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Flatiron School offers immersive on-campus and online programs in software engineering, data science, cybersecurity, and product design (UX/UI design). Flatiron School’s immersive courses aim to launch students into fulfilling careers by providing a robust career services framework and dedicated one-on-one coaching post graduation that is included as an added value with the tuition.
The application process asks prospective students to share a bit about themselves and what is driving them to start a career. The process includes speaking with an Admissions representative in a non-technical interview to allow for the opportunity to get to know each other better in a friendly conversation. Applicants will also need to complete a 15-minute critical thinking and problem-solving assessment afterwards. Applicants will receive an acceptance decision from Admissions within 4 business days of completing the assessment.
Flatiron School’s Career Services team provides weekly 1:1 career coaching sessions, mock interviews, and access to an extensive employer network to help students launch fulfilling careers in tech after graduation.
Flatiron School powers the Access Scholarship which invested $1.5 million into the futures of more than 500 students across all of Flatiron School’s campuses and online courses in 2020. The Access Scholarship opens doors for aspiring innovators who may have experienced barriers to education. To build a more diverse and inclusive tech community, Flatiron School has awarded over $10 million in scholarships for women, minorities, veterans, and other underrepresented groups in tech.
Flatiron School was one of the first bootcamps in the industry and a pioneer in providing 3rd party examined job placement reports. Read their full independently-examined jobs reports at: https://flatironschool.com/jobs-reports/
Alright, to start off, I am about half-way through the Online Part-Time Software Engineering Bootcamp at FlatIron School so this review is based on my perspective of the Online program only. I had intended to write this review at the conclusion of the bootcamp but given the current state of the coding bootcamp industry and of Flatiron, I decided it was worthwhile to post my opinions now. I do intend to either edit this review (or write another one) when I finish the course but I think th...
Alright, to start off, I am about half-way through the Online Part-Time Software Engineering Bootcamp at FlatIron School so this review is based on my perspective of the Online program only. I had intended to write this review at the conclusion of the bootcamp but given the current state of the coding bootcamp industry and of Flatiron, I decided it was worthwhile to post my opinions now. I do intend to either edit this review (or write another one) when I finish the course but I think this review has some merit and is worthwhile at this point.
Another important point that I think is important to state before I begin is why did I decide to write this review? As unbelievable as it sounds, I am doing this purely as a 'Pay It Foward' gesture. I do not work for a competitor bootcamp nor am I being paid by Flatiron (or anyone else for that matter) to write this review. Before I joined the Flatiron program, I scoured this website (and others) in search of legitimate, unbiased reviews that seemed to give an honest, realistic perspective of the program and I would have loved more than anything to hear an opinion from someone who's currently in the program like myself, so here it is for all your critique/learning/enjoyment.
So to start off I'll tell a little bit of my background as a web developer. Before starting Flatiron I had no formal education in computer science or web development. I took an undergraduate college course in Turbo Pascal back in my college years and prior to beginning Flatiron I took a few Code Academy courses in Ruby, HTML, and CSS. But I would not say that I was at all knowledgable about programming or web development before starting the Flatiron program. And after about 6 months of Flatiron, I definitely feel more knowledgable and skilled about the subject but that doesn't mean all is roses and daisys.
I'll start off by summarizing the good's and bad's of Flatiron's Software Engineering program and then elaborate a little more afterwards.
Pro's:
Con's:
So let me elaborate a little more about of the Pro's of the program. First, the curriculum is quite strong. By that I mean it has decent examples, explanations, and the labs do a decent job of testing your understanding of the material. Even though there are lots of little bugs scattered throughout, it's still manageable to get through them. Having someone to ask questions to when you get stuck is almost priceless (it may make the difference between you giving up completely or pushing through it). Flatiron has established itself as one of the veteran scools in the coding bootcamp industry and has a great marketing team focused on getting their name out there.
