Flatiron School

To be more practical and succinct I am going to use bullet points:

Pros:
- Good material. You have a lot to learn and not only on the "canvas/learning" website SOME instructors are no-nonsense and give you other websites to practice that are not linked to Flatiron.
- Nice people. I feel that majority of both students and Flatiron staff are trying their best. To be a nice person and to do what they want to nicely. Some exceptions I will get into in "Cons".
- Good lectures and instructors. The lectures are good, sometimes compressed and "in a rush" so you don't have time to ask questions. A lot of content for 1 hour I guess. The instructors are nice and pleasant, they would go out of their way to help us out and even answer slack messages out of business hours. 

Cons:
- The material can be and will be overwhelming. It is expected that you don't manage to finish all the material OF THE DAY, THAT DAY. But they do expect, and on the behalf of your career you should, finish on the weekends. Which is not the most fun, since you are normally studying 10 hours a day on the weekdays. A solution? Make the length of course longer or cut some of the subjects that are not applied in every company (Deep learning, NLP, Semi-supervised models and so on).

- Some of the staff is not the most pleasant/most professional. I had a semi-bad experience with my coach where she would go over each word I said and correct me in a "better" way to say it. I also heard of several cases where the coach started to be unpleasantly opinionative about the students PERSONAL LIFE. Both scenarios the coach instead of being a co-pilot/friend in the job search is being a "parent" and treating the students as kids in the worst possible way. The other mention here would go to the senior lead. She hosts events sometimes with her personal friends thinking she is super special and makes you feel excluded. Why host those events in the first place?

- My other con would be the career service team. They are nice people, but I think they have pressure from management since the companies they partner with and the positions they offer the recent grads are not good. Often IT Related and not even a Entry/Jr. position. It gives me the impression that they need to show results and numbers.


Overall an overpriced average experience. If it was half the price, would be worth it.

The school is a complete scam. They take credit for students who find jobs but many of them found the jobs on their own. Career services does nothing. No job connections, just tells you Google is your friend. They do not care if you can barely afford to live as long as they get paid. If you can study on your own then do it. You do not need to spend thousands of dollars to learn how to use Google. If you have a cpmplaint, do not respect a response back. If they do respond they will laugh in your face.

I went to Flatiron because I had friends that successfully completed their Engineering program. The UX Design program is much newer so it's still evolving and they're still learning to perfect it as they go on. Some things felt disorganized and scattered but for the most part, it was a really solid experience, I learned a lot and... got a job! It is a lot of work especially post-graduation. It took me 9 months to get a job and it felt impossible at times but if you stick with it, and put in the work I promise you'll be fine! I didn't commit 40hours a week to my job search because I had a lot of going on and took breaks in between. I noticed that all my peers that worked hard post-grad got a job a lot sooner. I always appreciated the fact that they take feedback very seriously and really try to improve upon it. Advice: If you have any concerns about your teachers or education I encourage you to be upfront and notify someone - they will listen. Their Career Services is definitely one of their biggest assets - utilize it as much as you can even if you opt out of the money-back guarantee! 

I basically taught myself everything. The only real positives were critique sessions where I got to see other students' work and get valuable feedback from them. I had some good instructors but halfway through my program, they were let go because they stopped running UX/UI. This was really disjointing and unfair to the students. So you have a pandemic going on and then you are having instructors being swapped out, let go, etc. The online curriculum was sad, I started reading everything during my first phase, and then by the second, I realized what a huge waste of time it was (basically a few paragraphs and a few youtube videos) with lots of grammatical errors, broken links, and poorly written assignments. It was not worth the price tag and I feel ripped off. The only real positive is I was able to put together a really good portfolio but I still don't have a job, which has been another uphill battle. Their career counseling and job assistance are pretty much a complete waste of time. 

The program was a total let down to be honest.. It was basically learning everything on our own with little to no teaching. For a couple weeks, we didn't even have a teacher. Also, the money back guarantee is a total lie. They will find anything in your "job tracker" to tell you that you don't qualify. I knew it would be hard getting the money back, but they got me on technicalities that were so granular. I highly recommend another program for getting your UX Design Certification. Possibly even an accredited University if you can afford it.

The program was very detailed and an amazing experience. The instructors were always ready and available to help and give constructive feedback. I also loved the phases where we were put into groups and could challenge each other. The curriculum was also very thorough and gave us experiences with what we needed to know as designers. I chose the UI track as I am more passionate about the visual aspect but we were still able to becomes well rounded designers because we still learned all things UX.

