Skill Distillery

Hello prospective bootcamper, [Im starting with some general talk about attending a bootcamp...skip down a bit to read about this particular school] ******************* deciding whether a bootcamp is right for you ******************** Hopefully I can... Read More help you decide whether this bootcamp is right for you. As a disclaimer, I had access to VA funding to complete this course so the cost to me was simply an opportunity cost of time, and the loss of a future benefit to be used elsewhere. As someone who finds the slow pace of university learning unbearable...I was happy to use up some GI Bill for this type of course. If you're plunking down some hard-earned cash...you will just have to make sure you get a job afterward (at this school, the numbers are very, very much in your favor) and the rewards of starting a software career should make the cost a write-off within a year as compared to the median salary in the U.S. As I'm writing this, I cant imagine any of my coworkers going to work as a newbie developer for less than 60k. My brother took a 55k starting salary after a less rigorous bootcamp in Ohio but he took a job in Ohio which probably ranks on the lower end of salaries. But his first raise was to 70k after just one year, so yeah...you can be optimistic about your pay prospects. Alright, let's talk about the elephant in the room...the C.S. degree that you're not getting. Im sure you've done a fair bit of reading thru Reddit and getting disheartened by some negativity about boot camps. I am a C.S. degree dropout. I started at ASUs software engineering program and switched to University of Alaska's C.S. program when I moved to AK. Not a super prestigious pair of schools but they are both ABET programs so they're legit. I have absolutely no regrets about not finishing my university program. It was too slow, I didn't give a single hoot about advanced calculus and physics, and only really enjoyed the courses that directly employed coding and/or circuit/computer design. Actually I did really enjoy discrete math as well. But for every course I enjoyed there were 2 or 3 that just severely annoyed me with their lack of practicality in the workplace and excruciatingly slow pace. Keep in mind I was 34 years old when trying to complete my degree and I already had sufficient professional writing, problem solving, and teamwork experience from my prior military time. ******************** My experience with Skill Distillery ********************* This course is absolutely high-quality. It is not perfect, but no course will be that aims to instruct more than one person simultaneously. There will always be compromise for different learning styles and to educate the highest number of people for the highest number of jobs. However, they continuously integrate student and employer(!) feedback to improve the course. It's DIFFICULT. And it is really long. I will admit a loss of motivation about 3 weeks from the end because my brain was just tired of learning new stuff. This course will whoop your a** and you will be exhausted at the end. This is how it should be though. The whole reason a course like this exists is to pack in as much knowledge and experience as possible to maximize the value of time and money spent. I have no regrets choosing this school and when my brother was able to compare our respective course syllabuses and length, it was obvious that Skill Distillery was a much more in-depth and higher quality course. It never felt like a money-grab. I have never experienced such a patient and caring group of instructors. In four months you will feel like part of a small family. They really care about making you succeed. There is ample help with developing your projects, crafting your resume, job-hunting, interviewing, etc. The staff is very empathetic to your learning and career struggle and many of the staff members are former students. They are experts in their fields and the more senior members have tons of collective experience. They also seem to do a pretty solid job of choosing who is admitted to the program because everyone was fairly sharp and able to learn quickly enough to keep the course moving forward. Of course, I can only speak of the experience of my cohort. Also, I should mention the alum network...it seems rock solid. There is a lot of interaction in the job hunt thread of Slack and there are plenty of job leads coming in. Skill Distillery is quite a mature school so they have a large list of historic employers and those employers have been able to experience the quality of SD grads. This is very valuable with such a large pool of bootcamps out in the world of various quality. The main aspects of this course that I did not enjoy were mainly due to my lack of research on what full-stack development is and not having time to polish up projects to my liking before moving on. I also struggled to learn concepts on team-based assignments vs the ones I could complete on my own (your experience will likely be different, I'm just such a read the book and do it myself type of learner). And there is a lot of team-based work, but this is what employers have communicated wanting in grads so I had to basically just suck it up. But here I am, one of the first grads to secure a job in a mainly Java-developing role so in the end, none of it mattered too much. I am a bit of an outlier though, I had 10+ years of telecom experience and the job I secured really was a carbon copy of my past experience and the course material. If you are coming from a non-tech background, you are going to have to do the interview grind for a while...maybe up to 2 months so just mentally prepare for that and manage your expectations. P.S. You don't need a bootcamp to get a software job, but its hard for me to imagine pushing myself to the level that this course did and within the same timeframe. I say go for it! Good luck!!!

