Pursuit

I mean, I guess I'm a graduate? Upon completion of Core, we never received certifications, achievements, degrees OR ANYTHING THAT SAID 'HEY, GREAT JOB LEARNING THIS SKILLSET - HERE'S WHAT WE PROMISED YOU ON THE BOND YOU SIGNED'

Instead, we had a 'end of year project' basically where we demo'd an app to a group of about 100 pe & CRISP.ople (on good demo days) that we spent 8 weeks creating. Flawed in it's own way, mind you.

I saw someone mention about faculty changes - & absolutely. Once certain employed individuals realized exactly who they worked for & how exploitative their employer was, all the poop hit the fan in plain sight. On the other hand, anyone who was qualified in their position & spoke up about what they saw, Pursuit management let them go because 'how dare you' - & still smiled in participants' faces like everything was COOL & CRISP.

There are so many annoying parts to this business - because it's 'not a school nor a bootcamp' [a direct quote from an employment manager who is directly under the founder] who fronts like a non-profit - BUT INSTEAD their 'philanthropy' claims to get loans from investors & once the 'participants' because fellow, builder, whatever title they give you is just a label to make you feel like you belong somewhere - when the real word is slave.

They sell minorities this rainbow-esque story while 'trying to keep it real' and for so many the opportunity was the best they had , a chance to put their best foot forward, a hope at leveling up.

Pursuit sells - at this point sold, because there's 0 way after 2025 to ethically keep those doors open unless you literally don't care about your brand (also, they've changed the name of what they call themselves/offer at least 3x already) hope. And if you're gullible enough you will certainly fall for it.

I haven't even gone into detail about any of the minutes that really trigger and infuriate individuals who were involved & quite frankly, I shouldn't need to.

Management is hanging by the thinnest of threads & have no solid direction of how to properly bring to fruition what they are attempting to. If they hired the people who had the success they wanted instead of taking international trips & trying to keep it in the family, they MIGHT have stood a chance. But nope, they wanted bias in management & submission from applicants.

Don't even bother to try again because this stain on humanity & shame on your families won't go away with bleach. This karma is well deserved. I do hope valuable lessons are learned though.

Oh- another note. There are opportunities for internships and students at colleges all over & to name a few, student memberships on amazon, spotify, apple music, coursera, some ai tools - & so many of them do not recognize Pursuit as a school. It is a hard fight for a participant to obtain student memberships through ask and paperwork. You had to hope someone saw value in you & cared about your needs.

So thank you for your time and ears/eyes


The AI-takeaway aka TLDR

🔑 Core Issues Raised in the Review

1. Lack of Certification or Acknowledgment
    
   • The reviewer states that after completing the program, they received no formal documentation recognizing their skills or accomplishments.
2.  
   • This is particularly concerning given the promises often made by career-training programs, especially those linked to income share agreements or job placement support.
3.  
4. Poor Capstone Project Experience
   • Final project (“end of year demo”) is framed as underwhelming and “flawed,” which points to inadequate support or structure for capstone outcomes.
5. High Turnover & Toxic Management Culture
    
   • Qualified staff were let go for speaking out.
6.  
   • Accusations of management being fake or dishonest while creating an exploitative environment.
7.  
8. False Marketing & Exploitation of Minorities
    
   • The strongest accusation: that Pursuit presents itself as a philanthropic opportunity primarily to underrepresented communities, while allegedly operating with exploitative practices.
9.  
   • Use of words like “slave” and “gullible” underscores feelings of betrayal and manipulation.
10.  
11. Brand Inconsistency & Lack of Direction
     
    • The company has allegedly rebranded multiple times, possibly to evade accountability or refresh its image.
12.  
    • Claimed lack of strategic vision or coherent leadership.
13.  
14. Failure to be Recognized as a Legitimate Institution
    • Platforms and services (Amazon, Spotify, Coursera, etc.) don’t always recognize Pursuit as an educational institution, making it hard to access benefits typically granted to students.

