RED Academy

I took the part-time Digital Marketing Foundation course from January - April 2019.

Right off the bat, I was very impressed with how organized the course was in terms of the curriculum schedule and access to the course content. RED has a very innovative model of a primary teacher assisted by a rotating cast of TAs who all work in the field of digital marketing. It was a very effective model, and the TAs are well-utilized in the classroom delivery and the supervision of the group project. I was very happy with my group project team and the client we were assigned. The expectations for the project were very clearly laid out and tied directly to the course curriculum. 

Overall, it was always a pleasure to attend class, even after a long work day. This is because I was very impressed with the primary teacher and the TAs supporting him, and I felt like they always demonstrated a strong mastery of the topics being taught. Expect to be challenged by some of the subjects, especially SEO and Google Ads. However, working hard in the course and studying in your own time will pay dividends, as these topics are extrodrinarily useful, relevant, and employable. I am very much looking forward to using the new skills I gained in the creation of my own business entity in the near future. 

I would highly recommend this course to someone who loves marketing but is currently a bit mystified by the major entities that power and measure digital marketing (Google Analytics, SEO, Google Ads, Facebook Ads). This course gives you what you need to shine in a marketing job, start freelancing with confidence, or get started on an entrepreneurial path. 

 

 

 

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Red Academy is a joke. They don’t have qualified professionals instructors. They don’t follow the curriculum and give a lot of false promises. The instructors tells to google it when you ask a question. They didn’t teach me anything and I wasted my time and money. Spend your money in other boot camps even if they are more expensive. I wish I can give zero stars. This is coming from a previous co-hort of Red Academy.

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Like many others on this thread, I went into the course at RED knowing very little about the industry or the school. I didn't know that at the time, I was about to be in the school's third ever cohort. A risky decision, but I was in a place in my life where I saw no other option, so I enrolled either way. 

I can't say that the program was smooth sailing from the start. In the first month of the course, we only had one instructor for 17 students (the largest cohort thus far for UX). I remember it being frustrating. That being said, I really do feel lucky with the timing of my RED adventure. Although the structure of the school was clearly under pressure, the people involved in it at the time were the most passionate and talented. The same goes to the people I got lucky to be in the class with, many of whom have become dear friends now. There was a sense of community, and mutual understanding that the beer will just never not be flat. 

We did get another mentor in Tara O'Doherty towards the end of our time at RED. I'm mentioning her name because she is the only one left from the crew that I feel contributed to my success, although so many others deserve the credit for making the school what it was (looking at you James and Sarah). Although I would contribute much of my personal success to the ones who have moved on, Tara was the one who piloted the Design Labs, which has taught me some important skills that I use now in my work place. 

I wanted to make a point of saying that this was not easy. I also came into the course swooned by the promise of a job, but I worked hard for it. Me and a few friends who are now employed would often stay until the night. You definitely get out of it what you put in. I can confidently say that if you're not willing to stay a minute past 5pm, you will be disappointed in being unemployed and there is no school that can help that. Unlike many others, I also enrolled in Design Labs after my course even though I had a job lined up along the way. I worked for free for a month more, and I can not emphasize enough how important it was to stay sharp before going out in the field.

This was the best investment I've made in my life. I got a job in 4 months and have formed bonds stronger than I ever could have from going to College for 3 years. 

To sum it up: there was frustration, and there definitely WAS crying. But there was also a lot of laughter, a lot of trust, and a lot of times I often think about to this day. 

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I enrolled in RED Academy right after completing my bachelor's degree at UBC. I wanted to get the full digital marketing and tech startup experience and that's what I got, as I was part of the first full-time cohort. The course material gave me a comprehensive understanding of the landscape with a strong foundational knowledge of how to further increase my skills. I got my first job offer in the last week of the program at a leading digital marketing agency.

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I am currently a full-time student in the Web Developper Professional course here in Toronto.

Let me tell you one thing, reading the latest reviews on the RED Web Developer program here in Toronto, the day before the program started was scary. I wondered, shouldn't I get my money back and go somewhere else? Well for my own reasons I decided to go through with it. Based on these last reviews, you could say RED has hit a few bumps in the road recently. I in no way want to discredit these reviews. I believe RED has taken them seriously and is doing its best to solve all the issues as my experience has been drastically different.

For starters, the course... is HARD. If you came for a challenge you won't be disappointed. In my opinion the instructors here are doing it right. This is not traditional teaching. Expect to learn a lot in very intense spurts between projects. This may seem overwhelming, and it definitely can be at times. It's funny though, as soon as you start doubting your instructors, things just start clicking and when you've written a whole bunch of code and it actually works, you just sit back and think: "Wow... I did this! It really does make sense." RED doesn't teach you one baby step at a time. You are going to learn how to swim by being thrown into the water. The instructors are great and very realistic. Help is always available. I've gotten help several times by just messaging my instructor on Slack over the weekends.

