Skill Distillery

I found Skill Distillery as I was digging myself out of a low point in my life. I had spent nearly 10 years jumping from college to college just trying to get a degree, because I had a habit of failing out. When I finally received my degree in German... Read More Language in 2015, there wasn't much I could do with it. I didn't want to teach, nor did I think I would be any good at it anyway. I decided to try to go back to school and check out computer science and engineering degrees. I LOVED my coding courses, but I started failing again. I had to withdraw, and I felt embarrassed and hopeless. I was almost 30, still living at home with my parents, unable to support myself, and I couldn't get myself out of it. I felt like a failure. Around that time was when I learned I have ADHD, and that the slow pace of the college coursework may have been why I struggled.

I began looking into technical schools and coding boot camps, where the training is more hands-on and at an accelerated pace. But I had also head that boot camp graduates often come out with major gaps in knowledge, and can struggle to find work because they still lack the skills demanded by the work force. I started asking around, and found a friend who worked for Raytheon and had a coworker who was a boot camp graduate. He told me he was impressed by how much this coworker knew, and encouraged me to look into the same boot camp. That's how I heard about Skill Distillery.

I decided to look into it. With the research I had done I knew that the coding boot camps with successful graduates usually taught an object-oriented programming language, especially Java, and that full-stack development was also valuable. Skill Distillery teaches an object-oriented coding language (Java) as well as Javascript and frameworks for full-stack web development. I hadn't found any other boot camps that taught Java, which is the language the majority of my Software Engineer friends work with. I decided to apply, but I was scared. It wasn't going to be cheap, and I have a habit of failing. After talking with Erin, I felt a little better about it. They also interview their potential students before accepting them into the program to make sure it's something they want to do and also believe they can do. I spent a couple weeks deciding whether or not I wanted to try it. I decided to go for it. I took out a loan and prepared myself for what might be the hardest course of my life. I was absolutely terrified. I've failed out of college 3 times and I tend to give up easily. I was taking a huge risk for myself.

It was the best decision I ever made. I enjoyed doing the pre-work prior the class starting, and it got me excited for the course. Then the first week started, and I enjoyed it. I was intense, I had never spent so much time in one day learning one subject. As the weeks went on, it got progressively harder, until about halfway through the course. I would get home completely exhausted. The course was from 8:30am to 5pm Monday through Friday. My cohort often stayed until about 6:30 to finish up our labs for the day. We had weekend assignments, and I would often go in on Saturdays to utilize the extra help from the TAs. I didn't always need it, but it was nice to have it available. The teachers are some of the most patient and intelligent people I've ever met in my life. Despite the intensity of it, it was also the most fun course I've ever taken. It was daily instant-gratification. We could see the results of work immediately. It was a definite confidence boost!

The best part about it was the help with employment. They helped us with our resumes, and would bring in employers and recruiters on occasion to talk. They also often bring in graduates who have gone through the program to talk about their experiences. They invite recruiters and employers to the midterm project and final project presentations. Some employers will do mock interviews. It helped me tremendously. My employer was at our final presentations, and they also did mock interviews with us. They offered me a job about 2 weeks after my graduation, and I have been working for them for 2 months now and am very happy with where I'm at! I never would have thought that one year after hitting one of the lowest points in my life that I'd be starting my career. It had such an impact that I recommend this school whenever someone mentions that they are not happy in their career. I have one friend who is currently enrolled in the program and tells me he loves it. If you are considering coding boot camp I'd highly recommend this one.

PROS:
- Teaches full-stack development using an object-oriented coding language for the back end and a scripting language for the front end (Java and Javascript, respectively)
- Fast-paced
- Lots of help is available after class and on the weekends
- Teachers are basically wizards

CONS:
- It is a 16-week program, so it might be a little bit long
- It runs from 8:30am to 5pm Monday through Friday, and there are afternoon labs and weekend projects that will take up time around those hours. You can't go to this boot camp and also have a job, it IS your job. It can push 60 hours of work each week. It is a major commitment.
- While still cheaper than some of their main competitors, it is by no means cheap. It costs about the same as 4 semesters of tuition at a university.

I definitely recommend this school. It changed my life for the better.

SUMMARY

The learning process was intense consisting of 60+ hours of work a week. Each of the instructors was among the best I've ever had the privilege of learning from. I accepted a job offer I am incredibly excited about, for a position I really wanted,... Read More only a day after graduation. Overall, it was the best decision I have ever made.

In the following chapters, you can read about my background, other students' backgrounds, Skill Distillery's strengths, the school's weaknesses, financing, and the outcome.

MY BACKGROUND

Firstly, have no fears about your background. The first person who to have a job in my cohort had never completed their Bachelor's degree. That same person was consistently one of the top performers in the course and had multiple job-offers weeks before completing the course.

When I joined Skill Distillery, my experience with coding was next to none. A couple of months prior to attending the boot camp, I picked up some Ruby as a hobby, doing it for a few hours a week. That was enough for me to know that I want to turn that hobby into a profession. I had a bachelor's degree in business from Germany and experience in business development/sales. However, I do not think that either of these was needed for me to get a job. All you need is a combination of passion for technology and problem solving, discipline, and an always learning and collaborative mindset.

