| | Luca | Firstly I would like to start by saying the overall experience with RED Academy, London was good.
I was an enthusiastic career upskiller with a long career in corporate pivoting my skills into UX Design.
I want to be specific with my feedback and breakdown by specific points to help you decide and rate overall customer experience. Good and bad.
The location:
Great to do the course at We Work with such a great concept of co-habiting work space. Making it a pleasant and friendly community-driven environment.
The school:
RED Academy London has access to a few rooms. Most of the time the organization of the space was fine but at times required better organization. At time this was lacking and could have been improved through better curriculum planning, coordination and communication with students.
Onboarding experience:
RED Academy London initially on enquiry was very responsive with great communication to the point of signing up to the course. The communication after signing up leading up to starting the course with welcome information was lacking. On the day of joining there was a full on orientation day which was useful however basic admin lacked in areas. The signup process was very manual and could be improved by making the sign up process more digitally enabled (especially if you are a digital user experience school!!)
Course curriculum:
Breadth of content packed with lots of practical advice and real client projects, great to add to your CV. Gaining real industry insights and practical professional experience really helps you to hit the ground running.
Overall curriculum was great and planned well to equip you with the skills you need quickly.
Course tutors were changed after a few weeks on my course which did impact the morale and responsiveness of the class. This was not a good move to make this change during a course given the intensity.
Price point:
Given lack of competition and that the course covers real-life projects it’s great. This is definitely a ++.
Many competitors out there offer part-time practical courses too with also great content at a fraction of the cost.
Don’t assume doing a full time intensive course will get you a job quicker because it won’t. Do your research.
Make sure your expectations are aligned before signing up in this very competitive saturated design job market.
Tutors:
Great mix of tutors from all background and walks of life. Super talented and experienced.
The UX Design course was great and I learnt a lot but tutor planning and prep skills at times lacked.
Career advice (during course):
During course there was career prep sessions which were informative with some great practical exercises to get you prepared. These sessions were informative but detracted from the pressure and intensity of the curriculum and client projects. Sessions could have been staggered and planned more effectively.
Career support and coaching (post course):
The career open evening was not effective given the audience and lack of partnerships RED London had obtained. Having mainly recruitment agencies there and not leading industry companies does not open up doors for students. Development in this area need improvement by RED. This was also a sales tactic when I signed up and was not present when I graduated.
There is career sessions offered in terms of CV writing and job applications etc. but these were not customized sessions by design industry professionals. But rather generic coaching sessions. I did not find the sessions beneficial with insightful consultative expertise.
Overall experience:
Fantastic course packed with lots of useful industry leading content and real client projects ++.
Support and motivation after course and network of career partnerships was very disappointing.
If RED want to be industry leading at a price point which is not competitive they need to up their game to cover all the above points.
Especially expectations of students wanting to find employment in this VERY compatible over saturated job market by being sold a full time course. This does not get you that job!
Good luck students. Do your homework.
:The UX course was packed |
