Learners Guild is closed

This school is now closed. Although Learners Guild is no longer accepting students or running its program, you can still see historical information and Learners Guild alumni reviews on the school page.

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Learners Guild

Average Rating1.85
13 Reviews
1 Course

Learners Guild is a 10-month, full-time full-stack web development learning collective with no upfront tuition cost in Oakland, CA. Learners Guild is a creative learning environment that uses the principles of cognitive apprenticeship to design a system for effective software development skills training. Nearly all learning takes place in team projects, much in the way that actual software applications are built. Therefore, there are no teachers telling students what to study. Instead of many students learning only from one person, every learner is learning from others and, in turn, passing on their skills and knowledge.

At Learners Guild, a new cohort joins every 10 weeks so there is always a dynamic range of skills and experience in the room that students should use to their advantage. The learning system helps students to choose projects and goals that are both relevant and challenging so that students are working on interesting problems that push them into "Proximal Zone of Development". Students do not pay tuition until they have secured job placement.

13 Learners Guild Reviews

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  • aileen santos
    Cognitive Apprenticeship • Oakland
    Verified by LinkedIn
    Sep 24, 2017
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    Disrupting Education Requires Resources & Team of Education Specialists

    Being a 'lean' startup does not work when implementing an innovative model for education and Learner's Guild is proof. 

    We all know that education in the US has needed an overhaul for quite some time. US Government has tried to reform education by incentivizing schools and students to compete harder. BUT in areas that have been historically underserved, this competitive model DOES NOT work. Black, brown, immigrant and TLGBQI students have experienced minimal success in that model...

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  • Rai Lee
    Rai Lee
    Student • Cognitive Apprenticeship • Oakland
    Verified by GitHub
    Jul 18, 2017
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    I wouldn't do it again

    Learners Guild, they are not a coding bootcamp, but I think that your chances are better off if you were to attend a bootcamp instead. 

    I attended Learners Guild for approximately three months, I decided to buy into their culture and give them a chance, but the longer that I stayed, the longer I realized that they didn't know what they were doing. And I decided to leave. Here is my opinion/experience. 

    Although their intentions are good, they tried to scale too quickly...

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  • Jonathan Pool
    Jonathan Pool
    Learner • Student • Cognitive Apprenticeship • Oakland
    Verified by GitHub
    May 30, 2017
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance
    N/A

    Fine for me, but your experience may vary

    My 4 weeks at Learners Guild have taught me close to as much as I think I could have learned in any other system. See my weekly blog entries for details. This is especially true if you consider that the Guild aims to help us learn not only coding, but also teamwork, organizational finesse, social-impact assessment, and, above all, learning as an ongoing effort amidst fast-changing technologies a...

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  • Arayi
    Anonymous
    Student • Cognitive Apprenticeship • Oakland
    Oct 10, 2017
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    Toxic to the core

    When I first encountered the guild's marketing materials, it seemed great. Not too-good-to-be-true, but an honest attempt at creating a social enterprise to help marginalized people break into the industry.

    I couldn't have been more wrong.

    I was in the second cohort, and should have listened to the voice in the back of my head from day 1. The first day we were there, Shereef Bishay (founder/CEO) exhorted the learners to work 40 billable hours per week. Someone with cont...

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  • Alex Reany
    Anonymous
    Oakland
    Sep 28, 2017
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    Keep Looking

    I wish these reviews were available when I started the program. I bought the way they were marketing the program and was eager to join. It didn't take long to realize that they were well-intentioned, but did not have the experience or model for LG to be successful. There was no formalized instruction. You are given ill-conceived tasks to complete. When the program was questioned the response was along the line of we aren't giving you a fish, but teaching you how to fish. Unfortunatel...

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  • Shaka Lee
    Anonymous
    Graduate • Oakland
    Aug 25, 2017
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    First Cohort - Wish I had chose another path

    I was apart of the first cohort. When I started, I believe there were 17 of us and by the end, several dropped out. Before I enrolled, I was working in Chicago as a delivery driver and taking coding classes on the side. I was mesmerized by the opportunity to 'get paid to learn how to code' which was being advertised in the beginning. Unfamiliar with contracts in general and wrapped with promises that this was a diverse learning community versus a regular type of private institution, I sign...

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  • Davina Taylor
    Anonymous
    Cognitive Apprenticeship • Oakland
    Jun 28, 2017
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    Don't even think about coming to Learner's Guild!

    I feel like I wasted my time being at Learner's Guild. It seems like every other week, there is a new change and it gets worse and worse. I am so close to being done and now they want to start doing phases. In each phase, you have to interview to get to the next phase to do more projects. Fine but they chose to do it when the next cohort,which is my cohort, is about to leave and not only that, you get kicked out if you don't pass every 8 weeks. At first, I was happy to hear ab...

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  • Carla
    Anonymous
    Graduate • Cognitive Apprenticeship • Oakland
    Jun 16, 2017
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    A gigantic social experiment

    Learners Guild is a huge scam. They make people sign contracts to pay up to 21% of your salary for three years if you make over $50k a year. It doesn't matter if you actually become a software engineer after the program- and everyone knows that is pretty much any entry level customer support job in the Bay Area.

    During my time in the program, I saw a change in the learning model every ten weeks. When I signed my contract I thought this was going to be a finished program! As of la...

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  • KW
    Anonymous
    Student • Cognitive Apprenticeship • Oakland
    May 18, 2017
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    Some Pros, but Many Cons

    I'm very concerned about a number of graduates that have not gotten jobs, which will most likely include me and many others.

    Ok, the pros, because my gramma always said to say something nice first: no upfront tuition, stipend paid promptly through direct deposit every two weeks, lifelong friendships, unconventional support in the form of house/player support meetings, individual therapy available at no additional cost, learner-led brown bags (meetings focused on a fellow learner ...

