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About Flatiron School
Founded in 2012 and started the bootcamp revolution, Flatiron School offers immersive on-campus and online programs that train passionate people to excel in fulfilling careers in software engineering, data science, cybersecurity analytics and cybersecurity... Read More
Students benefit from:
- Proven Career-Services Framework
- Robust Industry-Aligned Curriculum
- Career Building Portfolio
- Dedicated 1:1 Career-Coaching
- The Support of Passionate Instructors, Coaches and Community
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Courses
Average Ratings (All Programs)
4.68/5
- Jasper Reed | Coach, Software Engineering
- Software Engineering
- Graduated: 2020
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"Flatiron helped me better myself"
- Matthew Sedlacek | Full Stack Software Developer
- Software Engineering
- Graduated: 2020
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"Amazing Experience!"
- Margarita Morozova
- Graduated: 2020
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"Best Coding Bootcamp In Every Way!"
- Jared Matta | Software Engineer
- Software Engineering
- Graduated: 2020
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"Flatiron Software Engineering Course"
- Anonymous
- Graduated: 2020
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"🚩***SCAM ALERT*** : Read Before Enrolling"
Oh boy...where do I begin.
My recruiter was Madison Delaney and I would sometimes go weeks without hearing back from her. You can't call Flatiron and get a single person on the phone...always goes to voicemail. I'd constantly have to follow up, and it... Read More
I payed for the in-person program and received the online program. Flatiron still refuses to refund the difference after months of going back and forth with them. No points awarded for ethically. Here's 600 other Flatiron students who are upset about the situtation that Flatiron still ignores and refuses to address publicly.
https://www.change.org/p/flatiron-school-in-person-students-flatiron-school-in-person-students-partial-tuition-refund-effort
On another note, Flatiron's instructors always seemed busy. When in need of assistance, more often than not, you're told to google the problem instead. Why did you pay the tuition then...I don't know. Where is the money going towards...I don't know.
Flatiron is quite big on asking for feedback, and I sure provided a lot of feedback during my time there. For the most part they don't seem to follow up on too many of them...or at least mine.
The instructors are all very nice, many of them are hired right after graduating so they aren't as experienced as the lead instructors. You very rarely get any attention from the lead instructor and even other instructors, so you're on your own for the most part.
The aloted rough schedule they advertise on their website is misleading and false. Your division of the day will mostly result with you being on your own googling answers and teaching yourself. There's a lot of BS in the schedule, like attendance for a half hour, surveys for an hour, "stand-downs" for an hour, "feelings" for an hour, etc... After doing the math, 16% of our day was actually entirely unaccounted for and pair programming was at a minimal percentage. I would have thought they'd be extra careful to not have any false advertising because they lost a lawsuit for $375,000 for having false salary and placement statistics advertised on there website.
Upon finishing the program, I feel cheated out of $17,000. The money-back guarantee sounds nice, but in actuality most people are either ineligible or opt-out and I'm uncertain why. Flatiron even leaked everybody’s personal data in a mass email and it doesn't look like anybody has received the money-back guarantee.
CSS is not taught - maybe it's just touched upon. They do a decent job with Ruby and React, but discourage you from learning Redux. You can graduate this program not knowing CSS, a single algorithm, or have a personal portfolio page. That's a big red flag.
Career services will follow up with you often which is nice, no complaints about that. They do leave everything up to you and it's mostly hands off on their part.
I do believe that at one point in time they used to be good. I came into this program looking to love it, but they definitely left a bad taste in my mouth and that's wildly unfortunate. There are way better alternatives from my understanding - even just teaching yourself is a better alternative...you can do it, don't be discouraged! Udemy looks like they have some great full stack courses for $20. I'd do that if I could go back in time.
Comment- Alex | Software Engineer
- Graduated: 2019
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"The little engine that couldn't."
At face value, Flatiron's promises and guarantees (such as the money back guarantee) seem flawless. Flatiron seems like a reputable school with great values and, with hundreds of great reviews online, there's no reason to believe otherwise. But beware:... Read More
Instructors:
We were promised lead instructors and assistants.
