Flatiron School

Honestly I'm having so much fun going through this bootcamp prep course, that I feel like it's a disservice to call it a bootcamp or even a course. The material is challenging, but really engaging. I think I completed like 100+ lessons within a week, yeah I'm pretty hooked. If you find yourself stuck on a problem for too long, there's a robust community and easy-to-use platform to ask for help. Overall, out of all the prep courses that I've tried, this is probably by far one of the best ones. I hope the in-campus course is even better.

Best decision I ever made was completing the in-person program.

I freelanced as a web designer/developer for several years, and I hit a plateau on what I could learn online. I interviewed for full-time dev jobs and faced rejection after rejection. Everyone said my foundation was solid but I didn't have enough experience.

This was the closest thing to on-the-job training I could find. From Day 1 I was surprised to discover how little I knew about programming after all the Udemy-type courses I completed. Flatiron School exposed and then filled in the gaps.

Talking about code all day with other people of varying skill levels brought me from codealong/copy-and-paste type of programming to actual understanding and fluency. I learned how to learn about coding, which is a skill unto itself.

At Flatiron School I got experience working with other developers and reasoning about code. They taught us how to think like programmers, and then they provided effective resources for actually landing a job.

In my post-Flatiron job search I managed to completely avoid the soul-crushing trap of submitting resumes into the nether-world of online portals. They got me comfortable going to developer meetups, which quickly led to interviews and then offers. It wasn't immediate, but it was swift.

Oh oh oh- and on the job I accepted, their counter-offer was more than I asked for. Can't make that up. I'd say that probably symbolizes my entire Flatiron School experience.

The first significant thing that struck me while taking the Data Science Bootcamp Prep course was the way the instructor broke down complex subjects into their component parts and explained them in layman's terms. This, in my opinion, shows true mastery of the subject matter.

The second was the confidence and spark it gave me to approach and learn new things. When I began to understand topics I had previously found difficult to comprehend, I realized that with the right approach anything can be learned. This brings about a whole new outlook on life is my most valuable takeaway from my experience.

For anyone still on the fence about taking Flatiron's courses, I recommend diving right in. It is an awesome experience.

Though the lessons vary in quality, I was very happy overall with my Flatiron School experience. I got good value out of both the Bootcamp Prep and the Online Full Stack Web Developer course: with just my scholarship and a whole year of free WeWork hot desk membership, I actually came out ahead financially. Add on top of that the enormous value Flatiron School provides in terms of career coaching and, most importantly, training in how to work as a software engineer (it's not just about coding! It's also about learning how to talk about code, collaborate with others, decipher documentation, etc.).

OUTCOMES

I was able to land a job just a month after graduating - delayed only by the month-long vacation I took to celebrate my graduation.

Plus, Flatiron provides you with great resources post-graduation too. Graduates get free access to all their curriculums forever, not just the one you enrolled in. I now have access to courses on algorithms, mobile development, Java, node.js, and the ever-evolving curriculum on full stack web development.

CAVEATS

Note, however, that passing each Flatiron lab doesn't guarantee a job. Flatiron School is just the beginning of a lifelong journey of mastery. It's important to go beyond your current curriculum: do more than the bare minimum on final projects, learn about algorithms, learn about deployment, and to keep working on outside projects to practice coding, learn new techniques, and hone your problem-solving skills. Meet people who are already software engineers and ask them questions - sometimes the documentation for an API or library are wrong, leave out too much context, or just aren't written clearly.

Another way to put it is: you get what you put in. Flatiron provides resources, but as an online student with no one watching over you, you need to be self-motivated enough to actually use them and ask questions. The instructors available to chat online or through study groups and web conferences are all knowledgeable and friendly, but you have to reach out to them. They can't read your mind to know how they can help you.