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Poorly managed and executed admission process. I made it to the info session about AI native program. The presentator told us it is not a coding bootcamp, he knew nothing about coding himself before completing this program, and now is a rock star in prompt engineering ! What I also disliked is that the payment system is deeply concerning—exploitative toward students from lower-income backgrounds. After a 2 month of Ai litteracy they will make you sign the Pursuit Bond Commitment and then make you build for Jobs AI. No it is not a garanteed position in a company ! You will have to sell yourself, your portfolio to companies ! I made it to the second interview on March 15. I made it on time. A flock of other candidates were waiting at the lobby and the receptionist gave us a quick rundown on the next step : the AI workshop. We then went to a room where interviewers were sitting at several tables dispersed neatly in symmetrical rows. My interviewer asked me several personnality questions, also about who is my most favorite leader and how I would estimate how many coffee shops are out there in NYC, provided that I have no access to internet and no knowlegebase,  but absolutely no questions about coding, machine or reinforcement learning or tenserflow or even how I use AI, or how was my assignement ! And by the way I have built a website where I have put my assignement  report, and they probably didn't even look at it ! Moreover after that interview a week passed with absoltely no feedback from them ! The only email I got was saying since i have a no show they will remove my application ! I went to their office with the prove that I went to the interview, I emailed also and they told me that the AI workshop week got postponed ! Few hours later I receive an email saying that after careful consideration of all submissions, we made the difficult decision not to move your application forward to the Recruitment Workshop stage. The selection process was highly competitive, and we had to make tough choices among many qualified candidates. No transparency on what are their requirements, this company is fishing with a huge net to bring whatever from the streets, spends so much time and effort filtering whatever they get in their nets and after spits out out expeditiously ! They should be more honnest and display the requirements upfront not to waist people's time and effort ! My advice - there are far more better ressources that can give you a technology edge to be your own boss and build business with AI ! You don't need to pay 15% of your hard earned money for a shady predatory bootcamp designed to take advantage from poor slaves ! Maybe because I am not one that they didn't take me ?  Read less

The Brain Child of Harvard Grad Jukay Hsu, Overall Pursuit, is a great idea!

But...

Though Pursuit seemed to have worked for many of the cohorts, I come to you as one for which it did not.
I feel as though I have fallen through the cracks. Yes, I was able to complete the course but I did not retain much of the information which I attribute to both myself (for we always have a part in everything in our lives) for allowing frustration to get the best of me but I also attribute it to the teaching method that Pursuit chose to employ.

I came to Pursuit excited but quickly found myself frustrated and left hanging as the pace of the course, the teaching style, and the inflexibility in how the course was taught, particularly the way in which my questions were handled when I had problems understanding the material (which were never directly answered but we'll come back to that) were never sufficiently answered.

As for the method I spoke of earlier, Pursuit seems to use a method called Productive Struggle which in part seems to employ teaching not by showing you what to do but by showing how something works and then putting a difficult problem before you and having you figure out the solution. Hence the "Productive Struggle".
The real frustration came when I had a question and was unable to solve a problem. My questions were met with questions that continued until the point of frustration and which for me, made it so that I was actually less productive and found myself shutting down and less enthused about learning.
If you are a product of rout learning...get ready for a rocky ride because this ain't that. You'll in essence have to do sh*t load of figuring sh*t out on your own.
I brought this to the attention of the staff but it seemed to fall on deaf ears.
At any rate, another thing I experienced was the cliques that formed.  Those that knew more tended to gravitate toward one another (as human nature would dictate and though Pursuit did their best to prevent it ) and were less amenable to working with or helping those that didn't quite catch on as quickly.

I can go on but that's the gist.

Now, funny enough, and contrary to what I just wrote, I'd still suggest this program but with the following caveats.

If you're considering Pursuit and are at all Computer Savvy, as in you have some understanding (some real understanding) of a coding language, by all means, give Pursuit a shot.

Otherwise, I'd strongly suggest you go to Codecademy.com and get some basic understanding of the following, and do not take any of them lightly!
Though you will be taught to work with others, Rely on no one, and be prepared to help others.  I'm not saying there won't be people that are willing to help but just be as prepared as possible and come with as much knowledge as you can before joining.

