I’m just being real

Hi thanks for sharing your experience. I hear this often from Codesmith grads in DMs and what you said isn't thaaaaaat bad in my opinion. This is a balanced comment so read the whole thing. I feel like I'm a broken record on here about how important it is to understand how Codesmith works and make sure it works for you before just giving them $21K because of their CIRR reports and strong supporters (a number of whom I know and worked there as fellows or continue to work there part time). They are very transparent that every single teacher, TA, instructor, lead all went to Codesmith and it's almost a point of pride, so I don't think you can criticize them for that if you expected something else. Having fellows 6 weeks ahead of you sign off on your resume actually gives them a lot of hierarchical control over the product. It's why almost all Codesmith resumes look the same. Regarding placements, I'm also seeing anywhere from 30 to 70% placement rates. Codesmith just published a giant report about industry trends and they are changing the narrative to "things are getting better" but they are solely focusing on salaries and not placement rates. For all they know, salaries are improving for the 50% of people placed versus the 80% who used to get placed AND who were making more. Someone also leaked some recent placement data, that showed 20% of people make $90K+ going into Codesmith and the median going in was in the $70Ks.... and that's going INTO CODESMITH. I wish they would be more open about this, because I see line cooks who have never worked at a desk before think they will make $130K from Codesmith and spend 6 months preparing and doing everything the Codesmith way. It will take a lot longer to get a job and it might be a different job and Codesmith doesn't support those kinds of non-Codesmith-style paths.