Techmongers

I take the pains to write this review so that nobody else suffers like me. CODAISSEUR - A DISASTER 1.INTERVIEW-They say they are selective in application process. But everyone who applies will get selected. 3 people I studied with did really bad in the... Read More interview test.But they were all accepted. WHY??? 2.TEACHERS-During the course the teachers are missing. One hour of explanation and then missing the whole day. We are mostly left alone with an e-book. I can do that without the school too!!! 3.ASSESSMENT-The teachers dont care about it. They look at our work for a minute and then go to the next person. 4.PROJECTS-No help at all! It is tough to get hold of a teacher! They help you for a minute in a DAY. Thats not enough for any student in any school!!! 5.CAREER GUIDANCE PROGRAM-Total waste of my time.They didnt help me with my CV. Later told me my CV is not good. Thats it. Only words and no real help. 6.JOB SEARCH-Be careful. Read the contract. Its so important. Many class mates and I got many warnings for silly things. They are not written in contract. They try to fine you for 12000 euros. BUT!!!! 7.GOOD FAITH EFFORTS-These words will make your life miserable. Any time they wish they can send you a invoice. Then you are in debt. BUT WHY? Because they can decide that you didnt do ''good faith efforts'' like mentioned in contract. BUT! Also the contract mentioned that codaisseur needs to do ''good faith efforts'' as well! Then you realise that they didnt do any effort! They dont help you! They dont help you AT ALL.But they want you to pay. They will make you pay..... HOW? - First they push you to study without much help. If they think you WANTED to failed the assessment they send you a bill for the whole tuiteen fee 12000euro. If you do graduate but miss any day of the USELESS career guidance week they fine you 12000. If you miss one phone call from them during job search period they fine you 12000. If you get ill they try to extend your contract. They need any reason to extend it. Because they only wish that they get paid. If you got a job but you dont want it because maybe they pay you less-they fine you 12000 for not accepting it. If you lose your job with corona or anything they dont care. You still have to pay them. Even if you only had a job for a month and then lost it. If you dont find a job-then they try to find some ''silly reasons'' to fine you 12000. These ''reasons'' are not in the contract. So? How can they do this??? BEST CODING BOOTCAMP-how did they get this award is truly is a mystery to me.Even after having coding experience I could not find a job. I really regret my time here.

I first heard about Codaisseur through a friend, and started researching about it for months, then I decided to quit my job as a Graphic Designer and jump into the bootcamp. At the time I did it the classes became online due to COVID, so we kinda missed... Read More the social part of it. Even then, the teachers were super helpful and always went the extra distance to help you, even after hours. During the Career Accelerator there were some hiccups (due to the remote communication) that were promptly addressed and effectively fixed. All the staff showed openness to critique and got hard to work on fixing it with the best attitude.
Don't be fooled, the bootcamp is really intensive and it will take the best of you to finish it, so don't think you can just sit down there and walk out with a diploma, it takes a lot of dedication and good attitude to learn and it's worth it!

I first heard about Codaisseur through a neighbour who had the same education as me (Pharmaceutical Scientist). Being burned out from my job and needing a new challenge, it was definitely the right choice for me to decide to do the Codaisseur Academy.... Read More At the time I did it, the course was still on site, it only became online at the end due to COVID.
I can't recommend these guys enough. The staff is friendly, the teachers are understanding and helpful, everything is well organised from start to finish and I felt like everything was setting us up for success. Don't underestimate it though, the course was intense and hard, and I recommend doing all of the prep work you can!
The no cure no pay model is great and it worked great for me! I got my job just a couple weeks after graduation and I could not be happier that I made the switch.

