Flatiron School

Curriculum:
The training program they've designed is not only well structured in content, but also well realized inside of a digital interface that helps you keep track of your progress, automatically track errors and partial completions, get a sense of your progress in comparison to others (for the competitive types), and communicate with instructors remotely. I went from knowing little to nothing about programming, to being confident in building my own app.

Culture:
It's been nearly two years since I graduated, and I'm still friends with many of my cohort and instructors. Flatiron seems to screen for personality, passion, and kindness. So while my classmates came from all different backgrounds, from finance to jazz music, we all vibed together over the shared joy of learning to build meaningful ideas and just embracing geekiness.

Return on Investment:
You definitely get what you put into it. Flatiron does everything it can to provide resources and attention to anyone who needs help, but it also promotes autonomous self-help. Learn to Google problems yourself. Teach other classmates to cement your own learnings. And don't be afraid to ask questions. I came in with nearly zero coding knowledge and left with multiple offers from great companies. The job placement team is absolutely amazing (especially if Jackie is still there). They really care about each individual, and sometimes break rules to connect you with the right company. 

Going to Flatiron absolutely changed my life. I'm a freelance musician with basically no resume, and within a week of graduation I was offered my dream job. 

Any bootcamp will most likely give you the tools you need to become a good developer. There are two elements that I would say separate Flatiron from the rest. 

Firstly, the technologies they teach are the most applicable to most jobs you will apply for. I was in the first cohort that was taught React.js, and I am working full-time as a React developer now. You will also learn Ruby on Rails and SQL, from which you will be able to transition to any other backend language and framework. While no bootcamp will teach you how to be a master coder in three months, I can absolutely say that Flatiron will put any determined student in the right place to get a job as a full-time, full-stack web developer.

The other thing that sets them apart is their career team. To be clear, they don't get you a job, but they will work with you to make sure you present yourself in the best light to prospective companies. Without them, I would not have known where to start looking for work.

I recommend doing a few months of study before starting. There are several students who's first line of code was written at school, and many of them were successful. However, you will be glad that you took the time for self study prior to attending. 

I still go to Flatiron to do side-projects (and to drink their coffee and beer), and it's a great community. Their statistics are absolutely real, and you WILL get a job after attending.

Going to the Flatiron School was one of the best choices I have ever made. The curriculum is top-notch, the community diverse, and the philosophy sincere. This one is about education rather than profit. Though some students are quite advanced, coming in with CS degrees, the school is nurturing to newbies. Afterward, the job placement team prepared us pragmatically for the market and fielded me on many interviews. In my 180-degree career change, good structure and guidance as to where to put my hard work and energy was invaluable. After ten years in journalism, the school gave me the skills, confidence, and a roadmap to get started in this new field--and just as importantly, to love it.

The Flatiron School was a game changer.

While working in sales, I found myself looking for more challenging and creative projects on nights and weekends. A lot of tech friends pointed me in the bootcamp direction and after countless hours of research and debate over the right school for me, I wasn't convinced until I talked to a Flatiron Grad who graduated the year before. The way he gushed about his time at The Flatiron School convinced me I had to apply.

My time at Flatiron School was incredible. I was pushed to learn mind-bending material, very quickly and intensely. There were times when I felt defeated and overwhelmed, but the community was there to support me and made moments of clarity and success that much better. For those three months, my life was coding from the moment I woke up to the time I went to bed. It was a sacrifice for sure, but one that was so worth it.

After graduation, we met with companies the career team set up for us and it was my second interview that led to my first job offer! Jess was an amazing career counselor, helped me negotiate a salary and define my role and I could not be happier with my job as a Junior Developer at an exciting start-up in Manhattan. 

If you're reading this review, it means you're already looking for something new. Whether you're in a job you hate, you want a more interesting career, or you just want to add a new skill to your toolbox, Flatiron is one of the best options you'll find.

I was a consultant in a previous life, but wanted to add value to society rather than major corporations' bottom lines. Because I was past the point of returning for another round of grad school, I decided on a coding bootcamp. The research I did brought me to Hack Reactor and Flatiron School as the best programs available. Since I was already on the East Coast, Flatiron was the obvious choice. In the end, I'm confident it was the right one.

This isn't like the free programs you've tried and dropped online. This isn't like the arduous and dragging courses you've sat through in college. This isn't like anything you've done before. The Flatiron School immersive programs are a phenomenal opportunity to work with a diverse group of people in the pursuit of new skills and a new life path. The trick is that you get what you put in, so if you're not willing to dedicate every day of the week to code for three to four months, some days longer than twelve hours straight, then you will find it much harder to achieve your goals. But make the necessary sacrifices. Do the hard thing. Crush it, and come out so much stronger on the other side.

In full disclosure, I applied to work as an instructor at Flatiron after graduating from the immerseive program. I was hired for an eight-month period and my contract ran out last month. I'm no longer an employee of theirs, but I still feel strongly enough about the program that I'm willing to vouch for it as an independent individual—I don't benefit from saying any of this. It's really just that good.

One final note: You can expect to be significantly more hirable after completing a program at Flatiron School if you follow my brief advice above. You can't expect a job to be handed to you. That said, if you follow the guidance of the Career Services team, who will also set lofty yet achievable goals for you, it's almost a certainty that you'll be employed within six months of graduation.

In 2015 I decided that I was not happy with my current employment situation. I was working 50+ hours a week for little pay. I quit and decided to get into programming. I started out trying to learn on my own but I had trouble staying focused and had no feedback loop. I started researching bootcamps that would help me learn such a valuable skill. I applied to several bootcamps and was accepted to DevBootcamp, App Academy, and Flatiron School. I decided to go with Flatiron because of their history of successful job placement. What a great decision :). I attended the web development immersive program (12 week course). I went in an amateur and came out a full blown junior developer. I was hired weeks after my graduation date and have been coding for over 16 months.

