LaunchCode

The course is quite bad, run by instructors with not much experience, in quite a hostile environment. I have seen many stories on their greediness. Many people who thought they were not able to make it and wanted to leave during the beginning of the program were convinced to stay and then left by themselves totally behind. I swear out of all the people of my cohort, like 90% of them wanted to leave negative feedback but they were afraid the post-job assistance would not provide anything in that case.

  For the projects, there's no real standard for quality. I put in a lot of work to make ambitious projects with pretty web design so they would actually look good on my resume. But looking at other students' work, I saw most people just did the bare minimum to pass the project requirements. I didn't feel like there was any incentive for people to try and become "great" web developers with projects they could be proud of. It definitely seems like they care more about quantity because that's what really serves their reputation. During the program, I had a friend who went to another intensive bootcamp (which I won't name). But she gave me access to her school's portal, and I did the majority of their workshops. Honestly, the difference in quality was staggering. Their information was much more so up-to-date and their approach to web development so much more engaging and serious.   Job Placement Numbers - While they market their job placement % numbers all over the place, the truth is that they hire a substantial number of their own graduates to be teaching fellows/assistants and instructors for their own program.  What this means is that they can claim this as legitimate employment for their graduates but it doesn't really satisfy the true perception that the industry as a whole thinks about their graduates in terms of programming skills & knowledge, as much as their job placement numbers hope to lead you to believe.  In reality it's a win-win for them because it allows them to report high job % placement numbers as well as hire relatively cheap teaching staff for their program. And even the lucky few who get into the apprenticeship program, they usually end up working hard for peanuts with no guarantee after completing their apprenticeship which often turns out to be just a cheaply-compensated internship.

I completed LaunchCode's Immersive Code Camp over the summer and I am very thankful for the skills I've built and the educators at LaunchCode. I have taken a coding class before LaunchCode, and as a woman, the other program wasn't very welcoming, this is NOT the case at LaunchCode. LaunchCode excels at inclusivity, the staff has always made me feel welcome, and the seduction team wants everyone to succeed and will do almost anything to help. Getting into the program was rigorous but the payout was worth it. In a few short months I have gained to skills to "launch" into a new career as a web developer. 

My experience was less than, what I would consider, professional. I took the Hacker Rank test either in December or early January, filled out the application, and didn't hear anything back. The website said that I would know whether or not I was accepted into the program in March and when I didn't hear anything and wrote to them, I was told that they had extended the application deadline by a week. That's fine, but it seems like a mass email was warranted letting everyone know that we wouldn't hear back until later. When I was finally disqualified, it said that there would be information as to why on the dashboard of Launch Code's website, but there wasn't. I sent an email to the address provided to find out more information and never heard back. So I'm left wondering why I wasn't accepted. I was then sent an email asking me to review my experience with them and they provided another email address where you could ask questions. I told them about my experience and again asked what disqualified me, but no one ever responded. It's now almost two months later, I've sent three messages requesting information, and no one has ever gotten back to me. I can only assume that I was disqualified because I'm a middle-aged woman and I have a feeling that they didn't respond because they know that they are legally in the wrong. I can't imagine another reason for them to not even respond after THREE attempts on my part. This is just despicable.