Flatiron School Reviews
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Sarah Ransohoff
Great career move
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Going to the Flatiron School (BK-000) was the best career move I've made. I graduated from college with a history degree, and then went directly into account management at a tech company where I realized I wanted to do what the product team was doing, so I quit to pursue that goal. Flatiron School helped me transition from an unemployed/contracted worker to a software engineer at a great NYC startup, and I've been going strong since.
Nevertheless if you're thinking of going to Flatiron/another dev school, note that it is a lot of hard work. For the five months I was at Flatiron, I basically dropped everything to devote all my energies to learning. So, be ready to work hard.
Overall, I'm incredibly grateful to what I learned and how I grew at The Flatiron School and would recommend to someone who was serious about learning web development. -
Sean
Best Decision I've Ever Made
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I can't say enough about how fantastic my experience with Flatiron's Learn program was. The entire curriculum is well structured and extensive. And I truly mean extensive. Many online coding programs will focus on students building portfolio projects (twitter clones) but don't go into how things work under the hood. Not only does the program teach you how Active Record works in a practical sense, but they also have you build your own ORM framework so you understand in detail how Active Record works underneath all the Rails magic. Having this extensive knowledge of not only how things work, but also why was crucial to my success in my new career.
Secondly, in addition to the well thought out curriculum, I can't express how much everyone on the Learn team truly cares about the students. All the instructors, learn experts, career coaches and everyone on the dev team expressed such a sincere sense of compassion for all the students. The Learn team should be extremely proud of the community they have built and continue to grow. Additionally, the students are some of the most positive people I have had the pleasure to learn with. Like learning anything new there are times of frustration and having such a positive student community to connect with is one of the many things that sets Learn apart from the crowd.
Thanks to my fantastic career coach and the Learn curriculum, I was able to secure an engineering position at a fantastic company within a month of graduating. Learn is the best online program for anyone wanting to pursue a career as a software engineer.
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Leah
Everything you need for a programming career!
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Flatiron School was probably the hardest thing, and the best thing, I ever did.
After dabbling in a few technical tasks at work, I knew I wanted to make programming my career. Flatiron School helped me realize that dream. The curriculum is designed to give you everything you need to make web applications and land a job as a Junior Developer, whether it is general programming concepts like MVC or data modeling, to learning web frameworks such as Sinatra and Rails.
I came to Flatiron School with no prior college education. But what they expect from you is to work hard, collaborate with your fellow students, and give it all you've got. It is 3 months of rigorous work, including nights and weekends, but the instructors are there to help you succeed.
After graduation, you prepare for job interviews by going through a cultural and technical mock interivew. I was job seeking for several months, and had weekly check-ins which my Flatiron School career coach. She always made sure to keep me motivated and on the right track, and was always ready to proofread emails or answer any questions I had. I received a back-end full-time position at a marketing agency, which was exactly what I was looking for.
Applying to Flatiron School was probably one of the best decisions I ever made!
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Sarah L.
The Right Choice
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Learning to program through the Flatiron School’s Learn Verified platform was one of the best choices I’ve made. The online program was a perfect fit for me as I learned how to program while still keeping my day job to support myself. Not only do they have a solid curriculum (Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, Angular, etc), but they have exceptional instructors, a supportive online community, and an amazing Career Services team. Learn Verified’s focus on learning in a community and building real world projects prepared me for my first job as a developer - it taught me how to ask good questions, how to approach problems, programming concepts that apply to various languages and frameworks, and how to present myself as a developer while making a career change. To anyone interested in learning how to program, I’d highly recommend the Flatiron School’s Learn Verified program; you won’t regret it.
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Inga K.
Best Educational Experience of My Life!
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I’ve been working in tech for a while on a design side (with light coding experience) and eventually wanted to make my own iOS app and make the switch to iOS development. FIS had awesome reviews, and going to their meetup to see the environment for myself and to talk to some of the folks there really got me excited and I knew that was the place I wanted to be! Going through the program was a LOT of hard work, but a very friendly and supportive environment , new friends and unlimited free coffee got us through the days (which flew by in a heartbeat). It’s true what everyone else is writing - you get out what you put in. Pre-work was super important to get everyone through the basics of the language and on the same page for Day 1. Durning the semester I worked from early morning until 1-2 am doing labs, projects, research, constantly learning - 6 days a week for 3 months. We had tremendous support from all the instructors, who took the time and care to teach us not only the code but problem solving for the future. The iOS program gave me all the knowledge and the resources to code an app by myself, which I’ve done after the semester was over.
But you leave the school with much more than just knowledge, after it’s all over - you are still part of the community of like-minded people, sharing tips and helping each other out. I definitely recommend the program, if I have to learn another language down the road, I would go back.
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Colby
The Best Decision
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I attended the Flatiron immersive in NYC(07/16 cohort) - the experience exceeded my expectations in every way.
Flatiron has fantastic instructors who are invested in students' success, a great lesson delivery platform called Learn, and most importantly an enormous sense of community within each cohort/school. I think it's important to emphasize that you can come from any background and make it as a software developer. If you're driven and enjoy challenges, you'll feel right at home here. While 60+ hour weeks were a pretty common occurence, the 3 months flew by in one giant ball of excitement and energy. There was definitely room for some non-coding fun along the way too.
Career services at Flatiron is top notch. Flatiron has a whole team of people working on developing relationships with companies interested in being introduced to Flatiron grads. I cannot stress enough how useful these introductions are to someone looking to transition into a new field. The team also provides general career coaching/support throughout the entire job seeking process.
It's crazy to think that less than a year ago I was in your shoes reading coding bootcamp reviews online. Hindsight being 20/20, I wouldn't change a thing. Flatiron was one of the best decisions I've made.
