Flatiron School

I dedicated about 10 years to the motorcycle industry as a Mechanic and Service Advisor. The last 3 years or so, I felt the passion that I once had slip away but I just stayed doing it because I have a family to provide for.  I felt stuck in an infinite loop of misery and dissatisfaction. I had been listening to the "Learn to Code With Me" podcast by Laurence Bradford while on my way to work for about a year before I finally decided to take action on the ads that I heard for Flatiron School.

At 34 years old, I signed up to attend Flatiron in October of 2019, said goodbye to the motorcycle industry and did not give myself the option to turn back. My start date was December 9, 2019 so I had a month and a half to complete the pre-work that was due before the start of my first day. It was tough for me but I was able to get everything submitted the night before my first day of school. I would like to shout out my instructor, Antonio Reid, for inviting me (and everyone else in my cohort) to the campus a week before my start date to help me get unstuck with my bugs and show me some debugging techniques.

MY ADVICE TO NEW STUDENTS: I spent a lot of time taking extensive notes in an effort to make everything sink in. This helped a little but it got me into some serious trouble toward my start date and during the bootcamp. You don't have to memorize everything, you just need to know where to find the answers online. This is still true for me as I continue to learn new technologies.

I remember the first day of class very well. There were only three of us in the cohort probably because Christmas and New Year's Day were right around the corner. I figured that it would give me more time to study during the holiday breaks. The first Code Challenge was right before the breaks and I failed. I studied over the breaks, came back and passed the second code challenge. We started the project week and I felt so far behind the other two in my cohort (who had a background in programming) that I wasn't able to contribute. I was lost in their code and my instructor recommended that I join the next cohort (in three weeks) and complete another project on my own before then to cement my understanding. I created a Ruby Command Line Interface app on my own and it was a huge confidence booster. I needed this because I was starting to have doubts. Getting over this 'hump' was the hardest part of the bootcamp for me because of the doubts. Once I saw that I could do it, I gained a bit of momentum and made more projects that I am super proud of in Javascript and React JS.

YOU CAN ABSOLUTELY DO THIS TOO! If you just keep at it and don't give up, you will get there. Getting over the hump is the hardest part but you will get there.
 
The school feels fast paced and I was overwhelmed at times but it's supposed to be that way. I learned new things and implemented those new skills immediately. I learned how to adapt to the situation and deliver projects on time. I didn't anticipate that Flatiron would feel like a 'bootcamp' but it is. A mental bootcamp.  

My only regret is that I didn't do this sooner. I made lifelong friends at Flatiron and did things that I felt were impossible for someone like me to do. Was it hard? Yes, but in the words of Teddy Roosevelt:

"The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends themselves in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if they fail, at least fails while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Don't wait to Change Things.

I attended Flatiron School and would highly suggest self-learning over their program. The ISA loans are a rip-off, their program will not get you a job. I dropped out 3 months early and still owe the max amount for the loan.

The teachers were undereducated, the program was all over the place and the amount of work they gave fluctuated constantly, where you'd almost have a week off because they didn't calculate how long assignments would take, and then other weeks you'd have an impossible workload.

For anyone looking for a Dev/Design Bootcamp, I'd recommend looking into DevMountain or disciplining yourself to self-learn. All the information you need to succeed as a Developer or Designer is available online.

www.christopherkuchta.com

First of all, I loved my Flatiron Experience.  I went full-time online, I was involved, and I had the time to invest.  If you don't do well with fast-paced learning, or if you aren't able to comfortably reach out and ask for help, you may have a tough time with this bootcamp.  The content is put together well enough, but I recall several sections where if the wording didn't make sense, the only way to move forward was to group up and figure it out with the help of others.

They do a great job of easing you into Ruby and getting you excited about the projects and some of my classmates had some really incredible ideas for their very basic first module.  The course does get tougher rather than easier the further you go when you move over into Rails, Javascript, and the React Framework.  I'd lost about 40% of my classmates by the end of the 2nd module.  So don't waste your money if you don't plan to fully commit to software development.

You'll pick up a ton of coding ability and the ability to learn how to learn to code.  This allowed several of my classmates an advantage at picking up entirely new stacks after graduation and as they entered the workforce.  This does bring up the actual job-hunting/placement after graduation.  For the most part, the time-frames and salary expectations that Flatiron touts are really only relevant to people living in New York.  With remote work on the rise, that number is subject to change based on State and employer.  

As far as interviews go, the preparation leaves a lot to be desired.  Flatiron does a pretty terrible job at getting their students ready to tackle algorithm coding challenges and to practice the interviewing dialogue that most companies expect people to have mastered.  Several companies want that CS degree knowledge even if they don't require a degree for hiring.  You'll need to put in extra practice elsewhere to build these skills.

On the other hand, not all companies require these types of interviews and Flatiron actually does a great job at pairing you with some very experienced Career Coaches who stick with you weekly after graduation for up to 6 months while you are searching for a job.  They send out weekly emails with potential locations that are hiring or running meetup events to get your presence noticed and connections built.  They really emphasize a public online presence to help get you noticed and I found my career by having a LinkedIn profile that drew lots of attention.  My employer actually contacted me directly which was awesome.

Overall, Flatiron isn't for everyone, but if you're willing to commit, they offer a lot of resources that can help you be successful even if you don't agree with their entire curriculum.  For me, this was the exact learning environment I needed to be able to commit towards learning software development.