Tl;dr - Please avoid this scam/school. Freecodecamp is free. If you really want to do a coding bootcamp then join another one... and always read the contract. What seems too good to be true is probably too good to be true. *Invisible conditions attached.... Read More What Codaisseur's advertising so proudly says appears more like a burden once you read the contract. According to the contract you cannot go anywhere out during the job search period. You cannot get sick. Yes you cannot get sick. You have to be spending 36 hours applying for jobs per week. Even during corona period if you cannot pay for your accomodation or need to find a part time job you are not allowed to do that. I am sure this is not allowed by the Dutch government. Unfortunately you only do receive the contract when you have completed a post-application interview and paid the 800 euros fee to 'reserve your seat'. In the interview I was told the below 2 things which turned out to be untrue. A - My batch had a graduation rate of 50% which leads one to believe that Codaisseur has been fudging their stats for a while. Their model does not want to help you which is what a school should do. Instead they focus on eliminating those who fail tests every week so that only those who can either learn a lot very well or those who already had prior coding experience remain. For both these groups of people it would have been wiser to avoid the school altogether in hindsight. B - Illusions are everywhere. There is no such network of business partners. Since I graduated for almost a month I had to request this list multiple times from the Codaisseur staff. When they finally sent it to me I was shocked to see what looked like a very amateur school project of business contacts. These contacts were made by students who had graduated before and landed jobs. During the interview Codaisseur pushes students to advertise their employing of said student as a business connection. In reality this is more of a burden on both the company and the student. 90% of companies I applied to did not respond to me and I suspect it is because they already know about Codaisseur's predatory model. Let me finish with the only which is most of and not all the teachers. Most of the teachers are qualified and knowledgeable. Unfortunately the business model of the school is to churn out so called graduates every month like a factory which leaves the teachers overworked. They are unable to give individual attention and answer questions which is much needed at a school. The is everything else. After graduation we had a horrible career guidance week which seemed very infantile and silly. The only thing we were doing is wasting our time with it. For a whole week we were forced to attend for the whole day and if we did not we were threatened with a bill by the team below. The Codaisseur graduate team as they call themselves is one of the most unhelpful business centred teams I have come across in both my professional and educational career. The team has two lead members whose sole purpose is to find a reason to blame the student for their issues in obtaining a job after graduation. After graduation I had the misfortune of being cordial with these two people and sharing my progress. However they did nothing but point out mistakes in their so called checklist for the job search period which were not mentioned anywhere in the contract. I believe the team has the impression that they can bully people into accepting any job by threatening them with a bill for the whole course which is 8000 to 12000 euros. Even if the job is paying lower than the industry standard they force you to accept it which goes against what they advertise and what they constantly tell us. If you do not accept it you are constantly threatened with calls and emails. Importantly there is no effort from Codaisseur's side during the job search. You are the only person searching for a job with no help unlike promised. You are using your own contacts and skills to find it. Even though they promise you help they do not help you. In the whole job search period which can be either 3 or 5 months which I will come to in the next paragraph I only received 2 job leads from the graduate team members and both these leads were something they found on the internet. They did not have any connection to the companies and they acted as if this was helping us. In the contract by saying that Codaisseur will do everything within reason to help you find a job. They have done absolutely nothing for me and almost all of my classmates. Being Dutch and still not being able to find a job in my own country would only be possible if there was something in my resume that makes people not want to respond and that was Codaisseur in my education. About the 5 month contract. During Corona we were asked to sign a 5 month contract which guaranteed us online extra job search assistance and a discount of 4000 euros on the tuition. Since most of us needed the assistance most of us signed it. As I already wrote in the end there was no help from Codaisseur. I spoke to many students from other batches and most of them had a similar experience. A lot of people despite not finding a job or losing a job during corona were given a 12000 euros bill to be paid by the next month because of some reasons that do not exist in the contract. This is why reading the contract becomes important. This is not only unprofessional on their part but can be legally hazardous for a company as reckless as Codaisseur. The same graduation team forced me to accept any job that came my way and also threatened me with these same consequences even though I did everything that was required by the contract. Not surprisingly I did not have a single interview despite applying for more than 150 applications. This leads me to believe that they are threatening most of their students with debt unless they do anything they say which technically amounts to bullying and in a more legal manner extortion. A school is supposed to support their students but the behavior of Codaisseur employees showed that this company was a scam at its finest. Stay clear of Codaisseur. I really hope someone reports them to the ministerie van onderwijs. Mvg

Preparation / intensity
Prepare and you will learn more. It was a lot to take in. If you know some JS, HTML and CSS you will have more time for the challenging stuff and actually enjoy it. Some students were struggling with the pace and the intensity.... Read More The teachers are involved and will offer extra guidance if needed. Just before the start of the academy they will help you install all the right stuff on your computer.

Quality / teachers
There were lessons and a reader to work with. I was very impressed with the reader. Well written and structured. The teachers are enthusiastic and knowledgeable; they will do their best to make you succeed. That said, at times it was hard to get help when you had a question - probably due to the online/corona situation. I believe this accessibility improved for the next groups. Towards the end the academy it felt a bit less ‘organized’.

Curriculum / reader
As a newbie to web-development, the amount of languages, frameworks and whatnot is overwhelming if not suffocating. You don’t have to worry about that. They check the flavor of the day and teach just that - as this will improve your changes on the job market. This obviously comes with a cost. In our class they skipped OOP for example.