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Kevin
I Recommend Flatiron School
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If not for Flatiron School, I would not have a meaningful career in software development. I am 4 years into my second career in which I get infinite more satisfaction from then my previous 5 years in sales.
As part of the first Flatiron School cohort, I did not know what to expect during or after completing the 13 week course. After many weeks of intense immersion, challenged beyond what I could imagine, I did not leave Flatiron School with the belief that I was a production ready engineer. I left with an opportunity to grow into a role and the confidence to learn my way out of any situation I encountered. Through several years of hard work since leaving Flatiron School in 2012, I find myself in a stable, flexible career that I get immense satisfaction from. It is because of the technical foundation, personal relationships, and guidance I received from my 3 months at the Flatiron School that I am able to say this.
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Hilary Winn
Web Development Immersive Review
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I learned a tremendous amount in my web development course. The curriculum gave me the opportunity to learn many aspects of Ruby on Rails web development and build several web applications. In my class with Jeff we did a major project in the middle and at the end of the course, and that experience was invaluable. It made me confident that I could contribute my knowledge and skills to a team of developers. Having 2 projects meant I had plenty of ways to demonstrate my competencies and willingness to learn to potential employers. The Flatiron community is very supportive as well. Overall, my experience at Flatiron absolutely prepared my for my first role as a junior developer.
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James Lin
iOS class with Joe was amazing
I took the very first iOS class with Joe Burgess and the class was excellent. Joe is a highly talented instructor, and the course had real depth. iOS is not an easy subject, and Joe's class tackles all the challenging topics. The class certainly made me a far more productive iOS developer than I would have been without taking the class.
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Nikhil Thomas
Best Decision I've Made
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I was a member of the first class back in 2012. I had pretty limited experience, essentially what I was able to pick up from books in my free time. Flatiron was tremendously helpful in getting me from a complete beginner to a hireable developer. I learned a ton both in class and in the assignments worked on at home, and the students I worked with were passionate about learning and helping each other.
More importantly that learning Ruby, Flatiron gave me skills to learn how to learn. In my current role I use a different programming language and had to learn a lot of new technologies. Everything I learned at Flatiron helped me get comfortable in the unknown, and I really feel like more than just a programmer who knows enough to write code, but really a developer who understands the ins and outs of the technology I use. I'm really grateful to Flatiron for the opportunity.
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James Vanneman
Incredible Experience
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I was part of the first Flatiron School cohort back in 2012. Right from the beginning I was impressed by how good the teachers were. They understood different learning styles and patiently worked with everyone, in groups as well as one on one to ensure that everyone understood the material.
In addition to having exceptional teachers, at Flatiron you’re surrounded by an amazing group of students. When you enroll in Flatiron as a student, you’re there to learn as well as help others learn. Mentoring fellow students when you understand a concept and reaching out for help when you don’t, help create a safe and comfortable atmosphere to learn in. Flatiron’s high admissions standards ensure that you’re around a great group of people.
From the very beginning Flatiron has stressed the importance of quality teachers and great students. These values make Flatiron an amazing place to learn and start your career. I would highly recommend this course to anyone considering a bootcamp.
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Lucas C
Great for anyone who wants to learn programming
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Regardless how much programming you know, if you want to jump on the app making bandwagon, I highly recommend taking this iOS course. It's worth spending the money on the course rather than trying to learn on your own through books or videos, because it's a lot more effective and fun to learn under an instructor, who you can fall on whenever you get stuck, and with other students, who are going through the same journey as you. Once you get through the course, your journey won't be over, if anything it would have just begun, but you will have the right skill set and connections to keep learning and honing your skills on your own. This skill set is specially handy with iOS because Apple comes up with new stuff every year, so it's more important to know how to learn than to know everything, because it's very possible that whatever it is being used now, it might get dumped tomorrow, like Objective-C being replaced eventually by Swift. Oh yeah, it's also nice that employers appreciate this skill set, and will be willing to invest on it, so if you are lucky you'll get to continue your journey to become a great programmer while getting paid!
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Matthew Cianciolo
I learned so much at Flatiron!
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Before starting at Flatiron I had dabbled in some of the free courses that are offered such as codeacademy. I was learning a lot but I didn't have enough direction on the skills I needed to actually work and be successful as a web developer. I considered going to an in-person bootcamp but there weren't any that were close to me at the Time(Tampa, FL). I looked at the online courses that were available and Flatiron was one of the cheapest and had a money back guarantee that I would get a job at the end of the program. I completed the program in just under 6 months and was employed less than 3 months after graduation. I know I would have been hired sooner if I was in a more saturated market (currently Athens, GA). The curriculum, chat support, and community at Flatiron drove me to learn and be better at what I do. I am now happily employed locally and know I wouldn't have been able to get this far without Flatiron School!
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Mendel
Life Changing Experience in the best possible way.
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I was a student in the immersive Web Development program and graduated about a year back. Disclaimer - I have worked for the school as an instructor for the online program, which is a stellar, stellar course in it of itself -- But I will speak to my (perhaps less biased) experience as a student at the immersive:
The environment was one of collaboration and caring. From instructors to students there was an aura of support, which is a hugely important factor in so ambitious of a journey. The curriculum is thorough, challenging, and well-written, and has a sensational ground up building approach that gradually takes you through lower level steps building on each other to give you a much greater depth of understanding.
I always felt that the instructors -senior and TAs- were there for us, and had insightful answers to difficult questions, and much patience!
The projects and application development throughout the course were immensely helpful in applying what we'd learned and collaborating and designing production software.