COST

Of all the bootcamps I checkout out on Coursereport and Switchup, Flatiron seemed like it would provide the best bang for the buck. Caveat: I was awarded a scholarship that halved my tuition, drastically undercutting any of the other bootcamps I looked at, even if I qualified for any of their measly scholarships. I also preferred Flatiron's upfront monthly payments instead of what other school do, which is to let you pay nothing while you're in school but then give up 10-20% of your first 1-2 years' salary when you get a job. Yeesh. With the salaries I see in the SF Bay Area, it was cheaper for me to pay a max of 12 x $1500 (I was only going to give myself a year to finish) instead of losing 10-20% of what I expected to be a 90k average annual salary for the first 2 years of my career.

PEDAGOGY

I thought the amount of structure was just right. The lessons were modular so I could work around my full-time job and other obligations, yet regular check-ins, engagement strategies (like the "you're on a 10-day hot streak" notice on your dashboard), and of course, the pain of monthly tuition payments, kept me committed to finishing the course as fast as possible.

Some of the lessons can be cryptic - particularly the ones on React, Redux, and Closures in Javascript. But maybe that was intentional? After all, they want you to learn to use the docs - something you'll be doing a lot on the job (even the senior engineers still do it). Anyhow, I ended up doing some Codecademy lessons on React to help me get through the React section. Sometimes I just need to hear the same thing said a different way in order to really get it. 

As for their career prep, I loved my coach Shari! She was so friendly, compassionate, yet brutally honest like a good friend. She gave me just the kind of feedback I needed to polish my resume and perform better in my interviews. No one's ever told me what I could improve during interviews - HR never seems to never have time to explain why you were rejected. It was refreshing to finally get a thorough review from an HR pro with decades of experience.

CONCLUSION

Overall, I recommend Flatiron School to anyone that is...

1) looking to learn programming

2) and does not give up easily

3) but needs a little bit of structure to stay focused

4) and has saved up some money to invest in themselves

As with many other people, I had poked through a number of bootcamp preps, both in person and online, and gleaned useful knowledge from most of them, but none had the conversational tone and easy explication that Flatiron's Bootcamp Prep did.

Often times in other programs, I was told the how, but not the why, or introduced to concepts beyond my knowledge that were never given a context I could apply, but the Bootcamp Prep explicitly told me when it was mentioning ideas that would be important to know, but not of concern in this moment. This kind of transparency was incredibly useful to me; as sometimes I think it is hard for well-versed teachers to remember how little they might have once known and to explain in the bare boned way that might be necessary for a beginner.

I would recommend Bootcamp Prep to anyone looking for an approachable environment to learn, even if to simply try coding; there's no obfuscation or mystification, just pragmatic and helpful readmes and labs with readily available help should you need it.

I originally planned to attend the on-campus program in NYC, but I am very happy to have taken the online program route. I was able to follow the curriculum at my pace, and best of all, only paid $4,500 compared to the $15,000 if I would have taken it on-campus. The instructors and overall curriulum is outstanding! I went from having very little programming knowledge to being able to create a full stack website from the comfort of my home. The entire program took four months to complete, and with the help of their career services team, I was employed 1.5 months after graduation. Thanks to Flatiron School, I was able to transition into a developer and double my salary. It is the best decision that I've made, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in a coding bootcamp.

Flatiron provided me with the opportunity to change careers from marketer to engineers. The curriculum is well structured and the instructiors are patient, kind, and extremely knowledgeable. Most importantly, Flatiron's student body and culture is one of a kind. Over the course of 15 weeks, I became close friends with all the students in my cohort and I will cherish these relationships for the rest of my life. The career services team is also extremely dedicated to student success and my coach cheered for me during the job search. I found a job as a full-time software engineer 1.5 months after graduation and I couldn't be happier in my new role. Thank you Flatiron!

The Flatiron bootcamp prep course and the entire Learn environment, are flat-out incredible.

Truthfully, by all regards I’m a proper programming noob. I cannot speak as an expert, but can speak of my experience. My coding pursuit began a few months ago with Codecademy and Team Treehouse, which were wonderful places to get started. But if they gave me my first bike, then the Flatiron bootcamp prep course gave me the confidence to tear the training wheels off and start balancing and steering down the metaphoric code road on my own.

It’s not that Flatiron has secret information that others do not. It’s how they comprehensively impart the information in the lessons and then drop you into labs where you have to code your way out of situations. It challenges you to independently apply the information you’ve been learning. This deepens the retention of information and develops your creative problem solving.

