Launchcode

I graduated from Launchcode in 2024, and went through the Java Dev course. The information and learning itself was pretty good as well as the instructors, however they constantly say that they help 80% of their graduates find jobs after completing the... Read More course which is FALSE! They exaggerate their partnerships with these large companies. Since graduating almost 8 months ago I haven’t gotten 1 call, email, or lead regarding a job. While taking the course I even turned down a 6 figure job in sales because they were so confident that we’d immediately get interviews with their employer partners. Not one person from my cohort got a job through launchcode after graduating. Don’t take this course if you think they’ll help you get a job afterwards.

I recently completed a course at LaunchCode, and I must say that my experience was deeply disappointing. While the main selling point of the program is the promise of an apprenticeship afterwards, it became evident that LaunchCode lacks the necessary... Read More connections with businesses to deliver on this promise. After graduation, you're left to fend for yourself as LaunchCode seemingly disappears from your radar. One of the major issues I encountered was the misleading tactics employed by LaunchCode. They hire past graduates to fill roles such as teaching assistants, teachers, and candidate engagement managers, creating the illusion that their job placement numbers are high. Unfortunately, this is merely a facade, as the lack of real job opportunities becomes apparent once you venture into the professional world. For those fortunate enough to secure an apprenticeship through LaunchCode, the experience is hardly rewarding. Apprentices are often subjected to low wages and excessive workloads, which is far from an ideal learning environment. It seems that LaunchCode prioritizes securing donations and grants over their actual responsibility of teaching valuable skills and assisting students in finding suitable employment. Moreover, the teaching quality at LaunchCode was severely lacking. Most of the instructors are former students themselves, and while they may have completed the course, their understanding of the subject matter is limited to what was covered in class. As a result, they struggle to provide meaningful answers to students' questions, leaving attendees frustrated and unsatisfied after each class. In my opinion, it's best to avoid LaunchCode altogether. The basic skills they teach can easily be learned online in a more comprehensive and sensible manner. Instead of wasting your time and resources on a program that fails to deliver on its promises, I recommend seeking alternative avenues for learning and career advancement. Overall, my experience with LaunchCode was marked by false promises, underwhelming job prospects, and a lack of competent instruction. It is disheartening to see an organization prioritize fundraising over the well-being and success of its students. I strongly advise potential students to steer clear of LaunchCode and explore other options that offer more reliable and valuable educational opportunities.

I completed LaunchCode in 2022 and enjoyed my experience as a learner and was benefited by the skills I learned. It’s a hard program, and it’s best for someone who is self motived and has the time required in their schedules to succeed in the program.... Read More I was able to obtain a full time developer position within 2 months of graduation from the course. However I put in the effort. I continued coding on my own projects and sought out hiring opportunities outside of the apprenticeship program. Again, this took time. I believe anyone who graduates can land a role in tech if they work hard, continue to demonstrate their coding skills through posting projects to GitHub, polish their interview skills, be open to and actively look for feedback from classmates or other professionals on ways to improve their resume/selves, start to form relationships with individuals at companies you’d like to work for, and persistance. Don’t give up! I know several classmates without college degrees that landed jobs BEFORE liftoff even ended. They took the initiative and polished their technical skills! You can too.

Resembles a MLM organization. There's more emphasis on deception then actually learning skills. You will see amazing resumes written about AI and software engineering, but it's all style and no substance. Yes, a few people benefit from this program, but... Read More for 95% of people accepted, you are nothing but fodder so their chosen ones can improve their training skills.

I was accepted into the program and given a deadline for pre work...the quiz is posted but the lesson/content is not. When I contacted them they asked me to provide them with screenshots and asked what links I tried. I tried every link on every tab several... Read More times...Even contacted other members of my cohort...no one has found the lesson. Have they taught this class before? Just another non profit...profiting off the less fortunate?

I attended the Java Web Development CoderGirl course in 2019-2020. There are three modules, Javascript, Java, and Career Readiness. I don't know how I survived the JavaScript module. My TA had graduated from the program 3 months before she started teaching... Read More at launchcode. My TA rarely showed up to class. I remember going to other groups to ask for help on the daily assignments.

The curriculum was very poorly written. The TAs usually couldn't help the students understand how to solve the problems. For example, there was a graded assignment regarding test driven development that not a single student could finish. After the due date, that assignment was thrown out without explanation and we were expected to just continue with the curriculum.

I dropped out between the Java and Career Readiness modules because the TA told me, verbatim, that I was an idiot and I would never be able to write good code. I worked for two weeks to turn in a working program for a graded assignment, but I was given a 0 because she didn't like how it was written. No constructive criticism or ideas to improve. After I stopped showing up to class, no one from LaunchCode attempted to reach out to find out why. I guess they don't care about their retention rates.

I wasted my time with this program. I've attempted to find a corporate web-development job but I didn't learn enough in the program to qualify for an entry-level position. I have continued to self-study using free resources online that have prepared me much more for my development journey than LaunchCode.

Of the >200 people who started the program, ~15 survived to the point where I dropped out. I know of four graduates personally, and two have found junior level positions without the help of launchcode. I know the other two are still unemployed, three months later.

