Flatiron School Reviews
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Stephen Anderson Verified via LinkedIn
One of the best decisions I've ever made
I couldn't recommend Flatiron School enough! It's a big investment and it is far from easy, but you come out ready to take on the world of Software Engineering with knowledge, skills, projects, a resume, and everything else that you could need. -
Rita Verified via LinkedIn
Flatiron School SE Immersive fall 2020
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I graduated from Flatiron School's software engineering immersive program in December 2020. Due to pandemic the program transitioned from on-campus to remote learning. We had to be on Zoom every day 9 to 6. Our day would start with a group discussion summarizing yesterdays lessons, we would then move on to pair-programming, then there would be a lecture and then we would finish the day with working on labs.
I came to the bootcamp with zero programing knowledge and in four months graduated as a full-stack developer totally confident in what I've learnt. Honestly I was a bit skeptical before I've started this program, I couldn't understand how one can learn so much in such a short time. But the program is super intense and the curriculum requires you to learn and practice new concepts every single day. Every new skill you are taught comes with it's own labs which require you to use the skill until it becomes second nature. I like that Flatiron teaches you not only specific languages and frameworks, but they teach you how to learn, which is a great skill to have in life in general and certainly an important skill for a software developer.
A word about instructors; the instructors we had were top-notch, super knowledgeable and helpful, and could explain complex, unfamiliar technical concepts in a way which anyone could understand. Our instructors were super supportive and they motivated us to keep going. The school's support does not end at graduation. Everyone is assigned a career coach who supports you for next 6 months and helps you during your job search.
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Tiffany Verified via GitHub
Flatiron School - Denver Campus
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I want to preface this by saying I have no experience with other campuses, but I can speak confidently about my experience at Flatiron in Denver, CO.
With some trepidation, I enrolled in September 2020. It is the best decision I could've made -- do you enjoy learning and aren't afraid to ask questions? Do you like to engage in theory and practice? Do you want to be taught how to learn effectively so you can apply to new languages you want to learn in the future? Do you want to join an incredibly diverse community full of supportive and caring individuals? This place is for you. -
Joseph Pyram Verified via LinkedIn
Best Coding Bootcamp In Every Way!
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Flatiron School is the best coding Bootcamp ever!
If you do your part, you won't regret it!
In the fall of 2019, I enrolled in their full-stack Software Engineering program. I attended their Brooklyn campus in Dumbo. They taught us how to build cutting-edge, full-fledged applications using Ruby, Ruby-on-Rails, JavaScript, React, and Redux. By the time I was ready to graduate, I was able to build a fully functional, full-stack application!
Overall Experience
It was a very challenging experience, but very rewarding at the same time! Every 2 weeks you have to learn a new programming language, pass a code challenge, and build an application solo or as a team. There's a lot to learn in a very short time, however, they give you plenty of exercises and projects to gain a practical understanding of what you learn. At times, you have to do assignments alone, or in pairs. The school also has a lot of fun group activities that foster teamwork and camaraderie.
It was an overall great experience that pushed me to grow not only intellectually, but also as a person! I highly recommend going to Flatiron School!
Curriculum
The curriculum is very rigorous! Here's a breakdown of the process you go through in the immersive SE program:
- 1st week, you learn Ruby
- You're given a ton of assignments to do
- 2nd week, you take a code challenge to test your understanding
- - If you pass, you get to do a group project that you can present to your whole class. Very fun experience!
- - If you fail, you have to do a solo project that ends up being scrutinized and you're grilled by 2-3 instructors in a room. Very stressful experience!
- 3rd week, is for the presentation of the solo or group project.
- - If you fail the solo project, you can't continue the program in-person, you have to continue the program online at your own pace.
- - You technically can't fail the solo project, because you already passed the code challenge. Bear in mind that those projects will end up in your portfolio after graduation, so it's in your best interest to have great projects, whether you did the solo or group project.
- The cycle repeats itself for Ruby-on-Rails, then JavaScript, then React, and finally Redux. Every 3 weeks you learn something new, culminating in a project where you apply those skills.
- The last 3 weeks are for your capstone project that incorporates everything you learned from the beginning to the end of your time there. You have to learn at least 2 new technologies (tools, frameworks, plug-in, etc) on your own and add them to your project. It's a fun, stressful, and rewarding experience!
- The very last week consists of you presenting your project to the entire floor of Software Engineering students. Many alumni come through to see your projects. Sometimes hiring managers also attend.
- The last day is graduation day, the saddest day you'll experience on campus :(
Important: For the immersive SE program, code challenges are not graded! You're evaluated based on your understanding of the subjects, not your grade. They assess your understanding from the mistakes, bugs, or incompleteness of your code or answers to the questions.
Instructors
I found the instructors to be very knowledgeable of the subjects. They also were funny, witty, and approachable. You can talk to them about personal issues you may be going through and find them to be very understanding. All the instructors and coaches I had were AWESOME! They must have a very good selection process for hiring them. Most instructors are actually former students that become coaches, then instructors themselves. From my understanding, they're contracted for a year or two after which they have to leave to pave the way for the next set of student alumni.
Job Assistance
After graduation, you're assigned a career coach, with whom you meet every week for the next six months or until you get a job. If you signed up for an Income Share Agreement (ISA), then you don't have to pay the tuition until you find a job, after which a percentage of your salary goes towards paying them back. The contract you sign guarantees that you'll find a job within 6 months, if you don't, then you don't have to pay them. As part of your money-back guarantee (MBG) agreement, you have to meet with your coach once a week, establish at least 8 professional connections or contacts, write a blog, and have at least 5 GitHub contributions (aka 815). Failure to do so results in voiding your MBG contract, meaning that you have to pay the tuition amount even if you don't find a job. In other words, failing to meet any of the weekly 815 obligations means that you will have to pay them even if you don't get a job in 6 months! This is very important to understand and stay on top of!
They're affiliated with companies that hire bootcamp graduates. They have a unit called Employee Partnerships (EP) that send you jobs that they believe match your qualifications. 95 percent of all interviews, code assessments I had were through EP. They're a valuable asset in your job search!
I personally had a very good coach! She gave me great advice and guidance on how to maximize my results for getting a job. I did my 815 as best as possible, attended virtual (due to covid) conferences, lectures, meetings, book clubs, study groups, etc. I made some great connections along the way. I finally found a job via EP, three and a half months after declaring my job search date. I found all of their claims to be true and I'm excited to start a new career as a software engineer! If you choose Flatiron School to start a career in software engineering, you won't be disappointed so long as you do your part in fulfilling all of the obligations that are asked of you!
Best wishes!
- JP -
Scott S. Verified via GitHub
Flatiron School SE Immersive Summer 2020 Review
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I attended Flatiron School's full-stack software engineering immersive program from May-August in 2020 at the Denver campus remotely. The Denver instructional staff is top-notch and extremely knowledgable. They have created an extremely positive educational environment and welcoming campus culture. They don't make you pay $ to repeat learning Modules and they don't grade your projects which allows you the freedom to develop whatever interests you in each learning Mod. They cater to everyone's learning needs and let you choose the lessons each day depending on what you have questions on and what you are interested in learning more about. The Learn.co labs and coursework is also very well done and Flatiron School helps you create an extremely active GitHub profile and set you up well for professional opportunities. Multiple individuals from my cohort as well cohorts in front of mine and behind mine were able to get software engineering jobs just 1-2 months post program. I would definitely recommend Flatiron School Denver to anyone looking for a positive bootcamp experience and great career services. -
Rianna Cleary Verified via LinkedIn
My Overall Experience
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Flatiron School helped me develop my engineering skills due to their daily deadlines, constant pair-programming, and their lessons on working autonomously. I was a newbie to coding when I started the program so I was suffering from major imposter syndrome, but despite that, every single person in their staff made me feel so comfortable and provided me with guidance and positivity throughout the whole program. Being in this program also taught me how to learn and be more independent in terms of making my own decisions, not being afraid to try different solutions out, etc. After I graduated, my career coach helped me so much along the way and gave 100% in everything she did for me. I was awful at reaching out to random people/networking in general, but with her advice and applying different techniques, it became really easy and way less nerve-wracking! I am beyond grateful to everyone that contributed to my growth at this school, and would recommend it to anyone who wants to dive into a coding boot camp! -
Brandon Williams Verified via LinkedIn
My Experience at Flatiron
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MY EXPERIENCE AT FLATIRON (JULY 2020)
Full Time Software Engineering
I would not recommend Flatiron to anyone, period.