The overall structure also has an amazing gradation. The successive lessons and labs continue to increase in difficulty, while also maintaining obtainability. It’s the right blend of giving you enough information, but not all information. This means you’ll inevitably hit a wall and be forced to google something, which helps sharpen your phrasing and ability to describe what it is you want to do. This practice is so important to develop for a beginner. For me, banging my head against a wall isn’t entirely fun, but the process of breaking through the wall and getting to the other side, is how you really start learning and experiencing genuine accomplishment.

The Learn site/Learn IDE, is where most folks work on the bootcamp prep course. In addition to having a terrific interface, where the Learn environment excels most is in its “ask community”. Pose a question and you’ve a near immediate response from a technical coach. The speediness of the response is only surpassed by the quality of help you receive. They’ll dive right into whatever’s vexing you, analyzing code snippets and providing insights, but never just capitulating to your learning pains and tossing up a solution on a silver platter. They will see to it that it’s you who arrives at the solution, with an understanding of how you got there. You can also get teamed up with a technical coach on a screen-share and have a true one on one session. This side of the bootcamp prep course is invaluable and truly sets it apart from other online coding courses.

They’ve poured so much into making this an exceptional learning experience, so the fact that it’s free is simply mind boggling.

I loved the Online Bootcamp Prep course. I had done some previous self teaching before I decided to apply to Flatiron full immersive bootcamp. I started the Bootcamp Prep and soon realized that I wasn't anywhere near ready for the acceptance interview. After going through the course I truly felt ready for the interview and comfortable enough to start an all immersive bootcamp. I went through the interview process and got accepted. Everything that was covered in the technical interview was part of the bootcamp prep so I think it's a must if you want to pass the interview. 

The curriculum and learning process were great. Super easy to navigate and very clear and to-the-point content. Keeping track of your progress was easy and the learning and streak meter made it very motivational. They even have their own IDE so everything is set up for you... all you need to do is write your code and submit to your github account with a click of a button. 

But the best part in my opinion was the help I received. If I got stuck I would ask a question and someone got on the chat platform within minutes. They won't just give you the answer but patiantly ask you questions until you figure it out yourself. Super helpful.

I will be leaving another review once I've gone through the all immersive bootcamp. 

I cannot stress enough how wonderful the Online Bootcamp Prep is. I was a full time high school teacher while I was taking the course and I found the pacing and scope of the lessons to be perfect. I could sit down and work on one or two lessons in the brief time I had and could complete them. These constant steps gave the course a sense of natural progression and gave me a sense of accomplishment every time I sat down to work. That’s not to say I didn’t encounter tough concepts or pieces that I had to take time to puzzle out, it simply means that I felt as though I was always moving forward in my learning.

The online support is perhaps the best I’ve encountered. When I’d hit something I just couldn’t sort out, the folks at Flatiron where there. Most of my questions where responded to by someone working with Flatiron within a couple of minutes and I often had others participating in the program reach out too. At peak time (2:30 pm EST) I had to wait about 3-4 minutes between responses and even then the person who was helping me was patient, wasn’t rushing me off, and let me work through and explain both my challenge and ‘talk out’ the guided solution so that I felt I fully understood the problem. As a learner, that is invaluable to me and I feel one of the greatest strengths of the program.

I would highly recommend this program for someone who is exploring coding as a career change, or someone who is curious about Flatiron and how they work differently than other coding bootcamp programs.

I was in a search of an online learning material for javascript. I was ready to pay for a couple of hundreds. I made my research on the internet and started the bootcamp prep courses of Flatiron School. It changed my mind totally. It was the best online material that I have seen to learn coding. Their platform is well designed and the density of the courses are very satifying. Online Community and instructors were more than helpful with remote desktop and live chat. After I finished 50 free chapters on javascript, I totally decided to go for a full bootcamp. The quality of the courses insured me that their bootcamp will be a challinging one which will qualify me for the career change that I was waiting for. Now I am registered to their software engineering immersive (in class) bootcamp starting in april. Wish me luck.