I came into this program for the second time in 2018 (I had unfortunately not been able to keep up with the CSX50 program a couple years earlier). The pros and cons are as follows:

Pros:
The schedule (once a week for two hours with optional study groups... Read More on Saturdays sometimes) was exceptionally forgiving and flexible given that I was also working full-time. I was able to work from home on several occasions without feeling left behind. My mentors in both sections of the class (learning and project) were very supportive, and the second half of the program improved dramatically as there were fewer students to divide their attention. They were easy to get in touch with and were constantly encouraging (sometimes in a tough love way). I liked my classmates and there was a definitely culture of helping one another out. I ended up with a speedy and satisfying apprenticeship process: I was offered a placement at the first place I interviewed and had constant support from my coordinator, and I was converted to full time at the end of the apprenticeship. I'm certainly enjoying my work and salary a lot more than being at my previous low-paying, abusive job. All of this was in a little under a year of work (I was placed before I even graduated), so I can certainly say I was well-served by the program!

Cons:
Codergirl is still in its growing phase, and the curriculum for my course was highly disorganized and seemed to be constructed week by week sometimes. A lot of it was a video portion that I was required to pay a small sum for, despite the fact that the class is supposed to be entirely free. Halfway through the project track, we switched to another paid video course. The learning track class was massive at around fifty people, and eventually separated into three separate groups based on where the students were in the curriculum (we ignored the stated "deadline" that the rest of the tracks mandated). I was one of the slower workers, and did not even finish the curriculum before going into the project track. That was a double-edge sword. I was grateful to have been afforded the opportunity to stay in the class despite being behind, but felt woefully underprepared for the second half of the course. I was also extremely disappointed to find out that my mentors were being underpaid for all of the work they put in. Finally, I can't stand the name "Codergirl." It sounds like a single-word manifestation of how women are singled out and infantilized in a lot of workplaces.

All in all, I was successful and happy in the LaunchCode program despite some difficulty keeping up with the work and the lack of organization. I would recommend this for anyone who can handle a ton of challenging work and won't be bothered by a frequently hectic and rather messy experience.

The course is quite bad, run by instructors with not much experience, in quite a hostile environment. I have seen many stories on their greediness. Many people who thought they were not able to make it and wanted to leave during the beginning of the program... Read More were convinced to stay and then left by themselves totally behind. I swear out of all the people of my cohort, like 90% of them wanted to leave negative feedback but they were afraid the post-job assistance would not provide anything in that case.

For the projects, there's no real standard for quality. I put in a lot of work to make ambitious projects with pretty web design so they would actually look good on my resume. But looking at other students' work, I saw most people just did the bare minimum to pass the project requirements. I didn't feel like there was any incentive for people to try and become "great" web developers with projects they could be proud of. It definitely seems like they care more about quantity because that's what really serves their reputation.
During the program, I had a friend who went to another intensive bootcamp (which I won't name). But she gave me access to her school's portal, and I did the majority of their workshops. Honestly, the difference in quality was staggering. Their information was much more so up-to-date and their approach to web development so much more engaging and serious.

Job Placement Numbers - While they market their job placement % numbers all over the place, the truth is that they hire a substantial number of their own graduates to be teaching fellows/assistants and instructors for their own program. What this means is that they can claim this as legitimate employment for their graduates but it doesn't really satisfy the true perception that the industry as a whole thinks about their graduates in terms of programming skills & knowledge, as much as their job placement numbers hope to lead you to believe. In reality it's a win-win for them because it allows them to report high job % placement numbers as well as hire relatively cheap teaching staff for their program. And even the lucky few who get into the apprenticeship program, they usually end up working hard for peanuts with no guarantee after completing their apprenticeship which often turns out to be just a cheaply-compensated internship.

I have been a hobbyist programmer since I was in high school. I don't have a college degree. I do have a lot of on-the-job programming experience. I read about LaunchCode in the newspaper in 2017. It sounded too good to be true, but I applied for their... Read More free LC101 learning course anyways. After taking the admissions test, I never received a response. I emailed them and someone replied telling me a I was overqualified and that I should apply instead for the apprenticeship program. I was too busy at work and did not apply for another 6 months at least.
I eventually applied for the apprenticeship program and completed the HackerRank test, which was poorly written and a terrible litmus test of programming ability/knowledge. Since then I had 4x 5-minute video chat interactions with someone about my resume and my coding project. After these, the communication has been almost non-existent. I have received only a single interview for the apprenticeship in a 5 to 6-month period of time, and the program coordinator stopped responding to my emails, so I have no idea whether the company was interested in hiring me. I have no other point of contact for these people (no office telephone number).
I would describe this as a huge waste of anyone's life. They misrepresent their successes. I even wasted time doing a second programming project as per their request because they didn't understand what mine was about. I do not recommend LaunchCode to anyone. If you don't have a degree like me, they won't do anything for you; if you already have a BS degree, you won't need them anyways.

I started LaunchCode in the summer of 2017, I was working a dead end food service job at the time and looking for a way out. LaunchCode's LC101 course is one of the best I've seen, it's in person, interactive, and most of all it is FREE! That being said... Read More I had to work hard in order to succeed and land a job. Everyone at LaunchCode is supportive and wants to succeed but it's up to you to put in the effort.
I went from knowing only a little bit of HTML to a fully functioning application in Java in just a few months.
Since graduating LaunchCode I have worked for two companies as a software developer and doubled my salary. I am forever grateful for the free education and support that LaunchCode has provided me.