Flatiron School

MY EXPERIENCE AT FLATIRON (JULY 2020) Full Time Software Engineering I would not recommend Flatiron to anyone, period. My Student/Admissions Rep had terrible communication skills (which is not acceptable) and would take days and days to answer 1 email... Read More after asking again after 2 or 3 days and then CC'ing the general info@flatiron email to try to get an answer. This went on the entire 3 months of correspondence leading up to the class and even after, when I tried to switch to Self-Paced (more on that later). I voiced this concern to the Senior Manager of Admissions and Enrollment, after my Student rep emailed me (for the first time to tell me) at 2 PM that my Enrollment Agreement had to be signed THAT NIGHT. I was literally in the middle of driving a 26' Uhaul truck full of my possessions with my car on a tow dolly on the back driving halfway across the country when I saw the email later that afternoon. Sr Mgr at first seemed interested in my concerns only to quickly brush them aside and just say sorry that I have concerns. (The great customer service continues) I feel for you if you get my rep as an Admissions/Student Rep, she seems unorganized and lacks responsiveness and the communication skills needed to be a Rep. They have what's called a First Mile, which is just your first 2 weeks of school, and it has requirements to complete before time is up or you fail and have to be placed in the next Cohort (if it's your 1st time failing). Unfortunately, due to my wife contracting the Coronavirus, that left me beginning my First Mile while taking care of her and our 3 kids. This caused me to get behind, so behind that I spent days on Iterations and had to ask a Teacher's Assistant (TA) for help on every lab. By the time I got it, I was out of time to complete the rest of the curriculum. The curriculum is a joke. I am not exaggerating when I say it is a few paragraphs, sometimes with a video, as the lesson. The videos are poor quality, it just shows a screen capture and the narration sounds like it was recorded on a laptop mic from 2008. To say it's poor quality is an understatement. The curriculum, more often than not, does not teach you how to do what they then ask you to do in their labs, which, as you can imagine, makes things very difficult. (Why did you guys wait until after iterations for ANY code-alongs??) You will either be Googling Ruby syntax to try to piece together the code yourself from Quora, or you'll be copying/pasting former student's code from repl.it, or asking a Teacher's Assistant to help walk you through it. Though others were offered help via screen share, this was not offered to me until 3 days before the First Mile ended. (I didn't even know it was an option) Most of the TAs are not great at teaching, they were not skilled at breaking things down in a simple-to-understand manner. This made (most of) them almost useless. My instructor was a former (2018) Flatiron student (her only coding education and experience, apparently), now teaching her first Cohort with absolutely (apparently) zero experience coding outside of Flatiron. This led to many confusing Lab demos where she would go 'chasing rabbits' that weren't helpful, having students correct her and ultimately made the videos of little help. Call me crazy, but I kind of want someone who has actually coded for companies outside of the Flatiron school bubble, teaching others how to code for the first time. She was a nice person. However, according to Flatiron instructors are supposed to assist students via Slack. The entire 2 weeks, she helped 0 students via Slack. She ONLY posted once a day in Slack, a morning update with how many assignments should be completed by the end of day and what they are called. That was the extent of the "Instruction" at Flatiron. I voiced this concern to someone at Flatiron (not sure what she does because her email signature doesn't say and neither did she), which disregarded my experience for a canned response about methods for getting help with curriculum. Again, see lack of customer service skills and poor communication. Upon not completing the First Mile, my instructor contacted me about whether I wanted to continue with the program and be put into another Cohort or withdraw and receive a full refund. I was confused as to why your instructor, especially a now former instructor, would be responsible for this part. It seems like the aforementioned lady or even the Admissions rep should be responsible for handling all of this. Regardless, I emailed aforementioned lady and asked her when the next Cohort would be, only to be told that she didn't know, but that it could be as early as mid-late August or early September, an entire month to 2 months later. Not being satisfied with this huge of a delay, I asked if I could switch to Self-Paced. That way I could pickup where I left off, I still got TA support, didn't have a useless Instructor, saved $6k versus Full Time and might could even still finish on time as the original Full Time program as I wanted. She said it was against policy to allow me to switch. I asked if I could withdraw and reapply for the Self-Paced one instead and she said yes, but it could take weeks to be accepted again (no kidding with my Rep), trying to force me into staying Full Time at the $15k. So I withdrew and reapplied 3 days later. I was told by a 'customer service' rep I would be contacted by "finance" to discuss the refund and everything. I withdrew July 22nd, it's been weeks now and I still have not heard anything from "finance." I had to email the aforementioned lady and ask about whether I would receive my $500 seat deposit back, whether they tell Climb Credit or I do, whether they refund Climb Credit or me for me to pay them back. (Again, see poor communication skills) I wrote her on Aug 5th asking for an update regarding finance or Climb and still haven't received a response after weeks now. Then I receive and correspond to my rep again as she (much to my utter disappointment) is assigned again as my Admissions Rep for my July 25th application, it went like this: "Jul 29 @ 12p, me to Flatiron: Hi, I applied last week (Jul 24) and haven't heard anything back. Jul 30 @ 9a, my rep: Did you previously withdraw from the program? <> Jul 30 @ 9a, me: Yes. Jul 31 @ 2p, me: Hoping to hear back about my application before the weekend. Aug 3 @ 10a, my rep: It is our understanding that you recently withdrew from the program. <> Aug 3 @ 10a, me: Yes, I withdrew from the full time program after not completing the curriculum within the First Mile allotted time. I am re-applying for the self-paced program since I was not permitted to switch to self-paced. Aug 5 @ 10a, me to my rep and info@flatiron since she wouldn't respond: Can I please hear back about this? It's been almost 2 weeks since I applied. Aug 7 (FRIDAY) @ 5:00p (she waited until close), my rep: Appreciate the follow up. At this time we have decided not to proceed with your enrollment in the self-paced program." Imagine my surprise. I guess they are doing well enough that they don't want $9,600 (they don't even refund it because it's self paced so they are literally just being petty because I didn't submit to their greedy Policy for preventing students from switching Paces based off of what the student needs). Flatiron is not interested in your success, they are not interested in your best interest, they don't care if you or your spouse have had the Coronavirus and needed to switch paces because of it. They just want your $15k+ and nothing less. Flatiron has switched to entirely online due to the COVID panic generated by the government and media. However, they have not provided an equivalent product to the Immersive experience and yet want to charge the exact same price. They have claimed to do just such a thing, which makes them dishonest and unethical. Having used Treehouse for a couple of years, Flatiron's curriculum is pathetic compared to Treehouse, leaps and bounds in terms of video production and instruction quality. They are equal in educational support. Treehouse is $25/month. TL;DR: my rep was horrible, as does the rest of the staff have poor communication and slow responsiveness and there is zero accountability for the staff, the instructor graduated Flatiron and started teaching others, they won't let you swap Full Time to Self Paced, curriculum is basically $15k to Google search to pass the Labs that they don't teach you how to do. How Flatiron can sleep at night charging $15,000 for this pile of junk that they call a school is beyond me. Terrible staff, horrible curriculum, overpriced Google searching for what they call an "education," and the worst part is they just literally don't care about the students.

