UT Austin Boot Camps

Hi, I'm Shweta. I did my undergrad in computer science engineering. Also, I had 3 years of big-data engineering experience prior to joining the course. 

When I came across the Data Analytics and Visualization course at U.T. Austin's McCombs Business School, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to learn key skills related to the field I wanted to move to, Data/Business Analytics.

Through the six-months of extensive course, I gained hands-on, programming experience in areas such as VBA Scripting, Python, R, Tableau etc.

It is definitely a fast-paced course which covers a lot of ground, but you can make the best by taking up real-world data projects. The course can get overwhelming at times with so many different topics. What worked for me was to focus more on technologies that were most in-demand in the jobs I aimed for and while learning at least the basics of other technologies.

The lectures and TA's are very helpful and have good command over the subject. Also, they have a dedicated career counseling support team to help you secure a job.

Overall it was a wonderful journey with lots of learnings.

I was enrolled in the UT Austin's Bootcamp back in October 2017 for their part-time, 24-week Data Analytics and Visualization program. I Successfully completed the program in April 2018 and could say that it was one great experience.

Below, I have shared some of the key features of the program. 

• Top-notch curriculum - Covers almost all of the topics that are in high demand in the analytics job market.  
• The program is built on a top-down approach - covers the bare essentials before moving quickly into building applications, data products.
• You will be continuously exposed to working with teams on projects using collaborative platforms like GitHub and Slack which are skills that are really timely and useful to master as the labor market is moving more towards a gig market characterized by short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs.  
• A well-structured career support service - continuous monitoring to ensure that students are in full compliance with the requirements given by the career team.
• The program is affiliated with the University of Texas in Austin, an esteemed educational institution in the USA, and this I feel will give you a distinct advantage in enhancing your alumni and network for future opportunities. 

In addition to the above, I have also listed few items that I have personally experienced that might be useful in your decision process.

• In spite the program is a part-time program, expect to give the same effort as a full-time program if you are coming from a non-programming, non-analytical background. Despite the decent exposure I had with most of the topics in the curriculum, I spent close to 60-70 hours a week to really wrap my head around the topics.
• The program is really fast-paced with new topics introduced every week, but almost all of the topics are built predominately on Python and Javascript technologies, hence highly recommend making your feet wet with these languages well in advance to have a better experience. 
• I was fortunate that I had a great instructor who had awesome credentials both in terms of teaching and hands-on experience in data analytics. recommend checking the credentials of your instructor before enrolling in the program. 

Overall, I personally feel this program is highly original, authentic, and economical compared to most of the highly commercialized boot camps out there and will deliver a great experience provide that you passionately put in the time and effort. My portfolio site is a piece of work as a result of the knowledge I gained from the program and the effort I put in.

All the best for a wonderful analytics journey! contact me if you need any further clarification. 

After completing the part-time (6 month) Data Analytics and Visualization Certification course, I can say that I am very happy with the amount of material and the latest technologies I have learned able to use for personal projects and in my profession.

TThe course begins with Excel for the first week only, but quickly picks up pace and covers Python and Matplotlib using Pandas, API requests and accessing social media.  We used SQL with MySQL Workbench, SQLALchemy and Flask to connect to SQLite databases and MongoDB with web scrapping for storage and retrieval using Python scripts. Half-way through, you'll learn basic web development with Bootstrap 3/4 and JavaScript, so you can manipulate the DOM with D3, Plotly and Leaflet for data visualizations on the web and publish web pages on Heroku. We also were able to create a portfolio page for our projects during this part of the course. We covered basics of R and Tableau (they were generous to provide a 1-year Professional license!! ).  Toward the end of the course we used PySpark, NLP, NLTK, and Naive-Bayes with Big Data and neural networks with Machine Learning, which we incorporated into our final project.

This boot camp is challenging but very rewarding. To get the most out of it you must spend 15-20 hours minimum (some people require more time) a week working on the class exercises and the homeworks. During project weeks I spent up to 30 hours a week and I worked part-time (30 hours/week). 

The instructors for the course were great and had extensive knowledge in all the technologies mentioned above. They were easy to approach for help or assistance for homeworks and projects.  The Teaching Assistants were also very helpful before and after class and helped you no matter how much trouble you had.  They are there to help you as much as possible without doing the homework for you.

Overall, I would recommend this course for those who want to learn and apply data analytics and visualization techniques to their job skills.

I went through the initital steps to obtain information for this program, which required me to proved my email (my preferred form of contact) along with my telephone number. I specified that I preferred to get the facts about cost in black and white, rather than go through the process of 'talking about my future' with Joel Spencer first. I'll be blunt: I don't like anything that smells like sales pressure when it comes to things like this.  I reiterated in my response to him that I preferred to get an understanding about the cost before scheduling a time to chat with him... crickets. He simply won't respond. What a strange practice. Other programs are tranparent about cost, why isn't this one?

Three months ago I quit my day job and enrolled full-time at The Coding Boot Camp at UT Austin. Yesterday, I graduated and received my certificate of completion and I wanted to share the great experience I had with anyone curious about this new and upcoming coding crash course.

The Coding Boot Camp at UT Austin is a new contender in the coding boot camp sphere, so when I enrolled the reviews were few and far between. I was extremely skeptical at first, because many other coding boot camps have been getting lots of negative attention from the tech community. Horror stories of boot camp graduates not being hired, bashing blog posts from former unhappy students, and even some of the top coding boot camps shutting down. After doing a ton of research, I bit the bullet and decided on the Coding Boot Camp at UT Austin.