The careers team is superb. Devoted in a highly efficient manner, I definitely felt attended to, and had several intros and interviews directly through the school, before accepting their own offer for an instructor position.
All in all most highly recommended for anyone dedicated and passionate enough to put in the work and effort to capitalize on the program to the fullest extent. it's certainly not easy and truly requires a ton of work on your part, but a program like this offers the support, environment and academic tooling to really get it done right. Personally, getting a behind the scenes look at the idealism, pragmatic smarts, and passion of the team there has only added to my tremendous admiration for The Flatiron School.
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Dare
An awesome opportunity for the right person
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I was a student early on in Flatiron's iOS immersive program back when it was still taught in Objective-C. Currently, I'm a mobile developer at a major lifestyle media corporation in Manhattan. While anyone can teach him/herself iOS development, this program is an opportunity to accelerate that development to an extent that seems almost impossible. While the prospect of devoting 3 months of your life and a fairly substantial sum of money to studying development is daunting, I'm in a position of responsibility only 2 years after having graduated. I was given the fundamentals I needed to prepare myself to enter the workforce and brought along my own enthusiasm.
I trust the curriculum of this program completely, but the take away is that becoming a computer scientist in 3 months is not possible. What this program offers you is an awesome opportunity to break into the field and grants you the skills necessary to continue developing on your own after graduating. Flatiron will give you a basis to build your skills that normally takes years of effort and studying if done entirely on your own. Anyone who goes into this program resolved to work and study harder than they ever have before will come out a functional, employable junior developer.
By the same token, things move quickly. If your motivation is flaky and you aren't entirely committed, you will certainly miss out. There is a lot of structure and discipline required to make the most of the time you're given, but if you are all-in on becoming a developer and fairly self-reliant, the tools you need are all available here along with a community to support you.
Regarding placement after the program, Flatiron in my experience is fairly successful at making introductions and giving you the opportunity to practice and prepare for interviews. That being said, being a junior without a degree offers very little leverage when it comes to job hunting. A lot of the placement process is going to come down to your own hard work and interview performance as well as your personality. Don't expect to be handed an $80k mid-level position on a platter upon graduating, but if you're realistic and doing the legwork (which they explicitly prescribe) you will find yourself in a position sooner rather than later.
I recommend this program highly – to the extent that I have sent my best friend and boyfriend through it to study iOS as well. If you are an intelligent, motivated person who truly wants to learn to code, this is the way to go.
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Eugene M
Pretty great
Made some great friends, got a job, worked my butt off. It's a great choice, but you have to work hard and really put yourself into it. Most weeks I was on campus 7 days a week.
The more prep you do the more you'll get out of it.
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Justin Kim
One of the best investments I've ever made
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Curriculum:
The training program they've designed is not only well structured in content, but also well realized inside of a digital interface that helps you keep track of your progress, automatically track errors and partial completions, get a sense of your progress in comparison to others (for the competitive types), and communicate with instructors remotely. I went from knowing little to nothing about programming, to being confident in building my own app.
Culture:
It's been nearly two years since I graduated, and I'm still friends with many of my cohort and instructors. Flatiron seems to screen for personality, passion, and kindness. So while my classmates came from all different backgrounds, from finance to jazz music, we all vibed together over the shared joy of learning to build meaningful ideas and just embracing geekiness.
Return on Investment:
You definitely get what you put into it. Flatiron does everything it can to provide resources and attention to anyone who needs help, but it also promotes autonomous self-help. Learn to Google problems yourself. Teach other classmates to cement your own learnings. And don't be afraid to ask questions. I came in with nearly zero coding knowledge and left with multiple offers from great companies. The job placement team is absolutely amazing (especially if Jackie is still there). They really care about each individual, and sometimes break rules to connect you with the right company.
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Dasmer Singh
Great for meeting employers
Great culture. Great way to change careers. Great way to learn if you don't have too much engineering knowlege.
I got a job at Venmo directly after completing their iOS course!
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Ryan
Just do it. You won't regret it.
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Going to Flatiron absolutely changed my life. I'm a freelance musician with basically no resume, and within a week of graduation I was offered my dream job.
Any bootcamp will most likely give you the tools you need to become a good developer. There are two elements that I would say separate Flatiron from the rest.
Firstly, the technologies they teach are the most applicable to most jobs you will apply for. I was in the first cohort that was taught React.js, and I am working full-time as a React developer now. You will also learn Ruby on Rails and SQL, from which you will be able to transition to any other backend language and framework. While no bootcamp will teach you how to be a master coder in three months, I can absolutely say that Flatiron will put any determined student in the right place to get a job as a full-time, full-stack web developer.
The other thing that sets them apart is their career team. To be clear, they don't get you a job, but they will work with you to make sure you present yourself in the best light to prospective companies. Without them, I would not have known where to start looking for work.
I recommend doing a few months of study before starting. There are several students who's first line of code was written at school, and many of them were successful. However, you will be glad that you took the time for self study prior to attending.
I still go to Flatiron to do side-projects (and to drink their coffee and beer), and it's a great community. Their statistics are absolutely real, and you WILL get a job after attending.
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April Rabkin
Web Development
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Going to the Flatiron School was one of the best choices I have ever made. The curriculum is top-notch, the community diverse, and the philosophy sincere. This one is about education rather than profit. Though some students are quite advanced, coming in with CS degrees, the school is nurturing to newbies. Afterward, the job placement team prepared us pragmatically for the market and fielded me on many interviews. In my 180-degree career change, good structure and guidance as to where to put my hard work and energy was invaluable. After ten years in journalism, the school gave me the skills, confidence, and a roadmap to get started in this new field--and just as importantly, to love it.
