Hi, I’m Elle! I work as a product designer at Getaround and as an industry mentor here at Pathrise. I help our fellows land great jobs in product design through technical workshops and 1-on-1s. Check out my review where I compare UX Pro Academy.
- What does UX Pro Academy do?
- Who is UX Pro Academy for?
- What does UX Pro Academy cost?
- Ratings and reviews of UX Pro Academy
- Alternatives to UX Pro Academy
- How does UX Pro Academy compare to Pathrise?
What does UX Pro Academy do?
UX Pro Academy is an online bootcamp that teaches the skills necessary to launch a career as a UX designer. They offer part-time courses for both beginners and people with some background in UX. Their courses are extremely hands-on, teaching via mentoring and projects for real clients rather than lectures.
They have a 6-month bootcamp for beginners and a 10-week bootcamp for students with prior UX experience. A 4-week course on user testing is also available. The 6-month “UX/UI beginner to pro” course has around 400 hours of total content. Students can go through the material at their own pace. On the other hand, students in the 10 week “UX interaction with clients” course do meet with one another. They can expect about 10 hours of class per week, but the workload can be intense due to the real client deadlines and projects. The 4-week user testing course is also part-time and requires about 10 hours of work a week.
Beginner to pro
Students in the UX/UI “beginner to pro” course learn to apply user experience lessons by working on real client briefs. The course’s self-paced modules include design lessons, exercises, and real workplace skills so students can hit the ground running. The curriculum teaches UX novices competitive analysis, user research principles, affinity mapping, information architecture, sitemap creation, and design for mobile. Students also learn basic UI, prototyping, and other foundational skills. After learning these fundamentals in the first months, students move on to UX work for real clients. Students graduate with a UX portfolio full of polished projects to help them land a job.
UX interaction with clients
The 10-week “UX interaction with clients” course is designed for students with some knowledge of UX but no experience in the field. The program skips over the assignments and lessons of the “beginner to pro” course and instead dives right into real client work. Students work with a mentor and a team throughout the program, building 2 UX projects for 2 separate clients. The course begins with real work on competitor analysis, personas, journey maps, user testing, plus prototyping & wireframing. In the end, students graduate with a polished portfolio and a letter of recognition from the clients.
User testing pro
Students in the 4-week “user testing pro” course must have some prior knowledge of usability. The curriculum teaches students to recruit participants and create scripts for different scenarios. Plus, they learn how to brief, debrief, and moderate during testing. After learning to run usability tests and analyze their findings, students put their skills to work for actual clients. The course culminates in a user test that allows students to present their findings to a real client.
All courses include job support. Students work with career mentors on resume creation, career planning, portfolio creation, brand building, and even mock interviews. Graduates get an official certificate that they can add to their LinkedIn profile to help impress recruiters and become a UX designer.
Who is UX Pro Academy for?
The courses are designed for both beginners looking to start a career as a UX designer and people with some UX background looking for practical experience. The bootcamps are especially helpful for people interested in hands-on UX learning with real clients.
What does UX Pro Academy cost? How much work is involved?
Tuition for the 6-month “beginner to pro” course is $1,500. The 10-week “interactive with clients” course costs $650 while the 4-week user testing pro course is $550.
Unlike many other bootcamps, UX Pro Academy has no formal admissions process. However, the “interactive with clients” and “user testing pro” courses require that students have prior experience with UX. The “beginner to pro” UX course is open to anyone.
Ratings and reviews
UX Pro Academy is fairly new and does not have many reviews yet, but so far the reception has been positive. The program holds a perfect 5 star rating on Course Report based on only 2 reviews. One grad appreciated that the course “was very hands-on” with lots of teamwork that “helps to see others’ point of view and learn from each other.” However, the grad warned that the course is “intense” in regards to the real company work. Another grad felt “the involvement of the mentor was amazing” and valued all the “practical learning.”