And now for the Con's of the program. Firstly, at $17,000 - $18,000 (which is the current cost of the Software Engineering Program now, I think), I expect the quality of the curriculum and the entire program to be much higher. While the curriculum material is decent, I just personally dont think it is worth what they are charging now. For the cost of the program now, you could nearly get a degree in Comp Sci from a fairly reputable university. And while Flatiron will say that their program gives you a better ROI than a college degree given that you finish it in much quicker than a full-fledged degree, if you can't find a decent paying job after finishing the program then it kind of defeats the purpose. The technical coaches that are supposed to be there to guide you through the program have very limited knowledge (and extremely limited real-world coding experience) many times. A large majority of these coaches have only really mastered the labs (because they did them when they were in the program themselves) but when you ask them basic theoretical programming questions outside of just the obvious answers to the labs, you can see them struggle hard. You will find that there are a few really good technical coaches that understand programming concepts really well and can convey them but the large majority of the tech coaches will have mediocre knowledge (at best) and are not really qualified to teach you any fundamental programming concepts. It really boils down to the old adage of "you get what you pay for". It's hard to entince anyone with a strong knowledge of software engineering & web development to come work for you for pennies and no benefits, so they aren't able to attract the talent that is desperately needed.
On that same note, one of the frustrating things that I have encountered in the program is the fact that when you do utilize the tech coaches to ask a question, the wait times can be frustratingly long (and by that I mean 30min - 1hour). This may not seem like a big deal but when you have 4-5 questions per lab that adds anywhere from 2hrs - 5hrs to your studying time and these labs can easily take 2-3 hours a piece even if you don't have many questions to ask along the way. Also, I've noticed that some of the tech coaches (who are being paid to tutor you) seem to have a bit of arrogant attitudes at times and will make you feel dumb at times for asking a question. There definitely seems to be a real lack of quality coaches as well as a lack in leadership put in place to manage this whole process. And at $17,000, I just personally expect higher quality in terms of mentors.
The last point to discuss in my lengthy discussion of the Con's of the program is regarding the projects. You will have 4 projects throughout the entire course and each one is supposed to test your understanding of the concepts of the section you just completed. While this sounds great in theory it doesn't necessarily add up in execution. The biggest problem is the lack of technical support and feedback during the projects. Firstly, you are not allowed to solicit help from the technical coaces for your project (they will literally tell you that they cannot assist with any project related questions). Secondly, after you've spent countless hours and nights pouring your heart and soul into the project and are finally ready to present it to the project reviewer that they've assigned to you, you will only get ~30 mins max (if you're lucky) of that person's time to actually look at your project. And out of the 2 projects I've done so far, the feedback that I received during my project review was very minimal at best. Basically you will get little to no constructive feedback on your project, there will be little to no code 'refactoring' during the review, and you will probably feel shafted after you've poured your heart and soul into this project only to realize that the person reviewing it has little to no interest in what you actually did nor cares to take the time to actually critique your work and help you improve.
The truth of the matter is that Flatiron is a for-profit technical training company. What this means is that their ultimate goal is to maximize the bottom-line and however that needs to be done is what's going to happen (and that almost always means not maximizing what's best for the students). This is obvious to see when you're in the program and one glaring example being the extremely long frequent wait times required to actually get a tech coach to assist you when you have a question. If they cared that much about their students' experience they would put more money into hiring more quality tech coaches. Also, the behemoth company formerly known as WeWork (now the We Company) aquired Flatiron back in 2017 and you can definitely see the negative effects of the changes in the vision of the school as well as the overall quality of it's offerings and culture. WeWork's (We Company) strategy is to grow as big and as fast as possible as a company as a whole, and that means buying up it's competition as fast as possible so that it can eliminate it. But the We Company is not a tech company (as much as their glorified S-1 would like you to believe). In reality 95% of their revenue comes from subleasing out office space (cowork space) in some of the biggest business oriented cities in the world. They are not a technical training (or education) focsued company but they decided to start buying online training schools (like Flatiron) because it fit their business model and they can also utilize some of the vacant rental space that they have and are struggling to lease out by allowing the schools to operate there. Basically it's an accounting game and if you read any of the financial investor's critique of their IPO (as of September 2019) you will see that there are a lot of fundamental problems with this company as whole.