Things to focus on
Javascript (Strong Focus)
HTML
CSS
Sequel
Express (Strong Focus)
React (Strong Focus)
Data Structures and Algorithms (Strong Focus)

GOOD LUCK AND BE READY TO CRACK YOUR HEAD OPEN Read less

Attending Pursuit's Full Stack Development course was a demanding, but rewarding experience. It was a difficult program, but there are many helpful people who helped me to learn - from helpful instructors, teaching assistants, and classmates. I felt I completed the program with the skills to get a tech job.  I also like the fact that Pursuit's founders and workers actively foster hiring partnerships with top tech companies and organizations. They also provide career coaching for graduates.  So those of you who find breaking into tech intimidating, take heart. You won't be doing it alone at Pursuit. You will have mentoring/coaching in addition to learning skills to build your technical career.  Read less

In the process of looking at software development I look at multiple programs and came across Pursuit. From the outside looking in, I was very skeptical about a program taking a novice like myself and turning me into a software developer. What stood out however was the culture to be around Pursuit. Looking back as a software developer, and one year of intense studying I can say the culture is what makes the difference. Embarking on this journey is never going, but they try to make it manageable. The staff wants you to succeed everything day. There is help from instructors to other fellows, alums and other professionals in the industry.  Read less

What is Pursuit? Pursuit is a community of people that strive to train and prepare people in the most need for careers in tech. I can't speak for other bootcamps, but Pursuit isn't really a bootcamp. It's a long-term intensive program that feels like more like a community than a bootcamp. What makes Pursuit special is the community and care that everyone has for each other. The space is set-up in such a way that you feel like your home away from home. At Pursuit, you learn more than just technical skills you also learn professional development that is just as essential in the workplace. And the most important thing is you are not forgotten after completing the curriculum. Pursuit actively partners with tech companies to get fellows jobs. I would join Pursuit if you want to transition to the tech field and I would also recommend Pursuit for people that went through College and feel they didn't get enough real world hands-on experience building products. If you are an hands-on learner that loves to learn by building projects and actively using your skills than Pursuit is the right place for you. Read less

1. They have continually changed the terms of their ISA for students and alumni, according to how much debt they're in to their investors. The contract would hardly hold up in court but they use shady means to pursue students who are not paying, including harassing other students they are friends with.
2. They're not an accredited educational institution and encourage students to use certain language on their resumes to avoid the tax burden of being such. Students are told to list themselves as employees and call themselves "fellows". An actual fellowship involves being paid, whereas at Pursuit you give a portion of your pre-tax income to the school.
3.  When Amazon announced HQ2, Pursuit dropped any pretense of supporting affordable housing at the proposed office site, and went so hard in support of the new headquarters that they joined in signing an open letter, published by the NY Times, begging Bezos to come back.
4. So detached from the BIPOC community they claim to serve that they held graduation ceremonies on the 1 year anniversary of the Pulse shooting, which killed many Latine people. 
5. When they received a 2 million dollar boost from Google last year, they announced they were prioritizing growth and "financial literacy" about their ISA -- not helping students and alumni with better services. Many of their students are very poor or even homeless. 
6. "Helpful" alumni services are only available during work hours (9-5, weekdays). Pursuit treated it as ridiculous to suggest that they offer alumni services before/after common work hours, or on weekends, even though those services are ostensibly for people with tech jobs that are notorious for demanding overtime.
7. Next to no assistance finding a job afterward. They talk up giving students an education from scratch, but they only care about getting jobs for the most likely students, aka white men with tech degrees, and whoever else they feel would make for good inspiration porn.

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Pursuit does not have a license to operate a school. That means their curriculum, their teachers, their student handbook, income sharing agreement, and enrollment agreements have not been approved by the NY Education Department. An important regulation is banning arbitration clauses from enrollment agreements. Pursuit definitely puts arbitration clauses in agreements so they can limit any recourse students have when there's a problem at the school. 

I would upload a photo but I can't. Next best thing is this link: https://medium.com/my-experience-with-pursuit/dont-join-pursuit-b9f2ec02d4d7 Read less

This place is going down fast. Pre-COVID, they were barely providing adequate learning and getting their grads hired. Now, COVID is exposing all their weaknesses. They didn't have enough donations coming in to maintain the program and the pandemic is making that worse. They furloughed a lot of the staff and cut the pay of the rest. They cut off all alumni from all career services because they are running out of money to operate. Only currently enrolled students are receiving services. So Pursuit promised career support that they couldn't actually sustain. It's pretty obvious this place was barely operating in the black. Now they're deep in the red.

