Flatiron School

The path that got me to FlatIron was not straight, nor flat. I had quit my job to attend a different (local) bootcamp that closed their local campus only a few weeks before my cohort was set to begin. I was in a hurry to find a good option, and knew I needed one that I could start within the next month, if not the next few days or weeks. There were only a few options that fit that criteria, and FlatIron was a standout among them because of timing, price, the job guarantee and reviews on CourseReport. 

I could not be happier that I enrolled in FlatIron's Online Web Developer program. The curriculum is extremely well designed, thoughtful, and will allow a student who's tech savvy and smart to get to the meat of programming extremely quickly. For students who need a bit more guidance, the curriculum is well supported, broad based, and offers a bevvy of resources for further study. Learn experts and instructors are available to help, but you need to be comfortable asking -- but know that they're all excited to help you learn and are well equipped to do so.  

The community of fellow learners is also extremely helpful -- I recommend taking advantage of study groups, standups and checkins, and if possible, make a few friends on slack and keep in touch with them throughout the course. Because it's self-paced, you'll likely diverge in where you are, but the social support is priceless. 

Because the course is self-paced, it can be difficult to tell where you are. While I was enrolled, students working at a a full time schedule (40-60 hours a week) seemed to finish at a pace of around 16-18 weeks, with some eking in closer to the 12-14 mark. If you like milestones, keep track of what you're accomplishing and at what pace. 

Career support is valuable, especially if you're not highly motivated on your own. Whatever your motivation level, don't be afraid to advocate for yourself! As with any coaching experience, telling your coach the type of support you want in advance will help them give it to you. 

I had dabbled in coding before joining flatiron. I had worked on WordPress sites and had a bit of experience with Ruby and Ruby on Rails using free online resources.

I remember how it felt to do web work before flatiron, and I'm really glad I decided to go through the online web developer program. I have so many more tools in my belt and I know what they do.  But, most importantly, I have learned how to approach problems that I don't have solutions for yet. I've gotten so much better at finding the right tool for a new problem.

The curriculum is scaffolded very well, gradually increasing in difficulty until you're able to build fully functional full stack web application with a high level understanding of how the pieces fit together.  Because of that understanding, when I see a problem I have an intuition about where the problem could be.

Flatiron gave me the confidence to dive into problems I haven't faced and build solutions for them.  And, because the curriculum is built around automated testing, I was able to look at lots of practical examples of how to write tests for functionality I wanted to build for my own applications. And because everything is on GitHub, we got a lot of practice using git.

All of that along with the amazing community support and dedication on the part of flatiron staff to constantly improving the experience for students, I highly recommend attending.

If you're worried about the online experience not providing enough support, I'd also like to point out that the platform has an ask a question feature built into the web application.  If you get stuck and need help, you can chat with one of the technical coaches and even do a screen share with them.  On that screen share, you can talk through the problem with them in real time as they look through your code and help you develop new debugging techniques to help you when you get stuck in the future. 

Disclaimer: I am currently working as one of those technical coaches, so if you check out the free Bootcamp Prep track at Flatiron, you may end up hopping on a screen share with me! I've really enjoyed  working with Flatiron because I've really seen a lot of improvement since I first started the curriculum in November 2015.  It is a group of kind, hard-working individuals who are truly dedicated to creating the best possible experience for students.

The Job Search support afterwards has been amazing. My career coach has helped me tremendously in sourcing new opportunities, preparing  for interviews, building up my online presence, managing the search and staying emotionally sane during the process.  I knew that I wanted to be involved in education, and they helped me land a job as an instructor for Girls Who Code in Los Angeles. 

 

A fellow alum convinced me to give Flatiron a try because I'd recently been laid off when my previous company collapsed.  The first day I knew it was one of the best decisions of my life.  Fast-forward three months and I have a new job, am making 25k more a year than I was in my previous career, and genuinely enjoy the work that I do.  Go to some of their events, get a feel for their vibe, and if you're gut tells you to make the plunge then do it.  You won't regret it, and you'll work with some amazing people who push you to be the absolute best version of yourself.

I attended Flatiron's Online Web Developer Program via Learn.co from August 2016 to April 2017 while working full time. Fully employed as of May 2017.

I'm fully aware that I go into full fangirl mode whenever I talk about Flatiron. What can I say? I had an amazing experience that I can honestly call life-changing. I went from a hobbyist coder to an employable programmer in less than a year, met tons of friends from all over the U.S. and the rest of the world, and laid the foundations for a great career.

