I’ve been enrolled in an intensive UX/UI bootcamp for nearly three months now, with an additional four months left to go and really wanted to take some time to share some pros and cons I have experienced thus far in the bootcamp to help any of you who may be considering it.

Pros:

1. You will build your portfolio…A LOT

If you’re starting from scratch with no prior industry experience, this may be a great place for you to start. Through the bootcamp I’m currently enrolled in, that’s exactly what the instructors are preparing me for — building a competitive portfolio from scratch. We have regular assignments where we have been learning all of the basics in the design process, all leading up to the final project and the case study. We have not yet begun the coding section, but towards the end of this bootcamp, we will learn how to set up our website and then are able to implement our case studies onto that. By the time this bootcamp is over, I should have at least six full portfolio pieces.

2. You have a team of built in instructors to help you throughout the process

This was a huge bonus for me. Not only do we have access to industry professionals and office hours where we can ask plenty of questions, we also get to work with tutors who will help us as we work through the process of building up our projects. Since my bootcamp is local, I have also found it to be a great networking experience as well, meeting plenty of new industry professionals along the way in addition to my peers in my cohort.

3. You will be working with a career team along the way

I am unsure if all boot camps offer this, but a huge selling point on my specific bootcamp was that in addition to our regular assignments, we are also working alongside a career team, submitting our cover letters, resumes, etc. This is of course very helpful for anyone who is new to the creative industry without any prior knowledge on how to set up a portfolio or a creative resume.

1. Time

One big factor about the bootcamp is that you really need to dedicate a lot of time to it. Besides the intensive sessions that you must attend, there’s a lot of self study involved as well. You’re learning an entire industry in as short as 6 months. There’s a lot to learn if you want to be a competitive candidate when it comes time for the job search. It’s important that you carve out a lot of time in your day for not only projects, but for additional reading or tutorials. The less you know about the industry, the more difficult it will be to learn everything in the small window of time. If you have no prior experience working with some of the software systems (Adobe XD, Sketch, Figma, etc) expect to spend a lot of your own time learning these, as the instructors don’t typically spend very much time going over that with you.

2. Non-Foundational Learning

This is something I’ve noticed that’s very important to me, personally, and it’s definitely a big risk you take when enrolling in a bootcamp. Because you are learning so much, so fast, it’s easy to fall behind. You are learning huge concepts that sometimes take months to understand in as few as 1–3 hours. Since the bootcamp’s main objective is to have you finish a portfolio and place you at a job, they are not focused on creating individuals who have foundational knowledge of the field. This could cause a lot of errors in the future when an individual does begin working, if that individual doesn’t take the time to understand the background behind a particular concept.

3. Bootcamp Objective

Again, because of the objective of the bootcamp wanting to place you at a job with a finished portfolio, they’re not as concerned with understanding concepts. Therefore, when they do provide additional reading, it is typically not focused on and is also quite unrealistic to finish — especially if you are working another full-time job. Many times, we will have 10–20 articles to read along with 3–4 books and multiple tutorials in a time frame of 1 week. Of course, I’m sure many of these reads are just general recommendations and certainly aren’t required, but if you want to truly understand the concepts, you have one week to do so. This can again be a lot, especially if you have other commitments, which I’m sure many of us do.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, I am satisfied with my education so far. I am lucky to have a job where I am working from home so I am able to dive into many of the recommendations and have done a lot of work on my own time. I think that if you go into the bootcamp with a mindset of knowing that you will be responsible for your outcome and think of it as a great tool to help guide you as you build your portfolio, then you will be well on your way to becoming a wonderful UX designer.