Mento Design Academy

Enrolling in a bootcamp is an investment that requires commitment, time, effort, and money. You want to know that you are making the right decision. My first admissions call with Raluca sealed the deal. It was clear that she loved what she was doing and that she was passionate about supporting and encouraging others who also wanted to embark on the UX/UI journey. Several months into the program and it’s safe to say that I have not looked back once.  Before starting the bootcamp I had the lingering fear that I would complete it still feeling wholly unprepared to step into a UX/UI role. Even though there’s a lot more to learn, I now feel confident that this will not be the case. Let me explain why. The curriculum is carefully curated, diving into the theory you need to get started. It is interesting and thought provoking. The curriculum is broken up nicely and allows you to learn something, followed by a well-thought-out task where you practically apply and explore what you’ve learnt. Which brings me to my next point: mentors! Every student gets paired with a mentor that works in the field. My sessions with Pia have been a game changer for me. The weekly meetings have allowed me to ask questions, get feedback and reflect on my tasks, share my challenges, and gain valuable insights. As a bonus I’ve also gotten to know a wonderful human! Another thing I absolutely love about Mento is the community. It’s a wonderfully supportive and encouraging community of fellow students, graduates, and mentors. Mento creates loads of opportunities for students to connect with one another by assigning you a bootcamp buddy and running biweekly student community meetings. They also host awesome events with experts in the field. Last but not least, Mento encourages you to choose portfolio projects you want to work on. This really allows you to explore what it is you are most interested in, in the field. This ultimately aids you in building a portfolio that speaks to who you are as a designer.  It's important to mention that what you choose to put into it also plays a role in your experience. Mento provides the knowledge, hands-on experience, resources and community you need. I would highly recommend Mento Design Academy to students who are looking to transition to UX/UI Design. 

There are many invaluable experiences from learning with Mento, which I'm forever grateful for, the most meaningful for me is that Mento allows me to be myself in my learning journey. This has totally changed the way I learn. At the beginning they guided me to get to know myself better, what my goals are, my unique background, my super powers, my learning style, how to manage time to be productive, and this really is a big push for me. Mento understands that everyone is unique and their journey & pace is different. My journey to design is a bumpy one, there are external & internal obstacles, and it's very heartwarming that Mento created such an environment when I can be open about all these. Not only that, they helped me to find solutions to be able to move forward. I'm also very thankful for the people in the community for how warm, supportive, caring they are (the mentors, students, and support team). The community that would celebrate with you during good times, lift you up during the tough times, and always be there in between in your learning journey. It's a privilege to learn from Mento curriculum, the structure, the materials and practical assignments making it easy to understand and follow through, but even when things got blurry, I know that I always have the community I can turn to & the mentors who are the industry experts I can learn a lot from. Another big push for me during my learning journey is that Mento curriculum always asks us to train our why muscle with their assignments, to find & to explore the reasoning behind the design decisions. All in all, Mento is beyond educational platform, it's also a community that cares for us as a person and our dream in design.

Joining Mento was an excellent decision for someone like me who is very new to design. The bootcamp provided a clear structured path for my learning journey while still allowing a personalized approach that allowed me to focus on topics that interested me, a supportive community of fellow designers, and a career support after completing the program – basically, everything that I was looking for in a design bootcamp!  

• Structure: There is A LOT of UX resources out there. If you're like me, you probably don't know where to start and would be overwhelmed even before starting. Mento's curriculum was well-organized and up-to-date, providing step-by-step guidance on everything from the basics of design to preparing for job interviews. While some sections required a lot of reading and watching, the associated assignments helped me to apply what I had learned and my mentor gave me helpful feedbacks on the assignment, which helped further my learning.

• Personalized journey:  A core part of this program is your weekly 1:1 mentor sessions where you and your assigned mentor can discuss anything related to your progress in the program. Although Mento provides a recommended structure for your learning, ultimately, it is up to you, with the guidance of your mentor, on how to approach certain parts of the program. This is especially the case when you start working on your first design project. Furthermore, I greatly appreciate the flexibility Mento offers in choosing the topics for the design projects, as I know other bootcamps don't offer this. Your mentor will guide you to ensure that the topics you choose for your projects can make you stand out later and are achievable during the program. As you can probably tell, your mentorship is a very important part in your journey, so it is crucial to find a mentor that you think fits well with you! Mento sends out feedback forms after every mentor sessions to ensure that you are receiving the best mentorship for yourself. If things does not work out initially, don't worry, as you will be able to switch mentors. I learned so much from my mentor every session, and am very grateful for Mento in facilitating this relationship.

