u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Codesmith offers free lifelong job support i.e. resume reviews, mock interviews, negotiation, etc.... via being able to book calls with alumni dedicated to those things. This isn't so much free but included in your tuition, and it's a great feature to take advantage of. I've heard pay is about $45 session so the weakness and/or way to control costs, is by having a fixed number of slots and it being first come first serve. So if they were pressed on finances they could have fewer slots so you have to wait longer. They have pretty decent availability now, but in the past people have waited two weeks for a resume review for example.
I don't think they ever offered lifelong LEARNING though included in your fees. In fact the CEO said alumni would have to pay to join in new "minors" in ML-for-engineers and others floated around.
As far as I know, the cuts they made were primarily just scaling back down to two overlapping full time cohorts running at a time instead of eight at the peak. All of the job support is from alumni. They did remove a couple of career support engineers, but still offer the same set of stuff with good availability
My bigger concerns about how the changes would impact things:
1. More staff members leave because of the overall internal vibe and sentiment. They cut some very loyal instructors and others who weren't cut are nervous and should they also leave to find new jobs, it could cause some unexpected instability. I've heard of a couple more staff leaving voluntarily who may or may not have told them yet they are leaving.
2. They announced a bunch of new changes, like co-working spaces and more alumni involved in the curriculum, etc... They haven't executed anything yet though and these are hard changes to make. I don't know what their runway is right now but if it's very costly to try something new and iterate. Their DSML program cost millions and was essentially wasted money because they needed even more to keep building and iterating on it. Their NYC office cost $70K a month. Like let's say they sign co-working space deals and no one is really showing up, then they have to put marketing efforts into that. More money being invested into something that a year down the line might produce new Codemsith students.
So again, depends on how bad the financial situation is. They probably would just not roll out any of as many of the promised changes if it's that bad.
Anyways, longer answer than needed, TLDR: lifelong learning was never promised or included.