The program is rated 5 stars on Switchup, where grads praise the project-based learning and supportive environment. One student described the program as “intense but hands-on” and “good fun.” While the student was disappointed that “they don’t offer a job guarantee”, they did feel that grads could land a job with the skills they gained from the program. Another student said the course had lots of practical learning opportunities and appreciated that she got to “work in a team.” While she also warned “they don’t offer a job guarantee”, the grad appreciated that the course offered “job referrals.” Overall, students praised the program for its practical curriculum and mentoring, but some grads would have liked more help finding a job.
Alternatives to UX Pro Academy
If you decide not to enroll in UX Pro Academy, there are a number of alternative bootcamps and resources that can help you launch a career as a UX or product designer.
- The popular bootcamp General Assembly offers full-time, part-time, and 1-day courses on tech topics like UX design. Their program includes mentoring, a massive global alumni network, and access to more than 19,000 hiring partners. Read more about General Assembly in our review.
- Aspiring UX designers and software engineers looking for a full-time bootcamp can also look into Kenzie Academy. Their program is also hands-on with mentoring opportunities. Learn more about Kenzie Academy in our review.
- Students interested in online self-paced or instructor-led product design courses can check out DesignerUp. Their paid master course features 1-on-1 mentorship and an accredited design certificate for grads. Learn more about DesignerUp in our review.
- The well-known bootcamp BrainStation offers courses in UX/UI design and other topics. Like UX Pro Academy, their program is hands-on with lots of opportunities for students to build design portfolios.
- Aspiring UX designers can also check out Designlab, a bootcamp that features an industry mentor and a career coach, plus hands-on learning similar to UX Pro Academy. Read more about Designlab in our review.
- Or, they can consider Bloc and Big Nerd Ranch. Both cover web dev and design, but Bloc is online and Big Nerd Ranch is on campus.
- Similarly, Avocademy, Beginex, Memorisely, Design Sprint School, Perpetual Education, and Miami Ad School are UX design bootcamps with part-time courses.
More alternatives
- Students seeking real work opportunities can also look into Gymnasium, a design resource that hosts courses and tutorials in UX design. Many of their courses are offered for free.
- An affordable program with self-paced learning, Coursera offers UX design courses taught by professors at accredited universities.
- Students looking for 1-on-1 mentorship can consider Thinkful, a bootcamp with tracks in UX/UI design, software engineering, and data science.
- Similarly, Prime Digital Academy and Georgia Tech Bootcamp have full-time and part-time courses in UX design and software engineering.
- Springboard is an educational resource that hosts courses on UX design and plenty of other tech subjects. If students don’t land a tech job within 6 months of graduating, they get a full refund. Learn more about Springboard in our review.
- The self-paced learning resource Udacity teaches courses on UX design with both technical mentoring and career coaching available. Learn more about Udacity in our review.
- Students can also check out edX, an online learning platform that hosts self-paced UX design courses from top universities like Harvard and MIT, and even major tech companies like Microsoft. Learn more about edX in our review.
How does UX Pro Academy compare to Pathrise?
UX Pro Academy is an online bootcamp for people who want to launch a new career in design. While they help students learn the technical skills and job search skills they need, UX Pro Academy does not actually help students land a job. Pathrise helps with all phases of the job search, including their resumes & portfolios, reverse recruiting and cold emails, behavioral and technical interview preparation, salary negotiation, and more.
Pathrise is a career accelerator that helps people land their dream jobs in tech. Our mentors have experience on both sides of the hiring table, having helped 600+ people land great tech jobs. We work 1-on-1 with fellows on the topics with which they need the most support. Fellows in our program see their interview scores double and their application responses triple, landing jobs in just 3-5 months on average.
Our program is flexible and tailored to the needs of each fellow. There are only 4 hours of group sessions per week and fellows can schedule 1-on-1 sessions as needed. The Pathrise income share agreement (ISA) means that our fellows never pay until they land a job they love and start working. We never require upfront payments or deposits.
Pathrise optimizes the job search through 1-on-1 mentoring and tech training. If you are interested in working with one of our experienced mentors to land your dream, join Pathrise.
Apply today.