• Community:  As a very introverted person, I'm even surprised to say that Mento's community was one of the highlights of my experience. Once you join the program, you will be able to connect with fellow Mento students, and design professionals (other than your Mentor). Various activities like regular student meetings, UI challenges, and guest speaker events gave me the opportunity to engage with fellow designers and learn more from them. Additionally, the student support team (shout out to them!) will always be there if you need anything. The support from the community was very invaluable, and I am very grateful to have met so many wonderful people from the program!! 

• Career Support: Mento provides a 1:1 career support session after you graduate that is available for 6 months. You can book a call with a professional (it can be one of the mentors) anytime. I only graduated recently so I can't say too much yet, but I don't doubt the quality of support given the experience I had in the past 6-7 months. 

Overall, while I do believe that your efforts will ultimately determine your experience and outcome, Mento provides numerous resources to assist their students in succeeding, and I am confident that if you put in the necessary effort, you will be pleased with the results. Thus, I highly recommend this program to anyone who wants to jumpstart their design career!

If you still have questions or concerns, make sure to book a call with one of the admissions staff through their website before deciding. But, if you are interested, you can use this affiliate link ( https://mentodesign.academy/?via=bmhzwm ) to receive $100 off! 

Regardless of your decision, I wish you all the best in your design journey :)

If you’re reading this, then you’re most likely searching for the best UX bootcamp available. You’ve made a commitment to yourself to learn UX, and you want to choose the best option, but there are a lot of choices. When I was researching what educational path I should pursue, I was a bit overwhelmed by all the options. Maybe you’re in the same boat. You’ll need to determine your preferred style of learning. How much structure do you need? Is it essential that the timeline is flexible? Is mentorship important? What type of projects will be in my portfolio? In the end, you’ll choose the bootcamp that is right for you. It will offer you the curriculum and support you need and will be within your budget.
As a current Mento student, I can confidently say that my journey has been incredible. They’ve developed a top-tier UX bootcamp that stands out from all the rest. There are a lot of great things about Mento, but here are my top four:

1. Self-paced curriculum
2. 1:1 mentorship
3. Individualized portfolio projects
4. International community

Self-paced curriculumIf you’re like me, then you have a lot going on. Maybe you’re working full-time or have life commitments that take a lot of your energy. You might be worried that you can’t fit a UX bootcamp into your schedule. My number one doubt when enrolling was whether I’d have enough time for the assignments. Mento is self-paced, meaning that the curriculum moves at your speed. Maybe you fly through one of the sections, but then need to spend more time on the next section, that’s totally fine. This type of learning isn’t for everyone, but if you have a good support system and maintain a consistent study schedule, you can do it!

1:1 mentorshipMentorship is where Mento thrives. The weekly 1:1 calls are awesome! You can chat about your assignments, discuss industry news, ask questions, and learn from their experience. In addition to the calls, the mentors and community are available throughout the week in Slack. So if you’re stuck or have a question, you can reach out for help and know that you’re not alone.
Having an experienced mentor who is dedicated to helping you succeed is invaluable. My mentor is extremely encouraging, but also offers an adequate level of challenge, which is super helpful.

Individualized portfolio projectsUnlike many other bootcamps, Mento allows you to choose your own unique projects. This is awesome because you get to build a portfolio that reflects the industry you’re passionate about. I’ve really enjoyed this approach because it’s taught me how to discover design problems through research, instead of just having the design prompt provided. It also positions you to have a unique portfolio that directly relates to your desired field.
Coming up with unique projects may sound overwhelming, but that’s part of the journey. You’ll do research to uncover opportunities and work on creating digital solutions that are efficient, effective, and fun.

International communityMento is made up of mentors and students from all over the world. This wasn’t one of my deciding factors in choosing Mento, but I’ve come to love the international community. I’ve made connections with other peers and professionals from all over the world.

