Columbia Engineering Boot Camps

After working in the finance industry for many years I transitioned into the alt data world as head of sales for a start up where I became interested in data and coding. After researching a lot of Bootcamps I was recommended this course by a friend who works in financial recruitment. I literally had no coding experience and truth be told very little computer knowledge other than sending emails and calendar type stuff. So the learning curve for me at the start of this course was extremely steep. For the first couple of weeks it was very stressful and a lot of work, but in the end I can honestly say it was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. This is a serious and intense course that requires a lot of work but in the end Im shocked at how far Ive come in 6 months.  My advice to real beginners is to spend a lot of time pre-course getting familiar with your computer and doing any pre-work they recommend. Reach out to the advisor assigned to you and ask for any materials that might assist you getting started, the less time you have to spend learning basic computer skills the better.

This course is an excellent way to start your Fintech journey and get exposure to Python, Quant/Algo Trading and the world of Crypto's. 

I wish I would have learned to code years ago! It will open your mind to a whole new world of possibilities! 

I would thank my instructor Garence Staraci, TA's Aaron Niu and Kyle Smyre, student success manager David Sison and my tutor Lavina Tang!       

Thanks for all the support and patience! 

I had no coding background and was very hesitant upon applying. Right from the start, I received so much support from the staff. It was an incredible experience. I really appreciate how fast-paced everything is and was more impressed with my fellow classmates who were very kind and willing to help each other out. The instructors are very patient as well as TA's. Just keep in mind it is a challenging cohort, so make sure you sign up with tutoring asap ask questions, and try to be well-rested along the way. 

There are many resources available even after you graduated to help you secure employment. Overall would definitely recommend to anyone who wants to chime into the world of coding because it's a great stepping stone. 

Hi, I was part of the in-class Columbia FinTech Bootcamp 2019-2020, with amazing instructors Julia Kim and Adam Behrman. Fantastic duo with an in-dept knowledge mix of business and technology. It was my pleasure working with them and their dedicated TA’s Jeff, Yiqiao, and Aaron. They were very responsive and always available for us, with extended office hours (if we need help).

It was quite a challenging experience at the beginning, as the curriculum was very demanding, having in mind that I am an economist without coding experience. So, if one wants really to gain some new tech skills individual work of 20-25 hours a week is needed above part-time classes.

But as the program goes on, I became more and more confident in my tech knowledge and we created some amazing things on our school projects, like Baby Yoda - Robo Retirer, Algo Trader, and my favorite ML/blockchain combo  Patent Blocks. 

Yep, when one goes through documents and the codes all my buddies are “black belt ninja” holders, as our instructor, Adam said in our first class, we will become technology-wise. (after Bootcamp ends while looking at a bunch of confused faces trying to install required tools).

Along with solid tech knowledge, I met a terrific group of young professionals and we learned a lot from each other. This Bootcamp was an amazing networking tool as you can meet very different interesting personalities with different carriers and experience levels.

On the carrier service side, if you follow the milestones it is an easy task and one can be employer-ready by the end of Bootcamp. I also used the help of the carrier director, highly skilled professional, Colin Lubbe. . Kudos to Colin and his effort to help me reach the employer-competitive stage.

 

For more data on my Columbia Engineering (2U) journey visit my GitHub. https://github.com/NinoslavVasic

 

Overall, a very positive experience, and all the best if you decide to go toward this path.

Nino

This will be the most honest review you read on here. For people considering forking over ~$12,000 please read this first - or consider reaching out to previous reviewers and see if they're employed. If you notice - only a very small percentage of people spoke about being employed in their review. Most of these were likely left at or near their graduation date when students are optimistic about their career outlook in addition to being ecstatic due to an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. I was too, but I waited to leave an honest review.

TLDR - This school had good teachers, a poorly planned curriculum (in terms of getting a job), terrible career support and is not worth over $3,000 - $4,000. Graduated 10/2019 - still no job and it's 8/2020. Applied to 323 positions thus far and still no luck after following the advice of career services to the tee.

Teachers - Definitely the high point of this review. I thought the Teachers we had were knowledgeable and made sure those who wanted to learn did. In addition the TAs were some of the strongest I've met. Before deciding to go to Columbia I went to a number of different bootcamp "trial days". It's obviously hard to tell from such a small sample size but I felt that my cohorts TAs were far more knowledgeable than the average TA at some of the other big NYC bootcamps.

Curriculum - I worked my butt off, people are right that this course takes a lot of work outside the classroom if you expect to keep up. I felt the curriculum attempted to lightly touch on far too many subjects rather than specializing on a few important ones. This doesn't make a graduate attractive to potential companies. Yea, it's great you can list 30 skills on your resume but if you've only just scratched the surface on each one how do you expect someone to pay you a fair salary. It's really on you to become an expert - but for $12,000 I don't believe that should be the case.

