No Degree Required: How Boot Camp Helped Beau Batchelor Land a New Job—at His Old Company

Traveling around was nothing new for Beau Batchelor. Raised in a military family, he grew up all over the world—moving from his birthplace of Redondo Beach to Japan, Spain, Rhode Island, and then back to California, all before high school graduation.

After high school, Beau took a couple of classes at the local junior college, but he didn’t find it particularly inspiring. “School was fine; I just really wanted to work,” he said. 

Once again, Beau pulled up stakes, this time landing in Oklahoma, where he worked as a field technician for an environmental compliance company. “Basically, I dug holes all day. Within about two months I was promoted to project manager, which meant I told other people to dig holes,” he laughed.

Realizing his future wasn’t in the oil fields of Oklahoma, Beau headed back to California, where he worked as a security guard and a bartender before getting an accounting internship with TravisMathew Apparel. 

Beau may not have known it at the time, but that internship would open up a new world of possibilities for him.

A passion for processes

At TravisMathew, Beau fell in love with spreadsheets. “It was fun to make processes faster and more accurate with Excel,” he said. 

After he had completed his internship, the company hired Beau as an accounting clerk, eventually promoting him to staff accountant.

Before long, however, Beau began to feel underutilized in his role. “I’d outgrown my position. I enjoyed my work, but I wanted to do more,” he said.

That’s when the idea of attending a data analytics boot camp began to take hold.

A Google search led him to The Data Analytics Boot Camp at UCI Continuing Education—and he was sold.

Just can’t quit

Wanting to devote all his time to the boot camp, Beau gave notice at his job and dove headfirst into data analytics. 

“I loved how complex it was,” he said. “The instructor drops you into a problem without giving you the beginning or the end of it, and you have to figure it out—it’s intense.” 

Having lived with ADHD all his life, Beau knew how important it was to challenge himself. Otherwise, he could easily burn out and get bored. His favorite part of the boot camp was how demanding it was; he could keep digging deeper into any process and make it as challenging as he wanted it to be.

Just a month into the program, Beau’s old employer contacted him, wondering if he’d be willing to come back on board. Thinking it would be a good opportunity to apply the skills he was learning, Beau agreed. 

Working full-time in addition to the boot camp left little room for Beau to be bored—and he thrived under the pressure. “People only trust you when they see results. I wanted to show them what I could do,” he said.

Staying in one place—for now

After earning his Certificate of Completion from UCI Continuing Education, Beau was planning to move to New York and look for a job as a financial analyst. However, life had other plans for him. 

When Beau’s supervisors at TravisMathew saw him demonstrate some of what he had been learning at boot camp, they were impressed—enough so that they started looking for positions that might entice Beau to stay with the company.

“They thought I would be right for a couple different jobs,” said Beau. The first one, as a demand planning analyst, wasn’t the right fit for him. “It didn’t align with where I saw myself going,” he explained. 

Another position, as a process analyst, was more exciting. But when they offered him a promotion to junior business analyst, he didn’t hesitate. “I really love finance,” said Beau. 

Beau is still at the same company, but now he’s making a substantially higher salary; in fact, he negotiated a 17% raise after completing the boot camp. He’s also much, much happier. 

“There’s no telling how much this boot camp will help me in the future,” he said. 

Down the road, Beau wants to create his own investment partnership. To that end, he has already rented out an office where he is building a business mining real estate data. 

“I may not have a college degree, but there’s nothing stopping me from going where I want to go,” he said.