OTHER STUDENTS

Other students in my cohort came from all walks of life. From people who spent 23 years in the Military, to those who haven't been born that long ago. From people with no degrees to those with advanced ones. From business owners, through chefs, to insurance sales representatives. One thing they all had in common was that they were ready for a change and willing to learn.

WHY SKILL DISTILLERY (Strengths)

I did a lot of research before deciding which boot camp to enroll. Skill Distillery was a clear winner, and here are some of the reasons:

1) BEST CURRICULUM ON THE MARKET

Java is the most popular language in the world (source: tiobe.com). It is used in many disciplines - from Web Development, through IOT, to machine learning. It is an object-oriented language, just like any other of the six languages with the highest TIOBE index. If you only learn Javascript, like at most other boot camps, you will limit your possibilities immensely. Also, switching from a statically typed language to a dynamically-typed one (e.g., Python) is easier than vice versa. At Skill Distillery, you get to learn Java, as well as the most widely used technologies and frameworks used with Java for web development (Spring framework, Maven, Gradle, etc.). Finally, you will come out a very well rounded web developer, as you will learn front-end technologies such as Javascript and Angular, as well as MySQL, a language very similar to SQL, which used to talk with your relational database.

2) BEST INSTRUCTORS ON THE MARKET

At most boot camps, you will get to learn from recent boot camp graduates. At Skill Distillery, the instructors are world-class experts and have an average of at least 20 years in the industry. They are also great pedagogues, and their teaching style is very involving. Each student also gets the individual help they need whenever working on a project/homework. Finally, a big shout out to the teaching assistants who have done a great job, often sitting with us until very late hours on Saturdays, rather than enjoying one of Denver's breweries. Good job lads.

CONS OF SKILL DISTILLERY

1 ) EXTREMELY FAST PACE

The biggest con is that you have to learn all of the technologies I mentioned above, and so much more, in just 16 weeks. What that means is that almost every day you will be learning a whole lot of new things, and there is very little time to catch up on something you struggle with. I stayed many nights until after 11 pm to cope with such a pace, especially in the first 5 weeks.

On the positive side, we did get to work on two 10-day group projects, (a mid-term and a final project), which give you an excellent opportunity to work on your weaknesses and to exchange knowledge with your peers. Besides, you will get a week to prepare for Oracle's OCA exam, at which time you will get to solidify and improve your core Java skills.

FINANCING

Skill Distillery has a deal with Climb for loans, or, if you are a veteran, you can use GI Bill. I used Climb's loan to pay for the school. I am a recent immigrant, so my credit history is short, and therefore I got a very high interest rate. None the less, the return on investment is great. Consequently, even if your credit is not too good, it is probably still worth it getting a loan and attending this program.

Comparing to some other boot camps, financing options are lacking support for the cost of living. You will have to figure out how you will afford your living expenses during the boot camp, as you will not have any time to work. I strongly urge Skill Distillery to find a partner who will offer a loan for the cost of living in addition to the tuition amount, as that may open the doors of attending to a lot of people.

OUTCOME

My cohort graduated last week, yet 2/11 of us already have jobs. Another person created a cool application for which some real estate companies have already offered to pay a subscription fee.

Almost everyone from the two cohorts before mine found a job within 90 days of completing the course. The lowest salary accepted by an alumnus I have met was still above 60k, and the highest is over 90k. Everyone I talked to said that their income significantly increased compared to what they were making before attending the course, with some people doubling theirs.

This boot camp is very different from others i researched and heard about as it teaches Java! While this makes the course much more difficult, it also give you a huge advantage over other bootcamp grads who only know javascript or ruby. Java is a tough... Read More language to learn, let alone that you learn it in two months.The first two months focuses on Java and then you move onto finishing the stack while always using java for your back end. This course is well worth you money and time but know it is a lot of material to cover in a short amount of time. Skill Distillery did an awesome job with amazing instructors. I would and do recommend this corse to anyone. I was one of the luckier ones in my class and was able to secure a job before graduation. I do feel strongly that my class mates will have a developer job shortly.

I originally started looking at coding bootcamps after deciding that the way colleges handled Computer Science wasn't for me. It felt like the material was moving so slowly and had a lot of information that wasn't relevant to actual programming. After... Read More two and a half years, I knew a lot of concepts, but I knew almost nothing of how to really write a program. Initially, this drove me away from programming, but I decided to try it again with a different approach.

Skill Distillery stood out to me because of their curriculum. Most of the other bootcamps put a focus on front-end development, but Skill Distillery teaches full stack development. I really liked that I could put together a program and understand every aspect of it, rather than just bits and pieces. Skill Distillery's curriculum is really tailored to be enticing to employers. The technologies that they teach are the top technologies used in practice. Java, MySQL and Angular in particular are all highly sought after.

More importantly than the technologies are the fundamentals that this school teaches. It's not just about plugging in code where it belongs, it's about understanding what that code is doing and knowing exactly why it needs to be there.