What made it so great? 

1. The flexibility - Unlike an immersive program, if I was having trouble with a particular concept or technique, I was able to take some time to explore it further rather than just having to move on.
2. The people - Learning to code isn't just learning to code. It's also learning to talk about code, how to explain your code to other people, and just generally the vocabulary of web development. I learned as much watching other people code in lectures or study groups and helping other students via Slack or screenshare as I did from the curriculum itself.
3. The format and curriculum - After graduating, I had 5 projects, all of which had undergone a technical-interview-style code review from an instructor and meticulous refactoring. I had more than one potential employer comment that I had a surprisingly well-developed portfolio for someone of my experience level.

Don't get me wrong; it was a ton of work. I had an unrelated full-time job that I couldn't quit for financial reasons, so my life consisted of going to work and coming home to code for several months. My friends thought I had turned into a hermit. But it was absolutely worth it, and I'd recommend this program to anyone looking to get a head start on a career in web development.

I had dabbled with code before I went throught Flatiron, I built a few projects and went through many tutorials. Going through the Flatiron program took all of my knowledge and made it marketable. It helped me grasp the fundamentals that I needed in order to learn and write code at a much faster and deeper pace.

If you are interested in making money from coding, Flatiron is the place to be. The environment is warm and welcoming and very conducive to learning. The instructors are amazing (shoutout to Ian, JJ, Tracy, and Antoine). Every day was a fun interesting learning experience and I highly recommend this program for anyone looking to get started with coding as a career.  

I attended the Web Development Immersive program beginning in September 2016 and got a job in software engineering in February 2017! The on-campus program really helped me provide me with a platform to learn with the most helpful instructors and other students who shared the same passion to learn coding/programming.

I was previously in banking for 5 years and the Flatiron School really allowed me to make a career change in such a short amount of time. I got my job through the very helpful career services team at the school.

The curriculum is strong despite some programming languages being a little old in an ever changing world of different technologies. Ruby on Rails provides a solid foundation for Object Oriented programming and for basic web development structure and an idea of what frameworks are. However, the school is constantly revising and updating their curriculum to try to stay up to date. The most relevant language taught that I actually use at my job is JavaScript, which is ubiquitous in all of the internet.

All in all, the 12 weeks are rigorous but necessary to have you effectively learn everything to prepare you for the tech industry. If you are serious about pursuing a career in web development or software engineering, the Flatiron School provided an absolutely wonderful experience. It's extremely effective and has the results to prove it!

I attended Flatiron's 12-week Full Stack Web Development Immersive Program back in September 2016, got a job last month, April 2017. 

On Curriculum    I liked how flatiron taught both Ruby and JavaScript. It's exactly what I wanted from a bootcamp. The lessons can be pretty challenging but they're doable. They ask you to build things from scratch like ORMs and later teach you that there are simpler ways to do this through abstraction or less code. The manner and organization helped me understand every line of code and why things are happening , rather than cool efficient methods immediately taught early on. The curriculum is meant to make you feel dumb for the first hour (or even the first 2 days haha!). But that's how everyone expects to feel knowing we're in an immersive program we hardly had any experience with. I love how the curriculum's structured and how it continually challenges the class. It worries us if we start finding things easy, cause it shouldn't.    On instructors    Our instructors are great. They articulate the process of code very well. Questions are highly appreciated no matter how "dumb" you think they are. They added one-on-ones for every student per week to check on you, how you are, if you've gotten the lessons right, quick assessments, not to kick you out but to explain previous concepts to you that are still unclear.    On culture    Flatiron wants you to overcommunicate. You will suffer if you don't speak up or fail to let your tablemates know you don't follow. People here are ready to help. At least your cohort. Nobody's competing with anyone either. They make that very clear from the very beginning.   So 'in-person web dev' wise, I'm happy. I love the culture, I love the intensity and as long as you keep absorbing like a sponge, you'll be fine.   On Placement   Flatiron's Career Placement team actively finds opportunities for you. Your career coaches help you package your story the best way possible to make sure you are ready for the non-technical aspects of your interviews. 

