University of Richmond Boot Camps

Words could never explain how grateful I am for the drastic change of events that have recently sparked off in my life because of this community, because of this FAMILY. I never thought of myself to be the smartest person in the room, nor the most talented. In college, I would always be the last to understand things. Constantly I’d feel a huge burden to my peers for asking so many of what seemed to be "stupid" questions, and this would be after hours and hours of reading/studying and lecture. Never would I have imagined myself in the position I am today, living my dream, being somewhere I am valued and doing something I have a deep love for. Trilogy Education & The University of Richmond made this dream possible,  and it is to them I owe a huge amount of thanks and gratitude towards.

 

Before I enrolled in this program, I was working full time at a Hyundai Dealership managing internet sales and help desk tickets while pursuing my Associates Degree at a small Community College. Although the money was great, I sacrificed too much of my real life. Working almost 80 hours a week while trying to balance my education as well as my personal life wasn't exactly living up to my expectations. On multiple occasions I’d find myself at work, thinking “is this really it ? is this really what my life is about ?”, although only being 20 years old at the time and not realizing there was so much more ahead of me, I was too eager and too ready to succeed to leave my fate up to chance. I had little to no experience in the real IT world besides the basics from Youtube Videos I’d browsed in High-School along with a small IT Fundamentals workshop certificate, and creating a few silly websites In some of my college elective courses, but I always had a love for technology and a very curious mind to how things work.

 

What really pushed me to pursue this field, was actually my clientele & my family. I’d probably had met close to a thousand people where I work who were living a very successful lifestyle that I admired very much. These are the people who always mentioned to me about tech being a very lucrative, very challenging, and yet rewarding and demanding field. So I listened, I did my research and to my excitement, this program found me. I will say without a doubt the 6 month journey I embarked on within this program not only prepared me more for a career than any other college course I’ve taken, but it built character within me, it taught me perseverance and it brought me close to a group of people that I proudly call a family. After constant late nights of studying (which really means screaming at my computer), probably a million questions, and just going what the heck sometimes, before the blink of an eye, it was all over. On multiple occasions during the course and especially towards the end, there were times where I still didn’t believe In myself or felt as if I didn’t make the best of it, times where I still felt as if I wasn’t smart enough although many of my classmates felt different and reminded me so. At the end of the day I knew I worked as hard as possible and trusted that eventually, the reward would start to show.

 

Despite all of this doubt in my heart, 1 month before graduation I obtained my first job offer within the Software Engineering field and I must say it felt unreal to achieve such a great milestone with the help of such an amazing supporting cast that was my classroom peers and my instructional staff.  I was the first person within my cohort to do so and for once in my life, I felt that my hard work had finally paid off. Following our class Demo Day and Graduation many, many, more offers & opportunities would come, it even came to a point & time where I was blessed with multiple options and boy did I use them to my advantage. It felt amazing knowing that I was in demand, that I was in control of my future for once, that I was truly happy !

 

Today I work as an Application Developer at Capital One and I enjoy every moment that I am here. I make almost double my previous salary, I work 40 hours a week, I enjoy my afternoons with my family, I wake up excited to go to work, I drive home every day with a huge smile on my face even in that drastic 5 o'clock traffic, I’m grateful. As I said, I never felt like I was the best at anything, but I believe I had the best people around me. I believe I had the best support system, the best Teachers as well as the best Teaching Assistants, and the best career coaches (who are actually more of cheerleaders by the way, and they're absolutely great at it). I believe this program is a life changing experience for anyone who chooses to embark on it and puts their best foot forward. I strongly encourage anyone who is hesitant to pursue this field, to do it. I’d like to think if I could do it, anything is possible. I promise if you don’t gain anything, you will learn something new (about yourself as well), you will gain courage, you will gain a new hunger for success and most importantly, you will gain a happy memory of the fulfillment in which you achieved with a group of beautiful people.

 

Yours Truly,

 

Kevin Kafuku.

I am so glad I decided to invest in myself by taking this program. A year ago, I didn't have any experience in tech and was dreading going to work everyday in a dead end career. In six short months, I completely turned my life around.

The class began with the basics of making simple web pages using HTML and CSS, and progressed all the way to making full stack applications by the end of the program. It was fast paced, but also very thorough. I am especially grateful for the support of instructors, TAs, and Career Services. Everyone seemed genuinely interested in helping students succeed. 

The most memorable day of boot camp was Project Demo Night, during which local employers visit campus to see students' projects. Some students, including myself, were able to land interviews and even job opportunities because of this special event. 

The UR Coding Boot Camp was one of the most difficult challenges I've ever pursued, but I'm so glad I did. I LOVE going to work everyday as a developer now.

