When I received the email from Codaisseur asking us to write them a review, I was surprised. Why would a school ask their former students to write reviews for them? Their reason: they lost students because of bad reviews on Switchup. When I looked, scrolling... Read More past the first few reviews that gave them all 5 stars, I saw several negative reviews that struck me because of how alike our experiences were. The same tactics used repeatedly when things didn't go Codaisseur's way. This angered me, and I felt compelled to write this in the hope that nobody repeats my mistake and chooses Codaisseur. . I joined Codaisseur this year. I did not do too well in the interview, but I was selected anyway. Their seemingly strict application rules where only 32% of students were accepted, did not seem to apply to me. From the first week, it became clear to me that the main objective of the curriculum is: throw all the world's information at the student and see what they remember. Every week there was a test that eliminated students. The teaching staff, bless their hearts, they had little idea of their own schedules. Sometimes we would be sitting in class for a while with no teacher. Much later, they would appear, citing apologies, saying they didn't even know they were taking the first lesson of the day. Strangely enough, after the fourth week, we began to sympathise with the teachers. . In the fourth week, we were introduced to the 'new batch' of students. There were almost 40 of them. We were around 25 in a class, and that I thought was already too many. It felt like the production of developers was more factory-like for Codaisseur. Quantity over quality seems to be their norm. Numbers don't lie, but do they tell you also how many students are dropped by companies during or after their trial period? That number seems painfully high. Anyway: The teaching staff could barely devote attention to more than 10 students in a day. The rest of us had to rely on each other. As expected, it was chaotic. . The 'reader' is the online course material accessible to a student. Every week we would go through course material at surface level, leaving giant holes of information and code untouched. Asking a teacher seemed like we were taking too much time away from them. They were managing multiple classes at the same time, thus educating neither. . The final examination was the first time I began to doubt the Codaisseur modal. They advertise themselves as 'no cure, no pay'. Which should mean that if you do not pass the examination, you have failed the course and should not be paying the 'tuition fees' of 11520 Euros. However there are some members of the administration at Codaisseur that I rightfully despise, because if these people determine that you failed the exam on purpose, or did not try hard enough, you will be asked to pay the fees anyway. They will send an email to you, informing you that from the next day, your payment obligation begins. Without graduation and without a job, who has the money to pay them back? . Our job search period began as Covid began. It was a difficult time for everyone. Once we graduated, we had to attend a week of career counselling. As many of the reviews have mentioned, this week is poor quality counselling at best. A week of my life I will never get back, spent reading motivational quotes and thinking about our talents. I hoped that my CV would be reviewed by a professional, but all I got was "Change your picture, and change the layout, make it more professional." What sort of feedback is that? They recommended me a website that generates free CVs. So I used it, and sent in my CV during applications. A few months later, a company responded saying "Students from Codaisseur always have the same CV, and you do too." That was their reason for not going further with my application. Immediately, I changed my CV to the old one and send it in. I had much more responses after that. . There was a video call scheduled for all students, where the same administration team spoke to us, proposing a new contract. The new contract would be for 5 months instead of our original 3 month contract. This means that during those months, it is required of you to actively search for jobs, and submit 6 applications per week. Due to Covid they wanted to extend this period to 5 months, cutting the tuition fee down to about 9000 Euros. They also told us that they would give us additional job search assistance if we chose the 5month contract. Naturally, most of us did. I did not, however, since I was already hearing a lot of bad things about Codaisseur from alumni. In either case, I was required to look for a job for 3 months. . Every week a student is to report to a career counsellor from Codaisseur. The call lasts 15 minutes, but can go on for almost an hour. For the first 2 months, all I was asked is, how many applications did I do, did I hear back, etc. No advice was given. At the end of the 2 months, I received a message saying it was my last month of the job search period. This is when I realised Codaisseur's true nature. . I had a few first interviews, where the companies had not heard about Codaisseur. I was told by the administration members to explain the Codaisseur model. You pay 800 Euros upfront as an admission fee, then your education is free until you graduate, and once you get a job the company pays for your fees. What they don't tell you, is that the money for the fees is ultimately taken from your salary. Which company willingly hires juniors, paying them the minimum (about 2300 Euros) for a developer and then still can afford to pay 300 euros per month additional, to the school? That is 2600 euros they would rather spend to hire a medior or someone with more expertise at least. During my first interviews, I heard a lot of this. And they were right. If they were to actually pay you 2300, minus the 300 that Codaisseur asks for, you would receive 2000 before taxes. Not to be harsh, but that is the salary I was earning while working in the catering industry. And I truly believed that being a web developer is a step ahead of that. So why should I work a better job for the same money? . The kicker comes with the last month of job search for me. The case of a few people from the class before me, as well as in my own class: - You received a job offer that was paying you less compared to the average developer salary. They told you that you could accept it once you are done with the contract with Codaisseur. But Codaisseur has in their contract that any job offer received as a result of job searches during the job search period (3 months in my case) would have to pay the fees even if the job offer was made or accepted after this period ends. Since the salary offered was too low, you declined it, and told the administrative team at Codaisseur the same. What followed was calls from certain members still working there, they pressured you into accepting this offer even though you already told them you would not. If you had accepted , you would have to pay 300 Euros from an already low salary to Codaisseur, and so you told them you would wait for the next job offer. But the pressure did not stop, and ultimately you received a warning, that if you did not accept the job offer there was a good chance you would be fined the entire amount of the tuition fee. It is very easy to see from the responses to the reviews that the team responsible for this behaviour would rather pretend that it never happened. . Codaisseur does mention in the contract that they will do the best they can to help students get a job. They shouldn't have lied like that, because I can quote them pretty easily in the review they ironically asked for. In all the months of the job search period, they organised 0 job fairs. It should have been easier to do since everyone was online. For my classmates with the 5 month contract, in 5 months they had one job fair. How did it work? The administration team matched students to companies and scheduled calls as interviews. A classmate was part of this, they were interviewed by a company, and then the company wrote back to them saying they were not accepted because they did not speak dutch.What sort of research went into matching a Dutch speaking company with a person that clearly did not have Dutch on their CV? . Another thing, they mention in the contract with students that a trial period for a job position can only be maximum one day. In the whole of the Netherlands, a one month probation period is quite normal. In this month, you can be terminated for no reason. But Codaisseur still takes your monthly instalments! So if you lost your job due to Covid, they delay the payments by 3 months, and then start again even if you didn't find a job. I know classmates who haven't been with a job for months due to unavailability of jobs, and who are still paying Codaisseur. They have debt on them which lasts for 2 years, with legal consequences if they choose not to pay. . I want to summarise by reflecting on what the definition of school or university is. It is a place where you can make mistakes and learn. The people responsible for my negative experience were those who were running the business aspect of the school. Where people were being churned out for companies to try and spit out if it did not work. Where students accrued debt and were left hopeless by a contract that works to trap them for 2 years. To Codaisseur, I hope your quest for gaining more reviews spurs more revealing details of your true nature and results in more loss of students. To be honest, they are better off without an education with you. 2021 will hopefully be a year of better choices, not only for me, but for all aspiring developers as well. If it is education you seek, I recommend looking through online courses which are completely free. Real development takes time, and in the very least, should not leave you with a huge debt for no fault of your own.
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