Full Stack Web Development Daytime

I mean, I guess I'm a graduate? Upon completion of Core, we never received certifications, achievements, degrees OR ANYTHING THAT SAID 'HEY, GREAT JOB LEARNING THIS SKILLSET - HERE'S WHAT WE PROMISED YOU ON THE BOND YOU SIGNED' Instead, we had a 'end of year project' basically where we demo'd an app to a group of about 100 pe & CRISP.ople (on good demo days) that we spent 8 weeks creating. Flawed in it's own way, mind you.I saw someone mention about faculty changes - & absolutely. Once certain employed individuals realized exactly who they worked for & how exploitative their employer was, all the poop hit the fan in plain sight. On the other hand, anyone who was qualified in their position & spoke up about what they saw, Pursuit management let them go because 'how dare you' - & still smiled in participants' faces like everything was COOL & CRISP.There are so many annoying parts to this business - because it's 'not a school nor a bootcamp' [a direct quote from an employment manager who is directly under the founder] who fronts like a non-profit - BUT INSTEAD their 'philanthropy' claims to get loans from investors & once the 'participants' because fellow, builder, whatever title they give you is just a label to make you feel like you belong somewhere - when the real word is slave. They sell minorities this rainbow-esque story while 'trying to keep it real' and for so many the opportunity was the best they had , a chance to put their best foot forward, a hope at leveling up. Pursuit sells - at this point sold, because there's 0 way after 2025 to ethically keep those doors open unless you literally don't care about your brand (also, they've changed the name of what they call themselves/offer at least 3x already) hope. And if you're gullible enough you will certainly fall for it.I haven't even gone into detail about any of the minutes that really trigger and infuriate individuals who were involved & quite frankly, I shouldn't need to. Management is hanging by the thinnest of threads & have no solid direction of how to properly bring to fruition what they are attempting to. If they hired the people who had the success they wanted instead of taking international trips & trying to keep it in the family, they MIGHT have stood a chance. But nope, they wanted bias in management & submission from applicants. Don't even bother to try again because this stain on humanity & shame on your families won't go away with bleach. This karma is well deserved. I do hope valuable lessons are learned though. Oh- another note. There are opportunities for internships and students at colleges all over & to name a few, student memberships on amazon, spotify, apple music, coursera, some ai tools - & so many of them do not recognize Pursuit as a school. It is a hard fight for a participant to obtain student memberships through ask and paperwork. You had to hope someone saw value in you & cared about your needs.So thank you for your time and ears/eyesThe AI-takeaway aka TLDR🔑 Core Issues Raised in the Review

Lack of Certification or Acknowledgment The reviewer states that after completing the program, they received no formal documentation recognizing their skills or accomplishments.

 This is particularly concerning given the promises often made by career-training programs, especially those linked to income share agreements or job placement support.

Poor Capstone Project ExperienceFinal project (“end of year demo”) is framed as underwhelming and “flawed,” which points to inadequate support or structure for capstone outcomes.

High Turnover & Toxic Management Culture Qualified staff were let go for speaking out.

 Accusations of management being fake or dishonest while creating an exploitative environment.

False Marketing & Exploitation of Minorities The strongest accusation: that Pursuit presents itself as a philanthropic opportunity primarily to underrepresented communities, while allegedly operating with exploitative practices.

 Use of words like “slave” and “gullible” underscores feelings of betrayal and manipulation.

Brand Inconsistency & Lack of Direction The company has allegedly rebranded multiple times, possibly to evade accountability or refresh its image.

 Claimed lack of strategic vision or coherent leadership.

Failure to be Recognized as a Legitimate InstitutionPlatforms and services (Amazon, Spotify, Coursera, etc.) don’t always recognize Pursuit as an educational institution, making it hard to access benefits typically granted to students.

They have continually changed the terms of their ISA for students and alumni, according to how much debt they're in to their investors. The contract would hardly hold up in court but they use shady means to pursue students who are not paying, including harassing other students they are friends with.
They're not an accredited educational institution and encourage students to use certain language on their resumes to avoid the tax burden of being such. Students are told to list themselves as employees and call themselves "fellows". An actual fellowship involves being paid, whereas at Pursuit you give a portion of your pre-tax income to the school.
 When Amazon announced HQ2, Pursuit dropped any pretense of supporting affordable housing at the proposed office site, and went so hard in support of the new headquarters that they joined in signing an open letter, published by the NY Times, begging Bezos to come back.
So detached from the BIPOC community they claim to serve that they held graduation ceremonies on the 1 year anniversary of the Pulse shooting, which killed many Latine people. 
When they received a 2 million dollar boost from Google last year, they announced they were prioritizing growth and "financial literacy" about their ISA -- not helping students and alumni with better services. Many of their students are very poor or even homeless. 
"Helpful" alumni services are only available during work hours (9-5, weekdays). Pursuit treated it as ridiculous to suggest that they offer alumni services before/after common work hours, or on weekends, even though those services are ostensibly for people with tech jobs that are notorious for demanding overtime.
Next to no assistance finding a job afterward. They talk up giving students an education from scratch, but they only care about getting jobs for the most likely students, aka white men with tech degrees, and whoever else they feel would make for good inspiration porn.

4x full stack cohort member. There were definitely areas for improvement. With that being said Pursuit is very close to being leaders in alignment on their mission. They have been pivotal in helping many transition to careers in Tech with a very well strategized fellowship that enables people from all ranges of technical backgrounds to become software engineers. Overall the coursework is super solid and great prep for transition. The majority of the staff is able to connect to the target community at high levels some have more trouble navigating an intellectual urban crowd but that is expected. The community is the best really supportive and strong. Its a roller coaster ride but if you're dedicated to completing your transition this is a great option. I think the bond agreement can be structured to be less stressful on newly transitioned engineers but understand the need to pay back loans. This leads me to raise the question if the investors were really interested in the success of people from underserved and traditionally poor communities could they not find some other return on investment or a less aggressive payment over a longer period of time so that the fallout from transition is more sustainable? Pursuit does a great job hiring amazing support staff who understand the full picture of running a program for the target community. Some questions arise when it comes to retention with the same staff but from my experience there's amazing progress in upper management with  approach as far as it comes to fellows and staff. I'm betting that there's more progress to come. I would strongly suggest application to this program for people interested in becoming software engineers.