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Daniella
Flatiron Web Immersive 2016
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The Flatiron School was a game changer.
While working in sales, I found myself looking for more challenging and creative projects on nights and weekends. A lot of tech friends pointed me in the bootcamp direction and after countless hours of research and debate over the right school for me, I wasn't convinced until I talked to a Flatiron Grad who graduated the year before. The way he gushed about his time at The Flatiron School convinced me I had to apply.
My time at Flatiron School was incredible. I was pushed to learn mind-bending material, very quickly and intensely. There were times when I felt defeated and overwhelmed, but the community was there to support me and made moments of clarity and success that much better. For those three months, my life was coding from the moment I woke up to the time I went to bed. It was a sacrifice for sure, but one that was so worth it.
After graduation, we met with companies the career team set up for us and it was my second interview that led to my first job offer! Jess was an amazing career counselor, helped me negotiate a salary and define my role and I could not be happier with my job as a Junior Developer at an exciting start-up in Manhattan.
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Ian
This will change your life.
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If you're reading this review, it means you're already looking for something new. Whether you're in a job you hate, you want a more interesting career, or you just want to add a new skill to your toolbox, Flatiron is one of the best options you'll find.
I was a consultant in a previous life, but wanted to add value to society rather than major corporations' bottom lines. Because I was past the point of returning for another round of grad school, I decided on a coding bootcamp. The research I did brought me to Hack Reactor and Flatiron School as the best programs available. Since I was already on the East Coast, Flatiron was the obvious choice. In the end, I'm confident it was the right one.
This isn't like the free programs you've tried and dropped online. This isn't like the arduous and dragging courses you've sat through in college. This isn't like anything you've done before. The Flatiron School immersive programs are a phenomenal opportunity to work with a diverse group of people in the pursuit of new skills and a new life path. The trick is that you get what you put in, so if you're not willing to dedicate every day of the week to code for three to four months, some days longer than twelve hours straight, then you will find it much harder to achieve your goals. But make the necessary sacrifices. Do the hard thing. Crush it, and come out so much stronger on the other side.
In full disclosure, I applied to work as an instructor at Flatiron after graduating from the immerseive program. I was hired for an eight-month period and my contract ran out last month. I'm no longer an employee of theirs, but I still feel strongly enough about the program that I'm willing to vouch for it as an independent individual—I don't benefit from saying any of this. It's really just that good.
One final note: You can expect to be significantly more hirable after completing a program at Flatiron School if you follow my brief advice above. You can't expect a job to be handed to you. That said, if you follow the guidance of the Career Services team, who will also set lofty yet achievable goals for you, it's almost a certainty that you'll be employed within six months of graduation.
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Vinny
Best decision I have ever made
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In 2015 I decided that I was not happy with my current employment situation. I was working 50+ hours a week for little pay. I quit and decided to get into programming. I started out trying to learn on my own but I had trouble staying focused and had no feedback loop. I started researching bootcamps that would help me learn such a valuable skill. I applied to several bootcamps and was accepted to DevBootcamp, App Academy, and Flatiron School. I decided to go with Flatiron because of their history of successful job placement. What a great decision :). I attended the web development immersive program (12 week course). I went in an amateur and came out a full blown junior developer. I was hired weeks after my graduation date and have been coding for over 16 months.
The best part about Flation was working with my classmates. Being around such amazing, smart, and focused people helped push me to work harder and succeed. A close second was the staff. All of the instructors were amazing. I appreciated the one on one time I was given and that the staff actually cared about me succeeding. And last but not least, the career placement team. The placement team never stopped working with me to help me get a job. I still get emails and work with the placements team to stay sharp, eventhough I am not looking for a new job.
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Jason
One of the best experiences of my life.
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In a couple of days, I will start working as a developer at New York Magazine, all thanks to Flatiron School. I graduated from their NYC Web Developer program a couple of weeks ago, and ever since then, the Career Services has been super helpful and effective in making sure that I get paid to write professional code.
It all started in July when I was exploring my options on how to move forward with my life. I’ve always been super interested in computer programming and web development, dating all the way back to my childhood, but I had never actually sat down and studied this stuff day-to-day.
I’ve been connected to Flatiron School for about 2 years prior to becoming a student, so when I had to decide on which coding bootcamp to attend, the answer was pretty much right in front of my face. But I still analyzed a few other bootcamps, wrote out pros and cons for each, and the facts are simply the facts: Flatiron School’s quality in terms of curriculum is absolutely impressive. I tried out their free courses on Learn (which you should definitely do as well before making a decision), and they were super informative and user-friendly. In fact, the entire product of Learn is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s a full-blown learning management system that guides you step by step on your experience as a student.
Learn provides hundreds of labs, videos, and readings on web development. As if that wasn’t enough, they also have an entire track dedicated on learning how to land a career as a professional web developer. It’s so awesome. Best of all though, after you complete your course, you get access to all of Flatiron School’s other courses, like the entire NYC iOS Developer program’s curriculum on top of your existing one.
Aside from the curriculum, the part that I hands down loved the most about Flatiron School was the community. Our class was sort of small, about 26 students, but from the very first day you start developing a loving relationship with each student. We go out to dinners and do a bunch of fun activities together.
Our instructors were completely amazing. Seriously, it’s been a couple of weeks so far and I miss them so much. They know everything about computer programming so if you have any questions, even ones that have nothing to do with the curriculum, chances are that they’ll be able to give you a pretty detailed answer and provide you with additional resources. They go all the way making sure that you have a great learning experience, including staying after-hours and helping students that need extra assistance. There was a time when one of our instructors stayed until 9PM helping us on a pretty complicated concept that we were learning at that time.