Extremely disorganized, poor quality of instruction, very scammy. I had to file a dispute with my credit card to get my payment back (despite their promise of refunding within 5 wks of program start if you disenroll they ignored all my emails about a... Read More refund per guidelines). Instructors do not care about you at all, and will ignore questions about coding/real questions while answering easy logistical ones like 'do I have to attend ___. Look up previous grads of cohorts - many do not have jobs. It felt like a scam and I'm just relieved to get my money back through my cc company instead of wasting time.

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 shortly after getting into the program.

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.

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 own and you get an hour of lecture 4 times a week. It's really a waste of time and money. When you request a refund, student services take so long to get back, you owe the money from the time it took them to get back to you. They got back to me in 2 weeks, which is ridiculous.

If I was going to teach myself, I would have done udemy classes or odin project.

I'll give it you straight after going through the whole 6 month experience along with some of the after program career services track.

The first 2 phases or around 3 months was great. The instructors were knowledgeable and enthusiastic when it came to... Read More teaching and about the field itself. They were there to help when they could and assist you in succeeding. There was a lot of work to be done on time during this phase and a lot of additional reading as well. I can say that I learned the most from these 2 phases. It also seemed like the instructors for these 2 phases were from the original Designation school based in Chicago which had a great reputation (part of the reason why I enrolled in the program).

