Flatiron School

When I started the Software engineering bootcamp at Flatiron I wasn't super sure about my decision to change my career. A lot of the stories I had heard about people going to bootcamps and changing there lives seemed to good to be true, and to a degree they are. Nothing about going to a bootcamp is easy and none of the payoffs are as insane as they sound. A bootcamp is not as intense a transition as some of these testimonials make it out to be. For me it felt like a pretty smooth transition from learning all about the skills and mindset required to be in this field, to job searching,  to landing a job and doing the work. Flatiron was exactly what I needed to accomplish this. I attended at the Denver branch in the RiNo arts district. Everyone said the Denver branch was special and by the end of the program I truly believed it myself! The staff and other students alike were so understanding of what we were going through and they were incredibly knowledgeable as well. Sure I learned all the skills I needed, but I don't think I would have been able to find the same success if the staff didn't introduce me to technical skills like, imposter syndrome, taking breaks, and supporting your peers. They showed me what I would be going up against as a software engineer in such an empathic and genuine way and I am really grateful. Of course, Flatiron is well regarded as a bootcamp and they also have a money back guarantee , which were factors that drew me in. At the end of the day, I got a job where I use my new skills and I make much more money than I used. Despite the fact the world went on lockdown a week after I graduated I was never worried. I knew with the skills, advice, and connections I had made at Flatiron it was only a matter of time.

I could not be more grateful for, or proud of, my experience and time at Flatiron School! I was in the Full-Time Online Software Engineering program and could not have been more impressed. From the pre-work studies, to the bootcamp curriculum, to career coaching after graduation--Flatiron truly goes above and beyond in everything they do. I felt completely supported and encouraged with my learning, and felt a huge sense of camaraderie with my cohort-mates, as well as my cohort lead. Everyone is so supportive and helpful!
The curriculum was no joke, but I loved that. I felt challenged and pushed, but never like I was being thrown into something I couldn't handle. For me, I found that most weeks I was putting an average of about 50 hours of coursework. There was a week that I missed for my sister's wedding. And other times where I had to be a bit more flexible with my schedule. But, with Flatiron's program you can make those little shifts, as long as you are diligent and dedicated enough to make that time back up. (I worked through a couple of the holiday breaks to make up time, which worked fine!)
I had the opportunity to work with a variety of people from Flatiron, from my cohort lead, to my career coach, to my educational coach. (Which is all standard, inclusive in the full-time program.) But, I also had the chance to work with a few other Flatiron folks based on setting up my local IDE and other odds and ends. When I say that they are all AMAZING, I mean it. They are incredible. They do everything they can to make sure you understand things conceptually. And they do it with nothing but support and understanding. It's an incredible environment that I feel truly lucky to have been a part of!
This was a career change for me, so it was not a decision my fiance and I made lightly. But neither of us could be happier with my experience at Flatiron, and the new career path it's put me on. If you're considering a career change (or even a first career start!), I highly recommend researching Software Development on its own first. Make sure that it truly feels like a good fit for you. Play around with some free beginning courses or coding examples. You should be able to tell if it feels like where you want to take your career. If it does, then I highly recommend you consider Flatiron School for your studies. (If it doesn't, there are tons of other tech avenues you can look into like Data Science, etc.!) 
I could not be happier with my experience at Flatiron School, or the opportunity it's given me to reshape my career. :) 

While nothing is perfect - and Flatiron certainly has areas in which it has room to improve - I'm incredibly grateful for the Access Labs experience. I had zero coding experience before starting the process and can build a full-stack app upon graduating. I've gotten a taste of what other, elite bootcamps offer and doubt that I would've been able to get into them without prior experience. My particular cohort consisted of a little over 20 amazing, friendly, helpful, caring, and dedicated people . I'm proud to call each of them a friend and a value add at any organization. We were also lucky to have some world-class instructors throughout the duration. Flatiron is big on community, which is also nice. The curriculum starts with Ruby then the Rails framework before moving to Javascript and the React library. Although not a traditionally OOP language like Ruby, I think it would've been better to stay with Javascript and teaching Node, Express, and GraphQL. After graduating there are career coaches who work with you to help with your job search. They have an Employer Partner Team but don't expect those opportunities to be sufficient. 

