u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
A number of people have contacted me about this. I'm going to give a balanced take here so please read the whole thing, it's likely polarizing. Unless noted as a personal opinion, the information is being summarized from what people (students, staff, etc...) have been telling me, and is still illustrative and examples, not definitive facts
Overall though, I do advise to exercise extreme caution to join before all the changes settle... it's risky right now, meaning that the variance in what really happens versus what is expected to happen is wider than the variance of joining their typically super stable and consistent previous programs. But I know many risk-taking students there who might want to take that risk.
PROs:
- I think it's fair to give them a chance to change and settle in on those changes before jumping to conclusions that there is no hope
- Clearly with such a massive reduction in programs and staff, things are not going well, but Codesmith overall has been around for a long time and has an incredibly strong community, and while this transition might be super hard, it's the alternative to shutting down and I don't think a lot of people want to see them entirely shut down either.
- The changes are risky, because they are cutting instruction headcount to survive but have ambitious plans for how to simultaneously improve the experience. If those plans work then they might be better off in the future.
CONs:
- The changes were not handled well logistically. Students in March are extremely confused about what's going on and panicking and they are contacting me because I'm responding faster than Codesmith is, a couple joked that I'm like Codesmith customer support. The blog announcement was more defensive about how good Codesmith is instead of logistically explaining what's going on.
- A number of the most loyal instructors were let go and it hurts. People who went to Codemsith, became fellows, became lead fellows, became mentors, became instructors, became lead instructors, .... like they gave their journey to Codemsith and they know nothing else in the software industry and they are rattled, even the ones not let go are rattled to see how loyalty is rewarded to some of their peers.
- A number of people think Codemsith had plenty of heads up (I personally agree with this too) so they either could have had a more graceful ramp down, or they could have tried to make changes sooner. A couple of people attribute this to stubbornness and defensiveness on behalf of the leaders that they personally experienced. Keep in mind people who are laid off might be feeling more negative right now, but no leader has actually reached out to me to express their side.
So yeah, optimistic changes, but we don't know yet what's going to happen, if they will hit the nail on the head the first time around with these changes and they will all work as expected or will they cause more problems? Could go either way but the roll out of the changes logistically makes me cautiously sitting right in the middle and observing.