| | Anonymous | I recently withdrew early from the UX immersive program. I have never been more disappointed with an experience at a school, which is why I felt compelled to write this, even after receiving a full refund. Keep in mind that I left a good high paying job for this program, and I can’t immediately find another high paying job. So I have lost income and greatly disrupted my life to go to a sham of a school for five weeks.
I feel like the school actually lied to me about the nature of the program, such as material that would be covered, and the way in which it would be conducted. I was told this program was a very competitive program, that would have me ready for a UX career in three months. I currently work as a designer in fashion, so I felt like an intense program for a few months would be a good investment. I was told that I would be in class with other professionals looking to transition their careers, and candidates were rigorously screened due to the intense nature of the program. I considered this important as I knew these programs entail a large amount of group work. I was also told that there would be a foundations program to get everyone up to speed. However most students weren’t “up to speed” and the class began on a very very basic introductory level. It seems that my foundations program wasn’t even reviewed by anyone at the school, and my teacher, Jimmy Chandler wasn’t even sure what was covered in this program we all had to complete before day 1.
I was assured that the course would start to speed up, but it actually slowed down after my teacher gave his very basic introduction slides to UX. He progressively lectured less and less. His two hour slide presentation, became a 45 minute slide presentation, and one day he had some allergies and just put on a video for an hour. The rest of the day we were meant to work in groups, but we didn’t have much work to do at all, so after finishing our work we would try to learn on our own or just socialize. Although there often wasn’t much to do, Jimmy required us to stay the whole day for a fifteen minute wrap up at the end of the day. This entailed everyone to go around the room and say what they learned that day, it only took fifteen minutes because we struggled to think of anything. At $15,000 for a three month program, I was effectively paying $250 a day. When I signed up for this program Jason Poole, an advisor from the school, told me this full time program was a great deal because I was effectively paying less per hour for the instructor’s time. They also had an evening program that was less expensive, but also less hours. I have an email from him where he breaks down the price per hour of instruction in each program. However my teacher didn’t actively teach most of the day. He regularly took meetings during the day, left with saying nothing, ate his lunch during class time, or just blankly stared at his computer.
Furthermore Jason Poole advised me that html and css would be integrated into our program. However, on receiving my syllabus I saw it was only a few days in week 9. Upon arriving to class Jimmy Chandler advised us that he actually moved it to the last week of class because he had a conference he would be missing class for, and would be having someone else teach a workshop. The average job in UX requires knowledge of html and css, so I was extremely disappointed that this would only be a small part of the program at the very end. My success coach advised me to learn on my own through tutorials, which I immediately began. I don’t expect a school to teach you everything, but when something is promised in a sales pitch….. is this allowed? Who is policing NYCDA and other bootcamps to follow through on the promises that they make students.
While nothing is a guarantee and I was clear that NYCDA wasn’t a staffing agency, they also didn’t seem to have much in terms of career/job resources. My success coach was a former student, who worked in theater and as a tutor, but didn’t seem to have any professional experience at all. Every week we had to do a lengthy assignment where we filled out paperwork regarding our personality, career goals, and did research on the industry. All were templates he gave us were things pulled from the internet. I didn’t receive any feedback on these assignments. Their slack job channel seemed full of internships. I had no idea how I was going to take the little that we were learning, and materialize it into skills that would elevate my career.
I filled out a formal complaint, and spoke with several advisors at the school. Everyone seemed sympathetic to me, but no one knew how to make the situation better. They didn’t have resources to get another more competent teacher in quickly, and it didn’t seem that Jimmy Chandler was going to suddenly become more knowledgeable. Finally someone from a remote office in Florida emailed me and asked me to call them. She said if I left that very day I could have all of my money back, but if I stayed I would be obligated to pay the full $15,000 as I was past the drop date. They wanted me out and fast. So I took my money and I left. |