I am a free lancer with top rated account in UPWORK. I know java, Javascript and VBA. I joined FLatiron School to expand my experience. I completed the online programming course except last module and here is my comments:
1- The administration is very bad. They don't know anything. wrong answers and late answers. 
2- All of it is self learning with small amount of support. If you want support, you have to wait for 1 hour in queue. 
3- The material at the beginning was good but last module was really bad, no pattern. every lesson was made by different person so you cannot learn way of coding.
4- Job support is not a real support, they just put you under pressure to make you keep looking

my advise is to learn yourself from any website. they just put pressure to make sure that you are doing lessons and looking for job. you can do it yourself without paying all of that money. 

Coming in to Flatiron School, I was incredibly excited. I had committed myself to following my dream of becoming a UX Researcher and Designer (which was a big mental undertaking for me, truly going for what I knew I’d be good at, versus development where I “manage”). I couldn’t afford the tuition, and my credit wasn’t good enough for a loan or ISA program, so when I got a call on February 4th that I had been awarded a scholarship thanks to NexTech’s “100 Innovators in Tech” program, I couldn’t help but cry. I was a month from being homeless, my job search was going poorly (and I needed a new career direction). This was the Hail Mary that I thought was going to turn my life around.
  With this scholarship, my family agreed to help me obtain an apartment in Denver and cover my rent during the program. This investment would end up being over $10,000.
  Sadly, my health failed just as the cohort I was set to join got kicked off in early March. I alerted my instructors, and after several weeks it became apparent that I needed to defer to a later class. I did so.
  I had serious issues with the program during my first initial stint. Featuring disjointed materials, only 15 mins of weekly “face to face” time with your instructor when you’re expected to put in 30+ hours each week, educational coaches that don’t understand the material or the industry, weekly lectures that served as merely a recap and then an hour of clearing up all the confusion around the homework (they call this “learning through iteration”, but in the end it’s just stress for no reason and hours of wasted work). Regardless, I was eager to give the program another shot.
  Then Flatiron pulled the rug out, here is how things play out….
  April 1st
  I get an email at 9 A.M about my transfer, stating “If you do not reply by 9AM 04/02/2020, your case will be closed and you will be dismissed from the program.” and “We will look for availability in the Full-Time Online UX/UI 04/04/20 If the cohort is full, we will look for space in the next available cohort 05/25/20.”
  I respond and let the team know that the 04/04/20 Cohort is good with me, and get an auto-response saying it may take them 48 hours to respond, but I could be dismissed for not responding by the next morning?!
  April 2nd
  I get an email stating “Apologies for the confusion, the next available cohort is not 04/04/20. It is actually 05/04/20. Please let me know if you are still interested in transferring.” I respond that I will make this work.
  April 3rd
  I get an email stating “We have completed the transfer from the Denver Design UX/UI 05/25/2020 cohort. Unfortunetly, the 05/04/2020 cohort is no longer available since it hsa been merged with the 05/25/2020 cohort. You will join this cohort at the beginning of Phase 1 which stars on 05/25/2020.”
  If you’re counting, this is third date I’m given in three days.
  April 15th
  I check in and student services tells me that I’m still enrolled. However, my question on who my instructors would be is dodged again.
  April 21st
  A post goes up on the Flatiron Blog here, cancelling the UX/UI program. Apparently, this (and other options) had been under consideration for several weeks.
  April 22nd
  At 9 PM, an email is sent to students. We can transfer to another program, but mine also includes the line “I understand you were awarded the Cognizant NexTech 100 Scholarship and if you plan to proceed with transferring to a new program, we can assist you with being reviewed by our scholarship committee again and previous eligibility used to evaluate your scholarship award.”
  I’m sorry? I was already awarded this scholarship, we invested thousands of dollars so I could have this opportunity, and you’re going to make me go through the approval process again? Leases were signed, plans established, this isn’t some side show in my life. Also, not even a phone call?
  April 23rd
  I’m destroyed. There’s a job guarantee attached to this program, I don’t have the funds to go to another bootcamp and at this point things are already looking bad economy wise. I scurry to get enrolled in the Software Program because I don’t know what else to do, and supposedly they pull all these strings to make this happen. It turns out that the Admissions team was informed THE DAY BEFORE that this was happening, and had no chance to form a response. By the way, that program they enrolled me in? It starts May 11th with an estimated 160 Hours of “pre-work”.
  So now not only is my life turned upside down, I have a little over 2 weeks to complete 4 weeks worth of pre-work that I was in no way prepared to start.
April 24th-April 28th
  After taking the day, I realize how screwed up this is on Flatiron’s part. From how they’ve treated their own staff, to how they think we can just switch programs (I specifically wanted to move away from Development), to the handling of the scholarships. All of it is ridiculous.
  On April 28th I manage to get on the phone with Cognizant, thinking surely since they had awarded these funds they would allow me to pursue a design program elsewhere. Flatiron couldn’t meet their obligations, why should we suffer as students?
  The result? Flatiron and Cognizant have a “special arrangement” for these scholarship funds, and my only option is to transfer courses. They refuse to release my scholarship funds so I can attend General Assembly or another program of my choice. This puts me in an impossible position.
Consider other options
At the end of the day, Flatiron certainly churns out students that get jobs. But the real ask here is, are you comfortable giving your money and time to a company that will behave in this manner? That will treat staff and students alike with such little regard? That would take someone who is already in one of the most vulnerable positions of their life, see that their actions are causing immense pain and financial disruption, and walk away without a second thought?
 