Career Services - I really appreciated the comprehensive resume review. I thought that was a very valuable service at the time (although my results would beg to differ). The whole career coach process was a joke. I could see this being useful for someone who doesn't know what LinkedIn is. But in my experience it seemed like we just kept going over the same things, it was almost as if every meeting I had felt like the first meeting. Very disappointed with this aspect.

Tutors - Complete joke, they outsource this service and it's hit or miss. I know some students who had a good experience while both the tutors I used clearly embellished their experience as I kept finding holes in their advice which seemed like basic knowledge to me, an inexperienced coder. 

All in all I feel kind of bad writing this review because everyone at this bootcamp was so nice. Literally everyone, the teachers, the coaches, the success managers etc. But being nice doesn't equate to getting a job. There's a reason they wont publish their job statistics like the other reputable bootcamps in NYC. It's because they are taking advantage of this bootcamp fad without using the amount of resources the other bootcamps do (the ones that publish statistics). They are banking on affiliating with well known universities and keeping their barrier to entry low. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought their entry exam was a joke compared to the other schools, like Fullstack Academy (I also applied and was accepted there). As I said earlier, I finished in 10/2019 and I only know of 4 people from my cohort who are currently employed full time. Two of which came into the program with CS degrees and the other one was already working in a tech company in a different capacity.

My advice is as follows: If you are looking to make a career switch, this course is not for you. You're better off spending an extra $5,000 and giving up three months of your life and going to a bootcamp that guarantees job placement. I convinced myself that this cheaper, more flexible schedule, with a lower barrier to entry would be just as good. There were tons of red flags and I ignored them all because, who doesn't want a certificate from Columbia University? If you're someone with some extra cash that just wants to learn with no desire to switch careers - then this course is for you but I would point you to similar online courses that cost a couple of hundred dollars.

That is my brutally honest review.

-Alexander Vellios

I decided to pursue the cybersecurity field after selling my LED lighting manufacturing company looking to pivot into a new career, and after looking into this exciting new growing field, it gave me insight into the vast and lucrative career opportunities offered if you have the right education and credentials.  After extensively researching the various cybersecurity programs offered by many reputable schools, I decided to apply first to the Columbia Engineering Cybersecurity Bootcamp Program for a few reasons;

First of all the curriculum was both diverse and extensive, covering the most important areas of cybersecurity that are the most useful to anyone pursuing their aspirations in this area.  I could tell the educational staff put a lot of time and thought into their topic selection, and yet they remained flexible in incorporating new subjects into the program even during the course of the class, while also taking input from the students.  The industry itself is continuously evolving and this regular updating is essential to keeping the program on the cutting edge in parallel with it.

The program cost is quite competitive when compared to other in-class programs.  From what I've seen from other programs vs. their cost, the Columbia Cybersecurity Bootcamp Program offers the greatest return on your investment.  Midway through the program, the COVID crisis obviously made it more challenging for everyone, including for administrators, teachers and students alike.  But Columbia, in conjunction with Trilogy, made an extensive proactive effort to offset the adversarial effects, including making the TA's more available during numerous scheduled times for student questions, as well as the teacher himself, who also supplemented the student's preparation for career readiness with numerous one on one sessions along with Career Services.

And, the cybersecurity program, part of the Columbia Fu School of Engineering, a department within one of the top Ivy League schools, lives up to its reputation as a leader in academia, and I am proud to display on my resume one of the finest institutions of learning in the US, and the world, and a great differentiator from other schools.

Regarding my favorite aspects of the program, topic-wise I found learning about the benefits of the cloud, the components within a network and how they work together, and the tools and software we learned to protect them against a cyberattack, were all very intricate but interesting, and in fact I will be applying those skills to the technology startup that I will be working with shortly after the completion of the program, to protect their software as well as the environments they will be operating in.  The projects were on balance probably the most challenging part of the program, requiring collaboration, resourcefulness, and creativity to complete them successfully.  The teacher and TA's were simply fantastic.  They were extraordinarily helpful especially in a very challenging environment, and they bent over backwards to accommodate the student's needs.  You can tell they took a lot of pride and invested a lot of emotional energy along with intellectual rigor to make sure the students got the education that they paid for.
 My advice for students considering applying for or entering this program is to be ready for a major challenge.  You will emerge from this experience learning a great deal, if you invest enough time into it.  The program, although foundational from a cybersecurity standpoint, also transforms you and puts you in the shoes of a cybersecurity professional, challenging you all along the way to identify and then mitigate these types of threats for a company. 