The week after graduation, there is an event called the Campus Draft, which is pretty much a bunch of companies coming in and interviewing us for positions. One of the companies I interviewed with was New York Magazine, and I got an offer literally the day after. A bunch of other students have also received great job offers, and it hasn’t even been over 2 weeks yet.
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Ali
Faltiron School is life-changing and empowering
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Attending Flatiron School was one of the best decisions I have made in my life. Not only is the curriculum rigorous and relevant, but the instructors are absolutely incredible- both as developers and as people. In addition to the planning and delivery of instruction, what makes Flatiron so special is the community. Of the many bootcamps out there, Flatiron is one of the few that intentionally and successfully creates access and diversifies the tech world. My class was composed of bright, inspiring individuals with different backgrounds and perspectives, most of which are currently underrepresented in the tech workforce. When taught the right way, code is incredibly empowering. Many people remain skeptical of how one can learn the content and skills required to get a job in this industry after 3 short months. Technology is constantly evolving with various languages and platforms, but what Flatiron does so well is teach you how to teach yourself. Additionally, the career services team works tirelessly to ensure that you are set up with a variety of conversations and job interviews following graduation, and they do not stop until you land one. Flatiron School was far and away the best learning environment and community I have been a part of—be prepared to be challenged everyday but it is worth every minute.
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Jim R
Flatiron School Alum
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I had known for years that I was interested in writing code for a career, but I had no idea how to take the knowledge from two college introductory courses and turn it into a software development job. While exploring different post-grad options for learning how to code, I met some Flatiron Alumni who impressed me with their success in finding jobs after the program as well as the way they seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed their time at the school. The Flatiron School's founders, Avi and Adam, exude nothing but excitement about code and enabling new developers to break into this field. They have created an atmosphere different from school. It is a group of 30 or so people working as a team with a common goal.
The course was difficult, and not without its frustrating moments, but it is well worth it. The instructors did an excellent job pacing the course so that every time we mastered a new topic, it was on to the next one. And after the course was finished, the career advisors worked with all of us to make sure we found our first jobs. I year later, I could not be happier with my job and my company.
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John S.
Flatiron's free Bootcamp Prep track
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I spent a couple of months working through Flatiron School's Bootcamp Prep track at learn.co and had a really great experience with it. I was doing it to see if I enjoyed coding enough to take the plunge into a bootcamp and now I am joining the February 2017 cohort. I was really impressed at the quality of the lessons. I got a solid foundation in both javaScript and Ruby, completing many labs and a couple of real projects.
The program really helps you to grow as a coder. The final project in the javaScript section has you build a Rock Dodger video game. I had learned enough from the course to be able to do that and then take it further to transform it into a Space Invaders-style game. It's hacky, but it works! Very satisfying.
One of the things that I was most impressed with is the availability of online help. Whenever I had a question that I couldn't figure out, I would just type it into the Questions section and I would have expert assistance almost immediately. Remember, this is at no cost! The other thing is that the way help is provided is very skillful. The support staff would always ask more questions than anything else, leading me to be able to figure out the answer myself, actually learning something in the process, instead of just being given the answer.
If you have any interest in checking out coding, I highly recommend this free, supported course.
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Andrew Klein
Incredible Instructors
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I attended The Flatiron School in order to make a career change. I was able to land a job in the industry shortly after graduating, so in that respect, The Flatiron School was a great decision.
I believe the reason The Flatiron School succeeds is because of the quality of the Instructors. The three instructors assigned to my class were incredibly passionate, knowledgeable, persistent, and patient. I would recommend The Flatiron School for the quality of the instructors alone.
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Daniel F
A life changing experience
My time at Flatiron was one of the best investments in my career and education I have made. Instructors were excellent, caring, and thoughtful. Curriculum was rigorous but well scaffolded. Loved the focus on community, pair programming, and excellent career support team. Flatiron taught me not only to love code, but also to think a lot about great teaching and community building. -
Don
The dream is real
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Tomorrow I start my new job in software development. If you had told me how far I'd come in a year I would have said you were a liar.
The fact is: the promises made are possible to acheive. Flatiron/Learn will give you a road map, but you have to walk the path.
That said, the assistance in learning and in job hunting that I recieved from The Flatiron School was invaluable. My career coach was a god send who helped me keep my head up when I thought for sure I'd failed.
It's hard work. It gets frustrating. You will doubt yourself and others along the way. But it's real and it's up to you. There is no such thing as magic. Thank you Flatiron!
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A
Amazing Platform to Transition Careers
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My goal was to transition from a career without any programming knowledge to being a full stack developer building great things. With the Flatiron School's help -- mission accomplished. Below are a few things I really loved about the Online Campus (previously called the "Learn" program, when I first joined).
Learn At Your Own Pace: Rather than a 12-week intense immersive, I was able to learn full stack technologies over 8-months at my own pace.
Learn Where You Want: Rather than having to be in a city, I could travel and do the learning online. This was key as I was transitioning between cities during my learning period. You can do this at home, at school, in a coffee shop, wherever you want.
Competitive Pricing: They price it in monthly installments, but cap the fee so that it will (generally) not cost more than your average 12-week boot camp. If you meet the cap, then you stop paying but keep access to everything.
Great Support: Access to instructors and a super helpful student community. You have an "Ask A Question" portal, Slack channels with everyone will to pitch-in, and easy access to the instructors.
Great Tools: The key is that you use the REAL development tools on your computer, nothing contrived. You learn how to really work as a legitimate developer.