So the first 2 phases went great, and I came in excited and bright-eyed for the in-person phases on the NYC campus. Now this is where the program goes downhill. While I did learn some new things about UX design and research, the instructors were not attentive or great at teaching. I understand the importance of repetition when it comes to the end-to-end design process, and I don't have a problem with it. Actually, I found it helpful that it was repetitive so we had the chance to use our skillset we learned from the previous phases and apply research/design methodologies that worked in specific situations. I also found the repetitive nature of weekly presentations to be helpful in a sense that we had more experience in creating slideshows and presenting.

Now comes the bad stuff. The most amount of design feedback anyone in my cohort received on our presentations and project was in phase 1 and 2. The instructors in the in-person phases would just deflect any relevant questions with "it depends". Of course, "IT DEPENDS". Students are asking because they are weighing out certain decisions within the project framework and asking for a seasoned designers opinion on it. I value autonomy, but at that point when everything triggers the same "it depends" response is, honestly, infuriating and condescending. It's more of an excuse not to do an instructors job. We are in a bootcamp and it's the safest place to fail there--but there was no guidance in any design choices through the in-person phases. The most amount of feedback we received were about the presentation slides and style. While, this is helpful, it's not the feedback we are solely looking for as designers--at a certain point, we don't care what you personally think about certain slides as long as the content is good (but no feedback really there so we will never know). Additionally, the attitudes of the instructors were unprofessional. Personally, I had no issues with any but a lot of my classmates in every cohort had problems with the attitude of most instructors. There was a very passive-aggressive cattiness that was directed at students and was not controlled in a professional, learning environment. Most of the time, the instructors came in later and left earlier than students.

I think the quality of instructors went way down after Flatiron purchased Designation and scaled up to many locations. Being a design instructor at Flatiron seems to be the easiest decent paying job ever. We were more micromanaged about student benefits that we expected to have but couldn't because of their process mess-ups. The programs conflict resolution was a joke and their student selection measures and support were also laughable. I've seen this in many cohorts as they ruined the experiences of many students by not selecting capable designers. Honestly, it makes sense that the organization got rid of the design program because if they wanted keep that program up, Flatiron really needed to look inward and make a lot of changes.

Now career services is iffy at best. The way Flatiron sells you their program is that they have 96% successful job rate after the program for it's students. First off, this is highly contestable as the numbers seem to high to be true. Also, they sell you that the school has a great (already) built-up network with employers to help with prospective job-looking alumni after they graduate. The iffy part of it is that covid definitely took a toll on their "network" so that is due to uncontrolled external circumstances. However, the coaching is subpar and the Money-Back-Guarantee is really a sham (don't enroll because you think you will get your money back--they will fight you tooth and nail on everything to not give you the money back). They have many organizational problems within their employment team which causes alumni to face negative consequences of their bad company management. The amount of employers they have in their "network" is seemingly 0 to few very unrelated positions--which is mind-blowing if they already had a great network before when advertising. And after all that, all they do is deflect responsibility at the alumni seeking jobs about personal accountability. I am telling you right now that job seeking alumni are doing everything they can do network and apply to get jobs because it's our career and our life, so make it seem like we are dropping the ball. For the $17k price point with the advertisement before enrollment, certain services are expected.

Overall, it is a bloated organization that does software engineering really well. But I would stay clear of their design programs if they relaunch in the future.

They won't do the job for you, you need to work hard on your own, but if you know what you want, go for it! I met a lot of interesting people and gained a ton of priceless experience. For 15 weeks I learned more then I've tried to learn online after work... Read More for 3 years. Flatiron school is not the only option, but it was my choice and I don't regret it.

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... Read More 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 started my Data Science program in 2019 in self-paced format and graduated in 2020.
The self paced format is advantageous in that it allows me to determine the schedule and intensity of training that suited me.
I must say that Flatiron School is very... Read More well suited to this format, because instead of traditional video lectures it offers theory and tasks in jupyter notebook format, as well as video chats with teachers.
Curriculum is wide enough to cover many of the necessary fundamentals of DS. However, you need to understand that in order to go deeper into any of the topics, you need to
independent additional dive, because it's not possible to cover everything at once. Therefore, I can confidently say that such a program is optimal as a start.

