How Flatiron turned my life upside down
Tags: UX, design, education
Published: 2020-05-09 03:46:05

Coming in to Flatiron School, I was incredibly excited. I had committed myself to following my dream of becoming a UX Researcher and Designer (which was a big mental undertaking for me, truly going for what I knew I’d be good at, versus development where I “manage”). I couldn’t afford the tuition, and my credit wasn’t good enough for a loan or ISA program, so when I got a call on February 4th that I had been awarded a scholarship thanks to NexTech’s “100 Innovators in Tech” program, I couldn’t help but cry. I was a month from being homeless, my job search was going poorly (and I needed a new career direction). This was the Hail Mary that I thought was going to turn my life around.

With this scholarship, my family agreed to help me obtain an apartment in Denver and cover my rent during the program. This investment would end up being over $10,000.

Sadly, my health failed just as the cohort I was set to join got kicked off in early March. I alerted my instructors, and after several weeks it became apparent that I needed to defer to a later class. I did so. 

I had serious issues with the program during my first initial stint. Featuring disjointed materials, only 15 mins of weekly “face to face” time with your instructor when you’re expected to put in 30+ hours each week, educational coaches that don’t understand the material or the industry, weekly lectures that served as merely a recap and then an hour of clearing up all the confusion around the homework (they call this “learning through iteration”, but in the end it’s just stress for no reason and hours of wasted work). Regardless, I was eager to give the program another shot. 

Then Flatiron pulled the rug out, here is how things play out….

**April 1st**

I get an email at 9 A.M about my transfer, stating “If you do not reply by 9AM 04/02/2020, your case will be closed and you will be dismissed from the program.”  and “We will look for availability in the Full-Time Online UX/UI 04/04/20 If the cohort is full, we will look for space in the next available cohort 05/25/20.” 

I respond and let the team know that the 04/04/20 Cohort is good with me, and get an auto-response saying it may take them 48 hours to respond, but I could be dismissed for not responding by the next morning?! 

**April 2nd**

I get an email stating “Apologies for the confusion, the next available cohort is not 04/04/20. It is actually 05/04/20. Please let me know if you are still interested in transferring.” I respond that I will make this work.

**April 3rd**

I get an email stating “We have completed the transfer from the Denver Design UX/UI  05/25/2020 cohort. Unfortunetly, the 05/04/2020 cohort is no longer available since it hsa been merged with the 05/25/2020 cohort. You will join this cohort at the beginning of Phase 1 which stars on 05/25/2020.”

If you’re counting, this is third date I’m given in three days.

**April 15th**

I check in and student services tells me that I’m still enrolled. However, my question on who my instructors would be is dodged again.

**April 21st**

A post goes up on the Flatiron Blog [here](https://flatironschool.com/blog/covid-corporate-response), cancelling the UX/UI program. Apparently, this (and other options) had been under consideration for several weeks.

**April 22nd**

At 9 PM, an email is sent to students. We can transfer to another program, but mine also includes the line “I understand you were awarded the Cognizant NexTech 100 Scholarship and if you plan to proceed with transferring to a new program, we can assist you with being reviewed by our scholarship committee again and previous eligibility used to evaluate your scholarship award.”

I’m sorry? I was already awarded this scholarship, we invested thousands of dollars so I could have this opportunity, and you’re going to make me go through the approval process again? Leases were signed, plans established, this isn’t some side show in my life. Also, not even a phone call?

**April 23rd**

I’m destroyed. There’s a job guarantee attached to this program, I don’t have the funds to go to another bootcamp and at this point things are already looking bad economy wise. I scurry to get enrolled in the Software Program because I don’t know what else to do, and supposedly they pull all these strings to make this happen. It turns out that the Admissions team was informed THE DAY BEFORE that this was happening, and had no chance to form a response. By the way, that program they enrolled me in? It starts May 11th with an estimated 160 Hours of “pre-work”. 

So now not only is my life turned upside down, I have a little over 2 weeks to complete 4 weeks worth of pre-work that I was in no way prepared to start.

**April 24th-April 28th**

After taking the day, I realize how screwed up this is on Flatiron’s part. From how they’ve treated their own staff, to how they think we can just switch programs (I specifically wanted to move away from Development), to the handling of the scholarships. All of it is ridiculous.

On April 28th I manage to get on the phone with Cognizant, thinking surely since they had awarded these funds they would allow me to pursue a design program elsewhere. Flatiron couldn’t meet their obligations, why should we suffer as students? 

The result? Flatiron and Cognizant have a “special arrangement” for these scholarship funds, and my only option is to transfer courses. They refuse to release my scholarship funds so I can attend General Assembly or another program of my choice. This puts me in an impossible position.

**Consider other options, even for non UX programs**

At the end of the day, Flatiron certainly churns out students that get jobs. But the real ask here is, are you comfortable giving your money and time to a company that will behave in this manner? That will treat staff and students alike with such little regard? That would take someone who is already in one of the most vulnerable positions of their life, see that their actions are causing immense pain and financial disruption, and walk away without a second thought?

**They still don't have it together**

Even after going rounds with the admin staff and letting them know I'm not backing down from my claims, they still haven't even taken the time to update their system to reflect that I'm no longer a student. As of today **May 8th**, I'm still receiving emails about joining the slack channel for the Software Engineering Cohort starting next week. This is consistent with the rest of my experience at Flatiron, where there seems to be no central student management system. What a mess.