Google it... Yes, this an answer you will get a lot when you ask for help, and that is perfectly fine. You will never get the answers from the instructors. They will look at your code and ask you questions so that you understand and find what you did wrong. And then when you see what you did wrong, thanks to their guidance, you know how to google the right question and find the answer on your own. They are not there to teach you code. They are there to teach you how to learn to learn code. You are going to have to keep learning the rest of your life as a dev and I think this technique truly prepares you best. Sure they could just hand me over the answers once in a while and let me learn by analyzing said answers, but would I learn as well or work as hard? Nah, this is why I love the program here. Because it has pushed me hard, really hard. When asked how bootcamp is going, my answer is always: "My brain hurts! In a good way!"

The team at RED is GREAT! I am a pretty introverted person, however, when I am at RED, I don't feel like it. Everyone seems to have a smile on their face and is really approchable. It does seem to have had a bit of turnover since I visited RED before starting the program. However, I get a feeling the staff now is a lot more genuine and actually really enjoys what they do. The new general manager for the Toronto location, is on point. If you bring concerns of any kind to him, I can guarantee you they won't be overlooked. Plus the guy teaches zombie survival camp over the weekends so if the apocalypse was also a concern, you can get some tips.

Career placement... RED makes the tools available to you. I am just starting to utilise these tools so I can't really comment on how helpful they will be. I highly recommend talking to the career coach for your course but also any of the ones for the other course as they will all be really insightful. But seriously, don't expect RED to just automatically land you a job. Nothing is that easy. So far, what I have learned from my career coach is that, well, it's going to be hard. The first year as a web developer is a crucible. A lot of the work will fall onto you. But as of now, I would say, count on your career coach to make the steps clear, and count on yourself to put the work in.

The reason I wrote this review, is that I really hope people aren't deterred by the rough waters RED has been through. My experience so far has been amazing and made me love coding so much more. This is hands down one of the most challenging endeavours I have been through. Trust that if things keep going the way they are now, then you are in good hands here!

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I just finished RED Academy's UX Designer Professional Program at the end of June. Some of my highlights include:

* Working with like-minded individuals in a community-driven environment

* Working with community partners and building my portfolio with valuable projects

* Visiting Hootsuite and getting tips from a UX Designer there

If you want to learn more about my background, why I did a bootcamp at RED, the program in general and my recommendations to future students please make sure to read my post here https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/red-academy-full-time-ux-design-review-irem-ozekes-irem-ozekes Read less

Taking the Digital Marketing Professional Program (Full-time) during Jan - Mar. 2017 definitely helped my career immensely. I had previously worked in traditional marketing and had some experience in social media, email marketing, and graphic design. Though, I knew there was much more in the digital marketing world that I needed to learn. 

RED was such a great tech school because the teachers were very helpful, knowledgeable, funny, interesting, and approachable. The workload is intense and I highly don't recommend anyone who has a FT/PT job to enroll in this. For the FT program, you need to put in many hours after school and on the weekend to complete your projects and learn at your own pace. 

I love how the community projects allowed you to work with real Vancouver start-ups where you can apply all the skills that you have learned in class to their companies. You will quickly learn how to deal with clients and give effective presentations.

RED really preps you in being ready to apply for jobs and they also have a great network with companies in the tech field. You might even land yourself a job with the community partners or with the companies that you visit during the program! 

Besides the school work, Friday socials were always an event to look for because it would help you destress and everyone at RED are very fun and friendly! I can't have enough good things to say about this school :) 

P.S. You will be writing lots in this program, so having good English writing skills would be highly beneficial.

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An amazing course overall! Very intensive but very rewarding, I was able to start my career as a front end developer within the first month of graduating the full-time web developer program. RED feels like home with their very relaxing and open facility. Their teachers are always there to help and guide you through every step of the program. Always up to date with the industry, their course provides a great way to jumpstart a new career. Very happy with the outcome.

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Fantastic course. I spent 4 years at UBC, learned more here in 3 months than I did in all those years. Moreover, you're learning from a curriculum that is constantly updated to reflect the most sought after Web Dev skills in tech. Although a challenging course load the instructors were always there to help, not only that they believed in you too. Would highly recommend.

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I took the Digital Marketing course at RED for the Jan-Mar 2017 session. They have very good instructors that go out of their way to help their students. Red also provides good professional development sessions during the process. (Ie. Resumes, interviews, etc) They give you the tools you need, and several people from the program already got hired before the program was even over. Here, I made a lot of connections from like-minded people that want to succeed in the tech industry not just in Vancouver, but in rest of the world. I highly recommend it. It's tough but also a lot of fun

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Despite of the high tuition, RED Academy is worth every penny. Not only do they teach you enough skills to actually get a job in the IT industry (totally relevant to your field of study), but the job support provided after graduation is phenomonal. The teachers were helpful and understanding,and the overall atmosphere on campus was great. I highly reccomend this school! Got a job within 2 months of graduation, thanks to RED.Unlike other programs where its super rushed, RED gives you three months to actually pratice and ensure your skills are presentable. 