Corona / online
11 weeks online. With tools like Discord, Slack and Zoom that is not really an issue. The dynamic is different, but they really did their best to make it lively.

Job-Guaranty / job search-support
Can’t say a lot about that. Before I joined the academy I already knew that I would pay the fee myself. I knew what the fee was, all was clear, and paid it straight after I graduated. I think it was a fair price. Found a job before the search officially started.

Amazing experience - recommended!

Pros:
-great structure
- good fundamentals
-good practices
- nice people and teachers
- teacher assistants

Cons
- a bit too general
- workload could be a bit more
- lacks a bit 1 on 1 time with teacher

Overall great program to go from beginner to almost job ready.... Read More

I graduated one month ago and I already landed my first job as a front end developer! It is an intense 11 weeks course where you will learn a lot of new technologies. It is challenging and usually I was coding from 9 am until 11 pm. Because of corona,... Read More the course was online. You have 2 assessments (one every 2 weeks) and 2 final projects (at the end of the academy). In the course you learn React but some companies work with Angular or Vue as well. I had different interviews and they considered that if you know React you are able to learn other technology in a short period of time (we learn React in 1 week). I highly recommend this course. Teachers are helpful and supportive. You have a reader with material, videos and exercises. You have 2 calls during the day and they are available to help you. We were all connected on Discord. You will learn JavaScript and you will make new friends!

As a caveat to this review - my experience was in time of Corona, so likely any problems experienced at the academy are heightened due to the current circumstances.

I came in to the academy with some experience in both front-end and back-end coding, and... Read More was confident that I would be challenged, but at the end of the day successfully make it through the academy. What I found was a disorganized and disjointed online learning structure and cut-throat expulsion system that not conducive to supporting students in learning, but rather monetising students to the fullest extent.

A typical day at the academy goes as follows: 9:30 AM you log into discord and wait for a teacher to greet you - teachers swap in and out daily, and many times they seem to be ill-informed as to what you have and have not covered in days past. Typically there is a lecture from 10 - anywhere from 11:30, to sometimes 3:00 in the afternoon, with a lunch break in the middle. In the remaining time you are working through a "reader" - basically an online course that helps you progress through the material of the course. The end of the day is officially at 17:30-18:00, but it was common for me to continue coding until 20:00 - 21:00 to finish all of the coursework. Add this up daily over the course of 11 weeks, and what results is a grueling schedule.

The learning strategy championed by this organization seems to be: throw as much information at students as possible, and see what sticks. At the end of the day it is rather unrealistic that student progress from someone with no industry knowledge to a full-fledged full-stack developer over the course of 11 weeks. What results is a super accelerated curriculum, spending a couple of weeks on front end development, a couple of weeks on back-end development, and then creating projects putting these concepts to work. What's troubling is that each of these are rich and complex disciplines in and of themselves that take time to master. The idea seems to be: demonstrate as enough processes within development to get students through an interview, and them let them really learn what they're doing on the job.

The pace and intensity of the course means that, at the end of the day, many students fail. There are three exams over the course of the program, and failing an exam and a retake (which take place over the course of weekends) will get you kicked out of the program. The emphasis during the interview process is that students are supported if they fail to meet the requirements of the exam, but in practice, exams (which last two full days) and re-exams are taken back-to-back. According to the website, the graduation rate of students sits at 70 percent -- but from what I experienced during the academy the rate is much lower -- meaning the academy keeps the 800 euro admissions fee, but is no longer responsible for training the student. I was told during my exit interview that this was "part of their business model" -- the idea being that only students who are most likely to earn the company a commission (the 10,000 euro paid by the future employer) are worth their time.

Last thoughts: I attended this academy thinking that -- as described on their website -- their pricing model was intended to increase the accessibility of coding education. What I learned once attending was that the pressures of this model (students paying an 800 euro admission fee, future employers then paying for the bulk of the education costs, 10,000 euro) incentivise cutting their losses throughout the program: kicking students out rather than supporting them. At the end of the day, the posture seems to be: you are a product not a student.

TL:DR you pay 800 euro up front, but the academy quickly weeds out students over the course of the program. Officially they say their graduation rate is 70 percent, but from what I experienced while attending the academy, but these days it is much lower. If you are "released" during the course of the program, you will not receive your money back (as stipulated in their contract). I was informed during my exit interview that this process is "part of their business model".