This place, this thing, the Flatiron School gave me what I thought it should, an education in a full stack of programming languages so I can build stuff. But that doesn't even scratch the surface. Honestly. I knew I wanted to learn to code after having a little exposure to it. Sure, there is a stigma around it (love it or hate it) that tech is the future and its a necessary skillset that makes you an employable cog in a wheel if you can write code. But what about liking what you do? What about being creative? What if you could have a skill that you can tie into virtually any other industry? I learned at Flatiron how to take who I am and wrap it in code. I let it make me into the person I was meant to be professionally and that's driven, intuitive, and passionate. The difference between Flatiron and other educational options out there is the culture. They didn't just teach us, they incubated us. The teaching staff, the career coaches, and the guys who started the place (especially the guys who started the place) showed us how to love code and somehow gave us the exact right tools in the exact right order to help us help ourselves. So now I'm a powerhouse. No joke. I funded a startup and I'm also working writing code at a mogul in the financial industry. This is thanks to Avi, Adam, Joe, Mollie, Luke, Mendel, and my classmates. 

I don't just have an education now. I have a career, a people, and my best self. Needless to say, I recommend it to anyone with even a drop of desire to improve themselves. 

Allow me to start with the opportunities: it took me longer than I originally expected to secure a position and I didn't expect to move when I was originally applying for the program.

I graduated from Flatiron School's iOS Development Immersive on August 26th, 2016. Prior to Flatiron, I mainly held various retail roles (ranging from entry level to leadership) & a strong passion for creating music. My introduction to coding was through Flatiron School's assigned pre-work (which is free and available to anyone prior to enrolling, becomes required once accepted). 

The curriculum is awesome & breaks down as best as possible the fundamentals of Software Development to beginners. The "Learn" platform is modern & reallly kept me focused as it was always the first thing I'd see when I boot up my computer; it's wonderfully structured & continues to improve. That along with the lectures proved to be effective. My class went through an interesting transition, where we started off learning Objective-C, then about halfway through we switched to Swift. Flatiron made this decision based on Swift's growing popularity in the current iOS market. This proved to be challenging because we were never formally taught some of the more advanced nuances of iOS. However, with the fundamentals I picked up at Flatiron, I was able to self teach the rest of the way especially during project mode. In the end, I was really happy we switched to Swift because most, if not all, of the jobs I applied for were looking for Swift developers.

The instructors are very helpful and give you different perspectives on how to debug your code. If you expect the instructors to come over and give you the solution to your problem, you will be disappointed. They are there to push you in the right direction, it's important that you work through these issues on your own. Programming is the hardest thing I've ever picked up, but it's also the most rewarding once things start clicking and you stick with it! The instructors give lectures, are available for questions regarding labs & conduct assessments to gauge how well the students are picking up the content.

Flatiron's career services team may very well be the best part. I only say this because I believe you can get a similar education at a DevBootcamp or GeneralAssembly (minus the innovative Learn platform), but their business team is unparalleled. The immediate week after graduation, a "campus draft" (I believe this is called something different now) is conducted where the Career Services team partners students with employers who have openings in either intern or junior roles. You can tell there's a real effort to match students with companies that are a culture fit, which saves everyone time. Two of my classmates were hired out of campus draft.

I accepted a position as an Associate iOS Engineer at URBN (parent company of Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie & Free People) & decided to relocate to Philadelphia from NYC. I was put in touch with this company through Flatiron back in October & after a long, rigerous interview process, accepted an offer a few weeks ago. On top of it all, I met an amazing group of friends at Flatiron. I now have an incredible network of classmates who work for companies such as Intel, BuzzFeed, LinkedIn & MapBox to name a few!

If you take the bootcamp seriously as well as their career advice, you will secure employment. In the end, it is a very self driven program. With that said, I wouldn't have even known where to drive & Flatiron gave me that direction. I'm forever grateful & would highly recommend Flatiron School!

The review below is in reference to the iOS program. Many of the pros and cons are not applicable to the Web immersive :)

Pros: I was almost unable, and completely intimidated by code when I came into Flatiron. I had been attempting to learn iOS programming(objective-c) on my own, but it was slow to the point of just not happening. Flatiron managed to make a curriculum that was digestible for my learning style, which revolves around hands on experience.  I came out knowing how to make applications well enough to work on my own and get better, although I would say I was not completely job ready.  

If you do your best on all the coursework and the extra challenges on each unit, you will come out knowing how to make things.  If you do that AND do work outside of the classroom developing applications or studying comp sci/best practices/other programming languages, then you will probably be truly hireable immediately.  

Cons:  Flatiron's courses are only 3 to 4 months(4 if you are on one of the NYC scholarship programs).  This means they have to cram as much as they can about iOS development in during that time and some major things go missing.