I am a graduate of cohort 27 - 16 week Full-Stack Development with Java - and attest to the fact that Skill Distillery (SD) is all it claims to be. Like most things in life, you get with you give. If you apply yourself, show up daily, and ask for help... Read More when you need it, you will have the skills necessary to excel as a full stack software developer. The curriculum is spot on providing you with the necessary concepts making it easy to learn additional languages. SD is a family first and foremost. Every employee lives and breaths the SD Values. Cohorts are small thus valuing personalized attention and success over profits. Every person is valued and feedback is not only valued but heeded. The alumni network is second to none. Complete strangers ban together providing assistance to one another whether you have a coding problem you’re trying to solve, learning a new language, or figuring the complexity of Hacker Rank / LeetCode. The instructors are very knowledgeable and experienced. They are patient and open to questions as well as being creative and practical in their presentation of the material helping to keep you engaged when you think you cannot possibly learn yet another new concept. The teaching assistants have been in your seat and provide wonderful support and guidance without solving the problem for you. Like most boot camps and computer science schools, Skill Distillery does not guarantee job placement. However, through out the boot camp brown bags are offered providing support for setting up your LinkedIn profile and crafting your resume. After graduation, instructors and previous graduates gave of their time to provide one-on-one mock interviews. The alumni network has a job search channel on which openings are constantly being posted. If you desire to work for one of the big firms (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc), you will need to do additional studying on Big O and algorithms. Udemy is a wonderful and inexpensive resource. SD has great contacts for veterans.

This was the best decision I ever made! I was currently in a dead-end sales job and not happy with where my career was going. I decided to take a leap of faith and do a career pivot into Computer Programming. I have now found the passion that has been... Read More burning inside of me! The Full Stack Java Web Development Program at Skill Distillery was the best! This bootcamp is no joke, you need to put in the time, work, and effort but just know you will be rewarded 100% once you graduate! The instructors are the best and are there to help you get placed into the right job! So if you are on the fence, think no more, DO IT! You will NOT regret it! #SD27

Pros: The course is full of knowledge and you might think you are drinking from the fire hose but it is well worth it!!!! Trust the process! The Instructors are there to help you no matter what, so you will not be suffering in silence! The money you are investing is worth it x5!

Cons: My cohort was during the Covid-19 pandemic so it was all virtual - which was still amazing! But if you're not used to online learning - that might be a challenge - but the instructors and the team are there to help you and they made it just as wonderful! The only thing i would have to say is that I wish they offered a hard copy book of the material... all the material is online - but for myself I need a text book in order to make notes in.

After a 12 year career in Finance, I was looking for a challenge and a new career to go into that would be more engaging. I looked for many options but was impressed on the accolades seen from fellow veterans that had attended the school. This was before... Read More the Vet Tec Program, I used my Post 911/GI BILL and the VA worked well with Skill Distillery.
Pros: The classes were taught by people in the industry, the depth and level of knowledge they bring would only be recognize by me until I started working. From day one I knew what was being talked about at my first job as a developer, thanks to the staff at Skill Distillery. You get a thorough breakdown of concepts that seem trivial at first but it's all part of a bigger picture and its not limited to the school environment. I went from having no formal technical training to having a grasps at concepts that would later transfer into a new field, and I had the confidence to take on new challenges at work because I got the core I needed at Skill Distillery. The course is challenging but they give you the tools and resources to reach the goals that sometime seem unattainable.
Cons: This is a full time course, meaning you could be putting in some 10 hour days. The course is heavily backend based but with just enough on the front end to gain an appreciation for it.

Being a software developer was the top option I wanted to pursue as I was getting ready to transition out of the military. I wanted to attend a program that is veteran-friendly and teaches technologies that are highly sought after in the industry. Skill... Read More Distillery was on top of the list, and attending this program was the best decision I made. Now, I work for a fortune-100 company as a Software Developer.

The program was designed to not only teach you how to code, but also teaches you the ability to learn new technologies. It’s also designed to train you how to collaborate with other developers using tools to help you be succesful at your work. Not very many bootcamps teaches Java, because it’s a hard language to learn in my point of view. But, they really make sure that everyone doesn’t get left behind. Another good thing about this program is that they help you prepare for the Oracle Certified Associate Java SE8 Certification. I didn’t get to take it because I was one of the strugglinG students, but the fact that they offer it, is a great deal itself.

