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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

#91

Post by wallace_f »

cat199 wrote: post #81
wallace_f wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They're not magical. If I want to be a doctor, there are two primary sets of exams I need to take: 1-the MCAT, and 2-the USMLE.

Both sets are managed by non profits.

There should be no reason why a poor minority, boy or girl, struggling to make ends meet in a rough neighborhood cannot get online, self study, and one day go and take a seat for these exams. In fact, this should be subsidized by government more than university classes--it is far more efficient and more fair, just better overall.

So these are the primary tests, both in a literal and figurative sense, which establish ability and competency to practice medicine.

After this point, getting the residency requirements and practical lab skills is just a formality.

If what it comes down to is basically some exams, we should be able to give more people access to that. Especially in STEM fields.

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

#92

Post by lloyd-christmas »

got2surf wrote: post #68
arkades wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it better than a university CS degree?

"Better" is tough to say - coding bootcamps are focused on getting a coding job, but university CS degrees are not (CS graduates going into other fields [like finance], research/grad school, etc). If the goal is to get a high-paying coding job as quickly as possible, bootcamps look good. Would be interesting to look at longer-term trends in a few years - career advancement, job type, management level, industry within…

A bit of a rant since I worked in the industry:

> CS graduates going into other fields [like finance]

Finance is just like every other high-professional industry, they train you for what you need to know because they are invested in your success. I worked in that industry for 6 years. Most banks run a 2-3 month internal bootcamp for fresh college hires. I was a math/econ double major and sat next to an english lit major in my class. My brother was a poli-sci major and went straight from college -> bootcamp -> Goldman Sachs as a developer.

I think people greatly overestimate the value of their major (excluding those going into academics). My personal experience in finance and tech is that Finance and CS majors are the absolute worst about overvaluing their education. 2 years of work experience^ erases any "superiority" of an industry-specific major compared to an art history major (all else equal).

^ I've done a fair amount of mid-level hiring. I've told people in the past that mentioning your major in an interview after 2 years of work experience is a strong strike #1 to me. If your major is still relevant to your ability to do a job, I generally assume your recent work experience has been worthless.

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

#93

Post by Dtrane »

learc83 wrote: post #80
jcwayne wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After accounting for the difference in cost and time required, quite possibly.

They have a much lower acceptance rate than the vast majority of CS programs. You'd need to compare them to Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Berkeley etc...

Being intellectually honest, I'd have to say that they aren't really comparable. The low acceptance rate is true, but the sheer amount of completely unacceptable applications that are filled out after seeing one of these "make 75k in 3 months" ads contributes heavily to the percentage.

I attended this school and while most of my classmates were highly-intelligent people of diverse backgrounds, I can absolutely say it is much easier to get into Flatiron school than any of the programs listed above.

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

#95

Post by tannhauser23 »

amigoingtodie wrote: post #85

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 con…

Hack Reactor in SF is great. I did to enable my own career switch, and it was the most intellectually challenging and stimulating experience of my life. (Definitely more so than my college and grad school). It's a 12 week course with focus on full-stack web development, with the final four weeks dedicated to team projects. I recommend the program to anyone who's interested in bootcamps.

Hack Reactor recently merged with the Maker Academy, which had locations in SF, LA, and Austin. Not sure what the quality of the other campuses are, but I know that they all use the same syllabus / course material now. Hack Reactor on Market St is the original location.

No SQL bootcamp that I'm aware of, however.

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

#96

Post by melanarchy »

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…

Disclosure: I worked at Flatiron School from 2014-2016.

I just want to point out the the numbers in the audited jobs report were never 'phony'. The report, which was available for download long before the settlement, clearly shows the %s of full-time salaried, full-time contract, part time and self employment used for the totals.

My understanding of the settlement is that the AG's office was upset that the quoted numbers in advertisements did not make the type of employment clear and did not make it clear that the average salary included only the employed students who took a full-time salaried position.

This was certainly a misleading aspect of the advertising, but a prospective student who downloaded and read the report would have been able to see these numbers clearly.

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

#97

Post by potatolicious »

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…

I've worked the last 5-6 years in the NYC area also - and I've seen plenty of companies that hired bootcamp grads, and have worked at one myself.

My anecdotal observation is that bootcamp grads favor consumer tech companies where the product (or sub-product) isn't very technologically complex, and has room for (very) junior developers. It does not take a senior dev nor a CS degree to stand up Rails and produce by-the-numbers CRUD workflow apps.

I think the reasons for hiring bootcamp grads are varied, but they are much cheaper than degreed candidates, get the job done (for junior-level work at least), and are "hungrier" than degreed candidates - especially compared with candidates from pedigree schools who sometimes perceive themselves as being above junior-level grunt code.

Anecdotally everyone I've hired from a bootcamp has worked out, but it's worth noting that the pickings can be slim. I reviewed two graduating classes for candidates and would say maybe 1/4 of them even come close to being interviewable.

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

#98

Post by HarryHirsch »

ptero wrote: post #72
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?

> I think it's fair to demonstrate that you actually know how to teach adult humans, regardless of the subject matter. This is way too generic. To grant a standardized degree (e.g., BS, MBA, PhD), sure. As a generic, "show me that you are qualified to teach adults before I let you" I could not disagree more. Adults can decide what they want to learn (karate or Python, basket weaving or machine learning) and where the…

The state's role, if there is one, should be to inform, not limit the options

No opinion about this. But taxpayer's money should not be used to enable schools that do not provide an adequate education. No one is better off with a diploma from ITT Technical Institute or Corinthian College, there is no good reason for places like ITT or Corinthian to exist and even less reason to support them with public money.

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

#99

Post by tannhauser23 »

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…

From my cohort several grads got jobs at Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Facebook right out of the bootcamp, and several more who have migrated to those companies after a year or two.

When I was interviewing right out of bootcamp, there were hiring / engineering managers who told me straight up that their companies would never hire bootcamp grads and that they didn't know any 'reputable' eng orgs that did either. Which was hilarious given that I knew people at the top companies whose only software background was in bootcamps.

Part of the reason is that most of my friends took the bootcamp experience off their linkedin after working for a year or two. It wasn't relevant anymore, and there were always people who think bootcamp grads only get hired out of desperation.

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

#100

Post by alehul »

aczerepinski wrote: post #86
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 th…

Just to be super clear, I didn't mean to pass any judgement on the choice of attending nonetheless. Bootcamps seem like a great value and I'm glad to hear you're doing well!
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