My Student/Admissions Rep had terrible communication skills (which is not acceptable) and would take days and days to answer 1 email after asking again after 2 or 3 days and then CC'ing the general info@flatiron email to try to get an answer. This went on the entire 3 months of correspondence leading up to the class and even after, when I tried to switch to Self-Paced (more on that later). I voiced this concern to the Senior Manager of Admissions and Enrollment, Marquise Martin, after my Student rep emailed me (for the first time to tell me) at 2 PM that my Enrollment Agreement had to be signed THAT NIGHT. I was literally in the middle of driving a 26' Uhaul truck full of my possessions with my car on a tow dolly on the back driving halfway across the country when I saw the email later that afternoon. Marquise at first seemed interested in my concerns only to quickly brush them aside and just say sorry that I have concerns. (The great customer service continues) I feel for you if you get Tiwanna Hamilton as an Admissions/Student Rep, she seems unorganized and lacks responsiveness and the communication skills needed to be a Rep.
They have what's called a First Mile, which is just your first 2 weeks of school, and it has requirements to complete before time is up or you fail and have to be placed in the next Cohort (if it's your 1st time failing). Unfortunately, due to my wife contracting the Coronavirus, that left me beginning my First Mile while taking care of her and our 3 kids. This caused me to get behind, so behind that I spent days on Iterations and had to ask a Teacher's Assistant (TA) for help on every lab. By the time I got it, I was out of time to complete the rest of the curriculum.
The curriculum is a joke. I am not exaggerating when I say it is a few paragraphs, sometimes with a video, as the lesson. The videos are poor quality, it just shows a screen capture and the narration sounds like it was recorded on a laptop mic from 2008. To say it's poor quality is an understatement. The curriculum, more often than not, does not teach you how to do what they then ask you to do in their labs, which, as you can imagine, makes things very difficult. (Why did you guys wait until after iterations for ANY code-alongs??) You will either be Googling Ruby syntax to try to piece together the code yourself from Quora, or you'll be copying/pasting former student's code from repl.it, or asking a Teacher's Assistant to help walk you through it. Though others were offered help via screen share, this was not offered to me until 3 days before the First Mile ended. (I didn't even know it was an option) Most of the TAs are not great at teaching, they were not skilled at breaking things down in a simple-to-understand manner. This made (most of) them almost useless.
My instructor, Annabel Wilmerding, was a former (2018) Flatiron student (her only coding education and experience, apparently), now teaching her first Cohort with absolutely (apparently) zero experience coding outside of Flatiron. This led to many confusing Lab demos where she would go 'chasing rabbits' that weren't helpful, having students correct her and ultimately made the videos of little help. Call me crazy, but I kind of want someone who has actually coded for companies outside of the Flatiron school bubble, teaching others how to code for the first time. She was a nice person. However, according to Flatiron instructors are supposed to assist students via Slack. The entire 2 weeks, she helped 0 students via Slack. She ONLY posted once a day in Slack, a morning update with how many assignments should be completed by the end of day and what they are called. That was the extent of the "Instruction" at Flatiron. I voiced this concern to Tana Glenn at Flatiron (not sure what she does because her email signature doesn't say and neither did she), which disregarded my experience for a canned response about methods for getting help with curriculum. Again, see lack of customer service skills and poor communication.
Upon not completing the First Mile, my instructor Annabel contacted me about whether I wanted to continue with the program and be put into another Cohort or withdraw and receive a full refund. I was confused as to why your instructor, especially a now former instructor, would be responsible for this part. It seems like Tana or even the Admissions rep should be responsible for handling all of this. Regardless, I emailed Tana and asked her when the next Cohort would be, only to be told that she didn't know, but that it could be as early as mid-late August or early September, an entire month to 2 months later. Not being satisfied with this huge of a delay, I asked if I could switch to Self-Paced. That way I could pickup where I left off, I still got TA support, didn't have a useless Instructor, saved $6k versus Full Time and might could even still finish on time as the original Full Time program as I wanted. She said it was against policy to allow me to switch. I asked if I could withdraw and reapply for the Self-Paced one instead and she said yes, but it could take weeks to be accepted again (no kidding with Tiwanna as a Rep), trying to force me into staying Full Time at the $15k. So I withdrew and reapplied 3 days later. I was told by Hannah M. I would be contacted by "finance" to discuss the refund and everything.
I withdrew July 22nd, it's been weeks now and I still have not heard anything from "finance." I had to email Hannah and ask about whether I would receive my $500 seat deposit back, whether they tell Climb Credit or I do, whether they refund Climb Credit or me for me to pay them back. (Again, see poor communication skills) I wrote her on Aug 5th asking for an update regarding finance or Climb and still haven't received a response after weeks now.
Then I receive and correspond to Tiwanna again as she (much to my utter disappointment) is assigned again as my Admissions Rep for my July 25th application, it went like this:
"Jul 29 @ 12p, me to Flatiron: Hi, I applied last week (Jul 24) and haven't heard anything back.
Jul 30 @ 9a, Tiwanna: Did you previously withdraw from the program?
<<Do they not communicate with each other??>>
Jul 30 @ 9a, me: Yes.
Jul 31 @ 2p, me: Hoping to hear back about my application before the weekend.
Aug 3 @ 10a, Tiwanna: It is our understanding that you recently withdrew from the program.
<<Um, duh, we just stated that, it's like she's implying something here but won't communicate what it is she's implying.>>
Aug 3 @ 10a, me: Yes, I withdrew from the full time program after not completing the curriculum within the First Mile allotted time. I am re-applying for the self-paced program since I was not permitted to switch to self-paced.
Aug 5 @ 10a, me to Tiwanna and info@flatiron since she wouldn't respond: Can I please hear back about this? It's been almost 2 weeks since I applied.
Aug 7 (FRIDAY) @ 5:00p (she waited until close), Tiwanna: Appreciate the follow up.
At this time we have decided not to proceed with your enrollment in the self-paced program."
Imagine my surprise. I guess they are doing well enough that they don't want $9,600 (they don't even refund it because it's self paced so they are literally just butthurt because I didn't submit to their greedy Policy for preventing students from switching Paces based off of what the student needs). Flatiron is not interested in your success, they are not interested in your best interest, they don't care if you or your spouse have had the Coronavirus and needed to switch paces because of it. They just want your $15k+ and nothing less.
Flatiron has switched to entirely online due to the COVID panic generated by the government and media. However, they have not provided an equivalent product to the Immersive experience and yet want to charge the exact same price. They have claimed to do just such a thing, which makes them dishonest and unethical.
Having used Treehouse for a couple of years, Flatiron's curriculum is pathetic compared to Treehouse, leaps and bounds in terms of video production and instruction quality. They are equal in educational support. Treehouse is $25/month.
TL;DR: Tiwanna sucks, as does the rest of the staff have poor communication and slow responsiveness and there is zero accountability for the staff, the instructor graduated Flatiron and started teaching others, they won't let you swap Full Time to Self Paced, curriculum is basically $15k to Google search to pass the Labs that they don't teach you how to do.
