Lighthouse Labs

I read the bad reviews but thought they were outliers because there seem to be so many positive reviews on here. I joined Lighthouse in Toronto and was shocked at how awful this place was.

PLEASE READ THIS REVIEW CAREFULLY BEFORE PAYING $10K. I hope this... Read More review really helps make your decision. I wish someone had told me this before I paid 10K, quit my job and wasted both my time and money. When I was at the program, I felt that more than half of the students were NOT happy with their learning experience.

Curriculum: If you felt that you did not learn much from their prop course - QUIT and get your money back right away. Their poorly-written materials only get worse. Their original content was short and difficult to digest. Usually, they would give you links to random blog posts, Khan Academy, or youtube videos and even Wikipedia (seriously). You would be confused due
to the lack of organization. One could argue that it mimics the real world that is full of information. Well, maybe. But I think it will damage your foundations, rather than build them. The assignments were not well-structured. Some were vague. Some were pointless. Some confused you even more. You would also need to try not to be drown each day just to finish the assignment and learn barely nothing in the way. Tech interviews and most of the things were the decide on a day to day basis, meaning you'll know when your tech interviews are on that day. There is really no planning or organization here.

Lectures: though selling it to everyone at all levels, the lectures in Toronto don't really build foundations and assume you know A LOT about web development already. A lecturer also came to teach half an hour late more than 5 times - which was very unprofessional considering you paid 10K to learn. Though to be fair, a few teachers were good. But your learning experience will be affected by the not-so-good ones.

Job Support: Some of the resources or documents they shared were Google Docs where they copied and pasted popular websites you could spend your time on after the graduation. Also workshops with basic powerpoint slides that don't mean much. Depends on your luck, employers will come to the speed interview or demo day. Or, they might not.

Mentors: Some are very nice, some are impatient, some are there just to work on their projects. Your lucks.

If you are still deciding, I'd recommend going to their demo day, and ask students questions. Look into their eyes and body language. Listen to their answers carefully. Probe for more. Ask if they would study at Lighthouse again, why or which kind of people Lighthouse would not be a good fit for.

Lastly, the job report. It was one of the factors I chose Lighthouse. But let's be realistic. After months trying to find a job, people will eventually find something whether it's coding-related or not. People have rents to pay. Read between lines and look at the statistics carefully. A lot of students are looking for a job after months.

I hope this review helps. I wish I had chosen other bootcamps.

I am utterly disappointed with the experience. if you are seeking for Job placement then DO NOT even consider this as an option. Job support is a joke, once you are on the 9th week mark you are own your own. I am pretty sure the outcome report for their... Read More placements is flawed. Do not waste time and Money on this!

I have completed the bootcamp from LHL. I am not very satisfied with their speed and curriculum. This course can be very stressful and demotivating for those who are brand new to development or IT. First week is JS fundamentals which was good as I had... Read More the exposure from prep course. 2nd week was terrible as we need to learn Server, express, EJS with routes and everything in few days. The app is itself very complicated and poorly structured. Almost every student complained about this poorly structured app, but they never improved/changed this project. Week 3 is client side app which is bit relaxed in terms of work. 4th week is midterm app where you expected to work on one of a 7 given projects in which they expect you to make the project end to end in 4 days (including weekend). If you are in a group of a newbie, then you would be very stressful and end up doing minimal and questioning yourself. If you have a member who has previous experience, then he/ she will do the majority of work and you will end up feeling inferior. In 5th week you are expected to learn concept of 4 years CS without ANY help. 6th Week is React where you work on front end, new concepts. 7 and 8th Week: Ruby which is all together a new game. You are given a full code without much understanding. Here, I was just dragging myself as I had paid heavily and I had to complete this. 9 and 10th week is final demo week, where they are expected us to design and develop a fully functional app by ourselves with no or very minimal help.