If this place decides to switch to remote learning, my advice to potential students is DON'T DO IT. I went to in-person classes and I could barely get help when I needed it. It's going to be worse for remote learning because it will be easier for Pursuit to ignore you. The ISA was not worth it before and it definitely will not get your money's worth now. Read less

This is a review from an applicant that was accepted but ultimately turned it down.

The process starts off by submitting an online application. Which to their credit it pretty thorough. They want people who take their time with answering questions. I remember my answers were a paragraph per question. Then you get an email for a testing day. On the testing day you take a 45min logic test, then you are interviewed by two people in the tech industry. They ask you a few questions about your background and why your interested in tech, if your a very tech person. I talked about loving call of duty and using google maps as part of my daily life. They then follow up with a logic test you have to walk them through as your trying to solve it. If you make through that, you are then invited to a two day, 8 hours a day, boot camp, where they give you an introduction to the basic of JS. You work in pairs and groups most of the time, and they give you a assignment to do at home in between days. After the 2nd day of coding , they give you a test to see how much you’ve learned. It’s not graded but I think they want to see how well you are at retaining information. You then get a follow up email thanking you for your time etc. once accepted, they send you every detail you need, including the ISA( income share agreement). That’s where they break down EVERYTHING. THEY ARE NOT PLAYING WITH THEIR MONEY. They have different sceneries of what’s to happen if you get a job, lose a job, promotion, bonus,  everything for 3 years, and that’s where they lost me. I was seeing posts about you could pay upwards of 30k, which is a realistic figure considering out thorough they are, and that wasn’t something I was looking forward to considering I’m raising two kids and every dollar counts. 

Overall, it was a good and fun experience. They are extremely nice, and encouraging. There are a lot of options with boot camps now a days, all I can say is do you hw. I am currently in one, which I get 1-1 mentorship with someone in the industry, so it really depends on what your looking for m and what your planning on doing after graduation. Read less

My experience in the coding program at Pursuit is mostly positive. The instructors are knowledgeable, patient, and committed. They gave us feedback on our code and really try to push us to succeed. The staffs are also supportive and helpful. Be prepared to work really hard in order to succeed in this program. Software development is a job that requires you to find resources and learn on your own, even after the program ends. Just doing the bare minimum won't get you far. You really have to be fully committed. I really appreciate that Pursuit hosts professional skills workshops weekly to help us prepare for interviews, DSA questions, and code challenges. These skills helped me land a job, right when the Core program ended.  Read less

There is no set curriculum for this program and classes/instruction are created on the fly. Pursuit's only business model is to steal your money. That 12% pay it forward plan is pre-tax and can be upwards of $1000 from your paycheck every month. There have been students struggling to pay this off and Pursuit has just sat there threatening to sue these students. DO NOT GO HERE. There are plenty of bootcamps in NY that have the same pay it forward plan that aren't trying to run you dry of thousands of dollars for years. Take the positive reviews on here with a grain of salt. There are definitely staff members writing fake reviews trying to delude readers that Pursuit is a legitimate establishment. Read less

• not a safe space--they allow sexist people to enter and no training on social awareness or sexual harassment 
• the organization only sees students as money, they do not help previous students
• staff is not diverse
• staff is extremely understaffed so they do not care about you and the 4 years of career advancement after graduating is a disappointment because there is none! 
• when students cheat they lie to other companies about their capabilties
• the staff ignores students who are sexist or racist because they do not care or know how to handle it
• at the end of the job hunting process you are by yourself

all the "good" reviews are asked/begged from staff to students

please go to a better boot camp this is not worth your money. pursuit is not a real bootcamp, there is no license or cerfication at the end. 

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This experience was pretty humiliating, after losing relationships, money, sleep, other opportunities on a promise, you are mostly ignored if you are not a top performer from the onset. Staff will use you at will to continue to sell the organization to vulnerable people, all the while being super secretive about next steps in your existing relationship with the organization. 

 

It's a super hostile environment for no good reason and can get unbearably uncomfortable. I have second thoughts and regrets and I do feel like they pulled a big one over on me and my classmates.

 

Someone on here or yelp mentioned the google forms. GOSH the google forms the bane of a pursuit students enrollment. Oh how they use google forms to decieve partners and fellows!