Wait, there’s more…They also have UI challenges, weekly study groups, and Meetup events. Oh, and every student gets a bootcamp buddy. This is super cool because you’ll have someone who’s going through the program alongside you. Together, we find support and encourage each other to excel.
The truth is, Mento keeps getting better! They are consistently updating the curriculum so that the info is relevant and up-to-date. They are building partnerships with interactive design tools, such as ProtoPie and Overflow. I can say firsthand that as a student, this is awesome! I’m able to gain hands-on experience with some of the most popular UX tools. They’re continuing to add experienced industry professionals to the Mento community, including both stellar mentors as well as recruiters.
I’d love for you to come join the Mento family, but I encourage you first to schedule a call and ask all of your questions. It’s important that your questions are answered so that you have peace about choosing your bootcamp.
If Mento sounds like the correct fit and you’re ready to take the next step, you can use the link below and receive a $100 discount.
https://mentodesign.academy/?via=patrick
Regardless of whether you choose Mento or another bootcamp, I hope your UX journey is full of insight, creativity, and joy!

I spent a good amount of time researching for which bootcamps to join before I finally decided on Mento, mainly because of how the projects are personalised to you and are not the typical cookie-cutter projects. 

Curriculum: 
Holistic curriculum which teaches everything you need to know and provides extra resources you can read up on to have a better understanding. It starts off with your goals and your background and strengths and how you can channel that into your future design career, followed by how to learn and manage effectively. You will go do a simple project to go through the main design process before going into your first project proper! The content and structure is really well-thought through and builds on the previous which helps solidifying your understanding and knowledge. The assignments are really useful in training you to reflect and think of the purpose of why you are doing a certain thing. 

Mentor Sessions:
We are to set weekly mentor calls to keep ourselves accountable as well as to clarify any doubts and questions that we have, to talk about the assignments that we've done. I found this really helpful and useful, also having someone who have been in the design industry for years really helps you understand how it is like working as a UX designer. Personally, I would prefer the feedback of assignments to be given before the mentor session so that changes could be made before the call to make it a more productive session. Other than that, it fulfills what I needed.

Community:
There is also study group sessions where you can talk to other students who are doing the programme together with you. Personally, I didn't really get the chance to join them due to the timings, but I really like that I got paired up with a buddy who is also doing the programme and it is really helpful that you have someone who understands that you can talk to and discuss about the assignments, help to encourage each other and to become friends with! I also really enjoyed the webinar sessions and found them really insightful since you get people who have been in the industry for years to talk about you've been wanting to know.

Overall: 
I would recommend this programme to anyone who would like to transition into UX design, it is not easy but it is possible! I managed to get 2 internship offers after completing first main project and it would not have been possible without Mento! It equipped me with the skills and knowledge that I needed and the constant practice of understanding the whys really helped!

Mento strives to offer you everything you need for your future career without unnecessary noise, which is extremely rare to find nowadays: a structured curriculum with accurate information, perfectly balanced by practical assignments, warm mentorship sessions that help you develop your knowledge and get into the right mindset, and last but not least, a fantastic community of students and Design professionals. A rare combination of assets that makes me proud to be their student.

I got my first UX Design job during my last month in the Bootcamp, and I was ready to tackle design challenges and be independent. They don't just "teach" you what you need to know; you learn how to understand the processes and ask yourself the purpose behind every decision. You learn to bring arguments, speak up, and understand and articulate your choices. I've never seen this in any learning program I've been into, not to mention school. 

Even though they offer you a well-needed structure, think of it as more of a guidance system. Everything is tailored to you, your particular needs, skills, expectations, time, and effort you put into learning - with the risk of using a cliché: they actually help you be the best version of yourself in terms of Design. Even though you have weekly mentorship sessions, they are always ready to offer support if needed, if you get stuck, or if you have a question. You are never alone during this learning process; you also get to interact with and learn from other students.

If you are looking for a way to transition into UX Design, this is a gem! They are constantly offering everything you need to become a successful UX Designer; it just depends on you to learn as much as you can!

Great curriculum full of valuable information, interesting and demanding assignments, a mentor who is guiding me and motivating me throughout my learning journey, a supportive community, and lovely and motivating student group sessions - these are some of the most important things to know about Mento Design Academy for someone who wants to learn UI/UX Design. 

As someone who is changing her career path from journalism to UX/UI Design, I did plenty of research and preparation before I have choose Mento. And I did not regret it any second. 

What they do is so great and you can feel all that energy, modesty, knowledge, and optimism on the whole learning path. They are also helping us to find our way and to be strategic about our careers. 

Even after we finish our Bootcamp, we get their support and guidance which is also one of the huge differentiators from others. I am also a mum and having their support in that context also means the world to me. 