For anyone wondering whether it is easy, by no means was it a walk in the park. You had to learn a lot of information, build real applications that end up in your portfolio to show employers. Also, a job is not served to you on a silver platter. You still have to put in the leg work (meetups, networking, emails, coffee-chats, etc.) -- but that is par for the course, you would do that regardless.
It worked for me. I think this is a great option for many other people who want flexibility with their career transition, and who want to work with a great Flatiron team!
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Shana
Recommendation
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Learn Verified was such a good fit for me! At the time I knew I wanted to change my career by learning how to program, I first started teaching myself using various online resources and books. With so much to learn, it often felt overwhelming and frankly discouraging. I started to hunt for programs to take a more structured approach to my learning. I interviewed with and considered several in-person bootcamps, in addition to going back to school for a CS degree, but I wasn't willing/ready (financially) to quit my job and/or borrow money to complete such programs. I was pleasantly surprised that during this hunt, I stumbled across a remote program by Flatiron School called Learn.co. Thankfully I was well within its curriculum too, by time my full-time job laid me off!
I was part of the first cohort which made me nervous for several reasons. Yes, there were some growing pains at times, but our feedback was always encouaged to help improve the program and its curriculum. Additionally, as a student who was recently laid off, the "pay as you go" plan made me quite nervous as well; it was hard to tell how soon I'd finish and I didn't want to rush it either. However, I received so much support from my cohort (some who I've met in person and now consider to be friends), and from the staff like Avi, Jonas, Annette, the career team and more, during the program AND afterwards too! These are great people who genuinely want you to succeed! I am SO grateful for it all!
I could literally sit here and write a novel about my experience, but I'll cut to the chase. Yes I would recommend this program to a friend, BUT my friend would need to know that online learning requires A LOT of discipline. I 100% believe that you get what you put into it, or anything really. And Yes, I am now working as a Software Engineer within 6 months of graduating as promised, BUT I'm also very active within my local tech community and was able to take advantage of the network I've built over the year.
Sometimes I still check back in my account and see that even more curriculum has been added since graduating, including Java! It's great to see that the program is still improving, and that I still have access to the additional content.
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Tucker
Loved Learn.co. Made learning to code so much fun.
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I recently graduated from Flatiron School's online program Learn.co and will be starting my new career as a web developer tomorrow.
I spent a lot of time researching different learning options after completing treehouse, and codecademy when I came across Learn. I immediately started the free trial and fell in love. I loved that I could go at my own pace and learn at any hour of the day. I was working full time as an accountant and didn't want to quit and relocate to attend a traditional bootcamp. Learn worked perfectly for me but it may not be for you if you are not self motivated, or need to be in person with the instructors. Flatiron is continuing to innovate new ways to help students stay connected with not only the instructors but the amazing flatiron community. If you ever were stuck on something you could get help from an instructor through the ask a question feature most hours of the day. However, I didn't have to rely solely on instructors for help because my fellow classmates were awesome. I could really say so many great things about the Learn program but it really comes down to the amazing people of the Flatiron School and the other students who love learning to code just as much as you do. Learn is becoming more and more amazing every day as the team is constantly adding new features like study groups, blogging, and integrated chat features.
Warning don't expect to just pay the tuition, cruise through the curriculum in a few weeks, and walk away with a six-figure job offer. Learning to code is hard, and takes a lot of time and effort. Learn does a great job of providing excellent cirriculum and support to help you learn but in the end it comes down to you putting in the work each and every day until you are prepared for a career in development. That being said if you put in the time and are passionate about learning you will learn how to code and you will get a job. Sacrafices will be required but if learning to code is really what you want to do Learn is the way I would reccomemend learning.
If you don't know if coding is for you, I would reccomend trying the free trial at Learn.co and by the end you will know. Best of luck to all of you.
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Anonymous
Cancelled for Full Refund after 2 Weeks of Paid Membership
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Thankfully I read the Terms and Conditions. Anyone can cancel within 14 days of their first payment for a full refund.
I did Learn.co Online for the free 2 weeks, enjoyed it, got some help when I got stuck, then paid $1000/month ($750 with the discount) for the "real course".
I requested a full refund after 12 days. I have done Team Treehouse Ruby on Rails, Codeacademy Ruby on Rails & HTML & CSS, 25% of FreeCodeCamp.com, a Java course on Udemy by a Cal Poly SLO Instructor, read half of Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial, and read half of Head Start Javascript. I didn't finish most, more dabbled to see if programming was truly what I wanted to do with my career. That is why I chose to pay $1000 to Learn.co to get me to the next level.
I am an experienced online learner. I am an experienced yet still beginner programmer.
Learn.co explained to me that they "do not spoon feed their programmers", yet if I was a beginner, with zero experience, you need to spoon feed me until I can figure out the rest! They expect you to know what answer theyre looking for, without giving enough content to ever get there!
The course expects you to know things that are never taught. Even as someone who has taken classes, I got stuck regularly because the directions were not clear, the answer was hard to achieve given the content provided, and worst of all....
When you get stuck, there is a chat to the right, yet expect to wait 10-30 mins or sometimes a full day for any response! And that response will be garbage 75% of the time. Often I get one response, Hey, how can I help? Then I explain, then I wait 20 minutes for a response! What else are these chat support doing? Checking their email between each response they send?? SO frustrating.
I would ask a question, and only one time out of the umpteen times I asked questions did I get a professional, helpful, well explained answer. The people answering q's are grad of Flatiron School, the same crappy curriculum, and so they too, are crappy teachers. Which only allowed Learn.co students like myself, to learn crappy programming.
