| | Former Student | **They removed "Course Report" from their reviews section on the website and replaced it with Codementor, where the reviews have nothing to do with the current school**
I was a former student at Devschool who dropped out because of incompatibilities with the program. I paid for the full stack web development track which (funnily enough), no longer exists - as the school has restructured their tracks for the third time. More on that later.
school structure
I think the single driving force behind most of Devschool's problems is the lack of instructors. They always say "us" or "our instructors" while describing the program intricacies, but they only really have 1 - 2 active instructors - including the founder. During the time I was enrolled at Devschool, it had around 21 students. There was quite some drama during my time there. An instructor went crazy and was fired, while another instructor was told to stop teaching and observe sessions to learn how to teach. I also saw a few instructor candidates come and leave the Slack channel, most likely never reaching an agreement with the school.
Due to the lack of instructors, the program suddenly shifted the way it operated. It reduced all student sessions from 2 to 3 times a week, down to 1 time a week. This was frustrating, mainly due to the fact that this change was purely due to a lack of teachers - which to me, seemed like the school did not have its act together at all. The only instructor able to teach was the founder, as they had lost most of ther teachers.
So now, I was trying to put up with only having 1 session a week, when I wanted (and was promised on the website) to have at least 2 or 3 sessions a week. These sessions were an hour long, with the rest of your week completely empty. You were told to continue to with the work done in your sessions, as well as watching a few Frontend Masters and/or Egghead videos. For the rest of the week. This is their curriculum.
The group sessions were a nice touch, but they were very disorganized. Every group session seemed to be a completely new topic that students voted on. They were also painfully long, about two hour to three to even four hours at times. Very inefficient, as most students seem to zone out by the end.
My time at Devschool was 1 hour long session once a week, with a few two - four hour long group sessions sprinkled throughout. All done by the founder. He was exhausted.
curriculum
This is Devschool's most advertised feature. A none-structured curriculum. This is the reason why I was drawn to the school. As a student however, it's not really all that conductive to the learning process.
First, there is in fact a semi-curriculum. While I was a student, we had to build a blog as our first project. Then for some reason, the blog assignment was scrapped, and we were told to build a text game using Javascript. It came out of no where, it was quite advanced for some of the beginner students (jumping straight into OOP), when some of the beginners didn't even know the different types of loops yet.
The problem with Devschool's promise to "crafting your own curriculum" is that most beginners have no clue what technologies are important and in demand. That's why they are relying on schools to teach them in the first place. A completely open ended curriculum is only appropriate for advanced beginners and up, who actually have had at least several months of programming knowledge.
Finally, there is no structured student-to-student pair programming. You can reach out to students, but that's about it. The varying levels of students and time zones make it a bit difficult.
track structure
This is something I am a bit concerned about for the current students. Devschool has radically changed their course tracks over the past 6 months at least three times. In fact, the current tracks on Course Report (and while I was enrolled), no longer exist at all.
Devschool originally had a track of "Ruby Web Development" and a track for "Javascript Web Development". Then, when I enrolled, it had a track of "Full Stack Web Development", and a track for "Software Engineering". They recently (as of this review), changed their tracks again, this time offering "Modern Front End Developer" and "Modern Fullstack Developer".
support
Due to the shortage of instructors, my weekly sessions were reduced to 1 a week, with the rest of my time working alone on assignments, group sessions, and the occasional video from their MOOC memberships.
There was zero support outside of your hour long session. Group session content was reserved for whatever was being shown during that session. You could PM the instructor on Slack, but they would be swamped with other student's sessions, unable to focus their energy on you. There were no office hours - once again, lack of instructors to facilitate such systems. You could ask in the Student Slack channel - but should that really be touted as a plus? There are tons of free programming slack channels as well.
outcome
I'm glad that students in 2015 were able to find jobs. I'd be curious to see an update in 2016. They say that you are in the program as long as you want until you get a job. The only benefit there are the group sessions - which again, might have nothing to do with helping you get a job. Personalized support? With the lack of instructors or even job specialists/recruiters, you can expect almost no job support after your personal sessions have been used up.
value
How does Devschool stand amongst its online peers? I've listed out the major contenders in the online bootcamp world. I'm ignoring the contents of their curriculum - because the way in which they deliver this content is far more important.
Devschool: Membership to Frontend Masters and Egghead, unlimited group sessions, open ended curriculum, access to group sessions until hired, 1 mentor session per week, job support during individual sessions, 6 months - 1 year duration.
Codementor: Choose your mentor, open ended curriculum, 1 - X mentor sessions a week, mentor pricing flexible, open ended duration
Hack Reactor Remote: structured curriculum, daily student pair programming, daily group sessions, office hours, job support, 3 months duration
Fullstack Remote: structured curriculum, daily student pair programming, daily group sessions, office hours, job support, saturday CS curriculum, 4 months duration
Viking Code School: structured curriculum, daily student pair programming, daily group sessions, office hours, personal job support, tuition is paid as 18% of first year's salary upon receiving a job, 3 months duration
The Firehose Project: structured curriculum, 1 mentor session per week, office hours, job support, apprenticeship program, 6 months duration
Thinkful: structured curriculum, daily student pair programming, daily group sessions, daily mentor session, 24/7 office hours, 4 month duration, personal job training pre and post graduation, 100% refund if not hired after 6 months
Bloc.io: structured curriculum, 1 - 3 mentor sessions a week, office hours, 6 month duration, personal job training post graduation, 100% refund if not hired after 6 months
conclusion
Devschool's heart is in the right place. I support their style of teaching an open, unstructured curriculum. It just needs a lot of fine tweaking, and the students may become collateral damage during those tweakings. Hopefully the school will grow with more instructors, so that more flexible options are given in terms of mentoring hours and session numbers, as well as the organization and comprehensiveness of the program. In the end however, with the state that the school was in when I enrolled, I had to leave and pursue a different program. I wish Devschool all the best. |
