Dev Bootcamp

I attend Dev Bootcamp (DBC) after having bounced around unfulfilling  jobs after completing my Master’s Degree.  I had gotten a small taste of programming in my coursework previous and had tried to expand that knowledge on my own with little success.  I had heard of DBC when it was established in San Fransisco and was ecstatic to learn there was a Chicago branch.  I immediately put in my application and after a series of interviews I was accepted into the program. 

“Phase 0” at Dev Bootcamp is a series of exercises you are expected to do on your own time before your in person time begins.  This theoretically allows DBC to further explore whether you will be able to survive the rigorous work that occurs during the in person 9 week session.  This phase was rather lax and I feel like in the several guided pairing sessions I underwent I didn’t receive much instruction or utility.  I have heard they have reworked Phase 0 since I went through it and hope that it involves more feedback on exercises and further instruction.

Heading into the in person section I was nervous but excited.  The first week was definitely a shock as we were thrown directly into work that was very challenging (at the time) and took a while for us to complete.  I remember seeing on the website that we’d be working 60-80 hours a week and thought that couldn’t possibly be true and that they were inflating that number to scare off anyone who was not serious.  They were not… most weeks I was at DBC every day for at least 12 hours.  During the week we worked on different exercises in pairs or groups (mostly pairs) and going to lectures, Engineering Empathy (team building/mental preparation?),  and yoga.  From Friday to Monday we were working on group projects that were rarely finished before Sunday afternoon.

Every three weeks is considered a phase and at the end of each phase there was an assessment where they determined if you were ready to be pushed through to the next phase.  These were fairly stressful, as I was unemployed (no time for anything but DBC) at the time I was determined to make it through in the minimum 9 weeks so I wouldn’t go too much into debt.  The assessments were tough but generally fair and afterwards you were able to sit down with an instructor and they would go over it with you and make a recommendation about whether they thought you were ready for the next phase.  Your performance in the weeks leading up to the assessment also factored in and often were more indicative of whether you were ready or not.

At the end of phase 3 you participate in a final project where you work for 8 days to create a webpage/app from scratch based on someone’s ideas.  At the end you get to present your final product to your fellow students/alumni and some employers.  

After graduation, you have a week of resume and interview prep and you are sent out to find a job.  I was underwhelmed with the amount of help that I received from the Career team, partially due to a transition period that was occurring in staffing.  As one of the reasons I selected DBC was their career team I was fairly disappointed with this stage.  Despite the lack of assistance I was able to secure a job within a few months of graduation and have been working for the company for over a year now.  I really enjoy my job (something I’d never been able to say before) and I am thankful every day that I took the chance and went to DBC.  Overall the program was great, the instructors were amazing and I have a bunch of awesome new friends that I keep in touch with that went through this bootcamp with me.  I would recommend this course to anyone who is willing to work hard and be rewarded.  

Great program. It was a lot of hard work but very rewarding and prepared me well for a job in Software Development. They provide a good full stack education so that regardless of if you want to go into front end, full stack or backend software development, you will have a solid foundation with which to get a job and continue your education in the workforce. The differentiatior in my decision making process was the more well rounded education that DBC offers and the universally positive reviews I was hearing from employers.

Bootcamp focuses mainly on Ruby and Rails, with a little bit of Javascript. Broken up into three phases you also get to extensively learn algorithms and logical thinking for 3 weeks building games like sudoku solvers, chess, boogle, and more. The professors are all superb, and the space is great. Free unlimited coffee, and career support after graduation.  

On the other hand it is very expensive, and the job search is completely up to you. You also don't learn any JS framworks or mobile development. Also the interview process for developers is up to you to figure out by reading a book called "Cracking the coding interview". 

DBC surpassed my expectations by leaps and bounds. I didn't expect the program to be drastically life changing in terms of overall growth, I thought that I would just learn how to code a bit. However, after going through it, I've met so many great people and learned significantly more than code (though we did learn quite a bit of it after all those super long days). I highly recommend the program if you want to learn and improve yourself in a supportive and positive environment.