Skill Distillery

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.

I was a graduate of SD6 in late 2016. The instruction was clear, and the instructors and teaching assistants were great to learn from and work with. I knew basically nothing about software development when I started there. Fortunately, I received a good... Read More amount of help from both the staff as well as my classmates, and I was able to graduate and not only find work but also excel in my new career.

If you work hard and understand that the entry-level market is tough and you need to rise above the competition in order to succeed, Skill Distillery will give you the tools and the jump-start needed to find entry-level work as a developer. The instructors care about your education, so all you need to do is care about it as well. Prepare for a difficult few months as you cram information into your brain at a rate that most people wouldn't find comfortable, but that's what boot camps are all about. If it's easy, you aren't learning enough and it's going to take much longer to do it.

The curriculum is aimed at a lot of enterprise-level tech stacks so as to maximize your marketability as a graduate. It's very broad and you'll be exposed to many relevant items, but you still need to take the initiative to continue to learn post-graduation (especially while job seeking) so as to improve your chances at standing out.

Good luck.

I went into this boot camp with zero knowledge of Java, it was a tough road to climb. It is a full-time boot camp, 9-5, but the TAs always stayed later to help answer any question you might have. It was the best resource the school offered. I put in 8-10... Read More hours every day I was in this course and it paid off. I got several jobs offers upon graduation and I've been climbing the tech ladder ever since. The employers were somewhat hesitant about the boot camp, but as soon as we got to whiteboarding or discussing my knowledge of the technologies they knew what I was bringing to the table.
I would never say this boot camp was a magic bullet or that they taught me everything I needed to learn to be a successful developer, but they definitely helped me understand how to think like a developer. How to solve problems using technologies. Most importantly how to do research on a technology and how to learn new ones. This ability to quickly learn another technology is probably the best tool I have at my disposal. They gave me all the initial tools I needed to begin my career as a developer and I will be forever grateful that I decided to attend Skill Distillery.
The fact that the GI Bill covered this course gave them an extra layer of credibility, if you are interested in starting a career in tech, I would recommend this school to anyone. Reach out to the staff, they are friendly and will answer any question you might have.

Skill Distillery was probably the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life, but I don't regret it one bit. Having never written a line of code before enrolling in Skill Distillery, I struggled to keep up with the quick pace. Many of my peers had... Read More some prior coding experience and were able to catch onto subjects much quicker than I was. I would get frustrated that by the time a subject would finally click in my head, we would already be moving on to the next subject. I felt like I was always a week behind on the subjects we were taught, so it was very important for me to spend the extra time I needed at home or after class to try to catch up. So I grinded. Every day. I was putting in 10 to 12-hour days every day during the week, and about 8-hours each day on weekends working on our weekend projects. My Christmas break was spent reading the OCA exam prep book twice over and doing practice tests. You absolutely have to devote your entire life to Skill Distillery in order to be successful. Thankfully, the instructors at SD were great and were always able to help. Between Aaron staying late after class with me (occasionally until 10 or 11 at night!), or Steve holding a last-minute OCA review on a Saturday morning, the instructors went above and beyond to make sure that we were successful. My classmates were also extremely kind and would take the time to explain concepts if I didn't understand. You will get so much more out of the class when everyone, from the instructors to the students, are invested in helping you achieve success. But in all, my biggest take-away from Skill Distillery was not learning a specific language or technology, but rather learning *how to teach myself on my own*.

In the first section at SD you will learn the fundamentals of Java and object oriented programming, and by the end of the first section you will be prepared to take the Oracle Certified Programmer test. You will build several command-line projects in Java in this section. This was actually the most difficult section for me, just because concepts like for loops, arrays and objects were so foreign to me as a coding newbie. Beginning in section 2 you are taught front end and web technologies (HTML, CSS, Javascript, jQuery, SQL) and design patterns. At the end of this section you and your team will build a full stack web app. Then in the 3rd section you'll learn Angular, and you'll build another full stack app as your final group project at the end of the 3rd section. Although the course is in fact full stack, you are really only taught enough Javascript and Angular to act as a launching-off point. In addition to the big group projects, you'll be building a github portfolio of smaller individual projects.

One aspect of the curriculum I would have liked to see, however, is further interview prep. We only had one day after we presented our final projects in which we were given common algorithm interview questions to solve on the whiteboard, and to discuss other common interview topics like data structures. I would have liked to see whiteboarding exercises worked into our day-to-day lessons.

Throughout the entire class I had doubts about whether I would be able to cut it as a dev in the real world. Even come graduation I did not feel at all confident in the subjects that I had learned, and was sure that I would just embarrass myself in my interviews. It took about 8 weeks of full-time applying (about 250 job applications) for me to get a job offer. And now a year after graduation I'm still at the Toyota corporate office working on the same cool project. This is the first time in my life that I feel I'm in a stable field, with a clear career path and attainable career goals that I'm excited about. It sure is nice being in a field where recruiters are actively coming after me! While my career path is tending to veer into a front-end specialization, Skill Distillery taught me the skills I need to be able to market myself as a full-stack developer.

Post-graduation job-support is somewhat lacking in that there were no placement partnerships, career fairs or anything of that sort. They send occasional tips about job opportunities with companies that reach out directly to Skill Distillery, and occasionally other alumni give recommendations when their companies are hiring. The alumni network is invaluable though--I know of several people who have gotten jobs through other SD alumni. About half of my cohort had job offers within a week after graduation, and 100% of my cohort had job offers within 2 months -- I'm pretty sure I was the last one to get a job haha. From the other alumni I've spoken to from other cohorts, this trend seems to be accurate.

Lastly, make sure you do a mock interview with Bruce after you graduate. He gave me some very helpful tips for my interview and resume, and it helped to make me feel more confident going into technical interviews.

All in all, if you have the motivation and put in the hard work, Skill Distillery will give you the skills to get a job as an entry level developer