Flatiron School vs General Assembly

Pros: Some great passionate instructors excited about teaching. Meeting other students that were talented and excited about design. Being able to develop and present a decent portfolio. Critiques were a great way to learn about design. Being able to work... Read More with an actual client near the end of the program was very empowering. Cons: Some instructors were just horrible. One, in particular, told the students that asking too many questions was considered "High Maintenance." He had all these expectations yet barely graded any assignments or provided timely feedback. The only indication that I was "passing" was when we had a zoom meeting and he said I was going on to the next phase. I believe I was only one of 4 that made it through. This is not because the program was difficult it was because there was literally no support from this instructor. The UX/UI program was disbanded halfway through my cohort so teachers were "let go" just as you started to get comfortable with their learning style. It felt very disjointed. Anything I have "gotten" out of the school has been because I have had to jump through my own hoops, struggling through software, googling things. I basically taught myself everything. The online curriculum is a joke, badly written assignments, typos, links that don't work, etc. Job support is another joke. I guess I was thinking that the school would help provide actual (human) leads but all I got was a once-a-week email with links to resources most of which, I could find on my own through a google search or LinkedIn. Once again, I pretty much did everything on my own. The career coaches did not provide much value to me. The bottom line is, you can probably get as much out of UX/UI if you taught yourself the software and got a mentor that knows what is needed to get into the industry. It's very competitive and while there are plenty of remote jobs, most of them are contract in nature. It has been 4 months and I ended up back to my previous line of work because I could not find a job. I might never find a job in UX/UI but I am over that too. Just wished I had thought this through beforehand because now I have one big tuition bill to show for it and a nice portfolio. Not much else though. It was not all bad, but definitely not worth the huge price tag they charge. A few thousand dollars, yes, not 21k when it's all said and done.

I attended Flatiron School and would highly suggest self-learning over their program. The ISA loans are a rip-off, their program will not get you a job. I dropped out 3 months early and still owe the max amount for the loan. The teachers were undereducated,... Read More the program was all over the place and the amount of work they gave fluctuated constantly, where you'd almost have a week off because they didn't calculate how long assignments would take, and then other weeks you'd have an impossible workload. For anyone looking for a Dev/Design Bootcamp, I'd recommend looking into DevMountain or disciplining yourself to self-learn. All the information you need to succeed as a Developer or Designer is available online.