UCF Boot Camps

This program delivered all that it stated in the beginning, and more.  I started the program with minimal experience (mostly HTML) and I won't sugar-coat it - it was tough all the way through.  I learned more than I ever thought possible and while I am not quite an expert in some of the more technical languages, I feel sufficiently equipt to work with them moving forward.  The instruction was great, and having the TA's in class was instrumental many times when you needed that extra assistance, or just another perspective.  I did not participate in the Career Services portion as I completed this program as part of my existing employment, although I was very impressed with the level of support and guidance they offered from the beginning.  Be prepared to work hard both in and outside the classroom, as I put in at least 20 hours a week beyond class.  That said, I highly recommend this program for those wanting to learn more about web development (front and back end), and for those with experience seeking additional knowledge and guidance. 

​Prior to enrolling in the camp, I was a Game Developer so I did walk in with some programming experience. But within the first few weeks of class I learned wayy more than I expected to. The program has exposed me to such a large variety of programming languages that I didn't know anything about, along with many ways to go about coding effeciently.

The amount of resources and help that is provided within the camp is what I appreciated the most.The teachers and teacher assistants are very knowledgable and are always giving a helping hand to all students. Utilizing the career services helped me land freelance jobs all while I was still a student at the bootcamp. Becoming a Web Developer through this camp has made me become a better programmer overall. For me, programming went from being a hobby to becoming a profession.

The only tools you need to be successful in this boot camp is effort and the ability ask any questions in order to fully grasp the concepts taught in class. Just take everything you learn from class and apply it to things you like to do in your daily life to use as practice. Practice is key.

I enrolled in the July-Sep 2018 Full Stack Bootcamp, and landed an amazing job within 3 months of graduating from the camp.

The instructors and supporting staff are seriously passionate about helping you along the somewhat painful process of rapidly developing the skills of a full stack web developer, and they do an excellent job. John, the lead instructor when I attended the camp, has a lot of experience as a developer and he really has a deep understanding of the curriculum and the areas that tend to trip up students. The curriculum is certainly challenging and really does cover everything you need to be prepared for the workload of a full stack developer. To cover all of the topics the full time camp has to be a grind, and I believe that those students that are committed to putting in 30+ hours a week outside of class to study and work diligently on the assignments reap massive rewards for their efforts. Even complete beginners should feel confident enrolling in the full time course. The TA's from my class, Mark and Tamara, were constantly checking in on me and were just as knowledgeable and helpful as the main instructor. They do an excellent job of not letting anyone fall through the cracks, as long as you are willing to put in the effort and time.

Another great quality of the camp is that all of lectures are recorded, all of the assignments are saved on your computer, and all of the solutions will be available to review and study during the camp and beyond. Even if you struggle to keep up during the camp or feel that your assignments were not of the same quality as the other students, I believe you are still learning and growing a lot more than what is immediately evident. Once the camp is over, as long as you continue to study and work diligently at your own pace, I believe you will notice many of the concepts that seemed bewildering during the camp will start to click. Your ability to problem solve and learn new things as a developer will carry you the rest of the way. Those hours of grinding and working through challenges as a team, wading through documentation, and building projects is the best form of practice because that is what developers do on the job anyways! As a recently hired developer I can seriously say that I still spend most of my time searching for answers to difficult questions, reading documentation, brainstorming with my team, and building projects just like I did during the camp.

I could go on, but overall I have nothing but good things to say about the experience and highly recommend it to anyone that is serious about changing their career and being a successful developer.

This program was tough no doubt about it. I had already came in with a good understanding of programming, and thought it would be a breeze. This was entirely incorrect, after the first few lessons you begin to learn about new technologies and the pace is extremely fast. Even in part time it was hard to keep up with at times.

You literally learn basic HTML all the way to writing complex Rest APIs and then using React.js to communicate with the API. Once you complete the bootcamp you have to continue to learn through other means as technologies are constantly changing. Initially I was quite hesitent to sacrifice 6 months of my life, but coming out of it I would do it again in a heart beat. 

All the instructors and teaching assistants were helpful, and always looking to assist you. 10/10 would Bootcamp again.

The admissions staff, teaching assistants, and instructors are very clear that the course will take a tremendous amount of work and there is no substitute for putting in that time. It is not unusual to spend 30+ hours outside of class working on homework assignments, reviewing activities, and studying concepts more deeply that were only briefly covered. You will always feel like the course is going too fast, but if you can just stick with it, you'll keep absorbing and being able to apply more and more of it. Still, you have to be okay with feeling overwhelmed at times. At this pace, it's is inevitable.

For the students that took the putting in time advice seriously, I think the course was absolutely worth it. We were exposed to all of the languages and libraries advertised, though some much more than others, and also learned important coding best practices that will definitely be needed in the workforce. The curriculum does a good job of balancing breadth and depth of content and there is very little I would have changed in terms of time spent on topics.

