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Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

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Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#81

Post by cat199 »

wallace_f wrote: post #66
cbhl wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can teach. Just look at the Khan Academy -- Sal started by just posting YouTube videos of his voice over Microsoft Paint. The thing that is held behind a barrier is issuing a credential. And it seems reasonable that someone generating diplomas (or claims they can teach you enough to get you a job) should itself be held to accreditation or a standards body. But we (software developers in industry) could be maki…

I agree. I don't think government is useless, but private industry is much better at innovation and meeting consumer demand. A story everyone speaking of education reform should be cognizant of is that of Jaime Escalante. Another issue aside from innovating to meet demand: Personally, if I want to sit down tomorrow and earn a degree in a subject, I don't know why I can't just self study and take exams to do this. To…

> take exams to do this

and who manufactures these magical exams you speak of, and on what authority?

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#82

Post by lr4444lr »

relganz wrote: post #50
lr4444lr wrote: post #10

I'm not the biggest job-hopper, but I've worked at 3 companies in the last 5 years in the NYC area, and have never once worked with, known anyone who's once worked with, or knew a hiring manager who would even consider someone whose only significant background in software was a coding bootcamp. For those who've experienced it, are they hired out of desperation into firms that need manpower and have enough more senior…

Wow, you must not know anyone in NYC tech

Of all of the replies to my initial question, wherein I already confessed my insularity, yours is the only one I haven't upvoted.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#83

Post by [deleted] »

lettergram wrote: post #37
lr4444lr wrote: post #10

I'm not the biggest job-hopper, but I've worked at 3 companies in the last 5 years in the NYC area, and have never once worked with, known anyone who's once worked with, or knew a hiring manager who would even consider someone whose only significant background in software was a coding bootcamp. For those who've experienced it, are they hired out of desperation into firms that need manpower and have enough more senior…

My team specifically went to several bootcamps (three I believe) and interviewed at least 30 different people. Of them, only two of them barely passed the interview(s). The one person we ended up hiring had previous experience in a very relevant field and we felt would add perspective. We recognized they would need some work and we all took / take time after work to work with them. They've improved a lot and now are…

[deleted]

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#84

Post by vkou »

segmondy wrote: post #43
jefftk wrote: post #6

"Between January and June 2017, Flatiron claimed that 98.5% of its students received employment less than 180 days after graduation and that Flatiron graduates had an average salary of $74,447. However, Flatiron did not disclose clearly and conspicuously that the 98.5% employment rate included not only full time salaried employees but also apprentices, contract employees and self-employed freelance workers, some who…

58% of classroom graduates making $74,447 average seems better than most universities out there. Too bad they had to lie about it.

Most universities teach something besides tech.

I assure you, a bootcamp for European medieval history will not produce average salaries of $73,000.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#85

Post by amigoingtodie »

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good bootcamp?

I have an employee (graphic design) that has shown an aptitude in web development, but I do not have the time to devote to mentoring him.

I can afford to send him to a bootcamp, but stories like this make me hesitant.

Also, I have a front-end guy and a CS intern, who both could benefit from a SQL bootcamp (as another poster mentioned, team development, source control, and SQL do not seem to be emphasized in the CS curriculum). Is there such a thing?

I am only interested in on-site, immersive experiences for all of them.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#86

Post by aczerepinski »

alehul wrote: post #63

An HN user's perspective as a Flatiron student, from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11734796 > One of the things that attracted me to Flatiron School was their audited jobs placement report. Very detailed statistics about how many students graduate, how long it takes them to find jobs, and how much they earn. I've never seen traditional colleges hold themselves to that standard of disclosure. Apparently these p…

That quote is from me, and it’s true that the (apparently illegitimate) stats influenced my decision to attend Flatiron. It’s very possible that I would have made other choices if the numbers looked different.

Still, at the end of the day I’m getting a lot more mileage out of my Flatiron experience than I have from any of my three degrees from “real” accredited schools.

I really enjoy my job as a dev, and based on the amount of recruiter spam I get, feel that I have lots of flexibility and options should I ever need them.

I hope that whatever changes arise from this don’t impede Flatiron from making constant changes to their curriculum, and employing amazing non-certified instructors like the ones I am honored to have studied with.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#87

Post by sekh60 »

cbhl wrote: post #56
kowdermeister wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my country you can't function like a normal school if your syllabus needs to be accredited and it's not easy to change it. We didn't really drop anything, an extra day appeared because they were already better prepared before starting the course with basic materials.

When I went to a university, they got around this by making the syllabi as vague as humanly possible. They even would have a spare course code in each department which was just "whatever the professor feels like teaching, and if it's popular we'll turn it into a real course". Syllabi would avoid specifying the exact languages/frameworks/technologies taught in class.

We had something like that at UToronto Scarborough campus in philosophy. We had independent study course codes which were fourth year course codes where a student or small group of students could work with a prof to develop a custom course. Was amusing in that I think when I started studying there they only had I think four codes, but a friend of mine was there an extra two years and had taken everything upper level basically and they had to make new course codes for him.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#88

Post by mbesto »

dopamean wrote: post #5

Though it may seem obvious to people here (on HN) this is a much bigger problem in the industry than people realize. In many ways these bootcamps are repeating the problems found at trade schools in the past. I taught at one for a year, MakerSquare, and found it to be a rewarding and positive experience however I know people at others, including the company that ended up buying MakerSquare who have had different expe…

> There needs to be more honesty in the industry because I believe there really is a great opportunity to do good.

As long as there is money to be made by throwing around misleading statistics, this is unfortunately not going to happen.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#89

Post by huac »

jerrytsai wrote: post #70
unclesaamm wrote: post #34

I know some folks who graduated from Galvanize's Data Science program. They were told that historically 90% of graduates find jobs in 6 months. She is 6 months out, and only half of her cohort has a job.

As someone who attended that program, the statistics are rosier than they're reporting. I have examined the employment claims, and know the program pretty well. I believe the 90% claim, historically, is close to valid. A fairer representation might have been 5 in 6 (83.3%), but it was pretty close to the mark. You can see where people in the early cohorts are working, and the success rate is very high. What has chang…

The 90% number might be valid historically, but as we all know, the more important number is your chance moving forward.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#90

Post by sjellis »

wallace_f wrote: post #52
asciimo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fair to demonstrate that you actually know how to teach adult humans, regardless of the subject matter. A license is a fair standard to measure. Maybe the license criteria need to be modernized?

It is incredibly annoying that access to education is held behind barriers of entry that discriminate based on socioconomics and race. Education has fallen behind industry demands and global standards. The industry has already failed this test of "demonstrating they actually know how to teach adult humans." 1. Education industry fails to meet industry demands and to offer fair, affordable education So, 2: Innovators…

"The school should be punished and pay compensation for lying. However, we should not hand over the right to offer education to a government that, given the opportunity to provide it, failed the competency test to "actually teach adult humans" already."

"The government" can only do the job that elected politicians allow it to do: the dedication and professionalism of front-line staff can easily be wasted by poor strategy and questionable agendas from the people at the top. Source: 10 years experience working in education.

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