How Flatiron can sleep at night charging $15,000 for this pile of junk that they call a school is beyond me. Terrible staff, horrible curriculum, overpriced Google searching for what they call an "education," and the worst part is they just literally don't care about the students.Eileen Doll of Flatiron School
Director of Online Programs
Aug 28, 2020
Hi Brandon, Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. We are sorry that it wasn’t up to the standard that we strive for. Our Admissions Representatives, Instructors, Technical Coaches, Educational Coaches, and Career Coaches work together to support each of our students from writing their first line of code all the way through to landing a job. It sounds like we could have communicated with you better each step of the way, particularly regarding your application to our Self Paced program. We’ll reach out to you directly to discuss the Self Paced program and we apologize for the delay and confusion we have created on our end. We're incredibly proud of our grads and our outcomes, but are always striving to make Flatiron School even better. I’ve shared your feedback with the teams you’ve mentioned so that we can make immediate improvements. If you'd like to speak directly or in any more detail, please always feel free to e-mail me directly at eileen.doll@flatironschool.com. -
Laura Verified via GitHub
Beyond Grateful for the Flatiron School Community
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Enrolling in the Flatiron School boot camp was probably the best decision I've made, both financially and personally. The boot camp does cost a fair amount of money, but now I'm making way more than I would've before and earlier than if I had gone the self-paced route. I originally wanted to pursue teaching (high school English), but the education field requires a lot of work to get into for very low pay and not a ton of support. Pretty shortly after graduating, I landed a role as a Cohort Lead at Flatiron. So now I'm able to teach and code while also being on track to pay off my ISA easily. I also know plenty of others who have graduated before and after me who have landed roles at major companies like Amazon and Shopify despite even COVID-19. Overall, the best aspect of Flatiron is the community. My cohort lead and career coach both went above and beyond to help me develop my skills and land a job. Beyond that, everyone I worked with - from admissions to education to career services to alumni, and even now, the hiring and HR teams - have been absolutely wonderful. The people working at Flatiron truly want everyone who enters the boot camp to leave with a job they love and that supports them, and they work above and beyond their job responsibilities to try to get you there. Some people take longer than others, but from what I've seen personally from other cohort mates is that if you are determined/able to put the work in and love to code, you will finish the program with the skills to build beautiful and functional full-stack applications from scratch. -
Pavel Beletsky Verified via LinkedIn
Be ready to work hard, be ready for a long job search
They won't do the job for you, you need to work hard on your own, but if you know what you want, go for it! I met a lot of interesting people and gained a ton of priceless experience. For 15 weeks I learned more then I've tried to learn online after work for 3 years. Flatiron school is not the only option, but it was my choice and I don't regret it. -
Megan Mei Verified via LinkedIn
UX Design Immersive
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My experience with Flatiron is overall positive. I really enjoyed the course curriculum and the structure of course (6week online individual work, 6week online group work, 5 weeks in-person group work, 4 weeks client work, 3 weeks portfolio.)
Instructors
From my observation, Flatiron tends to hire two types of instructors - 1) notorious professors from well-known universities and 2) motivated, smart Bootcamp grads who have been in the workforce for 1-3 years.
I would say I got really lucky and had the chance to work with some great lead instructors and supporting instructors (mostly the ladder-type mentioned above.) who are very dedicated to helping students succeed and would put in extra effort and time to help you build great portfolio pieces.
Not to say the professors are bad but there is a huge difference between teaching at a University and teaching at a Bootcamp. Instructors are a huge part of this learning experience, so I would say I got pretty lucky because the cohort before me and after me both had really bad experience.
PS: also a side note: most of the instructors I worked with had already left Flatiron, so I can't speak to the new instructors.
Job Assistance
You get assigned a career coach, who you would meet with every week to give you advice and new directions. There is also the Employment Partnership team, who is supposedly setting up interviews for you. (an add on to your own career search)
Career coaches are great resources for reviewing resumes, portfolios, or simply a source of motivation.
Environment + Resources
Flatiron is owned by WeWork, so we had really great resources there. Even before our in-person phase started, my team and I worked at WeWork to collaborate. (This was before COVID as well)
We also received course material to the UI track after we have completed the course. There are a lot of resources available at Flatiron, I think it is a great plus.
Client Work
I don't know of a lot of boot camps that sets you up for client work (internship basically.) This is something that really helped with my job search - being able to say I have had the opp to work with real clients, projects, engineers? etc.
Although I have to say, my client was super flaky and we did the whole project without much communication with them. It still works experience, right?
Overall
I think Flatiron makes some excellent hires and some terrible ones in all teams and fields (not much in-betweens...) and there is no good protocols in place to ensure experience. The curriculum is great. One thing for sure is that Flatiron really is trying to find you a job, with the resources they provide and the ISA options, etc. There are some really smart people working here to help you. -
Felipe Bz Verified via GitHub
Missed the Mark on Career Svces - Outdated Curriculum
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I joined Flatiron School SE track with much enthusiasm. I found the instructors to be knowledgeable and willing to help you if you had questions. I completed the program on a fast track (faster than my cohort) and have my portfolio finished with top notch projects.
The curriculum (2019-2020) seemed a bit too basic, repetitive tasks and exercises. I did raise the issue of lessons even repeating themselves and even grammatical errors/bugs in them. It also did not cover crucial software engineering concepts such as data structures and algorithms. Also the stack with a heavy focus on Ruby is a bit outdated and only cover modern frameworks in the last section.
My major issue was with career and student services. Student services is pretty much absent. I sent an email in the middle of my program and waited over a month to only get a templated response. Career services people are willing to help you and get to the next level but the process relies on a pretty outdated structure with spreadsheets and you're required to do a lot of cold outreaching.
As a graduate of the software engineering program, and with a background in education I felt Flatiron School is a bit overrated these days. In the past it could've been in the forefront of technology and innovation. Considering the outdated/too basic curriculum, non-responsive student services and lack of meaningful support from career services I think it needs a major overhaul to keep up with current job and tech trends. -
JK Verified via LinkedIn
Full-time online data science bootcamp
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Overall, I had a fantastic experience with Flatiron School. The program enabled me to get a data science job that ticked all my boxes. I was able to make a dramatic career transition (during a pandemic, no less!) from academia/non-profits to tech thanks to this program.
Background: When I was applying to bootcamps, I already had a PhD (in a humanities discipline) and lots of data science and programming tutorials under my belt. I chose Flatiron School because the curriculum looked good, the program was only 5 months when done full-time, and they offered an income share agreement as a payment option.
Getting in: First I had a call with a representative to assess my interest and experience in data science. Then I got access to some preparatory materials that included basic Python and a little bit of calculus. Once these were done, I had a technical interview with a Flatiron School instructor, consisting of a few basic programming questions and a conversation about some math/calculus concepts. The preparatory materials were enough to help me be ready for this interview, but the real point of the interview is to assess whether you can learn quickly and take feedback/correction well. After this, I was accepted to the program and chose my start date.
The program: For the duration of the program, I had one instructor, an "educational coach" (to help with motivation, study skills, etc.) and a cohort of fellow bootcampers. We spent four hours per week in live lecture/office hours, and I had two half-hour one-on-ones with my instructor each week, too. My cohort had its own Slack channel where we could ask the instructor or each other questions and do daily standups. Here's a list of topics we covered (not exhaustive):
- General Python programming, with particular focus on NumPy, Pandas, and Matplotlib
- Git, GitHub, and principles of version control
- Basics of data visualization
- Regression (linear, logistic, multiple linear, polynomial, etc.)
- SQL and general principles of database design
- Basics of object-oriented programming
- APIs, web scraping, and working with JSON files
- A broad survey of statistical topics, including combinatorics, permutations, distributions, central limit theorem, hypothesis testing, and Bayesian stats
- Time series analysis
- Basics of linear algebra
- Survey of machine learning algorithms and techniques, including k nearest neighbors, decision trees, random forests and other ensemble methods, support vector machines, PCA, k means, and recommendation systems
- A little introduction to Spark via PySpark
- Basics of graph theory/network analysis
- Basics of NLP
- Survey of deep learning topics, including RNNs, CNNs, and transfer learning
- A little intro to AWS and how to deploy a machine learning algorithm into production.
Near the end of the program, I also got access to a career prep curriculum, which contained readings and exercises relating to résumés, LinkedIn, networking, building a professional web presence, etc. Flatiron School recently added a post-bootcamp curriculum of extra stuff to study while job-searching, including more work with SQL, and intro to R, and some guidelines for making your projects look better on GitHub. I'm really glad they created these additional resources, since these are things I went out and studied on my own because they were important for my job search. Flatiron is constantly updating the curriculum, and students are welcome to submit suggestions or corrections to be addressed by the curriculum team.
An average day of bootcamp involved a lot of independent reading and work on the labs provided in the curriculum, interrupted by a lecture/group meeting with instructor and classmates to go over the material assigned for that day. This format was great for me because I learn better when I can focus on something on my own for a while and then have a chance to ask my questions and hear other people's questions, too. Each day's meeting covered a certain chunk of the curriculum, but there was a lot of flexibility to work ahead or take more time on something if I wanted. Although you could always spend more time on things, I found it was possible to complete each week's material to my own satisfaction in 40-45 hours on average.