Everything goes well until it doesn't. There are several things you should really pay attention to:
- There is no such thing as job guarantee. It's you yourself that will have to do everything you can to find a job. There's no such thing as Codaisseur's... Read More network. Some companies may have nice experience with hiring Codaisseur graduates, but they aren't always there to recruit juniors like you. Job support they're referring to is just a way to check on your job search process (with a weekly call). They will advise you to be positive and try to apply for more jobs. There's basically nothing that you can rely on from Codaisseur regarding job support.
- A huge financial trap: This is the part where I do think Codaisseur is evil. Once you land a job (within three months), you will start to pay. Imagine after three months of desperately searching for a job, you're reluctant to accept a low-paid internship (which is enough for you just to cover the tuition fee, but hope that the company might offer you a full-time position later) and after several months, your contract ends (in fact, it can end anytime) and you have NO choice but finding a new job within three months. After 3 months since you start your job search for the second time, you are asked to start paying back the tuition fees again. Codaisseur will NOT care whatever happens (whether you're being laid off or the company went broke). In this Corona time, so many companies struggle to survive and they simply don't want to extend the contract. There're just so many scenarios that pushes you in a situation where you might end up with a huge debt from Codaisseur and no job. So what they promise you, a job guarantee, is purely false advertising. Normally your contract in the market will be a trial month and 7 month contract. I've heard stories where people got trapped with huge cost when their contract even ends after the trial period. In short, in this pandemic time, nothing promises you a long-term security to make sure that you can pay back all the money to Codaisseur. You can lost your job ANYTIME. And you're only granted 3 MONTHS to find a job again. 3 MONTHS in this pandemic. There is no exception.
- Remember, in this Corona time, companies also are reluctant to cover your tuition fees. It's A LOT. And a junior, you definitely are not important enough for a company to bear the costs for you.

Final lesson: if it's about the minimum cost (800e) that makes you tempted to join Codaisseur, think about what I said above. Perhaps considering borrowing money from someone else and join another bootcamp. Graduation from Codaisseur won't secure you extra credentials. There are so many more bootcamps out there that offer you the same and might not put you into a huge debt in this desperate time. Also, READ THE CONTRACT CAREFULLY. It's written with hidden traps.

At Codaisseur there are a lot of hidden costs, fake advertising, and promises. Though Codaisseur allowed me to change career paths in a short amount of time, I am unsatisfied with the company and feel lied to. Of the 7 teachers, 6 of them are outstanding.... Read More They are always willing to help, motivate you and during the entire course, they gave me the feeling that they wanted me to succeed. Unfortunately, the teachers are constantly understaffed, you can notice that they are overwhelmed by the workload and they are unable to answer everyone's questions due to understaffing and a lack of time. After passing the final assignment there is a week called 'Career Accelerator' which was, to put it nicely, a joke. The quality was poor, the career advisor was unorganised and didn't seem to care if you'd get a job or not. During the interview process, it was promised that Codaisseur would introduce you to their partners. In the end, not one student has been introduced to their so-called 'partners'. There is also NO job guarantee at all. YOU are the one who has to apply for the jobs, Codaisseur doesn't do anything to help you. You have a weekly call with their staff, but it's more to check if you're doing what they want you to do. They don't give advice (besides things like 'contact people on Linkedin', something every student does from day one...). We were promised job leads, the closest to those 'job leads' was that, after a few weeks of no serious job prospects, people were recommended by Codaisseur to take an (underpaid) internship. Again, there is no job guarantee whatsoever. There is a staggering amount of students that graduated months ago, do everything in their power to get a job, but are still unemployed. Codaisseur doesn't seem to do anything to help them besides the 'weekly calls'. The course is fast-paced and extremely stressful. People dropped out of the course due to breakdowns from stress. These people still had to pay the whole fee of €10.802. There are hidden costs. Codaisseur claims that you only pay the €800 admission fee and that the rest (€10.802) will be paid by your future employer. This is a lie. YOU are the one who pays the €10.802. Maybe your employer pays it directly to Codaisseur, but it will be subtracted from your salary, so in the end, you pay the €298 per month yourself, for 29 months. Another rather strange thing: they let the students do their sales talk with potential employers. The students have to tell them about Codaisseur, they have to tell them about the 11K debt that they have (and that the company will have to pay, if they hire them), they have to tell the company about becoming a partner of Codaisseur. Lots of students decide to never say anything about the fee to their potential employers because often employers will turn you down, simply because they don't want to hire a junior (who still needs a lot of training by their future employer) with a fee obligation of €10.802. During Codaisseur you have the feeling that you're supported and valued, but as soon as you graduate the course, the focus switches to the new students that just started their course. Another thing: Codaisseur claims that they are the #1 Coding Academy of the Netherlands. This does not mean that they are the best in The Netherlands, it just means that they are the first.