What a waste of time which is a waste of money. This is why I chose to go forward with the much better acclaimed Udacity Nanodegree Full Stack Web Development which also has a job/money back guarantee, and is $300/month. Why spend $1000 and get terrible content, support, and skills, when you can spend $300/month, and get great contant, support, and skills. and a job!
Learn.co is a waste of time. They probably want you to waste time, because hey, the more time it takes you to finish the course, the more you wait for Learn.co support when you are stuck, the longer it will take you to finish the course and the more months of payment you will incur.
Do yourself a favor. Quit now. Stop wasting time waiting for support and money that is better spent elsewhere.
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Anonymous
Falsified Job Placement Reporting, Disorganized Curriculum, all for the low, low price of $15,000
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Are you seeking a career change? Have you been lured by promises of better compensation and opportunity? Don't be fooled by individuals from the placement-team who will tout falsified job placement percentages as evidence of better professional outcomes. The entire team at Flatiron School, from executive and management to placements and instructors, have absolutely no idea what's going on, and as long as they're getting your money by selling you on the hope of a new career, they don't care.
My experience with this bootcamp can be summed up as follows:
Attending Flatiron School was the single most disastrous professional and financial decision I've ever made.
For months prior to making the decision to attend a bootcamp, I spent time doing my due diligence and actually spoke with grads and the placements team before applying, and I was assured that job prospects were "good" and that "industry relationships" were abundant. This was the sole reason I was willing to pay an exorbitant fee for a skill I could have learned from books and videos online, however by all appearances myself and my entire class have been misled.After an interval greater than most individual's job search, Flatiron's placement numbers have been inflated by hiring individuals from my class as instructors but other individuals in my class have received very little in the way of placement assistance.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
1. Free coffee
2. Better Teaching of Standards of Practice/Third Party Libraries
3. "Cool" people (that is, until you start asking for help)
4. Happy hours/feelings sessions
5. If you're really lucky (or a sycophant) you might get a job as an instructor after graduating
Cons:
1. We're provided with "interviews" during our second to last week for positions that don't actually exist at the companies that come in.
2. There is no proportionate representation of candidates in the placements process. Some of my classmates had received 4-5 interviews while others received none within months of "graduating."
3. We're told to accept whatever positions are available regardless of compensation, benefits, or opportunity for advancement.
4. Curriculum is disorganized: Many lessons depended on understanding principles or concepts that would only be taught later.
5. Instructors available for help are composed of the last cohort's lucky chosen placement rate inflaters and don't have any actual professional experience.Remember, for every good review you see on here, there is a bias because students are threatened with retribution for criticism or bad reviews. For every bad review you see on here, there are probably a dozen other students who feel similarly but are unable to say so because they're desperate for any help after spending 3 months and 15k on a program.
Personally, I've been struggling for more than a reasonable interval to find consistent, well-paying work. The time and finacial investment required and subsequent failure to find work ended a long term relationship. Maintaining a flexible schedule for interviews that never seem to happen means I can't find consistent, steady-paying work in other fields.
My advice to those of you who are considering a switch to a programming vocation: buy some books (Big Nerd Ranch et al.), watch videos (UDEMY, TeamTreeHouse, etc), and develop your own projects instead of making the mistake I made by trusting the paid representatives of a bootcamp.
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Jake
The Real Deal
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For perspective, began in November 2015 and am now nearly finished with the curriculum.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience with the Flatiron School's Learn Verified Program. The platform of learn.co itself is great. From day one, everything you are doing with your time is real, actual work. You always work in a real dev environment, and push all your code to Github. I view this as a mandatory feature for any program that claims to prepare you for a job though.
I could rave about how the course material was a good mix of clear, concise, and fun, or how the specific technologies covered are relevant for today's market. However, what I believe to be one of the strongest features to Flatiron is the overarching sequence and manner in which they guide you through learning programming skills. This is hard to explain if you don't have much coding experience. The Flatiron curriculum is very thoughtfully crafted in a way which has you cementing together fundamental blocks of your knowledge that you only realize after you have already built them. More succinctly, it's wax on, wax off. More concretely I mean that they have you manually build out various technologies in detail by hand, before introducing you to an existing technology or framework (dynamic ORM before ActiveRecord, Sinatra before Rails, etc). Going about it in this manner really ensures that their students will have a firm understanding of what these technologies do and why they do it. I am much more interested in gaining a thorough understanding of how to use a framework well than simply being able to crank out apps and material without that underlying basis. More complete understanding is better for you in the long run.
I have found that help has been quickly within reach anytime it was truly needed. The staff has been extremely responsive, and genuinely make every possible effort to give their students anything that will help them succeed. The live assessments are very valuable as well. Every time I have learned an extreme amount of information very quickly. You are given perspective not only on the work that you have done, but for overall project design decisions, code patterns, and often pushed to expand your work in ways that you'd never have thought to.
Now nearing the end of the coursework, I am feeling very confident in my ability to build increasingly powerful and complex applications. It's important to remember that a bootcamp is just a beginning. If you are genuinely changing careers into software development as I am, the learning does not stop after any bootcamp. There is a limit to the amount of material that you will learn in any bootcamp, but I don't think there's anything I feel was lacking from Flatiron. I am highly confident in my ability to find work upon graduation, and will hopefully update with results in the near future.
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Anonymous
Zero Code Review!
I felt like they could have done a better job with filtering the job leads they had, providing a more conducive environment for learning (way too loud) and provided regular in-depth code review.
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Anonymous
Zero Code Review!
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This is an honest and sincere review with the only intention to inform others about a very real experience.
I had zero code review. ZERO. I asked for it many times, never got it.
My classmates were either completely drunk or 100% independent didn't-want-to-work-with-anyone types, except for one. I am still friends with the one classmate that wasn't like this.