The instructors were very knowledgeable and they were definitely industry experts. They have dedicated instructors for each technologies, but whenever I needed help with a topic, even the instructor from a different topic was willing to help out. Like I mentioned earlier, I was one of the struggling students in our cohort, but I got all the help that I need, from the TA, classmates, and instructors. This was definitely a great experience for me.

Be forewarned that this bootcamp will require the vast majority of your time! But that's because you will learn so much and come out on the other end with an abundance of new skills. Don't let people tel you this bootcamp is not for the inexperienced;... Read More I had zero coding experience as did two of my closest friends in class and we all made it through having learned so much. No lie - it took a lot of work, studying, and dedication but you can absolutely do it! My only cons are sometimes the wording of the curriculum is hard to follow and towards the end we didn't get a lot of detailed critique on our homework projects. But Skill Distillery is one of the best decisions I've ever made and I feel really good about my future!

I attended Skill Distillery in 2019 shortly after leaving the military. Everything about the experience exceeded my expectations from the first day of class through graduating and getting my first job as a developer. The instructors are amazing and the... Read More curriculum is well designed to give you what you need to compete as a junior developer.

The program is intense. It's not easy, and is not for everyone. You need to have the aptitude for this kind of work to be successful here, and they will help you decide if you are a good candidate during the admissions process. You will begin coding on day one, and it doesn't slow down. They call this a boot camp for a reason! Between class and homework, plan on putting in at least 60 hours a week.

I was amazed at what my classmates and I were able to produce in this short time. You will write literally dozens of small projects while learning Java, JavaScript, SQL, and HTML. You will also design and build two fully functional web projects for the midterm and final. A week or two into the course, I watched the class ahead of us present their final projects and I remember thinking there is NO WAY I could build something like that. A couple of months later I was even more amazed when I did.

You might be thinking this sounds great, but can you actually get a job coming out of a boot camp? In a word, YES. Some of my classmates had interviews prior to graduation. I had a substantial commute to/from class which left me no free time, so I decided to wait until graduation to start seriously applying for jobs. I sent out maybe 15 or 20 resumes. Within days of graduation I had a promising phone interview. That lead to in person technical interview two days later, and I had a job offer before the week was over. I have been working at this company for over a year, and can honestly say it's the best job I've ever had.

If you are motivated, disciplined, and not afraid of drinking from the fire hose, Skill Distillery can offer you the express lane to a career as a developer. Give them a call. You will be glad you did.

Skill Distillery was a life-changing experience for me! I went from a non-profit director to a Full-Stack Software Developer, and I do not think I would be successful in this change without the great instructors and SD course. If you choose to put the... Read More effort and dedication into the SD course, it will pay off when you begin a career as a new developer.

My first Software Developer job was delayed because of COVID-19. I am now a developer working with Java building microservices at a Fortune-150 company at one of their Denver Metropolitan locations, but I am currently working remotely. I graduated in January 2020 and became employed in May 2020 after a seven-week delay to my original start date.

This transformation was not an easy process, but I learned the needed developer skills at Skill Distillery and how to learn new skills quickly. It was a game-changer to me having SD's staff continued to encourage, coach, and help me after the course to help me have stronger interviews.

I recommend the Skill Distillery Java Software Development Bootcamp to anyone aspiring to be a developer who is willing to put the hard work in and wants to make a career change. Please look me up on a business networking site and feel free to ask me about this experience.

Skill Distillery is a comprehensive and incredibly detailed program. They really create an environment where learning can thrive and give you all the tools needed to succeed in the “real world”. From learning actual code, to rehearsing for interviews,... Read More down to beefing up your resume; they really cover the necessities.

I started programming in college for a semester and discovered coding bootcamps. I found Skill Distillery through VETTEC. It was one of the few schools that taught Full Stack Java Development along with Angular. I was having trouble learning how to learn... Read More programming and getting everything to stick prior to attending. I loved the model that was used to teach. We would have a lecture and a lab to enforce what we learned for every topic. Skill Distillery allowed me to transition from the medical field into a Software Engineer position. I currently work using Angular and almost everything I learned in the bootcamp.

The instructors and assistants for Skill Distillery were very helpful and compassionate when it came to teaching and some even stayed with us after class was over just in case we needed help. Skill Distillery also had a lot of workshops for job assistance in the second half of the program as well as after we finished our final projects. I recommend working on HTML and CSS before attending and during your downtime since this coding bootcamp is more backend heavy.

I highly recommend Skill Distillery for anyone in search for a coding bootcamp. Just remember you get what you put into it. I spent a lot of time during my downtime making sure I understood the material and it paid off for me in the end.