CareerFoundry

I signed up for the web developer course due to the more affordable cost compared to some bootcamps. I ended up leaving after one month. To the company's credit, they did offer me a full refund due to my dissatisfaction. Below are the reasons I left.

-- Their curriculum is confusing and not clearly written. I understand they are a German company, but that's no excuse to have unclear, run-on sentences and poorly explained directions. I spent hours just trying to decipher what they were asking me to do. I would end up signing on to my (paid) Team Treehouse subscription and watching their video on the same subject just so I could learn it. I am not the only person who had this experience, just read the other reviews.

-- My mentor hardly bothered to reply to me, and when she did, she would either only partially answer my question or just send me a link to StackOverflow. Bear in mind I had already searched stack overflow and read the same threads she sent me, on my own. I am not paying a large sum of money for somebody to google my question and send me links. In addition, she would take days to reply, often not replying at all. It got to where I didn't bother asking anything any more.

So, to sum up, the curriculum was not even on par with the free courses out there. And the mentorship, which I think is most of what you're paying for, was basically nonexistent. One bright spot was my 'tutor' (who is considered more of a lower level helper I believe). He was actually wonderful and helpful, even though many times he could not answer my question and ended up googling things himself. At least he actually TRIED to help me, which I appreciate.

The company asked me to reconsider leaving a negative review online because it can hurt their business. I did think about it a lot and I let a month pass by before I decided to write this. In the end, I feel others should have the opportunity to weigh my experience before spending money. I feel that the curriculum and business model at CareerFoundry needs a significant amount of adjustment before it would begin to be more effective than other online sources already available for much less money. I believe they are motivated to keep improving themselves and they have told me they are already making changes to their curriculum based on my feedback. However I cannot recommend them as of the time of this writing. 

I am writing this review because I think that CF is perhaps heading in the wrong direction and needs to fix some things to be truly great. I sent this feedback to them so they know what I think, but I don't know how seriously they have taken my concerns and I think potential and new students need to know what they are getting into. I started the Web Development course in March and finished in September. 

The main issues I think need to be addressed: 

1. The new tutor/mentor system. Incompetent and inexperienced tutors. I believe that CF may be hiring less capable tutors to cut costs (and improve their graduate statistics.) 

I was undertaking the course during the switchover with the new tutor/mentor system. I was unhappy with it, so was able to switch to the old system. My problem with it: my tutor was very bad. She didn't seem to know what she was doing, she gave me code with mistakes, told me to just look at the code of other students' submissions when she didn't know what was wrong with mine. She couldn't help me when I had problems and had to refer my code to my mentor to him to look at and fix. He later told me I had all these mistakes in my code (which was code my tutor had given me.) 

My tutor had only finished a coding bootcamp this year. She was not capable to tutor others yet she was given a tutoring position. I see now in the Slack channel that CF graduates are becoming tutors after completing the course. If you are taking this course for the tutor/mentor system, you may be very disappointed as I do not believe these tutors are experienced or knowledgable enough. I was extremely lucky that I could switch back to the old system, but all these problems wasted about a month of my time. 

CF really needs to get back hiring experienced and capable tutors and mentors, otherwise the quality of their graduates' work will go down. 

2. I found no value in the Placement Team. I think they need to be better trained.

I am not sure how well they have been trained in terms of what students are learning and what companies are looking for. I constantly see job postings in the Career Slack channel of developer jobs, but many of them are for other languages. I realise that some students may have Java experience or C++ or whatever language, but I am guessing that most students only have Ruby on Rails experience which they learned from CareerFoundry.

Also, as my boyfriend is a tech recruiter for several Berlin startups, I trust his opinion and knowledge of what companies want. Some small things posted by the Placement team as advice, my boyfriend disagrees with. 

I was lucky to not have to rely on the Placement Team for help as they never sent me any job leads or anything like that. While my contact with them was pleasant, it was nothing of real value. For those reading this review though, do not be discouraged. While I was able to get interviews with companies thanks to my boyfriend's connections, the job I took was one I had applied to on my own. So, it can be done. I found a frontend position within two months of completing the web development course. 

Another thing to note:

The javascript / jQuery side of this course is very light. You will need to take additional courses (even free ones like codecademy, freecodecamp) if you want to become a frontend developer. 

TL:DR

This course says its written for beginners, but its not. The lessons are written by something other than a human being, and you will spend a lot of time asking other students to help you understand the instructions needed to complete an assignment. This course will make you feel dumb and confused. Also, you don’t really learn much – this course consists of a lot of “copying & pasting”.

1. You don’t really learn anything.

Yeah I said it – actually I typed it. Everything in this course you can find for free somewhere else. And I promise you, it’s just a google away. Do you want to know how I know this? I spent so much of my time looking at other resources than what CF had written it it’s lesson.You learn Bootstrap, Javascript ( haha that’s a joke – you actually just copy and paste javascript- you don’t learn anything.), APIs, and Ruby on Rails (haha another joke!).