So in the end you're probably hoping for me to tell you affirmitavely if you should join Flatiron or not, and unfortunately it's not that easy for me to do. I personally quit a highl paying 3-figure job before joining Flatiron and while I do like some aspects of the program, I do not necessarily feel that I'm going to easily get a job after finishing the course. I would say ultimately it boils down to your personal goals and situation in life. If you absolutely cannot go to college and have to decide between joining Flatiron or flipping burgers the rest of your life, well that decision is easy. If you're unsure if you really want to do web development as a career (or are just looking to add some skills to your arsenal) then I think there are a lot cheaper ways to learn web development skills than through Flatiron. You'll quickly notice that Flatiron tends to publish a lot of 'feel good' stories about individuals who generally don't succeed in obtaining lucrative paying careers in the general workforce and therefore these are the people who they try to focus their marketing efforts on. While there's nothing wrong with this necessarily, it does skew the picture quite a bit. The truth is that your success in finding a job (and starting your web development career) is going to depend mostly on your general intellect and problem solving skills, your ability (or lack thereof) to interview well, and how intellectual (or unintellectual) the person interviewing you perceives you to be. You will not get a job just because Flatiron recommends you for one nor will graduating from the school itself get you one. You're going to have to stand out amongst all the other applicants and the truth is that there are lots of coding bootcamps that teach almost identical skills to Flatiron.
So to end this review I'll say this, if you do decide to join Flatiron just be prepared for the problems & Con's that I mentioned in my review. And don't get your mind into a comfort zone thinking that the Flatiron curriculum alone will set you up for job success because it won't. There's a ton of other coding bootcamps out there today and unfortunately I do not have personal experience with them to offer a comparison but I would advise you to seek out alumni of those other programs to try and get honest feedback about the programs before making your decision, because with the costs that these programs are charging now, it's not a minimal amount by any stretch of the imagination.
P.S. I cannot review the Job Assistance section at this time since they do not "assist" you in finding a job until nearly the end of the program.
Description | Percentage |
Full Time, In-Field Employee | 72.6% |
Full-time apprenticeship, internship or contract position | 13.5% |
Short-term contract, part-time position, freelance | N/A |
Employed out-of-field | N/A |
How much does Flatiron School cost?
Flatiron School costs around $17,900. On the lower end, some Flatiron School courses like Data Science cost $16,900.
What courses does Flatiron School teach?
Flatiron School offers courses like Cybersecurity Engineering , Data Science , Product Design (UX/UI Design), Software Engineering .
Where does Flatiron School have campuses?
Flatiron School has in-person campuses in Denver and New York City. Flatiron School also has a remote classroom so students can learn online.
Is Flatiron School worth it?
The data says yes! In 2022, Flatiron School reported a 70% graduation rate, a median salary of $72,000, and 90% of Flatiron School alumni are employed.
Is Flatiron School legit?
We let alumni answer that question. 577 Flatiron School alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Flatiron School and rate their overall experience a 4.46 out of 5.
Does Flatiron School offer scholarships or accept the GI Bill?
Right now, it doesn't look like Flatiron School offers scholarships or accepts the GI Bill. We're always adding to the list of schools that do offer Exclusive Course Report Scholarships and a list of the bootcamps that accept the GI Bill.
Can I read Flatiron School reviews?
You can read 577 reviews of Flatiron School on Course Report! Flatiron School alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Flatiron School and rate their overall experience a 4.46 out of 5.
Is Flatiron School accredited?
We are licensed (or otherwise authorized) in various jurisdictions for all Immersive courses. See flatironschool.com for more details.
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