CareerFoundry

I signed up for CareerFoundry's "Web Development" course with the belief that at the end of the course, I would be ready to apply for junior-level jobs in my area, as per their online promise.  I was suckered in by their cutesy-poo story of some developer who was unemployed and after three months was working as a freelance developer.  That may be well and dandy, but it would be nice to see a roadmap as to how to go down that path.  But this is my review of CareerFoundry.

PROS

CareerFoundry is affordable.  It is cheaper than other bootcamps where you pay 10% of your mortgage, but you pay for what you get.

My mentor was nice and knowledgable, but per CF you are only entitled to one Skype call per week.  So Google and StackOverflow become your friends.

The community on Slack is (somewhat) engaging.  There's a lot of "Hi, I'm from [insert country here]" where you can meet other people.

CONS

CF is more geared toward UX/UI development and freelance web development.  So if you're looking for support in web development for a company, you won't find it here.

There are NO CAREER RESOURCES.  No help for technical interviews, job preparation (they don't do placement), resume writing, nothing.  Sidenote: how do you call yourself CAREERFoundry and provide no career support?  They claim to have an "extensive job network", but that's for European jobs in UX/UI.

The majority of their lessons leave a lot to be desired.  They say that no programming experience is required, but if you've never even looked at HTML before, you'll be blown away by the early assignments.

Good luck asking for help on the forums.  I've come across problems with assignments and tried to post questions and received no help.

Your portfolio consists of "two" projects: the personal website and a Ruby on Rails app.  Nothing to really impress a potential employer.

If you're a PC user, you will struggle with the RoR portion and they provide no support.

Bottom line is, you can go through Treehouse and get the same skills at a fraction of what you pay for CF.  I cannot recommend this program to anyone.

If you are beginner in the field please avoid this UX designer course or you are in for a bad time. No previous experience necessary? That's not true at all!

The first section asks you to write a proposal to a company including an analysis, timeframe and pricing. Sounds great? Well, don't expect to get any help or material relating to how to write a real project proposal. In fact, the majority of the material was completely irrelevant to the task and the little help you get are some outdated links to web applications and blog posts. The submitted answers by fellow colleagues are clearly made by professionals with previous experience in the field.

Finally, the platform is buggy. My mentor didn't receive some messages or the submit button wouldn't work. I have also noted some sudden changes in how you are supposed to submit a project without prior notice. For instance, all of a sudden i'm supposed to use Adobe's Behance to submit my paper without explanations on what it is or why. My colleagues, however, were able to send their papers as PDF files not long ago.

I tried to like this course and i believe that I gave my very best. But I seem to get more from a good book at a tiny fraction of the cost. The mentor is nice but Skype calls only once a week are not enough since the course material itself just leaves you hanging. Overall, I regret my decision to pay such a large sum of money and i cannot recommend this Careerfoundry course to anyone.

I am finishing up the course and wanted to share my experience with the program. I initially decided to go with CareerFoundry because of the cost - for the money, there isn't a comparable online bootcamp that offers one on one mentorship and teaches full stack web development. I also didn't know if I wanted to (or even had the ability to) code and potentially pursue a career in it, so this was a perfect entry point.

In the beginning, I didn't know anything about writing code or anything about programming languages. The course is well-designed for people starting from zero experience - the lessons are structured into manageable tasks that explain terminology, the how/why of things, and detailed instructions in actually writing the code. By the end of the course, I went from not knowing anything about coding to being able to make my own personal website and also how to make an e-commerce (fancy way of saying a website that sells something) site with Ruby on Rails - one of the more popular programming options right now.

My mentor reviewed my work on every exercise and let me know if I could improve anything and what to focus on. If I had questions, he responded within a day or two. There's also a forum/group that every student is signed into and I've seen that the people on there are pretty responsive and try to help each other.

I can't comment on job assistance as I haven't talked to my mentor yet, but this course gave me a good idea of what I can do next. I think that's the important takeaway - ultimately, I got out of the experience what I put into it. The program's a lot of time and effort, so it isn't a walk in the park, "barely scratching the surface" course, but if you use all the resources that you're given, it's definitely a good starting point in learning how to code.

CareerFoundry's UX program is challenging and really pushes students to learn the ins and outs of UX while creating great work. Each lesson has vital and helpful information, but my favorite part of the program is being paired with a mentor. Unlike other online programs I've gone through, the mentor/mentee aspect of this one really helps to make sure you understand the concept/fundamentals before moving onto the next section.

If you're looking to break into the field of UX, I would highly recommend this program!

This course is a lot of work! Be prepared for 6 months of doing nothing but going to work FT and working on this class in every other spare moment. This course takes you through every step of what it is like to be a freelance UX designer - your mentor acts like your client for some assigments. Most of the reading assigments were helpful, some of the links/processes need to be updated. On average you are supposed to spend 10-15 hours per week on 5 assigments (or one module). Most of the time I spent 2-3x that amount. There is a lot of homework! Most of the time the assignments were very vague and I had to ask my mentor what I was supposed to do. In the beginning my mentor was helpful in keeping me motivated when I really just wanted to give up. In the end when I was scrampbing to finish up assignments, I wouldn't hear from my mentor for days. So if I had a question, I would be loosing precoius time waiting for a response (it didn't help that for whatever reason CF gave me a mentor that lived in a time zone 9 hours ahead of me). Overall, it is a good course and I learned a lot! Just be prepared to spend ALOT of time on the assigments. I'm not sure how you would come away with a feel-good project at the end by only spending 2 hours on each assigment as CF outlines in the course overview. 