Overall, the curriculum prepared me well for my job search. The projects I built during bootcamp were of a high enough quality that I could present them during job interviews. The capstone project is totally open-ended, so you can design it to show off skills relevant to the types of jobs that appeal to you. For each project, I had to do both a non-technical presentation and a code review with my instructor, and these experiences were extremely helpful once I started looking for a job. This is definitely one of the reasons to do a bootcamp rather than just studying on one's own. If someone I knew were looking for a bootcamp today, I would tell them to ask whether a program includes this kind of project work, since it's the best way to prepare for/show that you're prepared for real data science work.
Career services: My experience with career services at Flatiron definitely made the program worth the cost. As soon as I graduated, I started working with a career coach who helped me with my résumé, mock interviews, web presence, and general job search strategy. My coach was amazing, especially at keeping me motivated when the pandemic brought my job search to a screeching halt. It was really helpful to have someone to talk to each week about my job search, and she was super responsive to any questions I had about how to respond to e-mails, networking tactics, etc.
Highlights: The best parts of the bootcamp for me were my instructor, my career coach, and the projects I built.
Improvements: I would have liked to see a little more space in the curriculum given to ethics, maybe some case studies about practical applications of data ethics. There was a brief overview of data ethics in theory ("Hey, you should only make ethical use of people's personal information! There is bias in AI!"), but since this is an issue that affects all aspects of data science, it would be good to give it a little more weight. -
Justin Davis Verified via GitHub
Compassionate Supportive Instruction
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I graduated from the online self-paced software engineering program. To me, Flatiron's strength is its support structure. The school bends over backwards to provide multiple channels of support. I was originally slated to join the in person program in Seattle, but switched to the online program because it made more sense with my family. I was nervous about a lack of support structure in the online program, but that proved far from the case.
There was an abundance of instructor and student led Zoom sessions, focused on relevant topics throughout, including open office hours. The curriculum resides in Flatiron's online platform called Learn. While in the platform, there is always the option of clicking the 'ask a question' button. Questions are displayed to other students who can answer, but Flatiron also has instructors monitoring the questions. You're awarded 'Karma' points for answering questions. I only was able to answer two questions because the instructors were so quick and solid. There are multiple slack channels monitored by section leaders, depending on your place in the program. Finally, you have your educational and career coaches. Your coaches keep tabs on your progress, well being and ultimately job search.
Everyone I worked with at Flatiron was enthusiastic, supportive and enjoyable to work with.
The curriculum was a combination of reading, videos and test driven coding exercises. The exercises followed a logical progression from programming basics to React/Redux frontends with Rails driven APIs. The curriculum stressed principles and problem solving over recipes.
There were some video based walk-throughs that I was not a huge fan of, mostly because I'd rather read or work through problems. But those were few and far between. Most videos were recorded zoom sessions from previous cohorts. Those were enjoyable, informative and even inspirational at times.
I experienced a few hiccups and inconsistencies in the Learn system along the way but nothing too catastrophic. Early on I used the 'ask a question' button a couple times and had it figured out in minutes. Later on I could usually work around issues. The cool thing about Learn is that it's built upon Github. So you can dive into the code, troubleshoot and offer up suggestions via pull request. This ensures a pretty healthy evolution. Most of the problems I experienced were right after a version change. Within a couple weeks the kinks were worked out pretty well. That version switch was optional by the way. I actually think the option to contribute to the health of the system is a pretty valuable learning experience.
Flatiron is owned by WeWork which started experiencing problems while I was in the program. Flatiron did a great job of communicating as the issue emerged. I did notice some instructor shuffling and maybe an increase in time to book project reviews. But that was a matter of book a review maybe a few days out vs next day. I felt Flatiron was dedicated to providing quality education and honoring their commitments. If anything, I think the WeWork issue just slowed campus expansion. It's worth keeping an eye on, but my sense is Flatiron is fairly independent and in control of their internal affairs.
During my time at Flatiron the COVID pandemic and protest in response to George Floyd's death emerged. Folks at Flatiron did a fantastic job of communicating, supporting and adjusting to the uncertain times with heartfelt compassion. The Flatiron family, both staff and students is diverse across all spectrums. The school takes pride in its diversity, and is all the better for it.
Going into this program I had some experience coding, including a couple computer science classes in college, years ago. My degree is in Forestry, so technical, but not rocket science. My job leading up to this was pretty much 'the computer guy', including sys admin, configuration, help desk, some scripting and low code development. Before that, I was in EMS. I'm an EMS instructor of several years, which informs my respect for Flatiron's staff.
I took this course to fill in gaps, refine my skill-set and land a full-time coding gig. The curriculum was challenging but digestible. The volume of material was significant. This is not a casual endeavor. I juggled a full-time job and raising a toddler. There were many late nights and dark times but Flatiron folks were there for me.
I did land a full-time gig before graduation, during the COVID lock down. I kind of lucked out, I was finishing my final project and hadn't fully ramped my job search up yet. The position was presented by my career coach, and seemed to be a good culture fit for me, so I applied. I do live in Seattle, a tech hub. The career coaching was informative, supportive and valuable.
Overall this was one of the better educational experiences of my life. It just worked for me. It was a good blend of prescriptive exercises, open ended portfolio work and support. Flatiron folks just seem to care and are interested in your success. -
Mike Diaz Verified via LinkedIn
A worthwhile endeavor
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I wasn't sure what to expect coming out of Flatiron School but I can now say that I have the skills to fully build and deploy web applications (if relatively simple ones). Beyond that, I am confident that I have the skills to learn what wasn't covered in the curriculum and keep up with the ever-changing world of technology. I am now more self-reliant and am a better learner, which makes a world of difference. -
Fernando Verified via GitHub
Best Option to Transition into DS
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I had a fantastic experience at Flatiron that ended up in me receiving two job offers two days apart, a month after my graduation! They provide the necessary structure and resources to ensure your success in this field. I agree with some reviews that you could self-teach this material, but that is true for everything. The value of this bootcamp relies on these critical elements: - Its structured and comprehensive data science curriculum,- Interaction with seasoned mentors (technical coaches) as you learn the material,- Vetted outside resources to deepen your knowledge and understanding of the content on your own,- Relevant projects to build your portfolio,- WeWork membership to have a space to study and network, - An educational coach that sees to your well-being,- A community of fellow students willing to lend a hand and share experiences,- A career coach that prepares you and guides you through your entire job search, and- Access to career events and employer partnerships.As you can see, you are not just paying for the material, which you could access for free in many ways. You are paying for an entire support network and a whole learning framework that, in the end, will increase your chances of success and minimize the time it takes to transition into this growing, lucrative, and exciting field. -
Logan Verified via LinkedIn
Data Science
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Being part of the first on-campus DS cohort came with its bumps, but that was to be expected. Overall I really enjoyed my time at Flatiron and it prepared me to land an entry level DS role. I would recommend learning a lot more SQL, because a lot of entry level jobs require a lot more than we learned. I would highly recommend Flatiron to anyone looking to make a career change or better their DS skillset. -
Alison Verified via LinkedIn
Worth it- UX Design
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I just accepted an offer to my first UX JOB! I really would recommend this program but be aware.... you will need to hustle and work VERY hard to get a job, breaking into UX is no joke. That being said, Flatiron has given me all the tools to succeed: great curriculum, amazing instructors, awesome projects to feature in my portfolio (one is which with a real startup), and I can't speak highly enough about the career services. I highly recommend the in-person UX Design track. -
Fahima Hyder Verified via LinkedIn
My life has completely changed
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I joined the inaugural Data Science part-time bootcamp in October 2018 and finished in September 2019. Brace yourself, the program is no joke. You will be banging your head on a desk for the next year. If at all possible, join the full-time program, you're learning a new language and it's important that you dedicate as much time to it as possible. However, if that's not possible for you (like myself) the part-time program is still great burt requires waaaaaayyyy more discipline as it is all online.
They provide you with a mentor/instructor, a life coach, and a wework membership. You might think having a life coach is silly but lemme tell you, I would've dropped out of the program without Katie McKenna's encouraging words throughout the program. My mentor. Jeff Herman, is the f***ing best. All of our 1:1 meetings were super helpful. He does a great job at explaining any piece of code that isn't making sense and then providing you with extra reading material so you can really lock it in.