Before attending this bootcamp I had already acquired bachelors and masters degrees in unrelated fields.  While I am grateful for my degrees and those experiences, this bootcamp is by far the best learning experience I’ve had. The bootcamp was more challenging, more rewarding, more supportive, and focused intensely on all the right things.  The main focus of the bootcamp is to make the students think like developers; we learn how to feel confident taking on challenges and teaching ourselves new skills in the ever-changing world of tech. 

 

I knew almost nothing coming into this course and I’m astounded at how much I know coming out of it.  I will say I had to put in plenty of hours of hard to get here. This course is not for people who are merely curious or on the fence about development. You have to really enjoy every part of the process to get through all the frustrations and the constant barrage of new information.  That said, the instructional staff is exemplary and they are always around for help and encouragement. 

 

At the end of the day I think this bootcamp is 100% the best option for quickly launching a career in web development or software engineering. 

 

If you are serious about a career change and know that web development/IT is the path you dare go down, then I would recommend this bootcamp. There isn't some 'free if you don't get a job within 6 months of graduating' clause or anything like that because they expect you take this seriously as it is more like a trade-school than anything else. The curriculum is based on your regions specific tech demands from actual local companies and your instructors are working professionals who are doing this as a side gig so you get practical and relevant knowledge, not just 'IT Theory' that a lot of 2 - 4 year Information Systems degrees would give you. That said, besides the tuition, a lot is required of you to make it worth going through. I personally think that it there should  be more emphasis of getting as much pre-learning done on your own time before the course starts because once it does, there aren't many pauses. If there was a scale of your coding knowledge where anything after 60% can get you hired, than I'd say this course can get you from 15% to 60%, and in an ideal situation, you'd have up to 10%-15% knowledge already obtained on your own from free online resources beforehand. This may only apply if you are going to be working a full time job during the course. Even if you prepare, you may still not feel like you are getting everything because you can barely keep up between going to class, doing the homework, and then trying to understand what was going on in the last class. Ask questions as much as you can, even if you dont know what question to ask because everything doesnt make sense, choose one thing and ask about it because it will likely come up again in your homework. The instructional team was phenomenal but I wish the situation with the projector during class was better. With being at a well known university you'd think they'd have a clearer way to display information than a poorly lit screen. 

I don't feel like I was one of the top students during my cohort, and even if that's true, I can definitely say that I came out of it having a set of skills with the most important of those being that I know how to LEARN any type of web development now. This isn't about memorizing a computer language, its more about being able to read it and knowing how all the pieces connect to form something greater and the problems that you can solve from that.

I came into this course with many years of IT experience focused primarly on hardware and IT service delivery.  I had no prior expirience with web development or related technologies.  

This course is loaded with content and organized in such a way to make it possible to learn the material within the timelines.  You will be regularly challenged as you work through the lessons.  You will be relieved and proud of what you are able to create, only to have the achievement surpassed the next week.  In the end you will have obtained a good working knowledge of the technologies, feel confident in your abilities as a developer, and know how to learn new technologies going forward.  .   

The course will require a sustained personal commitment from you.  Your level of success will relate directly to the time you give to the lessons and homework.  Be prepared to rearrange your schedule and invest most of your free time in learning.  You will get out of it what you put into it.  

You'll have all the help and support you require along the way.  The instructional staff is real-world knowledgeable beyond the curriculum and are able to fill in the gaps which help you understand the concepts.  The combined classroom and independent study format provides structure and accountability.  Everyone involved in student support throughout the program is very supportive and professional. 

My personal assessment is this experience is extremely positive.  Great instructors, great support, great classmates, and I have lots of new skills.  

If you're on the fence about taking the dive, just do it. This is a fantastic program, and well worth your time and money. The instructors are awesome, and they are actual professionals in the industry. They geniunely care about you and your success. The TAs are very knowledgeable and supportive, and will devote a lot of their time to help you with homework or to understand a specific topic. The Administrator is there for anything you need. Needless to say, the support system you'll have as you learn is phenominal. 

As for the course itself, it is fast paced and challenging, but rewarding. You will find yourself just starting to grasp one topic only to quickly move on to the next, but if you stay disciplined, and use your resources and support available to you, then you will succeed. 

Coming out of this course, I have a broad range of skills that are in high demand. I feel pleased with my decision to take this life changing step in my life and this course has built a solid foundation for the start of my new career path. 

Students get the opportunity to present their final projects at a science fair-like hiring event, and I can only tell you that it was one of the best experiences I have ever had, and I feel like I made a lot of great connections.