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I will keep this brief since they are bankrupt.  I love taking courses, both in person and online.  This was the first course where I had a horrible experience..  Everything from finding out it wasn't an accredited program, to a teacher being annoyed by typing my notes, to being spoken to with a raised voice, to less than adequate material, to some guy in Britain who didnt appear on video when he should have (he was the leader).  And the course material was not what was promised. It was so bad, I was asked to audio tape and keep all the materials to be forwarded to the university, which i did.  But it was all moot, since they went bankrupt.  And the way that was handled was incredibly unethical.  Dp yourself a favor, and don't waste your money on boot camps.  I took two courses at a recognized university, and my skills are way better you would get at any boot camp.  And cheaper! Read less

I was in the last graduating class for Web Development and a week before our final presentations with the client, the CEO announced they let go of all their faculty and staff effective immediately and the school was shut down because of COVID. However, after 2 hours of many of the students saying that was unacceptable because many had already paid for the next cohort, he admitted they would have shut down regardless because they were bankrupt. I know students who are yet to get their money back and that was in March 2020. I would give this school 1 star if it wasn’t for the 2 awesome instructors we had who continued to help us that last week of “school” when they were no longer being paid for it. They helped us prepare to show our site to our client and answer all our questions even though they didn’t have to. I was very grateful for them and learned a lot from them. If this school ever resurfaces though, I would never recommend it.  Read less

RED Academy honestly changed my life in SO MANY WAYS!

I was in the 2019 summer cohort. Some background information, I went to a university in Ontario and I have a degree in Commerce. While at university, I took a course in Digital Marketing which sparked my interest in the field. However, that course was so vague as it was only 3 hours every week only for 2.5 months. After graduating, I found out about RED and decided to go for it!

Fast forward to the actual course and RED. The instructors are AMAZING, they are so knowledgeable, and they are in the field themselves. I learned more from them than I did from and professor at university. It was very cool to have instructors who have digital marketing agencies and have started multiple businesses through digital marketing efforts. It helps provide so much insight into the practicality of the field. The actual content was so relevant and helpful. They deep dive into EVERYTHING digital marketing related. There are many guest lecturers that come teaching about different parts of the field they are currently working in. You make a lot of great connections through these networks and in general at RED academy. I learned a lot here and the client projects are an amazing way to get hands-on experience on what you are learning. You are able to experience every role in digital marketing and find what you are truly passionate about.

There are a lot of things going with the culture and environment of RED as well. There are monthly waffle days, weekly Friday socials (games night, karaoke, dinner, etc.)

Now, post-grad, through the help of RED academy -through the talent connect event (you set up a booth and employers from big companies come to recruit RED students) & applying to jobs with the experience and skills I gained at RED Academy, I was able to get 2 job offers!!!

This school is truly amazing, and they did everything they said they would and MORE! I would recommend everyone to go to this school and if you have any questions about the school or want more details on my experience, feel free to reach out to me (find me on LinkedIn).

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I didn't really know what to expect when going to take the Digital Marketing Professional course at RED. How are they going to teach me anything in 3 months? Now that it's done, I'd say I learned more in 3 months than 4 years at University. 

The value for me went beyond the learning. It reminded me of being back in grade-school because you are surrounded with the same group of colleagues full time.. except now you're adults. You're more reasonable, less shy, less awkward, etc. I found it super easy to make friends and I know that a lot of the people that I met will be friends indefinitely, including the staff and teachers. 

My teachers, Chris and Rowan, were both fantastic. They both brought us a very different style of teaching, different style of humor, different marketing work experience even. Our class dug into their backgrounds and learned lots about different places to work, different types of jobs in industry, etc. They took us on field trips to go visit different digital agencies around Vancouver, like Moz and Major Tom, which was also a treat. We also had guest teachers like Lisa and Haydee that were both fantastic and brought their own advice and experiences to the table. 

I can't say it was an easy course. Some people struggled because there was a lot of material packed into three months. Personally, I enjoyed that aspect. It's you and your classmates versus a common enemy, the material. We became closer friends through studying together, getting help from each other, and working on the community projects together.

The community projects for me were the biggest value in the course. You are put on teams and tasked with developing and presenting digital marketing strategies for three local companies.  This was practical experience that I could toss on my resume. A resume that I soon learned I wouldn't need as we had been offered jobs from all three companies. I'm not sure that's the case every term but I can speak to my experiences. 