     2. The Course is written by something other than a human being.

One of the things that bothered me was the way things were phrased in the course. Apparently this course was written for beginners, but I beg a differ. I spend about 2-3 hours just trying to understand what CF is trying to say in a lesson than I do actually doing the work. I have to re-read things 3-4 times and it makes the work very confusing. That’s not what I paid for and it’s absolutely frustrating.

    3. Mentor/ Tutor

One of the things I enjoyed was the Mentor/Tutor. But I undrestand why they are needed – they are needed because students have a hard time understanding the instructions that have been written in the lessons. The tutor and mentor are the only things good about this course. The tutor I had was super helpful and the mentor really helped me understand the industry.

As a current student at CareerFoundry, I have struggled imnesly. Every time I start a lesson I immediately get depressed.  I think to myself – “ Here goes another 3-4 hours of wasted time”. I really wish I would have gone to a different school or spent more money. If I have to spend $10k -$20k for something that I can atleast understand – I will TAKE IT! You may be wondering why I’m still enrolled – its simple – I spent money and now I can’t get my money back unless I graduate and then wait 6 months to get a job that never comes. Only then will I get my money back. I honestly feel like I was robbed through this course. I advise anyone considering to just think long and hard about what they value most from an online school. Once you've established what you want cross CF off your list. 

Having gone through the course, I wanted to leave a review for CareerFoundry, because it really helped me in the beginning reading about other people's experiences.

For me, I was looking for a career change and just general direction in life when I first started looking into web development programs. For me, there were 3 important criteria that needed to addressed:

- flexibility

- cost

- support/job assistance

The biggest factor for me was flexibility – I needed to be able to go at the pace that I wanted to go, because I knew that I would have some weeks with a lot of down time and some weeks with little down time from work. I couldn’t stick to scheduled sessions and CareerFoundry was great for that because I could submit my exercises whenever and however often I wanted to.

Cost was another issue – a lot of these programs were starting off in the $10,000 range and I was nervous to commit that much when I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to make it or have what it takes to do well in web development. CareerFoundry is a lot less expensive at $3,000 and was much easier to stomach.

The last thing I needed to know was that what I was learning was relevant and good enough that I could find a job with it afterwards. Like most programs, CareerFoundry has a job guarantee program that really helps you prepare. The job specialists are there for one-on-one chats and were always responsive to my questions.

I just started my job search, but I’m optimistic. Going through the program really helped me get started and made me realize I want to focus on front-end HTML/CSS jobs.

tl;dr: spend 3 months teaching yourself with free quality materials, then spend money on a far better course

This course is an absolute waste of time and even more so, money.

Basically what you get here is a poorly written Bootstrap tutorial, which can be learned in about 3 or 4 hours for free.

Next, the Javascript portion of the course is essentially how to copy & paste a Google Map api and some jQuery plugins into your Bootstrap site.

Next, the Ruby portion is thinner than thin. You can learn more doing Firehose's free 2 week course or LaunchSchool's freebies. 

Next, the Rails portion is so poorly written you'll be spending more time looking at other resources than the ones you're paying CareerFoundry for.

However, the worst part is the complete lack of support. I don't know how they get away with this kind of thing, -- 75% into course I really got into the weeds on the Rails section. The issue was that my alleged tutor was passing work which had problems that snowballed until my app was completely broken and had to be re-written from scratch. On top of this, I never once had direct contact with my mentor. What's the point of paying these people if they don't actually look at your code?!?!?!

The main selling point of the course was mentorship, which for myself and many other students simply was not delivered.

Another major red flag is the poor quality of other students' work. I was appalled at what was being passed and shown as 'approved' examples. My design & CSS skills are intermediate and people were blown away, which I found despressing. Also, it wasn't uncommon for an 'apporoved' example to have some serious mistakes. In this course, you will not be surrounded by people who will inspire you, trust me.

I finished the course but I now find myself with little to no knowledge of anything siginifcant or in demand in the market place (hello Javascript!) and looking to hire my own mentor, start another bootcamp or just give up. 

If you're serious about learning to code and working as a dev then be aware that you do get what you pay for. In this case, you won't get much.

Mentors make or break this course, and if you get a good one, it's worth the money. Some students have had to switch mentors because feedback was very poor, or they weren't timely and involved in the student's progress. CF should restrict the number of students per mentor, so mentors are able to give adequate and timely feedback for each student and not feel overwhelmed by having too many students to deal with along with their day jobs.