Scott Koenig

A very intensive 6 months course, you get to learn a lot of different technologies being used in the industry, one recommendation i have for anyone that's going to take this course is that, you have to be very diligent in doing the work, and do a lot of outside learning as you are going through the course. Many of my classmates where half assing it and it showed. This is a big investment for a lot of you and i recommend taking it very serious and just learn as much as you can if you can put in 40 hours a week learning i recommend doing it as, this will be one time course.

A 6-month course on becoming a full stack developer. Covered all the current topics and tools, finishing with the MERN stack. Course was fast-paced and requires a lot of additional learning to build on the subject matter being presented. Recommend keeping up with homework assignments and use the team projects as an opportunity to learn how to frame a project, assign tasks, and do frequent stand-ups and GitHub pull requests. Instructor was very committed to helping the students and answering all questions. 

I enjoy creative problem solving and am fascinated by figuring out how things work.  I enjoy puzzles and building solutions, and I was eager to learn a technical skill that would make me more marketable while looking for jobs.  My goal was to set myself up on a career path that had me thinking creatively and solving problems while earning a competitive salary with great benefits.  Based on the very little that I knew about Data Analytics, I did some light Googling and stumbled upon Columbia's Data Analytics Boot Camp.  I had never coded a day in my life.  I had some experience working in Microsoft Excel, but that's it.  I got my questions answered by the admissions folks at Triology and passed the intial test to qualify for the program.  I was nervous and excited to begin this program. 

The first few weeks were a huge learning curve for me.  I do not have a math and science background, and we hit the ground running with coding.  I spent lots of time outside of class researching concepts on my own and watching online tutorials while taking lots of notes.  I can confidently say that I have never studied this hard or diligently in my life, but it has really paid off.  Over time, the concepts started to click and with every passing class I feel more and more confident in my abilities as a Data Analyst. 

My favorite parts of this program have been my kind, patient, amazing instructor; building relationships with my classmates and working with them on homework outside of class; and taking advantage of the weekly 1:1 tutoring sessions with my outstanding tutor. 

My main peice of advice to you is this: you aren't good at something until you learn how to do it.  No one is born with an innate ability to code.  You learn how to code.  If you have a creative and analytic mind, this program can be an amazing way to implement those approaches with a technical skill set.  It has been very humbling to learn something new, something that seemed so foreign and impossible to understand.  But it's not impossible.  It just takes a lot of work.  I've had to make sacrifices in order to dedicate as much time and energy as I can into this program, but I know that there will be opportunities for me once it's under my belt.  Anyone can learn how to do this, it just takes time.  Like I said, I was nervous, but after jumping in and dealing with the struggle and the challenge of wrapping my brain around this fast paced program, I feel proud of myself at how far I've come in such a short amount of time. 

I had Michael and Jamal as my instructors! They are an awesome pair because they synergize off each other's strengths. Michael strength is his ability to spark interest ontop of laying the foundational scaffolding of knowledge; while, Jamals is his ability to dive deep to build upon that foundation with best practices to create more efficient and less buggy code. On top of that, there would be many moments of quality comedic timing that really brought us as a class together.

We have dedicated TA's like Casey, Yohann, Pete. Who would be in Mudd sometimes 2-3 hours before actual class time. Socializing with students and making sure that we got the help we needed.

Early on in the Bootcamp, I remember having a memorable experience with TA's Michelle, Ben, and Mike who were with us in the glass study area of campus-level Mudd. I was trying to get this animation library working with my first deployment on GitHub pages. I was probably looking frustrated and Michelle came over and made sure I got help. This was at a time without class or office hours.

Another time early on, I remember Jamal sat me down individually during after-hours just explaining from a question I had. He even missed an earlier train home for me.

Recently during final project-week, EVERYONE stayed in class extra just so we can hit higher goals. It's time like these where you realize the instructional staff really are here to help us succeed in any way they can.

On another note, I think Columbia attracts a really unique and rich student body. We had game designers who wanted to learn to code in our class. We had business owners. We had older 30's something finance people who realized they were teaching foreign developers how to automate their jobs and will be replaced soon if they don't adapt. And of course, we had young people like me who are in their early twenties trying to make something of their life.

I had some gripes with the curriculum in terms of time spent on things that weren't that important. I talked to Michael and Jamal about it and they said they know and were trying to make changes with the higher-ups.

Overall a great experience! A tough experience. A real challenge. If you're doing this you really will need to spend 12-14 hours each week at Columbia AND as much as you can get outside of class to review and build knowledge (10-20 hours+ minimum depending on the person). A ton of perseverance is needed, seriously!!

-Filbert Shi (Finished June 2019)