My instructor and TAs were amazing and definitely helped keep everyone positive when students were struggling - and everyone will struggle at some point. The career help was pretty good, though I think job recommendations could be more structured after graduation. With that being said, my career coach recommended a company for me to apply to, and I was hired there a few weeks after graduation.

If you are looking for a program that lays the foundation and gives all of the tools needed for a full career change into software soon after graduation, I would recommend this bootcamp. However, if you are looking for a guarantee of getting your certificate one day, and a job the next or if you aren't willing to make a serious time commitment for 6 months, this isn't for you. How much you get out of the course will all depend on how much you put into it. 

I was a student of the Full Time UCF bootcamp, enrolling in it was nerve racking itself knowing that I just quit my job and was about to start something I had no idea about and would have to put my full efforts towards it. But boy was it a good decision! The support I received from the Instructor, TA’s, Student Success Manager and everyone who was involved in the staff was amazing. The material was hard which I knew it would be but with them I was able to get through the course with out breaking my computer or regretting why I signed up for this course. It was a great ride where I met great people. A lot of networking went on and I made some of the best connections in my life in this course. I was recommended this course by a friend who also had a wonderful experience and I would strongly recommend this course to who ever would be interested as well!

I attended the UCF Coding Bootcamp from January to August 2017. 

I came to the bootcamp after 12 years of being a mom and homemaker, and although I was from a technical background, such a long time of being out of touch had made me practically a novice.

The course work is very challenging, but if you are diligent, you can surely be successful. It equips you with a lot of latest technologies, but most importantly it teaches you the skill to learn and grasp new things. It instills the confidence in you that you can.

My instructors were extremely helpful and knowledgeable. No question was ever left unanswered and they had unending patience. Our TA's were always by our side, helping us when we were stuck, troubleshooting, but most importantly, pointing us in the right direction, enabling us to figure out things by ourselves. They even conducted extra study groups, so that we had all the support we needed.

I made awesome friends at bootcamp. The work was intense, but there was a team spirit that is so very encouraging. The group projects helped me during my interview process. The group presentations taught me proper techniques to showcase my work. 

Our Career Director Amber is simply superb. She is very intelligent, patient, perseverant and knowledgeable. She analyses each candidate individually and her suggestions are tailor made accordingly. She was always available when I needed her and always extremely encouraging. Her energy is infectious :)

Ricky, our Student Success manager is a great motivator and always ready to help.

I felt like I was a part of a big family and that they always had my back.

Immediately after I finished my bootcamp I had to take a 3 month break due to personal reasons. But when I was ready to start looking, the whole team was right there beside me, and I got a job offer within a month.

One of the best educational experiences of my life and highly recommended!!

I attended the Web Development Full Stack program 12 week program from May-Aug 2017

Every instructor that I had the pleasure of working with at the UCF Bootcamp Bob, Justin, Josh and Ricky were passionate, patient, funny and knowledgeable individuals who helped grow my coding skills throughout the program. The culture that Bob instill onto the students is something that I cannot put into words. No, literally I cannot.. you just have to experience Bob’s teaching style for yourself.

It is quite clear that UCF does not just hire anyone to be an instructor. They are not only knowledgeable but also can effectively communicate and empathetic with the students. They take feedback seriously. They are quick to adjust if something is not working.

I also appreciated the fact that their responses to my questions allowed me to discover the answer on my own but with careful guidance. It wasn’t just about googling the answer it was about asking our classmates for help and learn together.

From building my resume to strategically structuring my LinkedIn profile, to mock interviews, to negotiating, to handling interview anxieties, my instructors and career services were there every step of the way. 

There is a interview to get in but they just want to make sure you’re a functioning human being with an actual work ethic and desire to learn.

It really is hard work and day to day you will leave each day exhausted but recharged the next morning. 

You get what you put into it.

Thank you Bob, Justin, Josh, Ricky and Alexis.

WARNING:  Quite lengthy review

This bootcamp is the best educational experience I've had.  The curriculum is designed to give you a taste of all the facets of full stack web development.  It's extremely fast-paced and not for the faint of heart.  You definitely need to do a lot of learning outside of the classroom.  You are taught the basics of each technology and then it's up to you to use the tools available to explore it further.  At the end of the course, you know which technology(ies) you are most comfortable and interested in and it's up to YOU to continue to explore them.

Teaching staff

The instructors, Bob and Lisa were great.  Each were different in their teaching style.  One was fast-paced and will answer your question with "Google it" or "Ask your classmate".  The idea is to teach you how use research the answer to your problem rather than run to the "boss" for the answer.  Although this approach is frustrating for the student, it teaches you to go to your "boss" as a very last resort.  The other one is slower-paced, a bit more hands-on and will spend the time to help you find the answer.  While this approach is great for the student in need, it can take up class time needed to move on to the next topic.  In the end, both covered the material for the topic of the day.