Other positives: The staff are just as much colleagues as they are authorities, access to all the events hosted at RED, the parties, and the career support.

The negatives: It's not always easy to park in the area for free (hot tip: I never got a ticket at the 2 hour spots by Birch and 10th). It's hard to avoid going to McDonald's due to the proximity - straight to the thighs. 

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I came onto the course with some skepticism. I was looking to retrain and was worried I would be able to learn enough in 12 weeks to change careers. I have to say I was more than impressed with the course and with Red as a whole. From my first conversation with Michelle who put my fears at ease to the first day where the Red method was explained. I was constantly reassured and made to feel supported by everyone.

Working with real clients was a positive and rewarding learning experience. It felt like going to work rather than being on a course which I hope puts me in good stead when looking for a job in the real world.

Tutors were all supportive and approachable with a wealth of knowledge from a wide range of real-world experience. This in itself helped me to see beyond the course and opened my view outside of Red. They were always there for support and a kind ear when things got too much or if there was a problem with the team we were working with.

The PPD and career were very helpful and interesting. I am not sure how helpful it will be going forward as I have only just finished the course but it is good to know that the support is there and Iw ill be making the most of it.

I would recommend this course to anyone and have met some amazing friends. I feel excited and hopeful for my new career and wish I could afford to go back and do more courses at Red!

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I joined RED for the UX designer Professional course in order to kick start my career change. I have recently graduated and I am honestly impressed with the amount of things I've learned in just 12 weeks. The course was great for me and the instructors were always helpful. I have joined the full time course and I do not regret it. It was intensive, yes. It required hard work, YES. But it was also a very quick way for me to learn the most important processes and tools used in the Industry.  The fact that I had 3 real client projects is great, because now I can use them for my portfolio. Speaking of which... RED academy also provides support/advice regarding portfolio and CV (career coach helps through the process of helping you find a job). I'm really confident in what I have learned and I would recommend RED Academy (London) to any of my friends. 

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Red Academy was an invaluable jumpstart for my career.   I not only had the opportunity to network with hiring (relevant) industries but I also got the support I needed to take my current role to the next level.  Working with closely with analytics and other marketing tools, I was able to collaborate with team members and put the data to use.  I appreciated the real-world experience brought to each lesson - having industry professionals actually teach just makes more sense.

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Prior to joining Red Academy, I had some experience in web development (self-taught) and a background in Computer Science. But I had absolutely no clue what I was doing, no idea how to start my career, and no idea how to highlight my skills to companies. On my very first day at Red Academy, both Carlos (who wasn't even my instructor) and Peter (general manager) spent an hour with me each going over my resume and cover letter. And later, Ali (App Dev instructor) also did the same. Ali did a great job teaching the class, and providing ongoing career advice - he genuinely cares about your success.

Basically the Red Academy team and culture is amazing, and I definitely recommend. So, yeah before Red Academy I applied to jobs and never got interviewed. After Red Academy I landed 14 interviews and got three job offers. I.e, if you work hard, and you follow the advice given by various Red staff members, you'll make it.

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REDA is good to me.

Professionally, they are a team of masters in their field willing to give the time of day and the care to actually teach people who know nothing. The teachers are the most pleasant people I have ever worked with! They know and teach how to deliver constructive criticisms and I would very much like to be one of them when I get in the world of tech. The staff will give their two cents when you ask and actually would take some time in their responses because they are careful with what they send you. These people actually are caring if you look closer and I would give them my money because it was worth their time and effort to teach demanding students. 

Now that I'm done being a full-time student and taking part time class, I had made a mistake as well. I hoped that the classes were like the full-time but of course, there are things only full-time students can enjoy. These are things like a whole day with the teachers behind you while you work, part-time classes pump you with information for 3hours and you can ask questions through slack. You do have to remember that these teachers have full-time students as well to deal with in the morning and I applaud them for their hard work. Another thing is, there is no Personal Professional Development class that supplements the part time students. So for me, paying the cheaper part time class that means PPD is not on the list, which is understandable. Also, the part time class do not have field trips, client projects, lots of class exercises, or collaboration with other developers in the school.

If you are going to take a course make sure what you are going into is the correct one.

Full-time courses are for people who have time on their hands and want to totally immerse themselves in all of what the course is supposed to be. Including the overall columniation of PROM!

Part time courses are for people who have already work and can only give a few hours in a day for extra learning. It is still a demanding course and the learning is steep, so not advisable for newbies in the tech world.

Culture wise, it is thought-provoking and collaborative in background, culture-culture, and even food! You probably won't see any school like this school, where they care about their students, staff, pets, and teachers to the point where we celebrate bday parties every day with cake and pictures!!

Hope this review helps someone decide for themselves. Cheers!

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