I choose this particular camp because it was affordable ($11,000) and it was in Austin, so I wouldn’t have to relocate to attend. I’ve always fantasized about creating applications, and kept a running list of all my app and business ideas. This was something I always knew I wanted to do, but never had the skills or any idea how to get started. This boot camp provided everything I needed and more.

I remember about two months into the course thinking, “I’ve already learned so much, I feel like I’ve already gotten my money’s worth from this class.” I cannot express how fantastic this course was. The curriculum is rich and concise. The instructors are phenomenal. I feel like I hit the the instructor lottery when I was assigned to Jim McCoy. He taught me more practical, hands-on knowledge in 3 months than I did from 4 years of university. Before taking those course, I had no idea how to create functional web application.

Now I’m confident I can contribute real-world skills to a team or project. Here are just a few of the topics we learned:

• HTML5
• Git
• CSS3
• Twitter Bootstrap
• Javascript (So much Javascript!)
• jQuery
• RESTful APIs and using AJAX
• Firebase
• Node.js
• mySQL
• MongoDB
• Express.js and Handlebars
• Custom ORM, Sequelize, and Mongoose
• Testing
• React
• React Native
• Php and Laravel
• Authentication using Passport.js
• Intro to Computer Science and Algorithms

What all that fancy jargon translates to is we learned how to create every aspect of building a website. From styling and design, to complex login in systems, and even creating and hosting the site on our own server.

The class itself felt like a bit like a fast paced, college level course that lasted all day. The biggest difference was the teaching style. The instructor would lecture for 10–20 minutes, then we would do a 10 minute hands-on activity with the technology lectured about. I absolutely loved this format, because it forces you to get involved and really understand what you’re learning about.

Twice a week we were assigned homework assignments to solidify those concepts. The homework would take about 10 hours on average to complete. We would receive grades and comments on the homework, but only as a means for us to improve. The grading dynamic was very different than a conventional classroom, which I thought was a good thing. The homework was graded by the teacher assistants, which were usually top former students. Grades were only there as a means to provide feedback, and not to weed out or fail students. Unless you were failing to even attempt the homework, you would graduate and receive a certificate.

My advice to anyone thinking of attending this boot camp would be don’t attend a coding boot camp unless you are hungry and passionate to learn programming. This course does not guarantee a tech job after graduation, and is extremely difficult. Several of my fellow classmates ran out of steam early, and it is because they signed up for the wrong reasons. The only guarantee for a great career is a genuine interest and passion to create awesome programs. Also, future students should get some programming practice before starting this course. There are tons of free material to get started online, and coming in with some prior knowledge will pay off ten fold.

In conclusion, attending The Coding Boot Camp at UT Austin was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life. I’m excited I get to pursue my personal passion, and grateful I had the opportunity to attend such a fabulous program.

My experience at the UT @ Austin coding bootcamp is transformatory. The students and staff all contributed to making the experience worthwhile. From the inception of the program, the students' success manager was always there for the students. He was always avaiable to attend to our immediate and remote needs.

The career services were extremely helpful. Even though they do not guarantee you interviews and jobs but they provide you with all the necessary tools for you to succeed in the job market. Moreover, the career team is always avaiable to assist months after graduation

The instruction staff were excellent and very helpful, They answer the minutest question even though the program is quire heavily packed, Any hardworking student will find thiat this program is excellent. I will always look back to my days in the bootcamp with admiration for the great relationships developed. I will recommend  UT # Austin bootcamps for any one who wants to transit to a career in the tech space.

UT Austin Full Stack Web Development Coding Bootcamp was an amazing experience. I attended the full time course, which was 12 weeks long. The amount of learning and job preperation from this course was excellent and within the 12 weeks, my understanding of web development shot up compared to learning with self-taught route. Being in a classroom with like minded people and group projects was what really took my understanding of coding to the next level becuase of the real world team like atmosphere. The TA's were there to offer help all throughout the course and the instructors understanding of the class content was excellent and an open door policy was there for any questions or help you needed. It was very much you get out of it what you put in, the pace and content was difficult all throughout the course, but there was no lack of help when it comes to utilizing the TA's and instructor.  

Another amazing benefit of this program was the career help. All throughout the 12 weeks there was help in building your resume/portfolio/and interview prep. Resources such as posing Meetups and introducing you to local employers was amazing. The career support team truly wanted to help me get a job and working together with them has proven results of getting a job after completing the course. You have to be hungry and put in the hard work of networking and the career support definitely helps you along the way!

All in all I would recommend the course, but be ready to be challenged and put in the hard work of learning the content. To score a job in the tech industry is difficult, but with the help of this bootcamp and career support, you will be glad you took the course. 

The UT Coding Bootcamp was one of my favorite experiences! I had always been interested in the world of computer programming, but had no idea where to start until a friend showed me the bootcamp, and I am so glad that they did. 

Through out the program I not only learned how to read and write in mulitple programming languages, but I also learned how to explain my code to both industry professionals and those who have no coding experience. We also covered computer science basics to where we could seamlessly transfer our coding knowledge into multiple areas through out the technological landscape. 

Also my instructor Eric was the best! He made class fun and engaging. The enitre class got pretty close with group hangouts and multiple inside jokes!

Seriously if you are looking for a great bootcamp you need not look any further!