Now, if you have prior exposure or experience in web development then it could be a great experience as this is very advance in nature and this curriculum try to teach you almost everything to start a carrier in web dev. However, if you are a newbie then there is a chance that you would get overwhelmed and start questioning your own capability. Few teachers are very good and know what they are talking, however few mentors don’t know what’s going on and confuse you even more. Make an inform decision. I saw almost every review is positive, I am not saying you would have the similar terrible experience like me. About placement its the worse, its been more than 10 months I haven't got any offer and they didn't help much in finding the job. If you are able to get the job in first 2 months then you are lucky and if you dont get the job in that period, then you are on your own. Remember, they are team of 2 people for around 20 students coming in the job market every month. Web developer for junior position is over saturated. Do this or any bootcamp if you are really like coding and highly motivated. all the best.

I would say that if you are new to coding, don't take the bootcamp. You are much better off using free resources to get started. As for the environment of LHL, I have talked about it with other 'students' and some definitely find the environment predatory... Read More towards those less knowledgeable. Half the mentors are good, half are awful. 'Management' there doesn't know how to properly communicate with students, even though they think they do. Also, if they think you aren't good enough, or taking the bootcamp lightly, they'll kick you out and take your money without giving you the chance to argue against it. As for career services, its a joke. the only way its helpful is the speed interviews, and demo day employers. But if you don't get lucky enough, or were too amateur at the time, forget it. because once you graduate they sort of shoo you away unless you border line spam them.

My entire life I struggled with school for various reasons - mostly I found it boring, and the teaching style didn't fit how my brain worked. After leaving high school Computer Science was definitely not in the cards, and I spent the next 15 years gathering... Read More life experience and a few different careers before coming back around to the world of coding. I tried to learn on my own for a while, discovered I did love it, but it was really tough to figure out how best to learn and what to do next to get to an actual place of being useful for a company - and how would I even put myself out there? A friend suggested I look into a bootcamp, and I did some research and decided on Lighthouse because they had a great reputation amongst people I know in the industry.
Man.
I can't say enough good things about my experience. Week 1 I was so scared I didn't have the chops, but in week 2 when we started actually applying our nascent Javascript skills on real applications and projects...it suddenly seemed doable. I had the bonus of absolutely lucking out on my cohort and met 14 of the most lovely humans to spend 10 hard weeks with. The hours were long, there were some tears and frustrations along the way, but it was honestly one of the best experiences of my life. The education team supported us along the way and made sure to foster an inclusive environment where it was made clear we could always come to them with concerns - and these concerns were ALWAYS acted on with updates given. The instructors were just great - they taught us at our level but challenged us to go ever further and they always seemed genuinely excited about the progress we were making. The career services team were our hard-working cheerleaders and helped us make great resumes and connections at LL run career events. At week 7, leaving after a long 12 hour day I realised I could barely recognize week 1 me in reflection. By week 10 when we'd learned Javascript, Ruby, HTML, CSS, SQL queries plus a tonne of libraries and frameworks to go along with them I left having finished a web application that my group built from scratch that I was truly proud of - and that got me a job less than a week after the last day of classes. (The interview came from one of the LL-run employer events, and the interviewers spent the entire time asking me technical questions about my final project that I felt prepared and confident in answering - all thanks to Lighthouse Labs).

Anyway, I know I sound a bit evangelical, but I really can't recommend this experience enough. I was given the confidence every step of the way to succeed and it was just wonderful and I'm so excited to be joining the world of development and can't wait until I have the skills to go back and help new students succeed, as well!

General Experience:
Coming into bootcamp, I was 100% ready to work hard. There has not been a single day where I have been bored, everyday we learned something new and we put it into practice. By week 3 I felt confident that I could easily build a simple... Read More app on my own. You really get what you put into it.

Mentorship:
All my mentors have been great, their knowledge and experience are very admirable. We have a pretty small cohort (4 people) so there has always been plenty of mentorship to go around for us, but there has been times in the beginning where I find myself waiting for a mentor. What I started doing, which helped a lot, is even though I have not run into problems I would sit behind a mentor and another student when they are troubleshooting so that I know how to handle that issue if it does come up in the future. I also found that students tend to encounter very similar problems so it helps talking to the other students and asking for mentor support at the same time and they usually turn it into a mini-lecture.

