly supportive - something that was very important to me. Before and after every class are office hours where the instructor and TA's are around to help answer questions, debug your work, and provide any other advice/assistance through the whole program and process. My instructor was absolutely incredible and a very skilled teacher. You also have access to a wide variety of career service tools and resources, as well as a Student Success Manager who came to my rescue a few times through the tough course!

The curriculum is great for absolute beginners, moves fast, and is kept current through minor changes as the current job market shifts in Richmond, VA. They truly want to do everything they can to set you up to be employable at the conclusion of the program.

It became obvious that you will always only get what you put into your coursework. Ultimately, you to decide how detailed your education of the content is going to be during this program. You aren't babied through the program, and your hand isn't held through every line of code. Otherwise it would be impossible to get through this program in a timely manner. At first it was intimidating for me and several of my peers to throw ourselves into a program that demands so much self-advocacy. Fairly quickly, though, I figured out a routine and got into a groove. Therefore, I also needed to continue to push myself to do my best. I found this aspect to be an incredibly valuable learning experience. 

After graduation you still get access to career service resources that were also very valuable to me. This provided a support system as well as an unbiased source for advice through the job hunting process. Much like the boot camp coursework, you will have to put in the work to find a job because nobody can do this for you. Still, they offer a variety of advice focused on this industry that helped me land a job one month upon graduation! 

Some areas for improvement for this program:
1. Curriculum: In 6 months it's very difficult to learn things thoroughly unless you have copious amounts of free time. It's also not the goal of the boot camp to automatically become an expert in every/any topic. They teach you jQuery at a very early point and it helps beginner coders create things faster and feel good about their progress. However, the cost of this was not learning vanilla JavaScript as well as employers would like to see. Similarly, it would help students be more competitive in the job market to have a more in-depth focus on MySQL/MongoDB.
2. Career Services: Overall this department is great. However, the video sessions aren't as helpful as I thought they would be (at least to me).
3. Demo Night: This is a super important day/night where you present your final project to potential employers. It would be helpful if the program could bring in professionals from a larger variety of companies to further help those of us new to this industry network our way into that first job. I wasn't disappointed in the turn out for my demo night, but I think this could be improved. The night has such significance that bringing in more companies and professionals would certainly help all students land jobs faster upon graduation. 

Overall, if you are in the Richmond, VA area this is the best coding boot camp you will find that has classes in person! It's remarkable how much I've learned and grown throughout this program, and I'm super grateful for the overall experience!

Before coming to the U of R Coding Bootcamp, I was working as a natural gas mechanic. I knew that something had to change because I was unhappy in my previous role but didn't know where to start looking for something knew. I wanted a career I was passionate about, not just a way to pay to the bills. I had seen friends go to coding bootcamps and come out with successful careers and it intrigued me. After some research of my own, I made a decision to sign up myself. From the beginning of the course, I was challenged and kept interested by the workload. The instructors made coming to class fun and interesting, and I looked forward to completing my assignments. The most important skill I had recieved from the bootcamp was to learn how to learn. Technologies change so fast and its important to be able to pivot from one technology, library or framework to another. I was able to take my desirable skillset and within 3 months of graduation, I was offered a position of Associate Software Developer at Homes.com in Norfolk, VA. I am very grateful for everyone from the bootcamp who helped me along the way and would definitely recommend this course to others.

This course provided me with a very solid jumping off point to begin an exciting career in tech. Through the curriculum you will develop sought after skills, learn the fundamentals of multiple coding languages, and develop projects that will demonstrate your ability to potential employers. While the pace of the class was brutal, the excellent support staff, instructors and TAs will make sure you succeed. After completing the flex fullstack program I was contacted by the CIO of my employer to work as a consultant on a large UI/UX project being developed by the agency. My certification along with the large collection of projects created during the bootcamp were cited as key factors as to why i was sought out. I am now hoping to aid in the pursuits of other other perspective developers by working as a substitute teaching assistant for the program. All in all, this program was a wise investment that has greatly altered my future career trajectory.

