Blue Ocean Coding

Scam! Scam! Scam! Hondros should be ashamed of themselves! This program is an absolute scam. I chose BOC because I thought that being part of Hondros College it would be a great program. I couldn't be more wrong. A day of class consist of the instructor reading from the book and then doing a few exercises at the end of the chapter. When it comes to projects the majority is Windows desktop applications. Only one web project which nobody could finish because it was given too late. I had to come in after the 12 week course for another 4 weeks to finish it. The hiring event was a joke. Just a bunch of recruiters bringing their new hires to practice interviewing. Nobody received offers or even feedback. I heard they are changing the program to Java because they can't place anyone in C# positions. Pathetic that they take your money and use you as a test subject to see what works. Switching tech stack admits fault and students should be refunded. All I can say is stay away from this program. You will regret it like the 30+ unemployed people that went through the program. Check out We Can Code It, Tech Elevator, or some other course. Blue Ocean Coding has no connections and will not help you find work. They will just send your resume to companies along with the other 30+ people struggling to find work. Companies will call you back saying we need a bachelors and 5 years experience for this job but yet BOC sent them my resume. I don't think BOCs staff even tries to help. They're clueless and know nothing of the tech industry. Beware! You have been warned! Save yourself 12k and avoid BOC like the plague. Don't believe me? Go on LinkedIn and ask some former students. There are some honest ones that will keep it real with you. And remember it started as a .Net program and is suppose to switch to Java soon. Which means you will be the new test subjects! Avoid Avoid Avoid

1.  You won't be able to keep a copy of materials presented.

2.  Quality of Murach book materials is very poor quality.  Downloaded exercises will not give hints or clues of what the learner should be seeing = poor learning experience.

3.  Change of instructors was constant, no one instructor present at any length of time.

4.  Learning plans, when not passing their written exam, never adhered to for better learning experience.

5. Student Teachers are never available and no experience with the given course work, when the instructor cannot be available or to present the material in a different learning voice.

6. When presenting the learning challenges by the student, the "fault" is placed on the student.  Always given the option to come back and take refreshers on the material but the problem with this is that the learners need a job today.  When presented this argument, BOC staff stated repeatedly that they will help to get a job... But the same jobs were presented = everything but the material in which we learned in class.

7.  When recruiters were invited in, the materials that were class room/BOC driven, those same recruiters said that the only roles that the students were qualified to be placed = Help Desk.  Not SQL, not C# scripting, not developing, nor any other reason why we spent the funds to take the class to be qualified.

8. Messages have been passed to other students that when a negative review is posted on BOC, the Director will call that student and question why such a negative review, harassing them instead of recognizing and addressing the problems.

9. Every correspondance from management BOC staff, to date, will point the finger back to the student - never about content of the program.  All correspondance is, likely, to deflect legal fault of the school.

 

This is not the coding school you are looking for to make a new career.  Don't spend the money here.

This program has zero relationships with hiring companies. Once you graduate you are on your own and no one will give you the time of day because you don't have any experience. I could be the best coder in the world but no one will call me for an interview. This is where the program needs to be the strongest is job placement except we just get an outdated google doc with jobs 3 months old on it. The program needs to have relationships with hiring companies who are willing to overlook the experience and hire students directly  because they respect the education Blue Ocean coding provides. I thought the hiring event would have J.P Morgan, Cardinal Health, Nationwide, and the State of Ohio but we got interviews with 2nd rate recruiters who never even called me back for a help desk job. I have now lowered my job expectations to applying to help desk jobs and still can't get the time of day. If I wanted help desk I could have spent $300 and gotten compTIA + Certification and have more opportunites than I do now. Go to Tech Elevator or We Can Code IT, or just save yourself a ton of money and get certifications you will probably get more calls back than me. 

I was very hopeful this would be a great experience and help me gain entry into a software development career. Was told there is a promising 80% job placement and sometimes before the program is even finished, yet not one employer/recruiter setup through the school’s placement program will call me back. Many former students I know have been trying to land their first job for 6+ months. I gained knowledge and skills only because the program gives you the laptop with the software and the textbooks so I had everything I needed to teach myself once I got home from class. Classmates were coming in everyday and then putting headphones on doing online tutorials for the 8 hours rather than class participation because they would learn more. When there was a topic I really needed to grasp I would just stay home and learn from other sources, might as well cut to the chase than wasting my day in class and using up my night to do the learning.

At the open house I met who was suppose to be my future instructor, then showed up on the first day to a different one which is fine but then throughout the program ended up having a total of 4 instructors all who were temporary for a couple weeks or so just to fill in and babysit us and read the textbook to us line by line (great people personally though). They finally hired a fulltime instructor with 3 weeks to go who was very nice and really cared to help you learn but not enough time left to go over previous topics. 

This program could be good someday but as of now they are doing everything for the first time and you are the guinea pig. The quality is very low yet they are charging similar to high quality and established boot-camps around. If it was half the price then I would completely understand but if you’re going to charge almost a year’s worth of tuition at any local university for only 12 weeks then the instructional expertise and quality should be astounding. The price that is charged sets the bar for expected quality; charge less for lower quality and reviews will then be relative to that. Would wait awhile before making an investment/risk in this program to see where it goes. 

The course relied heavily on instruction from the supplied books. These books did not seem to be written to the level of a beginner, who in most cases throughout the class were just exposed to this material for the first time. 

Not having a set instructor and simply filling time with several instructors, one who knew his material but was very difficult to understand, was a significant distraction. 

What should have been working and collaboration within groups ended up with each student on his or her own to struggle through the course.

The instructors were spread thin when helping a whole room full of students who were struggling to understand the material. The class instruction was reduced to reading the book chapters to the students as opposed to applying knowledge or breaking down examples to help understanding from different perspectives. 

I chose this class based on the idea of having instruction and guidance as opposed to learning the material online by myself. But in reality the course felt very much like a self-guided course with just a meeting site.