Flatiron School

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.

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... Read More 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.

Long story short, FlatIron acquired SecureSet. SecureSet strung me along for a year on this new online cybersecurity program, that never happened. They ended up closing their doors in Tampa two months after I made the commitment to quit my job and attend... Read More in person. Then I was promised that I could attend their next cohort in Colorado because they were allowed to offer it online there. That also fell through because 2 weeks before that class was supposed to start, I was informed that they also were not authorized to offer the class online. Now 2 months out of work because of the career move I was SUPPOSED to be making, I had nowhere to go. I saw FlatIron offered and ADVERTISED an online course in cybersecurity analytics, so I signed up for that, and was accepted, and yet again, even after speaking with them and explaining everything that has happened to this point and them telling me how awful that is and they are happy to have me onboard....I get another email saying they ALSO were not authorized to give this class online. I was told (This is a direct quote from an email) "Flatiron School and SecureSet do have the same parent company and are sister schools. We have sought appropriate guidance from our regulators under the circumstances. At this time, Flatiron School does not have regulatory approval for the cybersecurity programs - either online or in-person - from our Florida regulator and so would be unable to enroll Florida residents in the Online Cybersecurity Analytics program". So again,... my wife is in tears because of the sacrifices we have been making for months, and having the rug pulled out from under us AGAIN by people who don't seem to know what is going on within their own company. What rubs salt into the wound, is that a week later I received an email from FlatIron telling me I was approved for a scholarship for that class....for a class I am not allowed to attend.

(I did not attend but I had to select answers to the questions below in order to submit my review).

I was looking forward to starting my cohort May 4th 2020 but due to some unfortunate events at FLATIRON they cancelled the full course for UI/UX design. It is fully cancelled even on the the website, UI/Ux who? it’s not even there so don’t waste your... Read More time. They said they will refund those who paid upfront in the next 30 days, but those who did ISA you’re fine. I’m disappointed.

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... Read More 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 the 74K Flatiron boasts as their average starting on their placement stats. Overall very happy. Made great friends, connections, learned what was promised from great instructors and got placed in a great job. A+++

The instructor was great, and I like the learning platform- the being able to scroll through text rather than watch hours of video content, and still have a real person to chat with for questions and clarification. The curriculum is mostly good, but I... Read More wish there were quizzes, ways to assess comprehension of the material, or something to solidify your assumed knowledge as you go. It wasn't always great at teaching mathematics and algorithms, and you're not tested on it, so it's up to you to learn adequately enough on your own for job interviews(which I haven't gotten any of yet). On my own, I bought a couple of books and used outside resources to understand what the curriculum was attempting to teach, but still feel like I need to do more studying. On top of the ML and big data being breezed over, I also would have liked to learn something more substantial on git/version control and SQL than the simple intros provided. From the research I've done on my own, there's a few things quite crucial to getting a job in Data Science that will probably take me a month or two- or more, to study and learn on my own before I have a chance at sounding like I have potential to be anywhere near competent. I think what was most disappointing was the career coaching. The hiring rate with the software engineering track is great, that's something I was impressed by when considering this bootcamp. While FlatIron still taught me a lot, adds value and looks good to have on my resume since I'm lacking a CS degree, it did not help me prepare for the job search. I am still very much lost and desperately seeking help from outside sources. Information I get for free is more quality than what the career services provide. Up until meeting my career coach, I had a lot of faith in my future in data science. After 3 meetings, I feel really discouraged and have contacted the manager in hopes of finding someone who knows what a data scientist is and can do more than tell me I need to make a resume and have a linkedin. I'm not saying the career coaches are terrible, I know other people pay them for some solid job searching advice and are successful, but I do think you can find more quality advice more suitable to the data science industry from simple google searches. The money back guarantee is dependent on weekly contacting 8 people telling them you are desperate for a job of any kind, writing a job post and making youtube video tutorials, and some other simple tasks. So, it's not too difficult, more so annoying, jumping through hoops as a safety net in case the work you're doing on your own to learn a bunch more and navigate your own path in data science entirely on your own doesn't work. Another little thing: The job report from 2018 look great! However, when looking at their job reports from 2019, I see there were only 12 students in the data science course and only 6 of them found a job within 6 months, and the other 3 were employed- after 1 year of graduating. It was also less than satisfying to see that two of them found jobs in software engineering, not a data science or related position. So basically, only 50% of the students enrolled in the data science track actually found jobs in data science related fields. Obviously this is way too small a sample size to infer anything, but I can't help but wish I would have gone with a bootcamp more established in the data science realm.

I had a fantastic experience at Flatiron that ended up in me receiving two job offers two days apart, a month after my graduation! They provide the necessary structure and resources to ensure your success in this field. I agree with some reviews that... Read More you could self-teach this material, but that is true for everything. The value of this bootcamp relies on these critical elements:
- Its structured and comprehensive data science curriculum,
- Interaction with seasoned mentors (technical coaches) as you learn the material,
- Vetted outside resources to deepen your knowledge and understanding of the content on your own,
- Relevant projects to build your portfolio,
- WeWork membership to have a space to study and network,
- An educational coach that sees to your well-being,
- A community of fellow students willing to lend a hand and share experiences,
- A career coach that prepares you and guides you through your entire job search, and
- Access to career events and employer partnerships.
As you can see, you are not just paying for the material, which you could access for free in many ways. You are paying for an entire support network and a whole learning framework that, in the end, will increase your chances of success and minimize the time it takes to transition into this growing, lucrative, and exciting field.

Flatiron was great for me. Because it is self-paced, the online program allowed me to start slow while I was working full time and ramp up once I resigned from my job to focus on the program. Every person I encountered from instructors to coaches to fellow... Read More students was nice and helpful. I found the progression of the curriculum logical and, even after starting with little programming experience, I was able to complete projects independently. I landed a job within a month of graduating. I owe my knowledge and success largely to Flatiron.

The Flatiron School will change your life --- if you put in the work. They hire Incredible staff, support your learning with fantastic materials, and work alongside you after graduation to keep you motivated. The entire environment is designed for your... Read More success, but as with many things in life, nobody does the work for you.

A year ago today, I was a senior music composition major in college crying over my grad school rejection letters --- this morning, I signed an offer for a full-time C# position. This mind-blowing transition is all thanks to the incredible instruction I received from the Flatiron School in Denver.

If you sign up and put in the work - you will be exposed to a neverending world of learning, and given the tools to explore. The skills you learn at this school make any technology and concept possible for you to master - only for you to shift into learning something else.

I would recommend this school to anyone who is very motivated to make a career switch. It will be hard, sometimes very hard, - but the outcomes speak for themselves.