It is a serious commitment for six months, it requires at least 15 to 20 hrs of own time to analyze class activities and complete homework. The class activities and homework helped me to a great extent to understand the concepts. Even as a QA analyst worked in an IT environment for over an 8yrs, it was still challenging. It is a constant fire hose of information, but I can assure you the six months is not at all enough to master all the technologies but it is enough to understand the basic concepts to build on it. Unlike learning all these technologies over some online tutorials, there is always a human available to interact and consult your doubts. I am glad I joined the boot camp. I am very happy with my progress. It is well worth the time.

I came into the course knowing a little HTML and CSS and I graduate tomorrow feeling confident and excited about continuing to learn. The UR teaching staff and Student Success Manager, Yuri, makes sure students are properly prepared to make web development a life-long journey. It will challenge and frustrate you, but you'll enjoy wins as you will have "a-ha" moments quite frequently. They will teach you how to troubleshoot and absorb the languages and technologies - truly setting you up to be able to learn anything you set your mind to. I will miss the cameraderie of the class, but I am excited to apply what I have learned now in real world situations!

The U of R Coding Boot Camp is a humbling experience. I already had a web design certificate and thought I was more or less ready to jump into the workforce. This boot camp showed me just how wrong I was and how much I had yet to learn. I’ve learned so much in the last six months that I chuckle to think how naïve I was before it. The curriculum is consistently challenging, and right as you start to think “Maybe I’m getting the hang of this,” you’re whisked onto the next unfamiliar concept. It requires more than casual attention to keep up, but even with a full-time job, it’s not impossible with the right work ethic. Thanks to the great instructors, T.A.s, and staff, this boot camp has built up my portfolio, allowed me to forge supportive connections with fellow newbie coders, and helped pave the way for me to break into the I.T. industry. Highly recommended!

I originally signed up for this class as a backup for if I did not get a job that I wanted. As fate would have it, I ended up with both.

I have dabbled development in the past, but nothing improved and gave me the skills needed to be a web developer like this class has done. It is difficult, it stretched me to my limits, but I learned. The teachers and the TAs are there you help you, they offer time before and after class to answer your questions and help guide to towards what you need to know. If you take this class seriously, you will learn so much.

Starting from the application process with this bootcamp I have had great expriences..  The emrollment process is somewhat challenging with a technical interview and test.  The weeks leading up to the start of the camp require roughly 40 hours of pre-work that sets you up to get started the first day.  The camp is instensive but with good reason.  Learning to code it more then memorizing, it requires a mindset of curisity, always open to learning new things, knowing you wont master them right away.  You're streched in ways you didn't know were possible and build bonds with classmates and TA that support you every step of the way.  The campus is historic and a pillar in the Richmond community, for that the certificate will be well recieved in the community.

So you're considering the U of R web development bootcamp? Awesome! As a soon-to-be graduate (in two more days!), I hope this advice will help prospective students determine whether or not this program is the right fit for them, and get the most out of their experience if they decide to take the leap.

First and foremost, like all the other reviews say, this is HARD. It's so life-changing and rewarding BECAUSE it's so hard. But you have to be mentally and physically prepared for a 6-month endurance challenge. Real talk: I spent 6 years in a super-intense Ph.D. program before coming to this bootcamp, and I think this was an even more difficult experience. You will be pushing yourself and there will be growing pains as you learn challenging new skills in a very intensive, short time frame. Your friends and family will wonder where you disappeared to. You will worry where you, and your brain and sanity, disappeared to. You'll get tired and discouraged. You'll feel like you can't catch your breath and can't possibly keep drinking from a firehose of new information every week until the end. At times you will wonder if you're good/smart/whatever enough, maybe even think about quitting...

DON'T.

Because the flip side of the previous paragraph is, this bootcamp is PHENOMENAL. You'll have a ton of fun. The instructors and staff are knowledgeable, caring, responsive, kind, and helpful. You and your classmates will bond intensely during this experience, and you'll emerge with a built-in network of local tech buddies. You'll learn about yourself and your abilities, and you'll be stunned at what you're able to accomplish over the weeks and months. I toyed with the idea of doing a bootcamp for several years before taking the plunge, and I'm so, so, so very glad I finally did.

TL;DR: Be brutally honest with yourself: am I ready to commit 6 months to one of the hardest and most all-consuming things I've ever done? If the answer is really yes, go for it! Put in the time and effort, enjoy yourself, and you will be richly rewarded with knowledge, skills, connections, friendships, confidence, and a bright career outlook!

I had minimal exposure to real-world coding when I enrolled, and from the first hour of instruction, the whole class was in the fast lane. You MUST commit the time necessary to be successful in this course, and that means rearranging your life for 6+ months. It's totally worth it.

Recommended: If you're not sure this is for you, spend some good time going through courses on udemy, freecodecamp, or other no cost / low cost instruction sites. If you enjoy the challenge of those experiences, and are ready to commit the time, then this course is an excellent choice.