Three days into the bootcamp, every single lead instructor on my campus quit. We were then taught by TAs that apologized for their lectures because they had, and I quote, "never taught before." Flatiron attempted to remedy the situation by flying in leads from DC and NYC, but neither instructor stayed longer than a week (a mod is 3 weeks) despite being told we would have them for a whole mod. This meant our TAs stepped in and taught a couple of lectures, while most of the time we were just sent pre-recorded lectures from the prior year. To add insult to injury, they finally hired someone named Lyn to come in and be our Lead Instructor for the last 3 weeks before our final project. She taught us one 30 minute lesson, "Who is Lyn?" and then was conveniently sick/caring for her sick wife for the rest of the three weeks.
In the event that you did not experience instructors leaving (which would be a miracle considering lead instructors are hard to come by these days), lead instructors are NOT what is promised on the website. Now, please don't think I'm calling out every lead instructor, there were a couple great ones, but one of the best ones quit 3 days into my first week.
Curriculum:
Have you ever heard of code academy? Flatiron certainly has as it seems all of their curriculum is either poorly TA-written (and I mean, POORLY), or ripped off from code academy. The amount of times we looked around and scratched our heads at what on earth we were supposed to be doing is far too many to count. Sure, you might think we were just a particularly stupid group, but it turns out that most Alumni feel the same way about the curriculum.
Also, you cannot go from "beginner" to "job ready" upon graduation. You are not taught enough basic fundamentals (hello, react hooks?!?) to even get a jr. level job and far more people spend 6+ months after graduation absolutely grinding out lessons from places like code academy and leet code to get up to par that Flatiron would like you to believe. There is no curriculum after the 15 weeks (technically, it's only 12 because the last 3 weeks are spent working on a project) to further your education and you will find yourself scouring youtube videos on how to code just like you did while attending flatiron.
Job Assistance:
I've said it once and I'll say it a hundred times: I got a job despite going to Flatiron.
My previous work experience played a HUGE role in getting a job and Flatiron does NOT have a "robust employer pipeline" as their website would like you to believe. Their money back guarantee is also a scam. If you do not do every single thing they ask for 6 months (and the requirements are really, really tough) then you are disqualified from getting your money back. I think 2 people in the history of Flatiron have gotten their money back and I know of 8 in the last couple months that have tried.
We did not have "Lunch and Learn" meetups with people in the industry, I was not contacted by Employer Partnerships more than once regarding a job paying over $12/hr ($24,900/yr)... the going salary for a SE in NYC is $75,000/yr.
Overall:
Flatiron has one silver lining. Their alumni community.
BUT, If you want to spend $15,000 on a bootcamp that barely gets your foot in the door, potentially rips you off for $20,000+ if you do an ISA, or screws you over by disqualifying you for a "Money Back Guarantee" that is nothing short of a legal scam, then go ahead, be my guest. But as for me? I do not recommend Flatiron. There's so many better options out there that are free.
Comment- Brandon Williams
- Graduated: 2020
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"My Experience at Flatiron (July 2020)"
- Miranda
- Data Science
- Graduated: 2020
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"Extremely disorganized and chaotic - don't waste your time."
- Anonymous
- Online Software Engineering
- Graduated: 2020
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"Flatiron School Web Development Self-Paced"
I did the self-paced boot camp. I was initially required to complete it within 15 months, but Flatiron School offered a three-month extension due to COVID-19. I would've dropped out otherwise because I found a full-time job that consumed most of my time... Read More
The technologies I learned are ruby, ruby on rails, Sinatra, HTML/CSS/Javascript, react, redux, and thunk.
The structure of the program is articles consisting of paragraphs explaining concepts. Those articles frequently have code samples and videos. It is written in the style of a blog, with many memes. (This boot camp is why I installed a meme blocker extension.) There are also many metaphors that explain difficult concepts. Overall, it's very accessible.
Outside of written lessons, there are code-alongs (coding exercises that supply the answers) and labs (coding exercises that don't supply the answers). Labs generally supply tests that must be made to pass, but the code-alongs might not.
There are also final projects. These are coding exercises that include a list of requirements that demonstrate knowledge of recently learned concepts. They are unstructured enough that Flatiron School doesn't supply tests, but the student can optionally write their own. The types of projects are: ruby command line interface, ruby with Sinatra web framework, ruby with rails framework, ruby with rails api and HTML/CSS/Javascript frontend, and ruby with rails api and react frontend. Students must submit a blog post and video explainer as part of the project.
Along with completing these, a student must schedule time to explain their code to an instructor. First, they must explain what it is and why they made it. Then, the student explains how the project meets all requirements, and then do some live coding.