To sum it up - the best UI/UX Design Bootcamp out there. And I can see this is just a beginning of a wonderful and successful story!

"My mentorship sessions gave me the professional and personal guidance I needed to transition into UX Design."
The best part of Mento Design Academy for me is the mentorship program. My mentorship sessions gave me the professional and personal guidance I needed to transition into UX Design. I couldn't be happier with my experience! I thought the curriculum was very well organized, and the materials were educational and easy to follow. I also enjoyed the family-like slack community and networking opportunities Mento offered, which helped me learn UX without feeling alone:)

It’s one of the best investment I’ve done in my life! I enjoyed my learning with the curriculum, my mentor and my peers! I really appreciate that the mento team constantly iterates to provide us a better learning experience and a supportive community. The curriculum does not only teach you things you need to know to complete your Bootcamp projects but things you need to know as a UX professional! What surprised me is that even though I haven't completed my bootcamp, I already got referrals to interview and now I am really grateful that I am doing an internship program in Europe which has been my goal for a long time.

I'm really glad I ended up selecting this bootcamp among the many choices I had at my disposal.

There are (4) primary reasons Mento stands out among other bootcamps:

1) The bootcamp structure is based off a mentorship relationship opposed to simply a teacher/student dynamic. Because of this, students develop a much closer and productive relationship that is more conducive to growth and development. This is essential when looking for a job, the Mentors know your goals, background, and talents.

2) Opposed to being a cookie cutter, do x y and z type of experience, Mento prioritizes critical thinking and applying true user centered design as an overarching philosophy. What this translates to is customized, personal products that allow you to stand out among others who may have followed a reused template. You infuse your personal strengths and interests, background, and goals into the work you do which creates a much more compelling candidate package in recruiter's eyes. Additionally, Mento doesn't hail any type of UX method as the ONE true method. Instead, you take each challenge as they are and critically apply what methods you think to be a good fit to solve that problem. In my eyes, that's great UX.
3) Unlike other bootcamps, the greatness doesn't end after you complete all the assignments. One of the major reasons I chose Mento is because they offer support and guidance when you actually start the job search. Instead of being left out drifting in an open sea of applications, you'll have experienced professionals coaching you along the way. Talk about a cheat code. They don't promise 100% results, no one can, but they give you blueprints, actionable advice, and access to their ridiculously expansive networks.

4) Lastly, the professionals who curated this program, namely Radu Vucea (my mentor!) and Ioana Teleanu, are industry rockstars who have spanned the gambit of content creation, corporate, startup, hiring, recruitment, and now entrepreneurship. Talk about experience. As a Mento student, you have access to their literal decades of knowledge at your disposal. The only limit to how much you can access is your own ambitions. They emphasize being available to answer questions and make it a priority to converse with their mentees weekly. This bootcamp isn't perfect, none are. It heavily hinges on how much effort you put in yourself. However, this, in my eyes, is a benefit because it helps to curate the spirit of being a self starter, something that essential in a great UXer.

In my own experience as a new designer (graduated from college knowing nothing about UX), this bootcamp is helping me to accomplish exactly what I set out to do - Create a portfolio that reflects who I am, what I want to do, and the awesome work I'm capable of doing. If this sounds like it can help you become the UX designer you want to be, stop reading & sign up - https://www.mentodesign.academy/ If this review helped you make your decision, make sure to tell them Todd McCauley sent you in the "Where did you find out about Mento?" section! 

Thanks!

My experience with the Mento Design Academy is unparalleled. This is one of a kind boot camp I would recommend to anybody without a second thought. What sets Mento apart from the competition is that the curriculum is tailored to you. You can focus on your strengths and weaknesses, while improving at your own pace. All of the mentors I have been working with are extremely supportive, and you could sense that they care about you and your success in the field. To be honest I feel like this boot camp is so much more than just a ticket to your dream job. After hours of communicating with the mentor I have grown both mentally and as a person. What is more, no matter what question you will have they are always there to help you, and the growing community of students in Slack also boosts you to network and work even harder.

Additionally, besides the curriculum and 1 on 1 sessions with mentors, they usually organize Zoom events and meetings with known designers across the field who can also share their experiences with us, students. Finally, the most important success metric of any boot camp is landing a job. I am still learning, however, I am already working with clients as a freelancer. Couldn’t be any happier with my choice!