I'm graduating a few days from now. I'm amazed at how much I've learned and the breadth and depth of the skills that I've developed because of my time in this course. I came to the class with no experience with any kind of coding. I'm leaving with a great understanding of CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Node, React, Express, and more. I actually understand how to use all of this and was able to do so for my final project.

My biggest fear was that I wouldn't be able to learn it, or that this would just be an introduction and the real work would happen after graduation. While I'm sure that's still partly true, I feel fully prepared to demonstrate to employers that I have the skills, right now, needed to be valuable in the web development space.

It was hard. Really hard. And worth it. Really worth it.

I had very little experience with coding before I started this bootcamp and I was worried about going back to school after being out of school for so long, but the support that is available for students is amazing. I'm so thankful for my instructors and TAs. They were very responsive and available whenever I needed help and beyond just the academic support, they and Yuri, our student sucess manager, were emotionally supportive. The course is fast-paced and information packed. There is just too much material to internalize, process, and use on my own so feeling stressed out becomes second nature. However, I can't believe I've come this far in 5.5 months and have created full-stack web applications. I'm excited about the possibilities that await after this bootcamp and would recommend this to anyone who is looking for a life changing experience.

I became interested in coding during my time as a music composition major taking computer music classes at UVA, and my interest expanded as my post-college career path lead me to software project managment and basic web production positions. I soon realized that despite my complete and utter lack of belief in my ability to do anything remotely math and science-related, I might actually have a knack for tech. I decided to go with my gut and take the plunge into a tech career by enrolling in the University of Richmond Coding Bootcamp, and I am quite honestly astounded by how much I've learned within the past 6 months. The course is JavaScript-focused and moves incredibly quickly. 3x/weekly classes and challenging homework assignments take a toll in terms of mental stress and limited self-care time, especially if you maintain a full-time job as I have done, but the experience is 100% worth it. The teachers and TAs genuinely care about your success and have been endlessly helpful in catalyzing the various coding epiphanies that have occurred in my brain throughout the course, and will hopefully continue to occur during my growth as a developer. In addition to being well-equipped to begin a lifelong career in software development, I finally feel that I am in a place to earn "what I'm worth" and to have fun doing it (as a young woman in 2018 with a degree in music composition, salary negotiation has not been much of an option in the past). Even if you have doubts in your abilities, this program will push you to succeed beyond your expectations.     

When I started the Bootcamp I was nervous about the amount of work that we were going to be covering in that short of a time, but I quickly realized how easy Trilogy makes it to maintain your workflow. The instructors and TAs are very knowledgeable and helpful. Before I started the Bootcamp, I thought I was a pro at CSS and HTML. Little did I know that my skills were just a scratch on the surface. The class moves fast but if you put in the time, you will definitely be ahead of the game. I came into this program knowing very little but I can gladly call myself a full stack developer. The career service is also very helpful. 

I came in to this course not knowing much about coding and I am leaving a very capable full stack developer. It is amazing how much we have been taught in such a short amount of time. Like other have said here though, you will only get as much out of the class how much you out into it. Plan on spending around twenty hours a week outside of class working on assignments and reviewing what was taught in class. If you are not willing to do this you will probably struggle. They offer many resource to you including help during office hours, tutoring sessions, and supplemental videos on course work. My experience with the instructors an TAs has been great. Everyone is willing to help and wants to see you succeed. In addition, the comrodary amongst students has been invaluable. I have already been offered free lance JavaScript work. It is definitely worth the investment in yourself and your future 

If you want to change your life, your earning potential, make valuable connections and learn not only full stack web development, but core things about yourself, I highly recommend spending the time and money on this course. It will be challenging, frustrating, but very rewarding and those "aha" moments are so worth it when they happen.

If I could do it over again, I would not have worked full-time while taking the course. I was prepared for the time commitment it was going to take. I had cleared the decks, told everyone I knew that I was going to be unavailable for those six months, but life happens and can throw you some curve balls. You need to really want it, be very self-disciplined and focused. Know that it is not just a three nights a week commitment. The pace is what they tell you, fast and intense. Not only will you be practicing your new skills in class, you also need to spend quality time reviewing, watching instructional videos, tutoring sessions (as needed) and exploring all the different ways one problem can be solved. Practice, practice, practice. And that takes time.

You will be well supported by instructors, student success managers, teaching assistants, career services, tutors and fellow students. They have all been quick to respond and very knowledgeable in their fields.

This program has offered me freedom and options. Not just a job, but a fulfilling career with unlimited growth potential. It really has been the best decision I ever made and I know you will feel the same way too.