 

 

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Honestly, it was the most exhausting 10 months of my life. Quality of education varies between nights and weekends vs day time students. Students confronted staff about this over and over and we were basically shrugged off. The ISA is a sham. If you already have student loans from pursuing a college degree or have any other significant loan payments or debt already attached to your name - don't come here! Their agreement is incredibly predatory and immoral. They claim to want to help those from marginalized communites rise themselves up and out of poverty - but not before getting their cut to pay off their debt to their investors. They're relying on applicants to overlook the fact that they want 12% of your annual salary AFTER taxes. So they want a percentage of your income that you don't actually take home. It's a huge hit to your wallet and there is no bootcamp on EARTH that is this much money. It really isn't worth it. Teach yourself, go to meetups for networking, you don't need Pursuit. They're scam artists masquerading as a non-profit.

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Beware of the income share agreement, they expect to take 12% of your salary of you graduate and get a job making 60k. For the kind of instruction that they give and resources they provide you can go to a better program and pay less. Lots of free resources that you can use to learn yourself as well out there, which they use instead of creating their own. Very disorganized instruction wise. Too long of a program and nights and weekends students get less instruction yet expected to pay the same. No way to evaluate the program before you commit as well. No job guarantee and if you get a job thru a different referral they will still expect you to pay them. They made it so that they are not held accountable for anything. It’s not a good deal if you expect to put in the work to get a good job after you graduate. Some teachers are recent grads themselves. Unequal opportunities as well for students. Does feel like they want to foster a love of tech in students they highlight the amazing jobs u can get and everyone seems obsessed by that. Don’t seem to care about the students and about inclusivity, not good vibes at all. 

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Three months after graduating from Pursuit, I was able to successfully triple my original income. After almost 2 years, I've successfully quadrupled my salary when compared to what I made prior to joining Pursuit! It will be a lot of work (especially on nights and weekends while working a day job), but you will learn a lot, and be prepared for your first job in tech. Totally worth it!

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There are better options. Don't even consider it if you're looking to do the night and weekends program. It's a difference of 25 vs. 40 hours per week, and you're expected to keep up with curriculum that's intended for the 40 hour week. The night and weekend cohorts get 400+ less hours of instruction (about 35% less instruction) and they are still expected to pay the same amount back. This utterly doesn't make any sense, considering that the resources and attention that the daytime students get is clearly superior.

Previous reviews mention this. Without scratching the surface, the concept of Pay It Forward seems like a great idea. But when you read the fine print, it's just deferred tuition and they avoid talking about it as such. Ethically, to target people from marginalized groups who seek a financial stable life in such a way is not following to the mission statement. If things go accordingly for fellows (a $60,000+ job shortly after graduation), this ends up being an incredibly expensive program, when other programs offer more affordable options. They need to put a tuition cap, and restructure the system, because their present agreement has a maximum $36,000 a year tuition (if the student makes at least $300,000...no one is going to make that). It seems like they are milking students for what they got just to fulfill requirements of a hefty loan.

 

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The cons vastly outweigh the pros. The nights and weekends students didn't get access to the same opportunities as daytime students. A lot of the staff and program guidelines were just outright abusive. The truly good-hearted staff members left before the cycle ended and even before they finished one year of employment there. That's how toxic this place is. The students who get jobs fast are the ones who already had programming knowledge before coming here and some were recruited internally by volunteers. 

They didn't provided resources that were promised. Office hours were scheduled, but were often cancelled. Apparently, one student needing help is not enough to justify them calling in a volunteer from the tech community. Staff were afraid students would flake. That's not right. You can't deny help to students seeking it. On top of that, they kept encouraging people to sign up because it's a good networking opportunity.

There's little help post grad that's actually useful. You're more likely to find a job posting with a simple Google alert than by relying on this school's partnerships.

They told a white lie about the pay-it-forward tuition. For my class, it was explained as being inspired by a past student's donation of his first chec because he was so grateful for the program. In reality, the deferred tuition is really helping the school pay back investors and other loans. WTF. Some students actually take jobs with a low salary on purpose just so they don't have to pay back the school.

The most shocking incident of abuse happened at graduation. Students who did not finish all requirements were allowed to continue until they completed the program. These students were also invited to graduation and allowed to walk the stage. They were forced to accept blank certificates. The students had no idea this would happen. Some people had families in attendance. Imagine having to explain this to your loved ones. The cermony's program already listed these students with a note saying they were on track to graduate. This humiliation was not necessary. This was all to fill seats.

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