TA - teaching assistants

I believe that the TAs are probably the most important.  While it is the teacher's job is to introduce you to the technologies, it's the TAs job is to help and guide you in using them.  I was thankful for the very talented TAs we had - Ronny, John, Dwight, and for a short while Justin.  Each have their own expertise and you soon discover whom to ask what.  Actually, the TAs seemed much more dedicated than the teachers.  Use the TAs to your full advantage.

Curriculum

The curriculum is designed to introduce you to the techonogies most used today.  I was very impressed with the order of the topics.  Each technology taught built upon the previous one.  In a million year, I would never have been able to put it all together and learn it on my own and understand how each technology builds or works with the other.  One little complaint I might have is that too many weeks were spent on javascript and not enough on more complex topics like Laraval, PHP, React.  Not to mention, we didn't even get to touch on Angular which was in the curriculum.

Job Assistance

Throughout the entire course, Amber constantly reached out to us to help with our resumes.  Amber is the Career Director.  Even two months after graduation, Amber is still reaching out to us with resume assistance and posts job openings constantly.  Take advantage of this and use her as much as you can.

Suggestions

Making suggestions is about making it a better experience and eliminating the complaints.  The reality is that there's no way to satisfy 100% of the people 100% of the time. Here are some of the complaints I heard firsthand:

• I have zero programming experience or knowledge.  I don't understand Javascript.

• The teachers are going too fast.

• This is boring.  I already know this.  They need to get to the stuff I don't know.

• I finished the course and still can't get a job.  They promised that I would have offers left and right.

There are many more but this is a gist of it.  My suggestions:

• Design a more rigorous process in choosing students.  Yes, I know the bootcamp wants everyone's money but satisfied customers are important and will bring more long-term revenue.  Rather than just a 15-minute phone interivew with a silly scenario about coffee and sugar, it might be better to have a written test.  This test can be designed to determine who has the mindset of a programmer.  Maybe you should require that they at least have some knowledge of programming logic.  There was a lot of time wasted with Javascript because people couldn't understand a "for loop".
• Design a full disclosure and have each prospective student initial each bullet point and sign it.  This disclosure should cover all the qualms and make it clear what will be expected from the course and the student.  One of the things might be that the student is aware that they need some kind of programming knowledge.  Also, make it clear that no one is guaranteed a job.  Full disclosure can go a long way.

I recommend this bootcamp to everyone who has a passion for technology, has some knowledge of programming, wants to get introduced to new technology and is eager and willing to take that knowledge and run with it.  Good luck to you all!!!

I recently graduated the UCF Coding Boot Camp just this past May and I must say that it is a challenge. Material came in waves and it's basically learning something new every single day. The way I described it to friends when they asked was, "You know how in college, there are prerequisite intro classes you have to take and pass for a few semesters in your freshman and sophomore years before you go onto the core classes in your junior and senior year? This is basically all the core hard classes almost every day," However, because it is challenging, it is very rewarding. 

The instructional staff of Bob, Josh, and Justin were very engaging and they'll do what they can to help students understand and succeed. Ricky is also very helpful if any student needs extra help, he'll help them get in touch with central tutoring to combat the material that may seem extra difficult. One of their goals is to teach you how to learn this specific material. 

Off the top of the head, the material includes HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, jQuery, Github, Node, MongoDB, Mongoose, MySQL, PHP, React, Json Packages, APIs, and Laravel. 

There are many ways to succeed and you have to remember that everyone from your fellow classmates to the instructional staff wants to see you succeed so no matter how much you feel like you might be drowning in the material, reach out because there is always support around. You don't feel like you're left there on an island by yourself. 

You will get out of it as much as you put into it. Even though the material was tough, I personally like the aspect of self reliance. The instructional staff will you put you in a position where you might have to find things on your own. They're not doing that to be bad guys. They're doing it so that you yourself can understand why something is right or why something is wrong. If you were just given the answer, it'd rob you of that moment when you do discover the appropriate answer. I don't want to say "right" answer because with a lot of the material, there are more than one way to solve something and it just depends on how you. Even after the class is over, it is up to you to look for and apply for your next career as well as continuing to work at the material to get even better. They will introduce the material and give you the tools and it is up to you to use them. You have to be the one to put most of the hours in and if you do, you will have a way better chance to succeed. There's only so much support that they can give you to where you have to do the rest.

The full time program is three months, but those three months blew by. There is so much work to be done and material to be learned that it'll go by quick. I'll never forget it. I'll have life long friends because of this program. It is certainly an awesome experience.