Curriculum:
Overall, it was great. A lot of work but completing them felt very rewarding. The iOS curriculum get a bit messier towards the end in terms of timing. We got this extremely difficult assignment at the beginning of week 7 which was frustrating because none of us was able to complete it and then towards the end we got another assignment covering the same topic but was significantly easier and almost felt like a stepping stone to the first assignment.

Learning Space:
The space is very well maintained, and there has never been a shortage of supplies during my time. Everyone in the space is friendly and encouraging which really helps out when trying to tackle the workload. I does get a bit chilly in the space but they give you a sweater in the beginning of bootcamp.

Job Support:
I am currently in the bootcamp so I am not rating Job Support yet. So far the workshops have been really helpful and the speed interview event is quite exciting.

Tips For Future Students:
- Try to stay at the space until all the mentors are gone (9pm).
- Get some sleep when you get home, try not worry about work that you didn't complete during the day.
- Focus on the day's work rather than the previous day, it helps to work on the same assignments as the rest of your cohort. Then come back to the uncompleted work when you have time.
- Make friends! Coding is so much better with friend. Also some members of your cohort might know how to solve your problems when a mentor isn't available.
- Say goodbye to your family and friends. The moment you try to make plans during bootcamp, the crazier the workload gets. ( I made that mistake once)
- It's okay if you don't understand things right away. Remember that you're not suppose to be good at coding, you are at bootcamp because you want to learn and eventually get there.

A great experience! The staff at Lighthouse Montreal are kind, generous, and always willing to help. They often staying past sheduled hours to assist the students, and constantly supportive of all our endevours. They strive to make the bootcamp a wonderful... Read More experience, taking note of student comments and concerns, and responding to any situation that a student may have a problem with. An excellent culture/enviroment has been developed by the staff.

They work constantly to find employer and oppurtunites in their career services, always trying to find what will fit for their students and the respective skills they have been taught. Allowing their students to network with all of the Lighthouse contacts and connect with companies interested in hiring junior developers. They do everything to set you up for the future and possible career paths by providing excellent job-seeking workshops and tutorials.

An excellent resource for those wishing to break into the tech industry!

I took a lighthouse labs Bootcamp last year.

I was excited at first because I wanted to change my career. I took another part-time course with them first to try out their classes and then decided to do the bootcamp.

In the interview, they suggested that... Read More I had a good chance of getting a job.

I really liked the fact that they advertised a “7:1 mentor ratio” and "96% of graduates hired" (the highest in Vancouver).

However, then I took the course and the mentor ratio was usually higher than 7:1. Most of the time, I had to wait hours for mentors to come and help me.

The fact they said that 96% of graduates hired was misleading to me. After many months of looking for a job, I couldn’t find a job and some of my ex-classmates had to complain to the school too. I decided to make a complaint to Private Training Institutions Branch of the Ministry of Advanced Education. They told me that the (96% of graduates hired) is based on a 2016 Student Outcomes Report.

My experience was that they didn’t support me and the 96% graduation figure should have noted this was from 2016. My experience was that it wasn’t easy to get a job after taking the Bootcamp.

In the end it wasn’t worth my time and money with lighthouse labs do to do their bootcamp.

I’d suggest that you take courses at a more recognized institution like BCIT or UBC

Pros - You get a basic understanding of web development.
Cons - If you need assistance you are left waiting for long periods of time to get help.
After realizing this I decided to opt out of the program before I would lose all of my tuition, on the contract... Read More you are required to sign stated you will see a 50% refund within a month.
After two months of waiting, nothing came. I had to call them many times which was very frustrating.
I just felt they were very unorganized, and the cost is a lot to obtain an entry level job.

I had a wonderful time at Lighthouse Labs taking into to front-end and JavaScript. I liked the way two of ours instructors thought us, the used pre-made project and show us how to develop it better using new material from each class. So that we can actually... Read More see how the web-site will look like. Two of the projects that we completed were amazing, I could never imagine that I could 2 websites by myself. I am currently taking internship in start up tech company as an app and web-developer, and I can’t describe my happiness how lighthouse helped me that job. I want to thank everyone in lighthouse and will be back soon to take another program.