AnonymousFreelance Web Developer • Student • Professional Certificate in Coding: Full Stack Development with MERN • Online
Apr 10, 2022
To get a better idea of the current situation of this Bootcamp click the box to read the reviews of MIT XPro Bootcamp by "most recent first." You will notice that most of the bad reviews are recent. There is a reason for this. I am about 2 months away from finishing this slog of a Bootcamp. Here is my experience:
Prior to enrolling in the MIT xPro Bootcamp, I had taken a coding bootcamp with SheCodes (highly recommended). With SheCodes, I learned HTML, CSS, JavaScript, responsive ...
To get a better idea of the current situation of this Bootcamp click the box to read the reviews of MIT XPro Bootcamp by "most recent first." You will notice that most of the bad reviews are recent. There is a reason for this. I am about 2 months away from finishing this slog of a Bootcamp. Here is my experience:
Prior to enrolling in the MIT xPro Bootcamp, I had taken a coding bootcamp with SheCodes (highly recommended). With SheCodes, I learned HTML, CSS, JavaScript, responsive development, and React. Enough to start freelancing as a web developer. I should have just taken what I learned with SheCodes and made projects and a portfolio and started applying for jobs. But, instead, I thought I needed a "full-stack" experience and I trusted MIT to deliver that.
Both SheCodes and MIT are pre-recorded video lessons with help available via Slack (SheCodes), a forum (MIT), or email (both). The differences are that MIT is a graded course and is structured more like an online college class. New work is released every week and you have one week to finish it and turn it in for grading. You cannot make up late work. There is no feedback provided for your weekly work. Most of the work is on a sandbox platform NextTech which has its share of issues and is notorious for having bugs and rejecting good code and passing bad code. Because of this, you had no idea if what you turned in was actually good or not (no feedback). The only feedback you receive is for your portfolio projects (there are 3 of these) and this is the one (and only) strong part of the course.
SheCodes on the other hand had soft deadlines. You could finish work on your own time, but you could get extensions if you needed them. You received feedback on your work and if you did a good job, you passed on to the next portion of the class. No grades and lots of support. You leave SheCodes with some great projects for your portfolio. So in a way, MIT and SheCodes are similar...pre-recorded video, independent learning, making projects for your portfolio. Looking back, I learned much better with the SheCodes method and I would have saved thousands of dollars if I hadn't been so sold on the idea of moving on to a full-stack bootcamp with the MIT name. Having had a great experience with SheCodes, I was shocked at how poorly the MIT course was put together.
Here is where the MIT course gets VERY stressful. Because work is graded (you must achieve 75% to pass the course and receive a certificate) and there is a hard due date, you are dependent on timely support to learn the material and turn it in on time. This makes the performance of your official "learning facilitator" extremely vital. Your learning facilitator is the ONLY actual live human who helps you during this course. The MIT professors show up on pre-recorded videos only. There are other people who are "support" staff available via email but they often just refer you back to your learning facilitator. The week's graded work comes out on a Thursday. Our learning facilitator was only available to meet us live online on Tuesdays. The work is due Thursday morning. So...if you struggled with any part of the course, you only had a day and a half to get help and then hopefully complete your assignments correctly and turn them in. If you missed the live help (office hours) then you had to wait for the recording to be posted which usually happened the next day (giving you less than a day to finish all of your work). And there was a lot of graded work. Way too much to do in one full day. Hope you don't work on Wednesdays! You'll need that whole day to do a week's worth of work.
Well...that's stressful. But, wait there's more...
This is where it is important to note that most of the poor reviews of this bootcamp are from the most recent cohorts. The main reason for this is that most of the pre-recorded content of the class (the part with the MIT professors) is now outdated. As the course itself states "software changes rapidly" and in the last two segments of the course, you can count on most of the instruction to be almost useless since all the steps they are demonstrating no longer work. The frustrating part of this however is that you have no idea whether your code isn't working because of a small error on your part or because they are having you code with outdated methods. You will spend countless hours trying to figure out if it is you or the course. Then Tuesday will roll around and you will finally get your answer that "oops, that instruction is outdated" and by then you will only have one and a half days to do it all over again with the proper instruction and turn it in for grading.
The career support is just a series of pre-recorded videos about making your resume and portfolio. Nothing that you can't find for free on YouTube. In my own experience, I wouldn't have passed this class (due to the issues stated above) if I hadn't already taken the SheCodes courses and knew my way around Google and YouTube to find free content.
In the end, having the MIT name on my CV will be a nice parting gift, but if I had to do it again, I would not pay nearly $7k for this poorly designed and delivered course. I am a former teacher and there are so many ways this course has failed basic instructional design and pedagogy methods. Save yourself lots of money and look into Nucamp or SheCodes. I have a feeling that most of these college-affiliated courses are the same. And your experience and success in them will be entirely dependent on that one human who is employed to actually help you learn.
If the content of the MIT course was up to date, then we could have handled a poor support system. If the support system was robust and available when we needed it, then we could have handled out-of-date content. But, give us out-of-date material and poor support, and you have 32 weeks of frustration, little learning, and the MIT course in a nutshell.
Erin Rosenblatt of MIT xPRO | Bootcamps
VP of Professional Certificates, Emeritus
May 05, 2022
Hi MIT xPRO participant,
We’re sorry to hear that this program didn’t meet your expectations. Our mission is to help you build the skills you need to take your career to the next level. All our programs undergo thorough review for content quality and rigor, and the Next Tech tool is consistently updated when changes occur to code bases and exercises need to be updated. Students are also able to get extensions whenever they request them. While this is a self-directed program, all participants have access to personalized support and live office hours sessions, and it sounds like you may not be taking full advantage of that support. Learning facilitators are not just available on Tuesdays; you can message directly via Support anytime to request help. We also provide career coaches and success coaches who are available for 1:1 appointments anytime. We encourage you to reach out to both your learning facilitator and student success coach with your concerns. You may also contact
mit@emeritus.org to discuss how we can improve your experience and help ensure that you achieve your learning goals. We appreciate your feedback, as it helps us improve the experience for all future learners in our program.
Thank you,
Erin Rosenblatt
VP of Professional Certificates, Emeritus