It results in students having no knowledge of architecture practices, design patterns, etc. While it would be lovely if employers were willing to take Junior developers on knowing that they can learn these things, that is just not how the current iOS market is, and it can make it hard to get a job.  I understand that the motivation for not including these things is because they feel like they literally can not fit it in the timeline that they have, and that makes sense. But, that means they either have to change their job placement promises, extend the programs, or provide extra resources for learning outside of class, because it absolutely affects initial hireability.

I also think that they could create extra curriculum for the students who think they could complete it, or even just a study guide. Architecture, Design Patterns, suggested languages, Comp sci fundamental topics.  Just to give students who are comfortable the option so that they can be doing it outside of class for four months instead of in a mad rush two weeks before an interview.

Summary:
Flatiron is what you make it. You must do the coursework and care about doing the coursework. If you do, you will absolutely learn all the things you need to grow as a developer. There is no other way to learn to program this quickly and to create the mentality you need to be a developer.  

If you also do work outside of class and study and practice all of the things mentioned above, you will absolutely be 100% hireable. I got a job within three months and have been working professionally since.

Flatiron changed my life. It changed the way I think and the way I learn. I wouldn't have the career I love without it.  I recommend it to my friends and have referenced them knowing full well Flatiron will give them the tools they need to be successful.

tl;dr: I attended The Flatiron School's online program, Learn Verified, from January to April, 2016.  I worked freelance/contracting gigs for a bit, then finally landed a full-time job as a web developer in September 2016.

The Long Story
I have been writing code forever, but I've had relatively little formal education in it.  As 2015 drew to a close, I was in a bad spot and I needed a dramatic change.  My job sucked.  I had no money and no prospects for getting any.  I didn't have any self-confidence, really, or maybe I just didn't feel like I had a place in the world.  Things now are incredible.  But I'm already getting ahead of myself.

For the past year or 18 months, I'd been teaching myself to code, but it was a really unfocused effort.  I did a million tutorials.  I took a few edX courses.  But I didn't really feel like I was making a lot of forward progress.  I started researching bootcamps.  I live in the Austin, TX area and there are actually quite a few in-person bootcamps, but they've all got a hefty price tag - well north of $10k.  I quickly ruled that out.  I started reading about online bootcamps, and to be perfectly honest, they seemed like a little too good to be true.  Looking back, I think it was the combination of desperation and motivation which made me even consider it in the first place.  I liked that Flatiron offered a 'monthly subscription' payment model, which would further encourage me to crank through the coursework.  I'd recently received my tax return and had some meager savings, so I needed to plow through the material and get a job ASAP.  I quit my job and enrolled.  A 'sink or swim' or 'do or die' type of situation might not appeal to you, but it was what I needed.

I think this past programming knowlege  was the fulcrum, with Flatiron the lever which allowed me to succeed.  I couldn't have done it with only one half of that equation.  Over the course of months, I witnessed many, many students just failing to comprehend a lot of the concepts in the course.  I think it might be disengenuous to imply that in only 12 weeks, a person can go from only a casual experience in writing code to a person who is hireable; even as a 'junior developer.'  If you have very little or no software development experience and you're considering a coding bootcamp, I'd encourage you to spend a good amount of time doing independent study beforehand.  Remember, Flatiron advertises some pretty impressive job placement rates, but that definitely is predicated upon you actually finishing the course.  I would estimate that the washout rate is quite high.  Additionally, take a close look at the terms of service: Your work is far, FAR from done once you graduate. 

After completing the coursework, I hustled a little and got a couple part-time/contract gigs, one of which *REALLY* saved me from putting in an application at Best Buy or The Home Depot.  I owe a *lot* to that employer; it wasn't the best arrangement, by far, but it allowed me to keep my head above water.  If you're considering quitting your job to do a coding bootcamp, make absolutely sure you can foot the bill:  I'd try to plan to have 3-6 months of expenses *after* you complete the program.  Engaging in a full-scale job hunt while at the same time working a lousy retail job doesn't sound like my cup of tea, and that doesn't take into account writing blog posts, working on side projects to get your github profile looking attractive, etc.  It's really hard.  If you can do it, I would suggest you see if you can keep your current job or work reduced hours while you work through the course.