Overall my time in the course has been transformative. My instructor was awesome and there always plenty of support for when I found myself struggling. This program helped me land a job in the industry soon after graduating, but I have also returned to the program to work as a TA, which I have greatly enjoyed. This program has served me well and I would recommend it to anyone who is considering enrollment. From my time as a student, and as a TA, I'm confident that anyone who puts the time & effort in and is committed to becoming a developer will succeed in this program.

The Full Stack program was a great intorduction to coding and has led to a phenomenal career change for me. I left a career in food and beverage after about 10 years of experience. I pursued this path after my sister had suggested something in the world of programming as a next career. This course was very solid. We learned a lot of different material in a very tight time frame. It taught me an incredibly valuable lesson in learning to learn. It is so important to understand that software/web development is constantly evolving, and this course helps you learn how to adapt to the changing landscape of JavaScript. It should instill and train you to be constantly spending time learning how to hone your skills. After completing the course I worked as a remote tutor for the program before getting a job as a software engineer in the area. I want to address the scores I gave Curriculum and Job Assistance. There were several pieces of the curriculum that I felt could have been sped up or omitted, in order to cover the capstone subjects. This isn't a slight againt the course, but a desire to learn/master more fully the final topics. As much as I understand the bridge that jQuery and Handlebars deliver between vanilla Javascript and React, I feel like a stronger focus on modern Javascript techniques and an earlier attention on React (or more time with SQL/Mongo), would make students more competitive in the job pool. The Job Assistance score is a personal opinion. Just like the rest of the course, you will find that the responsibility of getting a job ultimately lies with your own effort. Career services will provide support, and when available, leads. I found that you will need to aggresively apply to jobs and be willing to take any reasonable opportunity. I highly recommend reaching out to alumi or attend area meetups to try to meet someone willing to mentor/help you. I was lucky enough to line up a job after responding to a local developers slack channel. I will say the skills I gained in class have served me extremely well in my job, though the biggest thing I've attained is the ability to pick/keep up with the changes/demands asked of a developer

From oil and grease to air conditioning and vacation days. So often in life we are shown a path that seems completely out of the question. The trajectory of which is frightening and of questionable success, or so we think. We let those moments pass us by in favor of the familiar, the safe if unfulfilling. We drift through on our normal path, running our ruts deeper and longer. But sometimes those paths are the only way to set you free, to change the trajectory of your entire life. Such a path is the coding bootcamp. I quit my job, a ten year career path, and an industry that I was very well qualified in.. all to throw my dice onto another table. Six months of grueling work, sleepless nights and a rapidly thinning wallet, I find myself rebuilt onto a developer. It was not easy. Nothing truly worth it is. It was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. And one of the most incredibly satisfying.

These days we are so overwhelmed by academic courses, college paths, and even certificate programs of some sort that promise us success and financial freedom. With all these options out there, it is sometimes easy to choose the wrong path. While keeping this thought in mind, I went on searching for a "short" program to update my tech skills and finally land a long loved career in electronics/engineering. Little did I know that the UofR Coding Bootcamp would not be just a program, but a life-changing experience. What you learn in this program is not just to "code", it is self discipline, teamwork, time management and... Passion. Above all, you learn to be passionate. The drive and synergy that this program brings out of you is possibly the most amazing journey you'll experience. This is the type of program you go through to defy the odds against human potential. The genius and the average Joe turn out to be the same hero after 6 months and what is the end product? An amazing career and everlasting friendship with the graduate crew :) aside from my very subjective insight, my objective comments are: John is an extraordinary instructor who seems to have the patience of a saint, Yuri is the one who will help you see that this world is just awesome because there are people like her, and the TAs will be your friends even after 9:30 p.m. when everyone is ready to throw the computer out the window. Honestly, I would do it all over again!