u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
BloomTech has changed A LOT on recent months. The result is that the graduation rate has plummeted, but if you do graduate, the odds of getting a job are higher.
I think the main problem is all of the changes basically turned it into a Udemy course with live sessions where the "self motivated autodidactic" people are the ones that make it through - and the ones that probably would have gotten jobs in any bootcamp.
For those unaware, the changes are:
1. You move the curriculum completely at your own pace.
2. You sign up for "lectures" whenever you want and the same lectures are offered frequently so you can always join the one you need right now, or repeat ones you aren't understanding.
3. There is no longer a sense of community or that you are doing this with other people - people start every week and you don't have cohortmates anymore.
4. You have a support person that you can file a ticket to if you are lost or need help.
Also to note:
1. 4 out of 8 of the executives list on the website this year left (I think it's updated now to reflect that)
2. The founder claims that BloomTech is almost profitable with this new model above and a big part of all these changes were to make the business function.
My observations:
1. I signed up for a trial a year ago and there was no one there. All of the onboarding lectures had 0 to 2 people. It felt like no one was signing up for BloomTech through the self-enrollment path.
2. I have mixed feelings about the founder. He makes a lot of misleading-but-not-lie claims on Twitter. They are not lies but they are taking things out of context. For example, having a script/or person that posts all the placements in Slack every Friday at the same time and then posting a screenshot about how the placements are flowing in constantly. They were posting their raw placement data via their placements site and those were the placements for the entire week and not a realtime feed of placements.
3. I worked with several alumni to get jobs and BloomTech posted their placements making it look like they were through BloomTech, when the people paid my company a lot of money for training which they attributed to helping them get those roles.
Also all you Codesmith people - I know a lot about BloomTech too - just no one talks about it on here!