This place was extremely noisy the entire time, and the teachers regularly would get a TA to take their place when they were too hungover to come in and teach. This happened *many* times.
All of the staff and most of the classmates seemed to care much more about the world sport tournament that was blasted every day on the giant projector screen in the main room (where all of the students had to be all day, every day) than they did about helping their students being able to complete their assignments. I was definitely not the only person that felt this way.
They make incredible claims about job placement. Then, 2 weeks before the end of the program, they pretty much tell you to take whatever job you can get, even if it's free or minimum wage.
Of the 3 leads they gave me, two were 100% non-code related, and the 3rd never got back to me even though they liked me a lot (they realized they needed someone that wasn't a bootcamp grad)
This left me with an extremely bitter taste in my mouth. Their job leads program clearly did not do their due diligence in finding quality leads. I did not approve of Flatiron including me in their "success" category when it came to their job placement rates, yet they hold those numbers close and I have no control over it.
What's worse, is that the final project they gave my group was poorly scoped too. We were not allowed to pick our team-mates or project topic, so the arrogant member of the team kept deleting our code that he didn't like (who does that?!) and when our attempts to remedy the issue failed, the staff wouldn't do anything to mitigate the issue.
If you want to attend any bootcamp, my advice is this:
-Don't believe anything about job placement rates or leads.
-Ask dozens of questions. Take everything with a grain of salt.
-Ask to see the real data on the percent of graduates that are placed in FULL-TIME JOBS WITH BENEFITS within 6 months and what ***THEIR*** starting pay was.
-Be overly-prepared for the beginning of the program. Most claim you don't need to know any code at all, but really you should. You'll suffer if you don't. Start teaching yourself. Start with Codecademy, then graduate to CodeSchool, Pluralsight, Treehouse, Udacity, and/Or something else that is free/cheap. Once you've exhausted those resources, then consider a bootcamp if you are still interested.
-Attend a bootcamp *only* in the city where you will stay and seek employment
-You only should attend a bootcamp if you're way too lazy to teach yourself using free tools online. Most people are. However, you should at least try this path first.
If you venture down this path, expecting a bootcamp to teach you a little bit about a lot of things in a very short amount of time, and do absolutely nothing else for you, then you'll be happy with your experience. If you expect a bootcamp to give you extensive code review (absolutely necessary to hone your skillset), find you a good job with good pay and help you have something incredible in your portfolio to show to prospective employers, you might be terribly disappointed. I was.
Again, I wrote this to provide an honest review explaining my personal experience. I learned a lot, but I didn't get half as much out of the program as I could have if they cared about my concerns listed above. This was a couple years ago now, maybe they've improved? They probably have. I can't imagine I'm the only one that had an experience like this.
Reader should keep in mind that most graduates don't want to leave negative reviews about the bootcamp they attended because they are still relying on the bootcamp to help them find employment. It's twisted. You can't find much credible negative information online regarding bootcamps.
Find a few graduates of *the* program you're considering taking at the bootcamp you want to attend, email them or find them on LinkedIn, and ask them lots of questions. This is how you will get an honest review.
Note: I intentionally altered the month/year that I graduated from the program because I'd rather not have this come back to bite me because my classmate was scolded by a staff member for his review on a different platform.
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Lyn D
A good alternative to people with IT background
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This was originally posted in my blog.
I began searching for online coding bootcamps recently, a good alternative to going to a major city to attend a coding bootcamp in person. Not everyone is like me who has family in a major city, in my case NYC. Rent alone can drain a person’s bank account, much more if that person needs to quit his or her job to attend an intensive school 60 hours a week, which is the norm for bootcamps.
Who should attend this program?
Online coding bootcamps with live mentors are great for people who have a strong technology background, but lacks programming skills. For example, I don’t get confused with programming concepts because of my years of Intro to Programming back in CS school, but have problems learning and applying codes in real world. I don’t feel isolated because I’m confident the mentor will be there to help me out, but at the same time I don’t have to revisit topics that I am otherwise familiar with.
Flatiron School has solid reputation
Flatiron School in NYC recently released their online version of their program, which has traditionally been in-person classes. I signed up yesterday, and so far so good. I love the interface, which is very important to have a good learning experience.
Hit the ground running? Not really.
One thing I do recommend is if you’ll be doing this full-time like 40 hours a week, you should definitely buy a second or/and third monitor. The screen on your laptop will not be enough. There are so many windows that you need to keep open to make sure that they lesson is seamless.
I’ll continue providing feedbacks of Flatiron School’s Learn Online Bootcamp throughout the upcoming weeks.
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Luke
An Excellent Tour Guide For A New Future
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I spent about 2 months teaching myself web development before I started with Flatiron's Online Learn Verified program. I looked at every online coding bootcamp possible, and just as I was about to go with a different program I stumbled upon Learn Verified. So I clicked on the link and started their free intro to ruby course. Needless to say 4 months later and I am about to finish the course.
The course covers a wide variety of subjects from Ruby, Sinatra, Rails, Github, JavaScript, jQuery, Angular.js, Node.js, express.js, SQL, HTML5, bootstrap, CSS, etc... You will have a well versed tool set by the time you are done with this program. You will build several personal projects and around 6 finaly projects for the course. They will require you to think outside of the box, and use all of the skills you have learned.
This has been one of the best exeperiences of my life. I have learned so much from Learn Verified and I have so much left to learn. They teachers have been excellent. The dean of the school will personally checkup on you to see if you need help. If you place yourself into this program with a will to succeed, then Learn Verified will give you the tolls and the mentorship you need to start a future career in web development.