There were times when the course got difficult, but the staff members were always there to lend a hand and were very patient.

I would highly recommend Skill Distillery to anyone interested in learning how to program.

Making the decision to restart my career and enter the world of software development did not stop feeling like a crazy decision until the middle of my second week at Skill Distillery. I had just moved across the country, away from friends, family, and... Read More continued employment for…what exactly? To work harder than I ever had before towards the idea of coding for decent pay, rather than as a nerdy hobby? Essentially, yes, and it was the best decision I could have made at that point in my life.

I started looking into coding bootcamps after spending several years in other industries, always working hard but rarely making more progress than simply treading water. After speaking with some old friends (and occasionally less emotionally invested acquaintances), I decided that the coding bootcamp that would best fit my needs and goals would be one that focused on learning the full development stack with Java as the base, general purpose language. Thus began my application process: with my search parameters in place, the filtering process was at hand.

The bootcamps that focused on JavaScript, HTML/CSS, and other front-end frameworks were cut out from my search at the start. It’s not that these aren’t useful; it’s that my personality type needs to know how everything works, and so manipulating only one side of an equation without understanding where that information came from would drive me up the wall. This left the full-stack camps, and in this group Skill Distillery kept floating to the top of the list. Other reviews indicated smaller class sizes than other bootcamps (true), highly relevant curriculum (also true, and continually updated with private sector input), and most importantly to me, a teaching staff that was dedicated to and invested in the success of the students. This last part was more true than any college or vocational course I had attended previously, and is unquestionably the major driver of the success both I and my classmates had at SD.

As a final thought relating to classmates, going through 16 weeks with my cohort led to incredible new friends bonded by the intensity of this process. We were all in it together, all invested in our collective success, and for all of these reasons I would not only do it again in a second but would (and have) recommended it to close friends.

Attending Skill Distillery felt like a leap of faith for me initially; I had always wanted to get into software development, but I never quite knew how to start.

Having just finished my Bachelor's Degree, it felt crazy to be leaving what I had previously... Read More devoted my life to. I was also skeptical of the fact that I could become marketable in the industry after four short months. After graduating from Skill Distillery, I found that many employers found coding school graduates very desirable in their own ways. At my new job, my coworkers who have graduated with 4-year CS degrees mention that they had much less occupational knowledge than Skill Distillery graduates had on their first day.

The teachers were extremely helpful throughout the entire experience, and they sincerely let you know that they are there for you. If you have the desire to get into the industry and a lot of determination to get through 4 months of rigorous learning, have faith in their process. They do a fantastic job of explaining concepts and providing a solid foundation of practical knowledge from which to begin an exciting new career. It allowed me to land a fantastic job right out of the program, and now I'm doing something that I truly love every day in an awesome workplace.

Thanks to everybody at Skill Distillery for all of the help throughout the course and helping to change the course of my career.

They teach you a ton, and the instructors are excellent. Small classes, multiple instructors and assistants keep the instructors to student ratio around 1 to 5.

If you put in the work, you should have no problem getting hired somewhere immediately upon... Read More finishing this program.

Skill Distillery is highly immersive, covers many topics at a relatively advanced and detailed level in a digestible way. They are always looking to improve their curriculum to benefit the students. It was challenging and rewarding at the same time. My... Read More expectations were met in terms of concepts covered. I personally may have benefited more in terms of my job search preparation but that may have been at the loss of other important information covered because it is a expedited program.

First off I do want to say that Skill Distillery is definitely not for everyone. If you are willing to put in the time and effort then it can be very rewarding.

I came into the program with probably a lot more to lose than most others that come into the... Read More program. I have a wife and 2 young kids, only an Associate Degree in a non-technical field, and no coding experience.

The first part of the program was a deep dive into Java in which I struggled with. The instructors, Steve and Rob, are excellent instructors. They are both very knowledgeable and passionate. Seeing a bad review about Steve upsets me because if it weren't for him I would not be where I am today, a software engineer which I will talk about. With 4 months of instruction from these 2 instructors I was able to take and pass the Oracle Certified Associate Java SE8 Certification. I personally put in a lot of extra hours but it was worth it.

After that you learn a lot more technologies that are highly sought after in the industry. This portion is just as intense as the Java portion because you are learning new technologies every week/few days. In the latter half the instructors, Andrew and Kris, are just as excellent as the other 2. The teaching style was definitely different but they were able to explain things in a different manner that made it easier for me to understand.

With all of the things I was taught I was able to graduate Skill Distillery with a job already lined up. I recieved a software engineer position for a national company. I was able to interview confidently for this job about 4 weeks prior to graduation. I was hired alongside individuals that had Bachelor Degrees in Computer Science with 1-2 years experience and the only experience I had was Skill Distillery. It shows that you are taught a lot and the technolgies taught are desirable.

I will reiterate that Skill Distillery is not for everyone. You will be in class for 8:30am-6:00pm pretty much every day during the week. You will put in extra hours at night and on the weekends. If you struggle like I did you will need to put in a lot more. But if you have doubts like I did, I will tell you it is worth it. You will not regret it.