Oh boy...where do I begin.    My recruiter was Madison Delaney and I would sometimes go weeks without hearing back from her. You can't call Flatiron and get a single person on the phone...always goes to voicemail. I'd constantly have to follow up, and it was overall an unpleasant, unprofessional start from the get-go. That should have been the first red-flag.   I payed for the in-person program and received the online program. Flatiron still refuses to refund the difference after months of going back and forth with them. No points awarded for ethically. Here's 600 other Flatiron students who are upset about the situtation that Flatiron still ignores and refuses to address publicly. 
https://www.change.org/p/flatiron-school-in-person-students-flatiron-school-in-person-students-partial-tuition-refund-effort   On another note, Flatiron's instructors always seemed busy. When in need of assistance, more often than not, you're told to google the problem instead. Why did you pay the tuition then...I don't know. Where is the money going towards...I don't know.  Flatiron is quite big on asking for feedback, and I sure provided a lot of feedback during my time there. For the most part they don't seem to follow up on too many of them...or at least mine.    The instructors are all very nice, many of them are hired right after graduating so they aren't as experienced as the lead instructors. You very rarely get any attention from the lead instructor and even other instructors, so you're on your own for the most part.  The aloted rough schedule they advertise on their website is misleading and false. Your division of the day will mostly result with you being on your own googling answers and teaching yourself. There's a lot of BS in the schedule, like attendance for a half hour, surveys for an hour, "stand-downs" for an hour, "feelings" for an hour, etc... After doing the math, 16% of our day was actually entirely unaccounted for and pair programming was at a minimal percentage. I would have thought they'd be extra careful to not have any false advertising because they lost a lawsuit for $375,000 for having false salary and placement statistics advertised on there website.   Upon finishing the program, I feel cheated out of $17,000. The money-back guarantee sounds nice, but in actuality most people are either ineligible or opt-out and I'm uncertain why. Flatiron even leaked everybody’s personal data in a mass email and it doesn't look like anybody has received the money-back guarantee.    CSS is not taught - maybe it's just touched upon. They do a decent job with Ruby and React, but discourage you from learning Redux. You can graduate this program not knowing CSS, a single algorithm, or have a personal portfolio page. That's a big red flag.    Career services will follow up with you often which is nice, no complaints about that. They do leave everything up to you and it's mostly hands off on their part.    I do believe that at one point in time they used to be good. I came into this program looking to love it, but they definitely left a bad taste in my mouth and that's wildly unfortunate. There are way better alternatives from my understanding - even just teaching yourself is a better alternative...you can do it, don't be discouraged! Udemy looks like they have some great full stack courses for $20. I'd do that if I could go back in time.

 I did the self-paced boot camp. I was initially required to complete it within 15 months, but Flatiron School offered a three-month extension due to COVID-19. I would've dropped out otherwise because I found a full-time job that consumed most of my time shortly after getting into the program.  The technologies I learned are ruby, ruby on rails, Sinatra, HTML/CSS/Javascript, react, redux, and thunk.  The structure of the program is articles consisting of paragraphs explaining concepts, code samples, and videos. It is written in the style of a blog, with many memes. (This boot camp is why I installed a meme blocker extension.) There are also many metaphors that explain difficult concepts. Overall, it's very accessible.  Outside of written lessons, there are code-alongs (coding exercises that supply the answers) and labs (coding exercises that don't supply the answers). Labs generally supply tests that must be made to pass, but the code-alongs might not.  There are also final projects. These are coding exercises that include a list of requirements that demonstrate knowledge of recently learned concepts. They are unstructured enough that Flatiron School doesn't supply tests, but the student can optionally write their own. The types of projects are: ruby command line interface, ruby with Sinatra web framework, ruby with rails framework, ruby with rails api and HTML/CSS/Javascript frontend, and ruby with rails api and react frontend. Students must submit a blog post and video explainer as part of the project.  Along with completing these, a student must schedule time to explain their code to an instructor. First, they must explain what it is and why they made it. Then, the student explains how the project meets all requirements, and then do some live coding.  There were really good options available for getting help. They included participating in chat or viewing a lab's repository. My experience of chatting to get help was that the person who responded (an instructor, I think) gave me hints about how to structure a method. I still didn't understand, so the instructor eventually gave me the answer.  I preferred not to have to start a chat to get help, so I dug around a little. I found that Flatiron School's repositories often had multiple branches. The Solution branch of repositories associated with labs offered me quick help that didn't require reaching out. And, obviously, being able to read code is a very different experience than someone telling me to incorporate a certain data structure. I think it would be good if Flatiron School advertised that solutions are available in their repositories, but I can see why they might not want to.  These help options aren't available for the final projects.  After formally graduating, I found that there is actually more content for studying. There is a section that discusses launching final projects live on the web, and there are explainers on data structures and algorithms. Finally, there is a list of algorithm problems to help a new graduate get used to solving new and unusual problems. My critique would've been that devops/live environment setup, algorithms, and performance were completely neglected, but the post-work section makes a good save on that front.  I found the self-paced program to be flexible. There is an unspoken, but unenforced expectation that students complete the material in order. For example, each final project is situated after material a student would've just learned. Instead of doing them in order, as full-time students are required to do to keep up with their group, I saved them all for the end. I also completed some final projects out of order. I even waited months to schedule an instructor review after indicating that I completed one of the projects. I also found a lab that could be done in a group. I was going to do it in a group, but after not visiting that page for a long time, I was somehow switched over to doing it on my own, so I just completed it alone.  I started looking for a job before completing the boot camp. That wasn't necessary because Flatiron School brings very promising prospects to graduates. Relying on Flatiron School's career services was the difference between recruiters constantly telling me they wanted experience and recruiters sending code challenges to see what I could do (often before a phone screen). It was also the difference between having to figure out where are jobs in industries I wanted to work in, versus jobs I was really interested in reaching out to me after deciding I'm a good candidate.  My career coach helped me create the job search I wanted. She had ideas that were very different from what I wanted to do, but she was willing to help me stay within certain requirements to qualify for Flatiron School's career services. I'm not a fan of LinkedIn or showing pictures of myself online as a way of pursuing a job, so I was glad the only change we settled on was me adding my last job. Ultimately, outside of relying on Flatiron School's pool of prospective employees, I did find a job without relying on any networking lead-generation practices.  I also found Flatiron School's tools for finding a job to be very different from what I had used before. Although it was basically a spreadsheet and a word document, it allowed me to organize in a way that I didn't know the value of. 