Career services was also super helpful. They keep you on a track with a schedule and secure interviews for you that might otherwise be hard to get. I accepted an offer for a full-time job in under three months through a company that Flatiron School hooked me up with.
It's not all rainbows and daisies though. The nature of the tech industry is that you have to teach yourself to teach yourself. Don't expect anyone to hold your hands through this program. Expect to spend a lot of time on Stack Overflow and wondering why you're inflicting this type of torture on yourself. Reach out to your cohorts for support. Reach out to your mentors as often as you need. Getting through this program has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, but don't forget they're not kidding when they call it a 'bootcamp'. Good luck!
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Haley Verified via LinkedIn
AMAZING Career Services
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I attended Flatiron School's online, full-time software engineering program without any prior coding experience. I completed the program on-time, in six months. I received a job offer after five weeks from my official job search start date!
Flatiron School's career services are amazing. My career coach was extremely helpful in reviewing my resume, talking through my job search strategy, providing constructive feedback, and giving me advice regarding salary negotiation. In addition, the job search prep lessons I was given access to upon graduation were extremely helpful and comprehensive. I highly recommend following the number of networking outreaches that Flatiron encourages you to do every week of your job search!
As an online student, I never felt isolated due to the various channels Flatiron provides to get involved in the community, including Slack and Zoom. It helped to have face-to-face interaction with people throughout the week via Zoom, including weekly standups with my cohort, bi-weekly lectures, and weekly one-on-ones with my technical coach. If you get stuck on a lab, you can ask a question on the Learn platform and receive prompt responses from technical coaches. The WeWork Hot Desk membership eased my transition from working in an office five days a week to being an online student.
Overall, the online curriculum was well done. The labs are designed to stretch your existing knowledge a bit further, which helps develop your problem-solving and trouble-shooting skills. I gave the curriculum 4/5 stars because it could be cleaned up a bit. For example, the order of the lessons seemed out of order at times. I noticed this mostly in the JavaScript and React/Redux sections.
Students have the opportunity to provide feedback about the curriculum, technical coaches, etc at the end of each section. I believe Flatiron takes this feedback to heart and is constantly trying to make improvements in order to provide the best learning experience.
I had a great experience as an online student at Flatiron School, and I would highly recommend it. Just be aware that it requires a lot of self-discipline, both during the program and the job search!
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Edward Beck Verified via LinkedIn
FlatIron. DS. I had a job within 2wks
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First and most importantly I started listening listening to the girls on the podcast 2 years ago and i loved listening to them. I was in the first DS cohort and it was pretty intense, i mean i only thought about DS for 14 months and i took about 5 days off where i didn't code or read code. I had a bachelor mathematics degree, that was getting a little stale and switched to a completely different field (environmental) however i had a job within two weeks after i had applied to 4 position. I also had 2 second in person interviews. My salary was increased substantially with the career change. -
Matthew Parker Verified via LinkedIn
flatiron = worth it
great instructor, good curriculum, lots of resources for graduates on the job hunt. Even though the program comes with a 6-month money-back guarantee if you don't get a job, it's not needed. With no prior experience I got a job after only 6 months on the job market.
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Carlos Verified via GitHub
SAY NO TO FLATIRON
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If your looking to self teach yourself and pay $15,000, then Flatiron is your school. If you want to learn the pure basics and then have to Google everything else, then say YES! Otherwise, this is school is an utter rip off. They don't have a plan, it is all lecture, and very little study time. You will end your day with daily challenges on topics you barely touched on. This is where Google comes in. You are told that in the real world, you will have to Google the answers so this is preparation. I say NO WAY! I am here to build a solid foundation and if I have to, research the harder bits. I am not about to GOOGLE the most basic tools of the trade. For that, I can stay home and take a less expensive route. APPLICANTS BE WARNED. Prepare yourself for an incredible bright future elsewhere.
Peter Barth of Flatiron School
Managing Director
Jan 14, 2020
Hi Carlos - Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. We take this feedback incredibly seriously, and we're sorry your experience was not what you expected. We work closely with our online and on-campus students to ensure they have the support they need from instructors, coaches, and community. Your experience is not what we want for any student.
We're incredibly proud of our graduates, our community, and our jobs placements, but are always striving to make Flatiron School even better. As we do, we'll be referring to this feedback. If you'd like to speak directly or in any more detail, please always feel free to e-mail me directly at peter.barth@flatironschool.com -
Alison Golden Verified via LinkedIn
Full Time Software Engineering Online
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Flatiron School was the most challenging yet rewarding expereince Ive had in life. The highs and lows are real. There were days I thought about giving up, I thought I couldnt make it through, I thought maybe this wasnt for me. Yet I kept showing up, putting the time and effort in, taking advantage of the excellent help of technical coaches and tech leads...and after 5 months I graduated. I think the cirriculum and technical assistance is top notch at Flatiron. It wasnt until maybe a month after graduation that I realized all of the information floating around my head finally made sense. It all started to fall into place and I could see clearly the effectiveness of the Flatiron cirriculum. It no doubt teaches you what you need to know to be valuable in this industry. I can proudly say that two months after graduation I received my first ever Full Stack Web Developer job offer. I am excited for this new journey and thankful to Flatiron for the dedication to excellence and providing such a truly robust program as well as an amazing experience. My advice to all who are considering is this:
1. Be prepared to put the time and effort in. Some weeks I spent more than 60 hours studying and coding.
2. Take advantage of the Ask a Question and meeting with your Cohort Lead and join the Study Groups. This is where I feel I learned the most.
3. Dont give up. We all doubt ourselves at some point. Whats important is to stay positive, keep showing up, learning and doing what you can. -
Keith Burgie Verified via LinkedIn
👍
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Before Flatiron I'd had several years of experience working as a front-end developer and previously paid for education at a community college and through Harvard Extension School. I had known of bootcamps for a long time and not had much interest or belief in them. But, I was hitting a plateau in my particular niche and within 48 hours of seeing a Flatiron ad on Facebook or Google, I was all in. For me, with mostly HTML and CSS experience, I could tell that this program would fill foundational gaps in my programming knowledge and teach me to use the hottest library in town: React.
The Good
The program really did provide me with everything that I hoped it would and brought me to a level I don't believe I could have acheived on my own. I had several interviews before landing a job, and in the final, live, 90-minute code test, I was tested on everything I learned at school and nothing that I had prior knowledge of. This was hugely gratifying because 1) it confirmed that I had been taught the right way to do things and 2) that any of my classmates who were making complete career changes could also have passed this test. It is not an easy program to get into or to complete, but if you can do it, it really means you have the skills to do it professionally.
Tuition
This will apply to any bootcamp, but really do the math on tuition options. The $15,000 price tag turns into something like $21,000 if you take their loan. On their income share agreement webpage it says "With Flatiron School, you’ll never pay more than 1.5x the ISA portion of the tuition amount." 1.5x is A LOT more than 1x and you're on the hook for 48 to 96 months (8 years), depending on the loan option you take. Read all the fine print.
Career Services
I felt that the career services were a little bit over-sold. I don't live in the city where I went to school, so maybe I had a different experience, but I expected Flatiron to actually provide more job leads than they did. I got a handful from them, but I live in Virginia and the opportunities were in places like Florida, Texas and Ohio.
Mock-technical interviews were handled by a third party and none of my classmates had a good experience with them. We all had our asses kicked by questions that were over our heads. I'm a good developer and I was rated a 2 out of 5 in this interview. A classmate, who was the first or second best programmer in our class was similarly crushed, and we all walked away feeling very discouraged about our abilities and hireability.
The career coaching aspect was good. My coach gave good advice and helped me plan answeres to questions that have been historically difficult for me. The résumé help is also very valuable.
Caution: The Money Back Guarantee
When you officially declare your job search after graduation, you begin working off a spreadsheet with specific requirements for networking and continued education. The requirements are signficant and if you do what they say for 6 months, you'll almost definitely get a job. However, if you miss a single checkbox for a single week of that 6 month period, you are out. There is a lot of legalise on their money-back page (https://flatironschool.com/career-services-commitment/) and I have no doubt that if I had followed the procress for six months and not been hired, they would have found some bullet point on that page that would take away my refund.
You're going to work hard after graduation. Think of this as a 25-week program and not 15. If you 100% follow their process you will get a job, which is great because if you 99% follow their process you won't get your money back.