I was a student during the pandemic at Flat Iron School (FIS). Because of Covid19 related reasons and the state of my family I fell behind in a class. After seeking advice from the person in charge of my cohort (Sahid), they recommended me to move to another Cohort and assure me that there would be no other consequences but I had to start from day 1. Given my circumstances, although not very happy about it, I agreed. Soon after I received a message that I was removed from the program and that I owed 15,000 dollars! I reached out to admissions to see what was happening only to find out that, not only I was not part of the school anymore, but I was not able to apply the same way I did before (using the ISA), that I had to pay USD$ 15,000 and that Sahid did not inform me correctly. The person in admission Mr. Peter Hardwick said that the matter was going to be investigated. After a month of not hearing back from him I reached out to him, and he did not know who I was, even though I met with him through Zoom before, and I had to explain my case once more. After a long wait, and me having to reach out again because again, since they did not reach out to me. Me and Mr. Hardwick had a meeting in which he informs me that "In Sahid's opinion he gave you the right information". After requesting the transcript from chat me in Sahid had through slack (since I no longer ad access to tings related to school), Mr. Hardwick had the audacity to tell me that Slack does not save conversations! (Although I do use slack for work) Now, because of Flat Iron School staff's “advice”, I am in debt and not able to further my education. If like me you are also going through this please let get in contact. You can reach out to Felixataveras@hotmail.com.

Sometimes you have this dream you want to make it become true, but you will
Need good tools , the tools usually are good at the begining and start to go bad after a while but Flatiron isnt just a school, its a Family, they will go through everthing step by step
With you. I didnt have any experience in coding , so it was really hard 4months for me but it felt doable with Flatrion, they will provide anything you want . Just a quick suggestion for future students if you want to start any school study a little bit about coding to come in class with a background because the teachers are perfect but it will slow you down to understand some concepts and you will be behind, speaking of teachers , my Teachers were the best . I know everyone will enjoy this school because all the labs that they will provide you to learn more stuff are so fun and the topics are very useful.
Thanks Flatiron

I had an amazing experience at Flatiron School! I attended the full-time, in-person (on Zoom because of covid) Software Engineering course at the Washington DC campus. The course focused on Ruby, Rails, JavaScript and React.
All instructors and coaches were very helpful and always available to clear any doubts and answer all our questions. They are very knowledgeable and always made sure everyone understood the topics correctly.
Finally, the career service was very helpful! At the end of the program, Flatiron paired each of us with a career coach to guide us through the interview process. Each week I would meet my career coach for a 30min session to ask questions and discuss interviews.

I originally signed up for the in-person immersive program before covid lockdown in New York City, March 2020. Once we went into lockdown, we were completely remote and everything was done via Zoom.

It didn't quite change much except for the atmosphere (i.e., being at home and afraid to go outside).

I had to take a leave of absence for personal reasons and the rules were very accommodating. My point of contact, while super busy, always made sure he was able to answer my questions and/or follow up with me.

The instructors ability to adapt to the now remote intensive environment was amazing. Not only did they find creative ways to help us, they also found ways to become EVEN MORE ACCESSIBLE to us, probably even more so than the normal non-covid-lockdown in-person program.

Shout out to Tashawn Williams for being super creative and always finding better ways to make things click for us.

The Career Services part of the program was helpful with its guidance and education. However, I think they could have provided more examples of "proven resumes."

Another thing I found in my own job search was that I realized (personally), I needed to find a job with little regard to position or company since I'm a parent. For me, finding a job and starting my experience right away was more important than anything else.

Networking, Blogging, and continuing my education on my own are all still extremely important -- but I actually did apply to many companies. I had two different types of resumes: 1 for job scanners for online applications and 1 for "humans" which I through together and designed according to some proven examples that were passed my way. I also had a 3rd one that a designer friend of mine created that was also amazing.

In all, it was a great experience.

I was a restaurant manager with little to no coding experience before finding the Flatiron resources online.
Instructors, coaches, and campus staff are there to help you, but if you don't reach out to them don't expect them to come to you. There is a lot of work and most times it can be very stressful. The school gives you lots of rope to handle the work yourself, but if you can't manage your time effectively you might struggle.
The career services department was helpful only after about 4 months of job searching furiously. I was a little disappointed to see there wasn't more support outside of the general job searching advice.
Overall, I landed a job just inside of 6 months after graduating which was the goal, so I would call my experience a success. However, I know a lot of people from my cohort that are still searching with no end in sight.

I went through the immersive software engineering program at Flatiron from April -July 2020. We had a very unique experience as we were the first cohort to go through virtual immersive learning at the Houston campus due to Covid. Even though I was concerned with missing out on quality instruction, I have to say that I was wrong. We had top notch instructors every step of the way who were more than willing to help us in any way possible. I will say, for me, the instructors made all the difference. There is no way that I could have learned all this material on my own in such an efficient manner. Our instructors were always prepared, challenging, and extremely helpful. They had been in the industry for a long time and knew the material very well.   We had five “Mods" that built on the principles that we learned in the previous Mod. At the end of each Mod, we had a code challenge that we had to pass within two tries to make sure we could move onto the next Mod. The challenges were tough but with enough preparation and practice, very possible to pass on the first try. I would say it is helpful to make sure to do your labs, ask questions, and attend every lecture. You will definitely get out of this bootcamp what you put in. So, making learning a priority will be the biggest determinant if you will succeed in such a difficult program.    After bootcamp is over, you do have access to a career coach. My career coach has been wonderful and has pushed me to keep pursuing leads and opportunities. Even though covid is making the job search more difficult, I am certain the skills I have picked up during bootcamp will be a tremendous benefit for my career long term.