The course content could be much better, and sometimes there are spelling or grammar mistakes. Some lessons are not very clear or well written, and some are. CF needs to review the course material regularly and make sure it is the best it can be. More visuals, and maybe video incorporated into lessons would make it much more engaging than just written text with links to other articles on the web.

CF is very open to feedback with the chance to rate and leave reviews after each lesson, and they do seem to want to improve and have made tweaks during the course.

They seem to be growing and adding more staff, which is good for students and having dedicated career support is beneficial seeing as they now have a get a job guarantee.

Aside from the mentor there aren't many personal touch points. You get automated emails from the 'career success team' but they lack a personal touch and feel too robotic.

The only way to network with other students and share tips and resources as well as get help is the CF Slack channel. CF should really pay to upgrade the account so there isn't a cap on number of messages available. Older messages aren't shown because CF has a free account. 

Overall, you get what you put in. It is a starting point. You don't come away as an 'expert' and the limitations of online study, especially for the collaborative nature of UX design, leaves gaps in the knowledge/skill set when compared to in-person courses, but it's a good first step into the field and less expensive than in-person courses. If the 'get a job you love in 6 months, guarantee' works out, it's worth it.

Hi,

I have really loved the material in this course. The materials and information were clear, concise, and easy to understand. Even the links to outside resources were super helpful. I read all of them even though that material was optional.

But I am VERY disappointed with the course description. It stated the student would only need to spend 15 hours a week for 6 months to finish on time. I actually ended up spending more like 8 HOURS A DAY, 7 DAYS A WEEK, and I still did not finish on time.

I am also VERY disappointed with the mentor's performance. Our communication was not great. He took 3 separate vacations during my time on the course and he only extended the length of the course by 2 short weeks.

All in all I would expect that for the price of this course I would get better service (better mentorship and a more realistic timeline).

Thank you, Veronica Jackman-

I did a lot of research before choosing Career Foundry.  I also took the free portion of a few other online bootcamps, to get a feel for what I liked and which I would choose.  In the end, I went the less expensive route and honestly feel like I wasted my money.  The tutor/mentor system is a joke.  I got more of a response from the guys at The Firehose Project (another bootcamp) when I did their free 2 week starter course, than I did in 4 month at CF.  When you are completing a structured program and you run into things you dont understand, you need answers right away in order to continue with a full understanding.  I was lucky to get a response at all from my tutor.  When finally got around to checking my work, he passed things that created huge issues down the line and never should have been allowed.  The few times I got him in chat to ask a question, he seemed to be clueless.  My mentor (checks final projects and gives career advice in 4 spread out video calls), on the other hand, was awesome.  He could see the issue Myself and many others were having with our tutors.

The course work leaves much to be desired.  The front end course is written very well.  The back end relies on blazing through very technical situations w/o much explanataion and then tells you to get a deeper understanding by meeting with your tutor...  what tutor?

If I could do it over again, I would pay a bit more and go with my first instinct- Another course.  In fact, I purchased the Complete Ruby on Rails Developer Course(video) through Udemy just to help decipher the Career Foundry course.  It was $20 and offers much more insight and explanation, and is essentially where I got my understanding from.  

If you are looking for one on one learning, go elsewhere.  If you are looking for written direction do the Ruby on Rails Tutorial(free).  There is no reason to take this course w/o the mentor experience, and that is what ended up happening.

The front end course is very good.  The chat rooms, while sparsley populated, are a big help.  They offer a money back gaurantee if you dont find work in six months, which is awesome.

This school was such a waste of time. 

I feel so stupid for doing so much research beforehand. I thought I picked a really good school, but this place is awful. I am a current student in the Web Developer Course, and everyday I wish I would have picked a different school. 

 The way these lessons are scripted is very awkward to read and hard to understand. I have spent more time trying to understand what they are trying to say, rather than doing the lessons themselves. 

If you ask your tutor for help, good luck. They won't get back to you for weeks, and then when they do, they seem more confused than you are. I understand that as a student it is my job to figure things out on my own, but I can't figure anything out if I don't know what I am doing. There isn't enough information to really know what you are doing. 

Some lessons show the answers or examples of what your code should look like, but they don't explain why, you just better know already. 

I DO NOT recommend this school to anybody. 

The mentor makes or breaks this course. Mine was not great (not responsive, and offered little good/constructive feedback) so I felt like I was all on my own. I was about 6 weeks late finishing the course and when I did- nothing. No certificate or badge or anything. It is quite intensive but much easier at first (so do lots of assignments in the beginning as you will need more time at the end). Does it teach you UX? Yes. Is it worth the price? Probably. Especially with the $ back guarantee if you don't find a course. But there are many pitfalls: poorly designed course structure, assignments that don't parallel the lectures, etc. I highly recommend abandoning their sample project of designing a project management app and find your own project that is meaningful, that you will enjoy working on, and that you can use after the course is over.