The Curriculum
The curriculum isn't the best, but it's not the worst, either.  A lot of the stuff at the beginning is really good, but that's because it's been combed through by a lot more people, but that shouldn't really count for anything, because there are a million and one entry-level tutorials out there.  The more advanced topics (Javascript/Angular) were really, really, REALLY lacking.  Also, because much of the material was still being produced as I was completing the program (I think the online program launched about 3 months before I enrolled), none of the tutors really had any experience with the material.  They could answer questions about Tic-Tac-Toe all day long without breaking a sweat, but when you've got questions about Angular's directives vs components, well... good luck.

I think that the main benefit of the curriculum, at least for me, was that it provided me a good roadmap for the knowledge I needed to follow.  First procedural Ruby, then SQL (I think), then OOP with Ruby, then Rails, then jQuery with Rails, etc.  I really felt carried along in my learning.  That is, like I said, until the later part of the course.  I swear, I'm done with Angular 1.x, like, for life.

Student Support
I started the program pretty early on.  Avi, the school's dean, was pretty available most of the time (that dude is a machine; I wonder if he sleeps).  The tutors were hit or miss, lots of times they were previous graduates of the in-person program, and when I was going through, the curriculum had grown significantly since they had finished.  There wasn't a lot of help.  Additionally, since they valued a 'community' of self-support (hard to get when you're at the leading edge of the program like I was, with only three or four students ahead of me), they resisted putting together any kind of 'knowledge base' which you could reference.  This reliance on 'asking if you need help' is a two-edged sword, because a lot of the students never got in the habit of researching the answers for themselves.  After all, you can just hit the 'ask a question' button and someone will help you out!  Not a good way to breed self-reliance in a developer.  Nowadays, I probably spend an hour or two a day just Googling stuff.  I can ask my mentor, but he's got his own work to do, know what I mean?

I do wish there were more opportunities for code review.  I had three or four, I believe, and only one of them was really in-depth.  Maybe it was because I was clearly 'getting it' and didn't need advice, but I know that my code style was pretty naive and I could've used more direction in that regard.  Plus, as you get further into the program, a lot of issues are not really suited for an 'ask a question' sort of venue.  If you're having difficulty understanding asynchronous javascript, what you really need is for someone to sit down with you for 20 minutes and work it all out with you.  The tutors are all answering a handful of questions at once, jumping back and forth from you to any number of other students.  It can make what would be a simple exchange a pretty drawn-out process.

Job Search
Looking for a job as a fresh bootcamp graduate was one of the most humbling and difficult things I've ever done in my life.  Face it, bootcamps don't have a great reputation for churning out well-qualified coders.  My city has a decent 4-year school with a good CS program, PLUS three or four in-person bootcamps.  The market is pretty close to saturated.  You've got to be a real self-starter, super positive (but not like, "crazy" positive) person.  You've got to be the kind of person that people want to work with every day.  I'm a little older (39 this summer), so I've had plenty of experience working, and a good amount of experience on the 'other' side of hiring and interviewing.  That experience has given me a good perspective into the nature of work, what makes a good hire, how to conduct yourself in an interview, etc.  I think that if you are lacking in technical ability (and let's be honest here, if you complete a coding bootcamp, you are really only barely hireable, skills-wise), you've got to be a 'right fit' kind of hire - good attitude, ready for a challenge, eager to learn, etc.  You've also got to be lucky enough to find a firm who is willing to invest a *LOT* of time and money in growing you as a developer.  I'm about 5 months in now, and every day is still a challenge.  I'm *really* slow still, but I get there in the end.

Wrapping Up
In some ways, I feel a little bad about not giving Flatiron a 5-star review.  After all, I achieved my goal.  I'm living the dream.  I have a well-paying job with great coworkers, plenty of opportunity for learning and growth.  My job gave me a new Macbook Pro :) I get to write code all day long.  I wake up every day excited to go to work, and I dream about code every night.  But the reality is that *I* did it.  I made a decision to change my life, and I used the tools I could find.  Was Flatiron the perfect tool for that job?  Probably not, but honestly I'm not sure what it would've looked like.  I value that experience and knowledge that Flatiron gave me.  I'd probably do the same thing if I had the chance to do it over (but, like high school, who would really want to do that?).  I can't tell you if a coding bootcamp, or the Flatiron School in particular are right for you.  I *can* tell you that it'll be pretty tough.  It'll test your self-esteem and your dedication.  It'll make you push yourself.  Maybe that's what you need.  It's what I needed.  Good luck.