The best part about Flation was working with my classmates. Being around such amazing, smart, and focused people helped push me to work harder and succeed. A close second was the staff. All of the instructors were amazing. I appreciated the one on one time I was given and that the staff actually cared about me succeeding. And last but not least, the career placement team. The placement team never stopped working with me to help me get a job. I still get emails and work with the placements team to stay sharp, eventhough I am not looking for a new job.

In a couple of days, I will start working as a developer at New York Magazine, all thanks to Flatiron School. I graduated from their NYC Web Developer program a couple of weeks ago, and ever since then, the Career Services has been super helpful and effective in making sure that I get paid to write professional code.

It all started in July when I was exploring my options on how to move forward with my life. I’ve always been super interested in computer programming and web development, dating all the way back to my childhood, but I had never actually sat down and studied this stuff day-to-day.

I’ve been connected to Flatiron School for about 2 years prior to becoming a student, so when I had to decide on which coding bootcamp to attend, the answer was pretty much right in front of my face. But I still analyzed a few other bootcamps, wrote out pros and cons for each, and the facts are simply the facts: Flatiron School’s quality in terms of curriculum is absolutely impressive. I tried out their free courses on Learn (which you should definitely do as well before making a decision), and they were super informative and user-friendly. In fact, the entire product of Learn is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s a full-blown learning management system that guides you step by step on your experience as a student.

Learn provides hundreds of labs, videos, and readings on web development. As if that wasn’t enough, they also have an entire track dedicated on learning how to land a career as a professional web developer. It’s so awesome. Best of all though, after you complete your course, you get access to all of Flatiron School’s other courses, like the entire NYC iOS Developer program’s curriculum on top of your existing one.

Aside from the curriculum, the part that I hands down loved the most about Flatiron School was the community. Our class was sort of small, about 26 students, but from the very first day you start developing a loving relationship with each student. We go out to dinners and do a bunch of fun activities together.

Our instructors were completely amazing. Seriously, it’s been a couple of weeks so far and I miss them so much. They know everything about computer programming so if you have any questions, even ones that have nothing to do with the curriculum, chances are that they’ll be able to give you a pretty detailed answer and provide you with additional resources. They go all the way making sure that you have a great learning experience, including staying after-hours and helping students that need extra assistance. There was a time when one of our instructors stayed until 9PM helping us on a pretty complicated concept that we were learning at that time.

The week after graduation, there is an event called the Campus Draft, which is pretty much a bunch of companies coming in and interviewing us for positions. One of the companies I interviewed with was New York Magazine, and I got an offer literally the day after. A bunch of other students have also received great job offers, and it hasn’t even been over 2 weeks yet.

Attending Flatiron School was one of the best decisions I have made in my life. Not only is the curriculum rigorous and relevant, but the instructors are absolutely incredible- both as developers and as people. In addition to the planning and delivery of instruction, what makes Flatiron so special is the community. Of the many bootcamps out there, Flatiron is one of the few that intentionally and successfully creates access and diversifies the tech world. My class was composed of bright, inspiring individuals with different backgrounds and perspectives, most of which are currently underrepresented in the tech workforce. When taught the right way, code is incredibly empowering. Many people remain skeptical of how one can learn the content and skills required to get a job in this industry after 3 short months. Technology is constantly evolving with various languages and platforms, but what Flatiron does so well is teach you how to teach yourself. Additionally, the career services team works tirelessly to ensure that you are set up with a variety of conversations and job interviews following graduation, and they do not stop until you land one. Flatiron School was far and away the best learning environment and community I have been a part of—be prepared to be challenged everyday but it is worth every minute. 

I had known for years that I was interested in writing code for a career, but I had no idea how to take the knowledge from two college introductory courses and turn it into a software development job. While exploring different post-grad options for learning how to code, I met some Flatiron Alumni who impressed me with their success in finding jobs after the program as well as the way they seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed their time at the school. The Flatiron School's founders, Avi and Adam, exude nothing but excitement about code and enabling new developers to break into this field. They have created an atmosphere different from school. It is a group of 30 or so people working as a team with a common goal.

The course was difficult, and not without its frustrating moments, but it is well worth it. The instructors did an excellent job pacing the course so that every time we mastered a new topic, it was on to the next one. And after the course was finished, the career advisors worked with all of us to make sure we found our first jobs. I year later, I could not be happier with my job and my company.

I spent a couple of months working through Flatiron School's Bootcamp Prep track at learn.co and had a really great experience with it.  I was doing it to see if I enjoyed coding enough to take the plunge into a bootcamp and now I am joining the February 2017 cohort.  I was really impressed at the quality of the lessons.  I got a solid foundation in both javaScript and Ruby, completing many labs and a couple of real projects.

The program really helps you to grow as a coder.  The final project in the javaScript section has you build a Rock Dodger video game.  I had learned enough from the course to be able to do that and then take it further to transform it into a Space Invaders-style game.  It's hacky, but it works!  Very satisfying.

One of the things that I was most impressed with is the availability of online help.  Whenever I had a question that I couldn't figure out, I would just type it into the Questions section and I would have expert assistance almost immediately.  Remember, this is at no cost!  The other thing is that the way help is provided is very skillful.  The support staff would always ask more questions than anything else, leading me to be able to figure out the answer myself, actually learning something in the process, instead of just being given the answer.

If you have any interest in checking out coding, I highly recommend this free, supported course.