The course was really fun . The lessons are clear and well- structured . Even with some basic knowledge you can still learn a lot . The heart of CareerFoundry are clearly the mentors . They are always eager to help you, either by email or via videochat . It's nice to get such a personal touch in the solitary of e-learning . Thanks a lot for this!

After the course i feel like i definitely could build a normal website, e-commerce store or even a small blog/social platform. Of course you have to invest time. A lot of time, but it's definitely woth it. :) 

I found UX through my current career as a full time composer in Los Angeles. There aren't many people bridging the two worlds so I began meeting with a UX designer locally and got really inspired by my meetings with him. I also attended UX boot camps and began reading books.

After spending  a month searching for an online UX design course, I finally found an article written by CF's founder on a UX blog which totally blew me away. The way he decoded and demystified the process of applying UX seemed to be within reach for someone with very little experience. At that point, I was preparing to pay a lot of money for an immersive UX course but ended up going with CF and saved a lot of money in the process AND ended up meeting my incredible mentor. 

I can't say enough how pleased I've been with my class and especially my mentor - she's been fantastic! However CF found her, and I got paired with her is a miracle or luck or both. But one thing for certain, I have a new approach to using UX in all of daily tasks. Not to mention, I will hopefully nail down a job soon as a UX designer to gain more experience in this fascinating field. 

There were a few moments I questioned the curriculum and specifically some of the organization of the curriculum. I have no doubts the CF team is staying on top of the latest trends, and updating the course as needed.  I am so thankful that CF exists and is literally going to change people's lives.

I hope one day, I can meet the CF team in Berlin :)

There are three ways how to learn a new tool / skill - dig and learn it by yourself, study at a school / university, find an intense course that focuses on explaining one theme that interests you the most. 

A year ago I realised that I am a great graphic designer and media artist but to make good money with it I need to jump to a next level. Taking into account my skills in design, digital media, research and writing I decided to learn UX Design. 

I did a lot of research online and found CareerFoundry. First, I went to UX meet-up in Berlin and saw how professional CareerFoundry team is. After that I applied for UX Design course and since then almost every day within next 7 months was filled with new and useful information about how to develop digital projects. I learned how to form and develop my own business idea, about user-centred thinking, information architecture, interaction design, wireframing, prototyping, user testing and more.

I had to put a lot of effort in it and in the end I felt self-confident. I went to a first job interview after the course and got that job. The only thing I can say from my experience - it works! 

If you still have doubts, just give it a try!

I chose Career Foundry to make the change from working as a healthcare professional to become a User Experience Designer.  Taking the UX design course has enabled me to build a great foundational set of skills and knowledge with which to start my new career.  I had no prior knowledge of UX design before starting the course, and although it was challenging at times, I was able to successfully complete the course.  My mentor was brilliant, really supportive and always gave me very helpful feedback to ensure that I did my best work. The team at Career Foundry are always very helpful, friendly and supportive, and take the time to interact with and listen to their students.  Highly recommended.

When I decided to become a Web Developer I tried many online tutorials and books without success.

The problem was that I was jumping from one tutorial to another without following a path or a defined objective.

Not only CareerFoundry gave me a defined path that starts from the basics up to advanced programming, but I was also assisted by a mentor which is the CareerFoundry most precious feature.

The mentor was always present to explain complicated concepts and helped me every time I got stuck at some point. Having a mentor was also a big motivation for not being lazy because every week I had to report my progress to someone and have precious feedbacks about it.

Now I feel confident enough to keep improving my skills and looking for my first employment as Web Developer, I strongly recommend CareerFoundry to anyone who wants to learn web development but doesn't know where to start or how to do that. 

I started Career Foundry having done some free online tutorials in HTML, CSS & Ruby and having struggled though the Michael Hartl Ruby on Rails Tutorial not really understanding how things were put together. The structure of Career Foundry really motivated me to get through the course because after each lesson you have something to show for your work. The tutorials are clear, structured and as you progress through the course it prepares you for life after the tutorials. In addition you have a great knowledge of so many elements of web development by the end you really understand how everything is put together.

I finished having built a personal portfolio site, e-commerce site that integrates with Stripe to process payments, learning about the bootstrap framework, github, triggering e-mails, creating a review system, form validations, user login, automated tests, the list goes on! and the most exciting part is that the foundation gives you the confidence to then go out and find a solution to a problem youself/for a new feature, so that if you've never done it before you know you'll be able to find a way.

The mentoring part was a key element to speeding up learning and motivation. Without a mentor you might get stuck for hours looking on Stack Overflow for an answer, but your mentor can help breakdown a problem you face so that you fully understand how to overcome it much faster so that you can move on.

I work as a Product Manager and Career Foundry has given me a great understanding of the day-to-day work of our Development team. In addition I am also tinkering away on my own projects, and am confident that my skills will help me test any business idea I have in the future much faster for for without the cost of needing to hire a developer at the very early stages! I am now able to build more complex features myself due to the great foundation from Career Foundry.

Thank you!

I'm someone who has more of a marketing background with some development experience, but not much. I'm currently taking the UX course and really enjoying it. The mentor experience is much better than I imagined. My mentor is great and super engaged. She gives me great feedback to start thinking like a UX professional.

It's definitely a big committment and I'm struggling to keep up with the pace just a little bit with my full-time job, but it will pay off in the end. I'm hopeful that the course will help in my efforts to shift my career.

Overall I'm glad I signed up for the course and I'm excited to continue learning about UX.