I am currently in phase 2 of the program and I want out. I am in an income share agreement and I feel stuck because I would have to pay it back ASAP if I drop out and I don't make the minimum income requirement right now. I was torn between two fields, this one and data science, and against my better judgment, I chose UX because I didn't have to do any programming. I did some master's level work with data science, and have experience with Python and Pandas, but I had to discontinue because of my current job and relocating to that job.  They said I was welcome to switch programs but I could not transfer my ISA over to the new program, so that is why I am still a slave to this program. It is not like I am wishy-washy, I just felt like the other program would be a better fit, especially after taking a career quiz during my first week in phase 2. Not being able to switch over to a new ISA program within 3 weeks of starting at a new school is not fair, and it is a tactic for this school to keep your money. I wish that they would show some grace to new people entering technology.

Phase 1 is very short and very demanding. It is an introduction to the UX/UI fields, and you have to create a travel app. I hate graphic design and knew that I was interested in research, but building the app, doing the creative design and navigation was a PITA. I kept failing at my assignments and had to resubmit the assignments over and over until I got a passing grade, on top of doing my assignments for the week and turning those in on time. I felt like I never caught up and just turned in assignments when I felt like it. I lost a lot of sleep doing the UI stuff and cried many nights. This ISA is holding me hostage in the Flatiron program. I barely passed and was relieved to go on to phase 2. They say that some people repeat Phase 1, but I would have rather dropped out than go through that torture again. 

In Phase 2, they will put you in teams. What did they not tell you is that you have to make presentations at the end of the each lecture. Phase 2 for me as a part time student is 12 weeks long, so I have to do 11 presentations. Had I known this in the program, I would have never signed up. I will say that phase 2 of the UX program is much better than phase 1, and the assignments are more spread out. I also do not have to do any graphic design. I hated using Sketch so much in phase 1, that I did my assignments using InVision and Adobe XD software instead. They require you to have a Mac/Apple computer because Sketch is only available on the Apple software. You would also have to pay for Sketch out of pocket before Phase 1 begins. There are no times for breaks to my knowledge, even for holidays such as Easter. 

My favorite part of the program are the instructors and the 1:1 meetings. I feel a little better after them, but I still have this nudge to drop out and pursue my first tech love, data science. Hopefully, a rep from this school reaches out to me about this concern and comes up with an amicable solution. 

I signed up for this program to do something that I would love everyday, and to eventually get out of my dead end job, but this my gut is telling me to not move forward, and it has been gnawing at me for weeks. The only thing that I could picture myself doing that is UX related is being a User Researcher, but most of the jobs in my area want someone that does both UX/UI, and I want nothing to do with UI. That is another sign that this program is not right for me.

Note: If you do not like giving presentations, graphic design, working in groups, or take in lots of constructive criticism, this program is not for you. You also have to be comfortable with being wrong, and that is something I am not used to. I am a "What do I have to do to make it right" or "What do I need to do to pass"  type of person. 

Even though the presentations are not graded, I dread them and cannot picture myself doing this all of the time. 

This is a BOOTCAMP, so it is very demanding and you need to be diligent and organized. It will eat up your life outside of your job and family as well. 

If you have no prior tech experience and are looking to make a jump in your professional life, Flatiron is the place to start. It was stressful and a lot of work, but if you have the time and resources to commit for 15 weeks I am confident that you will come out an incredibly desirable job candidate for a variety of positions across the tech industry. I was able to land a job on a government contract with a starting salary of $90K in less than two months of graduating, more money than I had ever envisioned making coming from my previous industry and employer. The people at Flatiron are incredibly positive, helpful, and most importantly, knowledgable. I cannot say enough good things about Flatiron and would highly recommend to anyone looking to work in the tech field.