There were really good options available for getting help. They included participating in chat or viewing a lab's repository. My experience of chatting to get help was that the person who responded (an instructor, I think) gave me hints about how to structure a method. I still didn't understand, so the instructor eventually gave me the answer.
I preferred not to have to start a chat to get help, so I dug around a little. I found that Flatiron School's repositories often had multiple branches. The Solution branch of repositories associated with labs offered me quick help that didn't require reaching out. And, obviously, being able to read code is a very different experience than someone telling me to incorporate a certain data structure. I think it would be good if Flatiron School advertised that solutions are available in their repositories, but I can see why they might not want to.
These help options aren't available for the final projects.
After formally graduating, I found that there is actually more content for studying. There is a section that discusses launching final projects live on the web, and there are explainers on data structures and algorithms. Finally, there is a list of algorithm problems to help a new graduate get used to solving new and unusual problems. My critique would've been that devops/live environment setup, algorithms, and performance were completely neglected, but the post-work section makes a good save on that front.
I found the self-paced program to be flexible. There is an unenforced expectation that students complete the material in order. For example, each final project is situated after material a student would've just learned. Instead of doing them in order, as full-time students are required to do to keep up with their group, I saved them all for the end. I also completed some final projects out of order. I even waited months to schedule an instructor review after indicating that I completed one of the projects. I also found a lab that could be done in a group. I was going to do it in a group, but after not visiting that page for a long time, I was somehow switched over to doing it on my own, so I just completed it alone.
I started looking for a job before completing the boot camp. That wasn't necessary because Flatiron School brings very promising prospects to graduates. Relying on Flatiron School's career services was the difference between recruiters constantly telling me they wanted experience and recruiters sending code challenges to see what I could do (often before a phone screen). It was also the difference between having to figure out where are jobs in industries I wanted to work in, versus jobs I was really interested in reaching out to me after deciding I'm a good candidate.
My career coach helped me create the job search I wanted. Historically, I've found work via cold calls on job posting sites, so I expected to go that route. She had ideas that were very different from what I wanted to do, but she was willing to help me stay within certain requirements to qualify for Flatiron School's career services. I'm not a fan of LinkedIn or showing pictures of myself online as a way of pursuing a job, so I was glad the only change we settled on was me adding my last job. Ultimately, outside of relying on Flatiron School's pool of prospective employees, I did find a job without relying on any networking lead-generation practices.
I also found Flatiron School's tools for finding a job to be very different from what I had used before. Although it was basically a spreadsheet and a word document, it allowed me to organize in a way that I didn't know the value of.
Comment- Anonymous | Full time Online SE
- Online Software Engineering
- Graduated: 2020
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"Not Worth the Money"
Easily the biggest waste of your money. The classes are LITERALLY self taught. Part of the reason I planned to pay money for instruction is to get an organized lecture and the ability to as question as things come up.
Flatiron is all about reading on your... Read More
If I was going to teach myself, I would have done udemy classes or odin project.
CommentFlatiron School's average rating is 4.68 out of 5.0 based on 248 review(s).
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Frequently Asked Questions
What financing options are offered by Flatiron School?
Flatiron School offers many financing options, such as Scholarships, Loan Financing, Deffered Payment, and Upfront Payments.
What courses are offered at Flatiron School?
There are many courses you can take at Flatiron School. These include
What types of programs are offered at Flatiron School?
Flatiron School has Full-Time and Part-Time programs for students that can be taken online or in-person.
In these programs, students can learn from and take advantage of pair-programming exercises, labs & mini projects, mentorship, individual career coaching, and more.
What are the job outcomes for Flatiron School?
The average salary after graduation is $76,000 for on-campus grads and $72,000 for online grads, and 93% of alumni find a job.
Flatiron School alumni work at various tech companies, such as Microsoft, Glossier, Amazon Web Services, and more.
What is the application process at Flatiron School like?
Prospective students will need to submit an online form in order to apply to Flatiron School.
Hi Alex - Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. We take this feedback incredibly seriously and, while we’re thrilled you got a great job, we’re sorry your experience hasn’t been what you expected. That’s not what we want for any student.... Read More
We’re incredibly proud of our curriculum and our job placements and we are always striving to make Flatiron School even better. We want to make sure you can connect with us over any issues you’ve experienced and will do our best to address them. Our team is reviewing your case in detail and will be sure to get back to you promptly