Devmountain

I participated in the Immersive Software Quality Assurance course at DevMountain in Lehi, UT at the end of July. Its a six week program from 9am-5pm (plus some more time for working at home and review sessions). The program starts with the basics of testing... Read More (creating test cases, manual testing, etc) and progressed through to automation using selenium and Nightwatch. Through the contacts I made in the program, I was able to get a job that started the week after the program ended - in fact, I had to miss my DevMountain graduation to make the orientation at the new company. Not only do they give you the skills you'll need to make it in the field, you meet so many people already WORKING in the field to help grow your network and establish relationships with them. I would definitely recommend the program to anyone looking for a change, but absolutely be ready to put in the work to gain the knowledge and get the job you want!

It is true that course itself is very fast paced. Devmountain has their course set up in such a way that they help you with the basics and then help you help yourself which is honestly the best way to do it. You will have lessons every morning for the... Read More first half of the duration of the course then projects every afternoon to apply what you learn. I'm more of a learn by doing kind of person and I loved every day of the course. I recommend Devmountain to everyone looking to go into web development.

I was on a dead end path as a bioanalyst at a company in SLC. I have a degree in chemistry and more than five years of professional experience, but science just doesn't pay without that M.S. or PhD after your name. My husband, who is a senior developer,... Read More talked me into DevMountain because he worked with a few DevMountain grads at his digital security company. So, without any coding experience, I interviewed and enrolled, but was totally unprepared by the time the first week rolled around (I admit, I did not take Basecamp as seriously as they advised...but YOU MUST TAKE BASECAMP SERIOUSLY). I was so lost, even just in git commands, so I was encouraged to attend for a few weeks just to see if I would still like the content or the program, and then deferred for a month...it made all the difference. I went in with a lot more confidence, which got me through the first week. After that, I stayed up until 3am regularly just to finish my afternoon projects. I constantly harassed my husband for help, but at least I did not have to harass the mentors. My personal project was not the best (I got married during interim week and did not produce a single line of code, unlike my peers), so I was asked to complete an additional sim (exam), after which I was allowed to continue to group projects. During the last few days of my personal project is when the concepts started to come together. I felt very confident with my performance on the group project and with my ability to find a job. It took just under 5 weeks and 62 job applications, but I landed a job as a software engineer doing C#, ASP .NET MVC, Angular and SQL Server, even though I learned Javascript, React, Node, and PostgreSQL at DevMountain. Once you learn how to learn code, nothing is out of the realm of possibilities, so don't limit yourself. Take that dive! You will be so happy that you did when you get that first fat paycheck in that fancy building with those fancy computers :-)

The fast pace may be daunting for some. That is understandable. The good news is if you fall behind, there are options for you. Never have I been involved with an organization where the teachers and staff are more invested - truly - in their student's... Read More success. The classes are demanding, it can be sometimes exhausting, but it is also exhilarating, worthwhile and mind-stretching (in a good way). Highly, highly recommended.

I completed the UX Design After Hours Course. This course started out strong with great instruction from Brandon Beecroft. However, as time went on, the quality of instruction began to wane and Brandon stopped teaching the class but for a few occasional... Read More classes every few weeks; instead the class was taught by subs almost every time. Mentors in the class seemed under-utilized and I would have loved to been paired with mentors to actually work with them on teams and hear their opinions instead of either left alone or taken on a long-winded conversations about one topic. As a class we covered the foundation and methodology of UX quite well, but the implementation and technical skills were not taught very well. I would have liked to have more assignments based in learning the programs and to have received feedback on my skills in the programs. Different instructors and mentors would sometimes contradict each other. This class could have been better had we been given more real-life experiences, such as being assigned to work with actual companies or have practice interviews. One-on-one critiques would have also been helpful. Often we were required to complete an assignment, but received very little final feedback.

The campus (Salt Lake) was poorly maintained. THERE WERE NEVER ANY SNACKS, and this felt like false advertising.