Overall
Flatiron was definitely the right program for me, based on what I had to learn. (It may not be that way for everyone, so think about what you actually want to do.) I came out with the skills I wanted and made great friends. I expect that my 4 months at Flatiron will stay will me for the rest of my life.
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Jeremiah Tabb Verified via LinkedIn
Unbelievably Transformative Program
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The Flatiron School will change your life --- if you put in the work. They hire Incredible staff, support your learning with fantastic materials, and work alongside you after graduation to keep you motivated. The entire environment is designed for your success, but as with many things in life, nobody does the work for you.
A year ago today, I was a senior music composition major in college crying over my grad school rejection letters --- this morning, I signed an offer for a full-time C# position. This mind-blowing transition is all thanks to the incredible instruction I received from the Flatiron School in Denver.
If you signup and put in the work - you will be exposed to a neverending world of learning, and given the tools to explore. The skills you learn at this school make any technology and concept possible for you to master - only for you to shift into learning something else.
I would recommend this school to anyone who is very motivated to make a career switch. It will be hard, sometimes very hard, - but the outcomes speak for themselves.
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Roysan Easo Verified via LinkedIn
Flatiron is the best for a reason
This place is amazing. I had Joshua Miles as my instructor and he is the best instructor I've ever had. I learned an amazing amount in such a short time. Thanks to Flatiron, I will be starting a job with a better salary than I've ever had and a career that I really enjoy and care about. If you have the funds or are able to get loans for this program, it is VERY worth it.
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Luis Hong Verified via GitHub
My experience at Flatiron Software Engineering Immersive Program
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First thing I want to say is that enrolling in the Software Engineering Immersive program at Flatiron was the best decision I had made in some time.
I found the course to be challenging and I expected as much; but I am not saying that the course being challenging is an aspect to deter anyone from taking it. Parallel to the difficulty of the course, there was my enjoyment of understanding a topic, which is mostly due to the amazing help I received from my instructor and coaches.
Instructors, coaches, and staff
I value a lot the initial efforts made by the school during the first week in order to break the ice betwen the members of the class, both for students, instructors, and coaches. I feel that it did have an impact on starting the social interaction more smoothly, and creating a friendlier environment.
The school hosts a great place of learning for people of all degrees of familiarity with coding. I was able to feel that I could make mistakes in front of anyone and ask about it and get positive feedback.
Curriculum
While I learned more code than I could have imagined, not everything can be covered, that would be impossible. Considering that each module is three weeks long, I would argue that what students can do at the end of each mod is impressive; it does highlight how well curated and presented the topics are. Needless to say that there has to be some will on the students part.
Job Assisstance
Both my career coach, and the career prep track were extremely helpful. The career track has important information on how address interviewers, good interview practices, good habits to keep after graduation among other things.
My coach was great in guiding me with a mock interview and preparing possible responses to some common questions. Also feedback on body language, speech speed, diction and articulation of ideas. Additionally, she advised me on useful mindsets to have when interviewing and overall job searching.
Overall Experience
I am glad that I pushed myself to to go through the course. I am grateful to everyone who I met and contributed to that journey. Even though I had to repeat a mod; I still found the same support to continue. Hopefully, what I just said made some sense, and helps someone to make a clear decision.
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Dan Kagan Verified via GitHub
Graduate of Immersive Software Engineering - Washington, D.C.
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Flatiron School totally changed my life in a lot of ways, I not only gained the tangible coding skills to be a developer, but Flatiron achieved their goal of getting me to a confidence and skill-level in my coding where I can go off any learn any language, framework and software system via research and practice. To me that is the biggest technical gift that I walked away with.
In addition, I would not have been able to complete the course if it were not for the incredible coaches, lead instructors and fellow cohortees that all made up the Flatiron community day-to-day.
Flatiron's curriculum not only gets you to a level of coding and understanding where you can build a beautiful, full-stack, ReactJS-RoR site, but they teach you the fundamental parts of programming that allow you to be adaptable outside of JavaScript and Ruby.
The program is definitely intense in terms of the volume of work that you are expected to complete, but within the first module, most students got comfortable with understanding how they learned the material best and could adjust their schedules accordingly.
As a new coder, it is very easy to explore the internet and find people who are extremely passionate about certain ways to go about learning how to code, what's most important. Examples like "Python HAS to be your first language in 2020", which are completely BS, but not obviously so if you are a new developer.
Flatiron surrounds you with professional software engineers throughout the program who not only reassure you that statements like the one above are non-sense. But they also help you understand being a good person and teammate is when it comes to coding. No company nor any development team wants to work with people who are selfish about their coding knowledge, aren't team players, or are just jerks in general. But you can certainly find a lot of those people spouting their "wisdom" online.
There's something to be said for a former senior software engineer looking at your cohort dead in the eye and saying "You are developers." Imposter syndrome is an enormous reason why people quit teaching themselves how to learn coding, and Flatiron does an excellent job to help people navigate all of the technical AND emotional questions that arise through a developers coding bootcamp journey.
I am forever grateful for the people who I met at Flatiron!
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Dario Spina Verified via LinkedIn
Dario
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I am very glad I changed my career and I kind of went by with a lot of things. But the course is quite bad, run by instructors with not much experience, in an environment very hostile. I have seen many stories on their greediness. Many people who thought they were not able to make it and wanted to leave in the "free to leave" two weeks were convinced to stay and then left by themself totally behind. I swear out of 20 people of my cohort all of them wanted to leave negative feedback but they were afraid the post-job assistance would not provide anything in that case. I was also told that explicitly from Oliver Beach after I argued that we could leave bad reviews if not listened on some basic needs we had (he was the former campus director) who was fired (or as he preferred to say, left to focus on his project) after I reported the event to NY.
Peter Hardwick of Flatiron School
Director, Student Relations
Oct 29, 2019
Hi Dario,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We apologize for your experience - that’s not up to our standards of always striving to create an open and collaborative learning environment for our students.
We take this feedback seriously, please reach out to me directly at Peter.Hardwick@flatironschool.com.
Thank you,Peter Hardwick - Director, Student Relations -
Naomi B. Verified via LinkedIn
My Honest Review According to my Experience
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I completed the Web Development Immersive Program at the Access Labs Brooklyn Campus which offered deferred tuition. It's very misleading that the program is called Software Engineering Immersive when their content is web development. I can honestly say I enjoyed the time I was there there, but my overall experience is a bit of a mixed bag.
About the deferred tuition...
So it's completely irrelevant to my overall experience but I am grateful that Flatiron has offered this option for those who can't afford to pay the tuition upfront. You can only qualify for this program if you are making under 30k. I am a bit disappointed that once you finish, it's not an option to make over an X amount of money to start paying off the tuition. After my 3 months grace period was over after graduation, I had to pay 10% of what I earned at my part time job (During the program, I was still working part time). I thought it was a bit unfair because I was making very little at the time. I heard from a friend who attended a bootcamp (one that I won't name) that after completing and once they earn over 40k, that they will start to pay back the tuition.
In other words, once you get a job (or if you already have a small part time gig to support yourself for the time being) it doesn't matter how much you make. You got a job, now it's time to pay them back. That sort of aggravated me on my job search but on the flip side, they're lenient to you if you don't have the funds. This was something I needed to rant about. I know it's in the contract about the payment but it definitely peeved me.
The Curriculum
The program is meant to prep you on how to build your own website using a Ruby on Rails backend, and a JavaScript and React frontend. You learn everything online from Flatiron's learning platform, Learn. You are given readings and labs for the night and the next day, the instructor talks about it the next day. That is when you can ask questions to clarify while the instructor talks about the material. The readings will also throw in some extra resources for you to read about if you want a more deeper understanding.
What I didn't like about the curriculum:
- It wasn't very self-sufficient. Most of the time, I found myself reviewing material outside of Flatiron's learning platform to understand it
- Some of the topics on the learning platform were not introduced or taught in lectures
- ie: There was a section on object orientated javascript that was lightly touched in lecture but we never see ever again and is not required when we code
- We were taught the basics but I felt like I didn't have a strong grasp on the foundations of either JavaScript or Ruby
What I did like about the curriculum:
- Application- being able to build something from scratch
The Instructors
In my first week at Flatiron, I was given the impression that the instructors and teaching assistants really care about you and your growth. To be honest, they really do. They're open to any questions you have and that's what they're there for.