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  • Sunshine
    Anonymous
    May 07, 2017
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    Improving constantly

    There is a need for more tech staff to help students. Non technical staff is very supportive, and the SEPS(Pro engineers are really helpful)  If more tech staff was hired to work with students, things would be much better.  It's a self learning environment but would be better if incorporated with a few classes taught by pro engineers. Environment is warm and friendly with lots of diverse types of people.   Lot's of adjustments are made because it's growing so fast, but would've been better...

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  • Anonymously
    Anonymous
    Student • Cognitive Apprenticeship • Oakland
    May 01, 2017
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance
    N/A

    Discombobulated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

     

    Don't be bamboozled by the rhetoric preached by the staff (nontechnical and founder). Learners Guild is an extremely discombobulated place to learn. This review will solely be focusing on the curriculum and lack of resources available.

    The curriculum is in need of a major over hall it was just a bunch of repo’s(called the goal library) created by other students(the irony many of the creators did not attempt the goals they created) not fully vetted by the staff. The cu...

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  • Davina Taylor
    Anonymous
    Cognitive Apprenticeship • Oakland
    Apr 26, 2017
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    Don't be fooled

    When I first started the Guild, it was a great place to learn and surrounded by people who looked like me. It was for people who was kept out or not accepted into the tech industry. What felt like a safe place is slowly but surely turning into a toxic environment. More and more women are leaving the Guild whereas more men are being brought into the Guild, mostly white men. As much as they claim about support for women, I feel that our words and complaints are being ignored and no one seems...

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Learners Guild Alumni Outcomes

Recent Learners Guild News

Imogen Crispe
Imogen Crispe
Updated December 27, 2018
As we near the end of 2018, we're rewinding and reflecting on the most interesting and impactful coding bootcamp news of the year. Come with us as we look at trends, digest thought pieces, break down the ~$175 million in new funding, and more. We’ll also look at our predictions for 2019 and our hopes for the future of coding bootcamps! 2018: Course Report in Numbers We added 89 n...
Imogen Crispe
Imogen Crispe
Updated February 16, 2021
  In the coding bootcamp industry in June 2018 the biggest trend we saw was coding bootcamps funneling grads into apprenticeships! We also saw two big fundraises by bootcamp-adjacent organizations, we heard about some interesting new legislation which could change how online bootcamps operate, and some bootcamp alumni launched exciting new careers. We also look at the effect bootcamps are ...
Imogen Crispe
Imogen Crispe
Updated February 18, 2020
For some students, the traditional 12-week, full-time coding bootcamp may not seem like enough time to acquire the skills that employers want. As the coding bootcamp industry has evolved, longer coding bootcamps such as Turing, Galvanize, C4Q, Ada Developers Academy, Learner's Guild, CODE University, Holberton School, Make School, We Think Code, and 42 have emerged with courses ranging fr...
Imogen Crispe
Imogen Crispe
Updated July 21, 2017
Haven’t had time to keep up with all the coding bootcamp news this March? Not to worry– we’ve compiled it for you in a handy blog post and podcast. This month, we read a lot about CIRR and student outcomes reporting, we heard from reporters and coding bootcamp students about getting hired after coding bootcamp, a number of schools announced exciting diversity initiatives, and we added a han...
Imogen Crispe
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Updated March 01, 2017
Here’s what we found ourselves reading and discussing in the Course Report office in February 2017! We found out the three most in-demand programming languages, we read about how coding could be the new blue collar job, and looked at how new schools are tweaking the bootcamp model to fit their communities. Plus, we hear about a cool app for NBA fans built by coding bootcamp graduates! Read ...
Imogen Crispe
Imogen Crispe
Updated July 23, 2024
Welcome to the September 2016 Course Report monthly coding bootcamp news roundup! Each month, we look at all the happenings from the coding bootcamp world from new bootcamps to big fundraising announcements, to interesting trends. Of course, we cover our 2016 Outcomes and Demographics Report (we spent a ton of time on this one and hope everyone gets a chance to read it)! Other trends includ...

Learners Guild Alumni Reviews Summary

Overall Experience
1.9
Instructors
2.8
Curriculum
1.8
Job Assistance
1.6
Write A Review
More Information
Guarantees Job
Job Assistance
Includes Housing
Offers Corporate Training
Accepts GI Bill
FAQs

How much does Learners Guild cost?

The average bootcamp costs $14,142, but Learners Guild does not share pricing information. You can read a cost-comparison of other popular bootcamps!

What courses does Learners Guild teach?

Learners Guild offers courses like Cognitive Apprenticeship.

Where does Learners Guild have campuses?

Learners Guild has an in-person campus in Oakland.

Is Learners Guild worth it?

Learners Guild hasn't shared alumni outcomes yet, but one way to determine if a bootcamp is worth it is by reading alumni reviews. 13 Learners Guild alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Learners Guild on Course Report - you should start there!

Is Learners Guild legit?

We let alumni answer that question. 13 Learners Guild alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Learners Guild and rate their overall experience a 1.85 out of 5.

Does Learners Guild offer scholarships or accept the GI Bill?

Right now, it doesn't look like Learners Guild offers scholarships or accepts the GI Bill. We're always adding to the list of schools that do offer Exclusive Course Report Scholarships and a list of the bootcamps that accept the GI Bill.

Can I read Learners Guild reviews?

You can read 13 reviews of Learners Guild on Course Report! Learners Guild alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Learners Guild and rate their overall experience a 1.85 out of 5.

Is Learners Guild accredited?

While bootcamps must be approved to operate, accreditation is relatively rare. Learners Guild doesn't yet share information about their accreditation status.

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