Skill Distillery

Pros: - Finance options for tuition assistance - In-depth, extensive instructor knowledge of Java - OOP fundamentals focused - Perfect blend of lectures and traditional classroom learning verses hands on coding and design - Java OCP exam preparation and... Read More practice - Data Structures and foundational programming knowledge learned - Agile, Pair Programming, and Test Driven Development practices learned Cons: - Not as much post graduation job support as some other boot camp programs

I graduated from Skill Distillery's 16-week Full-Stack Development with Java (fully remote) boot camp in July of 2022. The course was 1000% worth the time and financial investment. Each of the instructors demonstrated deep knowledge of the subject matter,... Read More be that Java, SQL, Java Script, or Angular. Each student question was met with patience and total competence. The materials were well-structured and detailed. The time commitment was high, although I managed to keep most of my Sundays free for some R&R.

Like many others attending coding bootcamps I was tired of my previous career and was looking for a rewarding change of pace. After doing a lot of research into bootcamps I decided to go with Skill Distillery. I was lucky to be able to use my GI benefits... Read More and take advantage of the VetTec program that covered my tuition to SD. From my initial screening phone call to post-graduation the support from the staff and other alum was outstanding. The course is difficult, and you will get out of it what you put into it. Don't be afraid to speak up and ask questions, the staff is always happy to answer questions. Post graduation the instructors will still provide support with mock interviews, setting up a resume, tweaking LinkedIn pages, and providing any advice towards the job search. The alum channel is active and there to provide referrals and advice to fresh graduates. I was able to land multiple offers 2 months after graduation and the skills I learned at Skill Distillery set me up well as a Jr. dev. I would recommend SD to anyone looking to get into the world of programming.

Life changing is the best way to describe Skill Distillery. Prior to this bootcamp I was an EMT, looking into healthcare degrees. Burnt out from working healthcare, I was looking for the next thing. Before Skill Distillery I knew nothing about coding,... Read More after the 16 week program, I felt extremely prepared to apply for jobs. I landed a job 6 weeks after graduation. I love my new job, it’s flexible, pays well, and provides a lot of new opportunities for me. It feels crazy to look back less than a year ago and see where I am now, totally life changing. I highly recommend this program.

Skill Distillery provides an excellent and proven pathway for learning job-ready skills involved in full-stack development with Java. I was impressed with the thoroughness of the program from the first day through the last. The material is comprehensive... Read More and challenging, requiring strong commitment in regards to time and effort from the student. No matter where you start from (new to the field or with some experience), if you show up daily, engage with the assignments, projects and lectures, and see it through to completion, you end up with foundational skills, an applied body of knowledge, and the confident ability to learn, build and contribute as a modern developer.

Skill Distillery is an excellent school with staff who genuinely care about student learning and success. During my 16-weeks at Skill Distillery, I went from having zero programming experience to getting my first job as an Applications Developer. The... Read More curriculum covers in-demand coding skills such as Java, CSS, HTML, SQL, RESTful Web Services, and much more. I had my first job interview during my last week at Skill Distillery. The hiring manager was impressed with the projects I developed and the portfolio I created during the cohort. I received an offer from the company shortly after. I am now earning nearly 4x as much as I was before enrolling at Skill Distillery. The staff regularly reach out to me even weeks after graduation to ask how I am doing and provide insight on local job openings. I feel comfortable knowing that I have former instructors who care about my education and success. The school even provides interview training and resume review after you graduate. If you are looking for an excellent coding boot camp that will teach you in-demand skills, look no further! I am recommending Skill Distillery to anyone who will listen!

If choosing to go with skill distillery as your choice of boot camp here what you can expect: 1. World class instructors who literally dedicate their lives to improving yours 2. A curriculum that makes sense for new learners. Starting with core java and... Read More moving into to more complicated things from there is perfect and curates a deeper understanding of things like front end frame works and java script that other curriculums just can’t compete with. 3. Knowledge of self. This bootcamp will test you. If one is to take this program seriously one can expect to be pushed to their limits in a way that will strengthen character, knowledge, and capability. This process taught me more about myself then any other 4 months of my life has. 4. And lastly, Skill distillery offers its student a strong alumni networks which is continually beneficial to my career progression after graduating Choose this bootcamp. You will not regret the experience skill distillery has to offer. Change your life like I changed mine with the help of these wonderful people.

I came in with no coding experience, and the course was rigorous, but the instructors are there to help you every step of the way, and their goal is to get every student a great job after graduation. I'm about to start my first job as a Software Engineer,... Read More and I could not have been happier with 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.