My only complaint is this one instructor who told us that we would receive limited help in order to be more independent. I get that being self driven is super important in the tech field but at the same time the learning process of asking and understanding is just as important.
Job Assistance
Once you reach towards the end of the program, you're assigned a career coach to help you along your job search. I really like the idea of having a coach to support you and give you advice during your job search. Your coach is always there if you need to ask questions or draft some emails to potential employers. In addition to that, you receive a Career Prep course on the learning platform. You're also given an excel sheet to keep track of blogging, networking, and coding.
Honestly:
- I found some of the readings for the Career Prep to be useful; I still ended up reading external materials
- It's a plus that Employment Partnership for Flatiron connects you with multiple opportunities
Overall and Advice
There are things that I personally liked:
- The amount of support you receive from your peers and instructors
- You get to meet amazing people with different backgrounds and experiences
- The friendly and open environment
What I felt was lacking:
- It did not really teach a strong foundation for JavaScript and Ruby
- There was no foundation in teaching computer science topics, algorithms and data structures
- No logic but pure application
Some Advice
If you really want to attend Flatiron, I'd say go for it. But I suggest you really grind on some computer science topics, master a language, get into theories, algorithms, and data structures for a year or two. I feel like Flatiron is the next step after you learned a chunk on your own. It leads you to apply everything you learned and continue going forward. Stay hungry for knowledge (advice from one of my teaching assistants), be curious, and always ask why.
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Cris Verified via LinkedIn
What to Expect: Outcomes & Experience
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About Me
- Graduate of the Full Stack Web Development on-campus immersive course, 2019
- Found a Full Stack role (React and C#) with an above-average salary 4 months after declaring a job search
- Bachelor's degree in a non-traditional background (not tech-related)
The Flatiron Experience in a Nutshell
Expect Flatiron to prepare you to be a shoo-in for an internship, to land a lower-paying full-time gig after some additional self-directed study, or to obtain a higher-paying role after some months of dedicated study.
The Good
- Knowledgable instructors who cared about my success
- Inclusive, fun and supportive culture in a fast-paced, immersive learning environment
- Gained practical industry skills for a solid foundation
The Not-So-Good
- Flatiron is not (at this time) set up to bring graduates' technical skills up to par with industry expectations for higher-paying full-time entry-level roles
- Career support did not provide even the most basic job-search optimization tactics
What You Can Expect
I loved my Flatiron on-campus experience. But after graduation, I realized I wasn't prepared to reach my personal career goals and expectations without months of additional study.
Technical Expectations
In my job search, I've found what I learned with Ruby, Rails, SQL, Object-Oriented & Functional Programming, JavaScript and React/Redux are no doubt essentials for grads looking for Junior Engineering positions; But that isn't all you need anymore.
Instructors expect interviewers in 2019 to ask us questions like the FizzBuzz problem. That may have been the case 3 or 4 years ago, but with so many bootcamp grads getting churned out the bar has been raised much higher. In interviews, I was asked to create algorithms implementing data structures including linked lists, binary search trees, heaps, stacks & queues and sometimes even graphs. To land a job at a top company like Hulu, Amazon, Facebook, etc. you need a solid understanding of system API design (I believe this will soon be the norm for less prestigious companies as well). Regardless of what may be advertised online, Flatiron does not teach data structures or system design.
Career Support Expectations
My career coach gave some solid advice on cultural interviewing. However, through my own study, I found there are a lot of really cool ways to optimize your job search that Flatiron career counselors should be sharing with their grads. I really could have used a job-finding expert on my side. Flatiron has a partnerships team that sends mass referrals out to graduates, but most of these were for low-paying contract work.
I met with my counselor almost weekly at the beginning, but most of my one-on-ones felt a lot more like emotional support meetings than focused tactical strategy sessions aimed at getting my resume in the hands of decision-makers and nailing the interview. The great news is you can check out the resources listed below to fill in those gaps.
Is Flatiron For You?
All things considered, if you're a dedicated self-starter willing to put in the hours after graduation Flatiron could be an excellent option for you. I know grads from other noteworthy bootcamps experiencing similar struggles, and some that didn't have a positive on-campus experience. Flatiron can help get you where you want to be, but you have to set yourself apart from the thousands of other bootcamp grads looking for the same job opportunities.
Resources
Technical
- Leetcode (consider the premium option. check out the problems broken out by data structure)
- Data Structures & Algorithms Masterclass (JavaScript)
- Grokking the System Design Interview
Job Search Optimization
- Cold Emailing
- Mail Merge
- Clearbit Connect
- Hunter.io
Pete Barth of Flatiron School
Managing Director
Oct 29, 2019
Hi Cris,
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. We're incredibly proud of our outcomes and the way we help our students break into the tech industry. We are always striving to make Flatiron School even better.
If you'd like to speak directly or in any more detail, please always feel free to e-mail me directly at Peter.barth@flatironschool.com.
Thank you,Pete Barth - Managing Director -
Jack Ling Verified via LinkedIn
Amazing experience. Never looked back.
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Flatiron's bootcamp prep work really helps you understand the basics of coding. It's also useful to see if you truly enjoy coding and solving problems or not. The interview for the bootcamp will obviously be daunting as it would be your first ever coding related interview. I would advise to stay calm, understand what you have written and explain why you chose to write it that way. Once in the bootcamp, you're greeting with the amazing and lovely instructors and staff. The first week or two will be difficult as you as have to adjust to the bootcamp as well as learning LOTS of new concepts. Some of my classmates did not come from a STEM background and they have all successfully found jobs after graduating - though it does make it easier if you're from a technical/STEM background. Make the most of your time at the bootcamp as you have lots of support from peers and instructors and coaches. Ask meaningful and thoughtful questions. That being said, do not overwork yourself. Sometimes taking a break is what will help you solve your coding problems. I believe that Flatiron School has a great curriculum and really pushes their students to learn how to learn in the world of programming. I'm happy to say that I was able to find a job after graduating - my next goal is to dive deeper in the computer science aspect of coding and hopefully one day be able to mentor the upcoming junior developers. -
Raquel Verified via LinkedIn
Access Labs Review
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I attended Flatiron x WeWork's Access Labs in Brooklyn from October 2018 to February 2019. My experience there was overwhelmingly positive. From staff to other students, everyone behaved professionally when communicating with each other and everyone was always very supportive through the experience.
You will definitely learn everything they promise as long as you put in the effort to learn. A lot of learning comes from their Learn.co website that you can try out through their free bootcamp prep course, it's very helpful in my opinion. After doing the readings and labs there are lectures where the instructor will go over the material you read about and piece everything together for you and students are able to ask questions (or if you're me and a bit shy, ask your questions after lecture directly with the instructor, nothing wrong with that).
The immersive course was definitely the way to go for me, because I wanted the experience of learning and programming with other people. The people who were in my cohort became some of my best friends because we struggled together, cried together (I cried, a lot), laughed together, ate lunch together, and even got jobs together. It actually gets lonely after you graduate from the program because you go from seeing your cohort-mates everyday to once every few weeks or not at all.
When I was being interviewed for this program I asked my interviewer how he was able to get through an intense 15 weeks of learning to code and he told me, "Make friends with your cohort and you'll always want to go back". What he said stuck with me and really did keep me going in every day.
As for job assistance, they provide career coaches for everyone who graduates. Mine was an awesome, super supportive mom-like lady who helped to keep me on track in my search and prep me for my interviews. Career services also provide you with a career fair, which is actually how I got my job. At the career fair you can expect to interview with 2-3 companies who are looking to hire. It was mostly cultural interviews, but I also had one technical interview at the fair with the company who hired me, so it's good to be prepared. I graduated in February and received my offer end of May (though I start end of June), but there are others who find a job quickly after graduating and others who are still doing their best on the job hunt.
If you're looking for a supportive, welcoming, professional environment to learn how to code and also make less than 30k/year then Flatiron's Access Labs is the place for you.
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Peter Traversa Verified via GitHub
Community, Communication, and Learning
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I had been working in Client Service roles for most of my career. After working with a developer team at the last job I was on, I was inspired to start pursuing a developer career. After a company re-org, I was let go, and decided to begin down a path to a new career. I did a significant amount of research, and after everything I read online about Flatiron, and talking to a few recent grads, I pulled the trigger and applied.