My overall experience with Flatiron has been extremely positive. 
I have learned so much in such a short amount of time. After I graduated I worked with my career coach for one month and landed an incredible job at a software development company doing UX/UI Design. 

The course is really tough and you will have to be a self-motivator and a self-starter to get through it. There is not really anyone holding you accountable for your learning so you will only get what you put in. You will also have to supplement your learning and read relevant books. I had to read a lot of UX Design related books because I chose the UI side of the course. 

It is an extremely short time period, I therefore recommend to familiarise yourself with the tools they will be using. (Adobe Creative Suite, Invision, Sketch, Figma). 

I made some incredible memories from the course and I am more than happy how everything turned out - I will definitely recommend it to anyone who is passionate about UX/UI Design. 

About me:
- engineering background - not software, with 2 years of industry experience
- 2 more years of experience in tech - not programming; so that puts me in the late 20s in terms of age. Take what you will from this info :)
- graduated in 1/2020, job search is ongoing in 4/2020, with some reasonable leads
- overall, I thought the coursework's difficulty was moderate. Some weeks are tougher, but most are reasonable. Although I have to say that some students with different learning styles do seem to struggle; it's not a matter of intelligence but rather, learning styles. If you do struggle to pass 2 modules, you get booted to the online program which I do not think is fair at $17k a piece for tuition, but thats just me.

TLDR - Pros:
1. sense of community, supportive environment2. really smart people (instructors, coaches, community leads)3. careers team seems to do a better job than your average career service at most universities

TLDR - Cons:
1. curriculum design. I'm definitely no expert programmer, but just speaking from a job-seeker's perspective, the lack of algorithm/data structure from lectures, is a major, major flaw. 2. the admissions and corporate side of things seem disconnected from campus - I say corporate, because you have to understand that Flatiron is at its core, a for-profit company; keep this in mind as you go through your program. Although I'd say it's not any worse than a midsized startup that is experiencing some 'growing pains'. This is not as big of a deal as the curriculum.
3. questionable job-placement stats and the 'money back guarantee' is basically impossible to get. they do give you many low quality job leads (e.g. not engineering jobs, far below average pay, shady companies, etc); you either have to bite the bullet and take them, or lose your money back guarantee if you turn them down (more on that below)
Now for the long review:

Overall, I really enjoyed my experience at Flatiron Manhattan, immersive software engineering program. Instructors and coaches were just the best - knowledgeable, great at communicating difficult concepts, and helpful for answering questions and concerns. Seems like they really got some of the brightest people there.
There were regular community events, some open to the public, some just among students, which really helped create a network and a sense of camaraderie between you and the peers. There was a great sense of community, I woke up everyday feeling excited to go to the campus and learn. That was a major plus for me.
Career coaches (at least mine, shout out to you, Laura Finestone) were knowledgeable and helpful. My coach helped me throughout my (still ongoing) job search and gave me some good advice. She was also very personable, and I enjoy our weekly check-ins even when there are no major updates on my end.
But let's be honest, you came here to see what’s not so stellar and whether or not you should take the plunge. Let me start by pointing out a couple of things that I think should definitely be improved.
First and foremost, the curriculum design felt incomplete to me. There had been zero teaching of Data Structures and Algorithms throughout the 15-week program. I remember going to my first meetup after graduating. I, among other Flatiron graduates, were the only ones who did not know what stack, queue, or other basic data structures were; graduates from other bootcamps (Fullstack, Grace Hopper, CodeSmith etc) seemed to have a grasp on these concepts. Now several weeks after graduation, I'm still spending hours every day, learning algorithms on my own, and I personally find them to be a lot more challenging than the materials taught during the bootcamp. Look, I get it: we only had 15 weeks and they wanted to cram as much practical materials (Javascript, Ruby, React, etc) as possible, so we can start building good looking applications, and I really do appreciate that. But Flatiron's, or any bootcamp's ultimate goal, is to help students get jobs, and there hasn't been a single technical job interview I've been to, where algorithm questions weren't asked. In my opinion (and some employers with whom I spoke), having at least a basic understanding of data structure and algorithms is a big factor that separates bootcamp grads from CS college students. Sure, you can argue that these algorithms are rarely used 'in real life', but I think that having a grasp of them will allow you to write clean, efficient code, which is crucial for job search, and honestly important for just being a decent programmer. Same could be said about System Design concepts as well. Granted, this concept seems to occur less frequently on tech interviews, but having some sort of understanding of how to design production-grade applications that are used by many users, would be very helpful. Yes, you do learn enough from the program to make some great-looking, highly functional applications, but they are far from production-ready that serves more than 1 user at a time.
Secondly, this is much less important compared to the last, but worth mentioning. There seems to be a disconnect between the corporate side and the campus side of Flatiron. My experience at the campus with the Education Team (instructors, coaches) has been stellar. But when it came to the admissions/operations side of things, which are handled by the Flatiron corporate, there were more hiccups. Again, this is not nearly as important as my previous point, as you only occasionally have to interact with that side of the business.

Last but not the least, be aware of the fine prints of career services. There are certain things (frankly, a lot of things, too many to list) that will void your money back guarantee. As a previews review said, they will sometimes give you very low quality job leads, that are not programming jobs, with pay that are far below average (i.e. $50k in NYC when you've just paid $17k for tuition, living in one of the most expensive cities in the world), at a company that is sketchy at best. However, if you turn down such an offer for example, your money back guarantee is gone. I've seen quite a few "training programs" at shady staffing agencies that came through flatiron, which would pay you just $1k for an 8-week training, then you get $50-55k after the training, and if you leave the company before your 2yr contract you have to pay them $20k penalty, oh and btw, be willing to relocate anywhere in the country. Frankly, if your goal is to find just a job, any job, it's going to be relatively easy given the connections Flatiron has. But know that if you are hoping to get FAANG or brand-name tech company offers left and right after graduating, you should really really reset your expectations.
Now, to the question you came here for - is Flatiron worth it? I would say, YES! BUT ONLY IF some changes can be made towards improving the curriculum to include data structure and algorithm. Honestly, if you have the discipline to learn on your own schedule, all of the materials currently taught during the 15 weeks can be learned online for free or maybe at a tiny fraction of the cost - and I do mean all of them. What you are paying so much for is the connections you make, the support you get from campus, the hand-holding from the instructors, and the job leads from the career services team. That being said, having to have a software engineering ‘lite’ curriculum is not a worthy tradeoff in my opinion. 

Fully delivered what was promised. I completed the data science course All my classmates had strong professional or academic credentials. Instructors were Joe, Sean, and Fangfang. All were extremely knowledgeable, friendly, and had real world experience. I left with all the skills of a data scientist. They put me with Diane as my job coach. She was phenomenal, went above and beyond. I happen to know that the sentiments are shared among all of her students. Diane said to expect the job search to take about 60 days. I got an offer 65 days later, from my first choice job lead, which Diane found for me. The salary is more than what Flatiron boasts as their average starting on their placement stats. Overall very happy. Paid the tuition, learned what was promised from great instructors. Got placed in a great job. A+++

I graduated from the Immersive Software Engineering course in Denver 3 weeks ago, and accepted an offer as a software engineer at a startup last week. I had zero coding experience when I started, and now feel confident that I have a stable base of knowledge from which to learn more and work in the field. 

The Denver program specifically is an incredible environment that fosters cooperation, learning, and a culture of inclusion and acceptance. The head instructor, Kyle Coberly, is just as into education theory as he is into teaching coding, so the program is structured in a way that caters to students. It's not easy in any way, but there aren't unnecessary barriers, and the instructors are always willing to schedule one-on-ones, have extra lessons, and support different learning styles. 

Personally, I feel like this is the best thing I've ever done for myself. I was 15 years into a business operations career when I decided to change my life and pursue software engineering, and I haven't regretted it.