Overall, I had a fantastic experience with Flatiron School. The program enabled me to get a data science job that ticked all my boxes. I was able to make a dramatic career transition (during a pandemic, no less!) from academia/non-profits to tech thanks... Read More to this program.

Background: When I was applying to bootcamps, I already had a PhD (in a humanities discipline) and lots of data science and programming tutorials under my belt. I chose Flatiron School because the curriculum looked good, the program was only 5 months when done full-time, and they offered an income share agreement as a payment option.

Getting in: First I had a call with a representative to assess my interest and experience in data science. Then I got access to some preparatory materials that included basic Python and a little bit of calculus. Once these were done, I had a technical interview with a Flatiron School instructor, consisting of a few basic programming questions and a conversation about some math/calculus concepts. The preparatory materials were enough to help me be ready for this interview, but the real point of the interview is to assess whether you can learn quickly and take feedback/correction well. After this, I was accepted to the program and chose my start date.

The program: For the duration of the program, I had one instructor, an "educational coach" (to help with motivation, study skills, etc.) and a cohort of fellow bootcampers. We spent four hours per week in live lecture/office hours, and I had two half-hour one-on-ones with my instructor each week, too. My cohort had its own Slack channel where we could ask the instructor or each other questions and do daily standups. Here's a list of topics we covered (not exhaustive):

General Python programming, with particular focus on NumPy, Pandas, and Matplotlib
Git, GitHub, and principles of version control
Basics of data visualization
Regression (linear, logistic, multiple linear, polynomial, etc.)
SQL and general principles of database design
Basics of object-oriented programming
APIs, web scraping, and working with JSON files
A broad survey of statistical topics, including combinatorics, permutations, distributions, central limit theorem, hypothesis testing, and Bayesian stats
Time series analysis
Basics of linear algebra
Survey of machine learning algorithms and techniques, including k nearest neighbors, decision trees, random forests and other ensemble methods, support vector machines, PCA, k means, and recommendation systems
A little introduction to Spark via PySpark
Basics of graph theory/network analysis
Basics of NLP
Survey of deep learning topics, including RNNs, CNNs, and transfer learning
A little intro to AWS and how to deploy a machine learning algorithm into production.

Near the end of the program, I also got access to a career prep curriculum, which contained readings and exercises relating to résumés, LinkedIn, networking, building a professional web presence, etc. Flatiron School recently added a post-bootcamp curriculum of extra stuff to study while job-searching, including more work with SQL, and intro to R, and some guidelines for making your projects look better on GitHub. I'm really glad they created these additional resources, since these are things I went out and studied on my own because they were important for my job search. Flatiron is constantly updating the curriculum, and students are welcome to submit suggestions or corrections to be addressed by the curriculum team.

An average day of bootcamp involved a lot of independent reading and work on the labs provided in the curriculum, interrupted by a lecture/group meeting with instructor and classmates to go over the material assigned for that day. This format was great for me because I learn better when I can focus on something on my own for a while and then have a chance to ask my questions and hear other people's questions, too. Each day's meeting covered a certain chunk of the curriculum, but there was a lot of flexibility to work ahead or take more time on something if I wanted. Although you could always spend more time on things, I found it was possible to complete each week's material to my own satisfaction in 40-45 hours on average.

Overall, the curriculum prepared me well for my job search. The projects I built during bootcamp were of a high enough quality that I could present them during job interviews. The capstone project is totally open-ended, so you can design it to show off skills relevant to the types of jobs that appeal to you. For each project, I had to do both a non-technical presentation and a code review with my instructor, and these experiences were extremely helpful once I started looking for a job. This is definitely one of the reasons to do a bootcamp rather than just studying on one's own. If someone I knew were looking for a bootcamp today, I would tell them to ask whether a program includes this kind of project work, since it's the best way to prepare for/show that you're prepared for real data science work.

Career services: My experience with career services at Flatiron definitely made the program worth the cost. As soon as I graduated, I started working with a career coach who helped me with my résumé, mock interviews, web presence, and general job search strategy. My coach was amazing, especially at keeping me motivated when the pandemic brought my job search to a screeching halt. It was really helpful to have someone to talk to each week about my job search, and she was super responsive to any questions I had about how to respond to e-mails, networking tactics, etc.

