Sarah Hayse Graduate • Full Stack Java Software Developer Immersive • St. Louis
Aug 14, 2021
During my time at Claim Academy, quite a few things went wrong. At first I blamed the pandemic, but by graduation it was clear that the school was also at fault due to poor management. Here are some things I encountered:
1. This was supposed to be an in-person course. I specifically chose it for this reason because I learn better in person. Due to events below, it was only in-person for the first 3.5 weeks. The remainder of instruction was nothing but zoom meetings. This ...
During my time at Claim Academy, quite a few things went wrong. At first I blamed the pandemic, but by graduation it was clear that the school was also at fault due to poor management. Here are some things I encountered:
1. This was supposed to be an in-person course. I specifically chose it for this reason because I learn better in person. Due to events below, it was only in-person for the first 3.5 weeks. The remainder of instruction was nothing but zoom meetings. This was a minor irritation compared to the rest.
2. Our original teacher put in his resignation 1 week in, so we got a new teacher (zoom meetings only) at 3.5 weeks. Our new teacher DID NOT continue the curriculum from 3.5 weeks... he started teaching like it was the beginning of week 5!!! He skipped 1.5 weeks of curriculum and said he'd "touch back on that" as we went along. This left us learning about Spring MVC without knowing a single bit of HTML or CSS. We had barely finished the basics. Also, he didn't stop when we asked questions. He plowed right through like no one spoke. We were actually advised to watch the videos later so we could pause when we needed to. Honestly, I don't know why that teacher is even still employed since they know he is not a quality teacher. Intelligence does not equal teaching ability.
3. When the new teacher started, our scheduled meeting times abruptly shifted from 1pm-4pm to 4pm-7pm. Several in-person students, including myself, continued to use the school's building during class time for the stable internet and a dedicated place to concentrate. As it turns out, however, the office staff leaves at about 530-6 every night. So anyone who decided to stay late was left alone in a fully glass fronted building where they pre-lock the door (i.e. if you go out, you can't get back in). It's not like we could drive home in the middle of a lecture when the office staff left. Eventually I was the last person coming to the building. Since I'm a 5'4" 125 pound woman, I wasn't exactly comfortable sitting by myself in a giant fishbowl in downtown St. Louis for hours, so after two days of that I went home to finish the rest of the course.
4. This new teacher was also a temporary teacher. He was only scheduled to teach us for 2 weeks until our permanent teacher started. The only reason any of us survived those two weeks was because of a single mentor! I won't drop names, but anyone from my cohort knows who I mean. He took it upon himself to hold a 3 hour zoom session EVERY DAY for those two week. He single handedly taught us HTML, CSS, and filled in all the gaps from week 3 & 4. He went above and beyond his 'mentor' capacity and without him, many of us would not have made it. If you're reading this: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your extra time!!!
5. We ALL complained! The program the school uses asked students every week: "Can you rate your class experience this week on a scale of 1-5". During those 2 weeks, reviews dropped from 4-5 stars to solid 1 star. Everyone rated the class poorly and complained to administration, but nothing was ever done to fix the situation! We were simply expected to ride it out and do our best while the temporary teacher taught whatever he felt like for 2 weeks and never bothered answering questions.
6. During the later weeks of class, we started attending company spotlights and alumni interviews, which is all fine. However, we usually weren't told about these events until 1-2 hours before they happened. To put this in perspective, we completed 3 different individual projects during this class, including a full stack capstone, as well as at least 3 group projects. Being pulled away from a programming session with practically no notice is extremely disruptive. It also seemed very unnecessary. Either the office staff constantly planned events at the very last moment, or they didn't bother alerting the actual students until the last moment. Both of which constitute poor planning. Also, these events would often interrupt our scheduled class time (being held at 430-5pm). I understand the importance of these events, but our actual programming instruction should be our #1 priority.
7. However, the best example of a clerical error/utter failure of planning was the fact that when they created the event for our capstone Demo Day presentations... they didn't bother to set the notifications to include the very students scheduled to present their projects OR send us a link to the updated schedule.
Our third teacher was great! He backtracked, he answered questions, and was a brilliant teacher. As I said, the mentor was also amazing. Everyone was very friendly. I did learn quite a bit of programming and I did produce a full stack project at the end. I just graduated, so I can't speak for the job assistance, but it's looking good so far.
My experience with Claim Academy is only worth 2 stars because of the things I explained above; however, it wouldn't take much for them to improve. Most importantly, a better organized events coordinator that is capable of giving at least a 24 hour notification for events and considers student priorities while scheduling. I'm sure other cohorts have a better time, but the one I was in did not have a quality experience.