The baseline level of knowledge to know before entering the program was daunting, but it was reassuring to know that my cohort would be past the basics, and would be learning code at a higher level right from the beginning.
I was excited right from the beginning to challenge myself at a high level, and was immediately impressed by both the knowledge of the instructors and coaches and their level of care and compassion in an otherwise intense environment.
I survived the program, made life-long friends, and began my job search in November. I was recently hired into a finance-adjacent firm. I'm a working developer, and couldn't be happier about my decision to attend the Flatiron School. I believe that the skills I learned at the school made me a stronger learner, coder, and communicator, as well as problem solver. -
Jesus Escalona Verified via GitHub
Best experience I've had in my life.
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Flatiron School helped me gain the expertise and industry knowledge I needed to become a Software Developer.
The curriculum is up to date with the latest technologies, they teach everything from beginner to advanced in a period of 4 months, and I'm not going to lie, the whole course is very intense and challenging, so be prepared to study and practice non-stop.
The best thing about Flatiron School is its people; teachers, coaches, managers, and its students too! They are the most amazing, cool-headed and diverse group of people I've met so far.
Support is top-notch, everyone was very attentive and care about your code, best practices, and even if you are going through a hard time, they will listen and help out in any way they can. They are people too and they have been on the same path you are now.
Career services did an excellent job, the put your affairs in order and push you to the stratosphere of job hunting, you just have to follow their lead, and do what they say, trust their team of expert coaches and give it all you got.
Overall, there's still a lot of good things left to say. If you are looking for a Bootcamp that can help you launch yourself to the moon, you are in the right place. In conclusion, its definitely worth the sweat, tears, and money.
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Marissa M. Verified via LinkedIn
Veterinary Nurse to Software Engineer
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If you would've told me 1 year ago 6 months ago I'd be where I am now, I don't think I would've have believed you. I started Flatiron in October '18, graduated in January '19, and found a job that I LOVE in exactly 2 months. I came from a totally different background with NO prior developer experience and am now thriving in an incredible new career. I know it sounds crazy and too good to be true, I was completely skeptical at first too... but ask any Flatiron grad and they'll agree - this school is unique and really gets you where you need to be. They teach you what you need to know to land your first dev role and support you in a way that will feel like a second family (in fact I still spend time with a lot of my previous instructors and cohort-mates). I encourage anyone who's scared or unsure to at least give it a shot - try the free pre-work material and go to some of the events they have - see for yourself what it's like. It was seriously one of the best decisions of my life and I would recommend Flatiron school to anyone.
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Kay Verified via GitHub
Hard work but worth it
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Overall I am really pleased with my decision to go to Flatiron, without it I would not have been able to change my career and get a job in a relatively short timeframe, it would have taken me years if I had taken a purely self-taught, self-directed route. It was a fantastic and supportive environment with brilliant instructors.
I will add the usual caveats by saying that the course does ask a lot of you - I think I averaged 60+ hours a week in order to keep up with the pace of material. At times it was frustrating, there were tears, coding til 1am. Going in you should be prepared that it's not about going there to sit and be taught, you do need to supply your own motivation, though that's the same with any bootcamp. If you are motivated and are able to dedicate the time to complete the course, you really can change your life.
Like any bootcamp this is just the beginning, in order to continue as a developer you need to keep learning. The career support you receive afterwards also really helped to support me through the process of getting a job, which took just under 2 months after graduation.
I would advise any potential applicant to check out the free bootcamp prep course, which prepares you well for the style of labs throughout the course.
To be balanced, I would say some cons of Flatiron are that you don't have a guaranteed job after and the requirements to be eligible for the money back guarantee are quite stringent. Also the mod 3 and mod 4 labs are not quite as strong as those for mods 1 and 2, I think the curriculum team are working on it though.
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Emily Nielsen Verified via LinkedIn
Flatiron helped me get a 60% pay increase!
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My situation was a little unique in that I was living and working in DC, but knew I was going to move to Miami soon to be with my new husband. I decided to quit my job, do the in-person immersive program, and then move to Miami and search for jobs there, and it was the best decision I could have made for my career! Flatiron helped me move from a $50k/yr job to an $80k/yr junior dev role in Miami.
I definitely recommend going into it for the right reasons. Try something technical and see how you like it. Before I applied, I tried Flatiron's free online bootcamp prep course, which is how I discovered I really liked learning about code. Something employers look for is passion for code, so it's important to actually like coding before you start.
During the program: the experience was really amazing. I bonded really well with my cohort (50% male/ 50% female) and got a scholarship for women in tech. The instructors were very understanding, knowledgeable, and always wiling to help and mentor students. They all come from tech backgrounds, so they can tell you what it's like in the industry too.
After the program: The career coaches are very knowledgeable, encouraging, and keep you accountable in your job search. Since I was job searching in a new city, my career coach was a huge resource suggesting lots of job search activities.
Overall, a great experience and the results speak for themselves!
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Jessie Huff Verified via LinkedIn
Excellent Experience
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I did the online Full Stack Web Development program at the Flatiron School, and like any online program, it had its positives and negatives. On the positive side, I do think that the school and the instructors genuinely care about the students and helping them as much as possible. The focus on labs, projects, and practical application was a good approach though I'm sure that there are ways to improve the currculum which I believe they regularly do. While taking the course, they released a number of additonal lessons, edited lessons, etc. It felt like they were constantly trying to stay current and improve what was there. Getting help on the labs were relatively easy through the "Ask a Question" portal, and they did their best to encourage collaboration and helping others. The projects they had me do were immensely helpful in actually understanding the concepts, and they gave me a great portfolio to use when looking for a job. Employers constantly asked about these projects, and they made me feel more confident in my abilities.
However, like other students have already said, it is what you make of it, especially with online programs. It is self taught and self led so that has its own set of challenges. You definitely have to be self motivated so if that is something that you struggle with, you may want to do an in-person class setting. Another area of weakness they had was support for the projects which I've actually talked with them about in trying to improve for the future. When I went through the program, there was only one instructor for each section project so one person had to handle anyone who was currently working on that project which made it nearly impossible to get much help from them during the project. Some instructors were extremely helpful, and I had one that was borderline nonexistent in terms of responsiveness. Hopefully they'll fix that in the future and make it a little easier to get help when that channel fails during projects. There were study groups that we could attend, but they were meant to be led by students' questions and sometimes that was a struggle (sometimes we didn't know what questions to ask- we just weren't as comfortable with that particularly subject material). I do think they've been extremely open to feedback though, and I've had multiple people talk to me about how they can improve and how Flatiron can improve.
In terms of after the course, I thought my career coach was excellent. The coaching I got completely changed my perspective on networking, and I just had a coworker call me a "master networker" because of the things I did with Flatiron after graduation. I was always open with my coach about the ups and downs of job hunting, and I really feel like I was given the push I needed to put in the work and find an absolutely incredible job. (They also helped me draft anything I was nervous about sending ahead of time, and they help you practice with mock interviews.) Some days I can't believe that I work where I do, and I wouldn't be here without Flatiron so I'm pretty grateful. I don't know if you'd get quite as lucky as I did with my awesome career coach, but when my first coach ended up leaving (her husband got a job across the country), my next coach was just as great so I'm pretty confident that they have incredible career coaches if you're willing to work with them and be open.
Overall, the program has its ups and downs, but it led me to where I am now, so for that, I'm really grateful that I went to the Flatiron School.
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Sav Verified via GitHub
Great Option Depending on Your Situation
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I think that Flatiron School can be a great option for getting into Web Development. I did their self-paced online course and got a job within 2-3 months of graduation. The experience is probably very different if you are taking an in-person course, but as for the online course, it's what you make of it. When I took the course (I believe its different now), you paid monthly, so the faster you got through the course, the less money you paid. This was very motivating for me, I was able to finish in just under 4 months, but I was easily studying 50 hours a week. With the new system, you will pay more, but you also might not have as much pressure to rush through things and may take a bit more time to dig into certain topics.
All-in-all, I think I made a great decision. With scholarships, I was able to finish in >4 months and pay >$3000. I've been at my job now for about 2 months working mainly in php but also some javascript and although there are plenty of times where I have no clue what I'm doing, I think that's just part of being a web developer and I now have the skills to figure out how to do these things on my own.
