| | Anonymous | I have been a hobbyist programmer since I was in high school. I don't have a college degree. I do have a lot of on-the-job programming experience. I read about LaunchCode in the newspaper in 2017. It sounded too good to be true, but I applied for their free LC101 learning course anyways. After taking the admissions test, I never received a response. I emailed them and someone replied telling me a I was overqualified and that I should apply instead for the apprenticeship program. I was too busy at work and did not apply for another 6 months at least.
I eventually applied for the apprenticeship program and completed the HackerRank test, which was poorly written and a terrible litmus test of programming ability/knowledge. Since then I had 4x 5-minute video chat interactions with someone about my resume and my coding project. After these, the communication has been almost non-existent. I have received only a single interview for the apprenticeship in a 5 to 6-month period of time, and the program coordinator stopped responding to my emails, so I have no idea whether the company was interested in hiring me. I have no other point of contact for these people (no office telephone number).
I would describe this as a huge waste of anyone's life. They misrepresent their successes. I even wasted time doing a second programming project as per their request because they didn't understand what mine was about. I do not recommend LaunchCode to anyone. If you don't have a degree like me, they won't do anything for you; if you already have a BS degree, you won't need them anyways. |