Highlights: The best parts of the bootcamp for me were my instructor, my career coach, and the projects I built.

Improvements: I would have liked to see a little more space in the curriculum given to ethics, maybe some case studies about practical applications of data ethics. There was a brief overview of data ethics in theory ("Hey, you should only make ethical use of people's personal information! There is bias in AI!"), but since this is an issue that affects all aspects of data science, it would be good to give it a little more weight.

I graduated from the online self-paced software engineering program. To me, Flatiron's strength is its support structure. The school bends over backwards to provide multiple channels of support. I was originally slated to join the in person program in... Read More Seattle, but switched to the online program because it made more sense with my family. I was nervous about a lack of support structure in the online program, but that proved far from the case. There was an abundance of instructor and student led Zoom sessions, focused on relevant topics throughout, including open office hours. The curriculum resides in Flatiron's online platform called Learn. While in the platform, there is always the option of clicking the 'ask a question' button. Questions are displayed to other students who can answer, but Flatiron also has instructors monitoring the questions. You're awarded 'Karma' points for answering questions. I only was able to answer two questions because the instructors were so quick and solid. There are multiple slack channels monitored by section leaders, depending on your place in the program. Finally, you have your educational and career coaches. Your coaches keep tabs on your progress, well being and ultimately job search. Everyone I worked with at Flatiron was enthusiastic, supportive and enjoyable to work with. The curriculum was a combination of reading, videos and test driven coding exercises. The exercises followed a logical progression from programming basics to React/Redux frontends with Rails driven APIs. The curriculum stressed principles and problem solving over recipes. There were some video based walk-throughs that I was not a huge fan of, mostly because I'd rather read or work through problems. But those were few and far between. Most videos were recorded zoom sessions from previous cohorts. Those were enjoyable, informative and even inspirational at times. I experienced a few hiccups and inconsistencies in the Learn system along the way but nothing too catastrophic. Early on I used the 'ask a question' button a couple times and had it figured out in minutes. Later on I could usually work around issues. The cool thing about Learn is that it's built upon Github. So you can dive into the code, troubleshoot and offer up suggestions via pull request. This ensures a pretty healthy evolution. Most of the problems I experienced were right after a version change. Within a couple weeks the kinks were worked out pretty well. That version switch was optional by the way. I actually think the option to contribute to the health of the system is a pretty valuable learning experience. Flatiron is owned by WeWork which started experiencing problems while I was in the program. Flatiron did a great job of communicating as the issue emerged. I did notice some instructor shuffling and maybe an increase in time to book project reviews. But that was a matter of book a review maybe a few days out vs next day. I felt Flatiron was dedicated to providing quality education and honoring their commitments. If anything, I think the WeWork issue just slowed campus expansion. It's worth keeping an eye on, but my sense is Flatiron is fairly independent and in control of their internal affairs. During my time at Flatiron the COVID pandemic and protest in response to George Floyd's death emerged. Folks at Flatiron did a fantastic job of communicating, supporting and adjusting to the uncertain times with heartfelt compassion. The Flatiron family, both staff and students is diverse across all spectrums. The school takes pride in its diversity, and is all the better for it. Going into this program I had some experience coding, including a couple computer science classes in college, years ago. My degree is in Forestry, so technical, but not rocket science. My job leading up to this was pretty much 'the computer guy', including sys admin, configuration, help desk, some scripting and low code development. Before that, I was in EMS. I'm an EMS instructor of several years, which informs my respect for Flatiron's staff. I took this course to fill in gaps, refine my skill-set and land a full-time coding gig. The curriculum was challenging but digestible. The volume of material was significant. This is not a casual endeavor. I juggled a full-time job and raising a toddler. There were many late nights and dark times but Flatiron folks were there for me. I did land a full-time gig before graduation, during the COVID lock down. I kind of lucked out, I was finishing my final project and hadn't fully ramped my job search up yet. The position was presented by my career coach, and seemed to be a good culture fit for me, so I applied. I do live in Seattle, a tech hub. The career coaching was informative, supportive and valuable. Overall this was one of the better educational experiences of my life. It just worked for me. It was a good blend of prescriptive exercises, open ended portfolio work and support. Flatiron folks just seem to care and are interested in your success.