When, why, and how – to leave PE a review
TL;DR
If there is anything you don’t love about the program – call us – any time of day – and we’ll do everything in our power to improve it.
If you like the program, please tell people about it! The larger our community grows, the more revenue and resources we’ll have to continue to build out future electives for you.
- Write 1 review. Use a text editor. It can be a paragraph or two.
I really like ______(this) and ______(that) about PE – and I think it would be great for _________ (this type of person).
- Save it somewhere safe. (because CK’s app is always broken and might eat your words).
- Then put it at all three of these places: Career Karma, Course Report, Switch Up. You can also write a review on CodeNewbie or Dev.to to get more visibility. If you’re brave – you can also post them to Reddit. More info on that is down below.
Remember, if a student ends up coming to the school because of you, you get the finders fee.
There’s even a $500 raffle for leaving a review at Career Karma and those places (we think).
Now: if you want to know what key points we’re trying to tell people about – you can read on.
We really appreciate you helping us spread the word.
Working out some ideas here
This is rough so far. Just thinking aloud!
Why write reviews in general?
Our school is a tight-knit system. If there is anything that isn’t going GREAT! then surely the students will just tell us – so that we can make it better, right?
In many cases, reviews and feedback of that sort are the only way to get large companies to hear you. It’s the only way to say thanks – and the only way to warn people about possibly bad products or services.
Having that information is powerful in those cases. But, if we aren’t a huge corporation – then what is the value of leaving a review? In our case – the fastest way to get heard is to pick up the phone and just talk straight to Derek or Ivy or Karen.
The best way to improve the course is to talk to us about – it and we’ll address it.
So, if it’s very clear and fast to get your message to us – what would a review be for?
In our case, it’s about reaching prospective students. As you know – we’ll be perpetually improving the core curriculum as well as building out future courses (all of which you’ll have access to as PE alumni). PE is unique and it’s important that we reach the right people / especially in these early days.
By leaving a review – and explaining what you like about the school / and what makes this school different will help the right people find us. Those people will help build our network of designers – which we will all benefit from. The network we build will lead to a wealth of conversation and collaboration. The revenue (money) that new students bring will also fund the future courses we build.
So, leaving a review – not only helps us establish ourselves in the defacto “ratings” sites, but it also creates wealth in the PE system for YOU.
Points you may want to include
We’re not going to tell you what to write, but here are some things we think can help candidates clearly understand what we offer.
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We're not (only) a visual design school
We’re concerned that outsiders think:
“Design… oh, that’s not for me. I’m not creative.”
but – as you know, we teach all of the same programming languages as the “coding boot camps.” We just teach it differently. We blend the problem-solving mentality (design thinking) from User Experience AND the programming to build the real interfaces.
The fact that you can research, plan, design, and actually build a project (a real project that actually works – and works on a phone… and all of that totally obvious stuff that the boot camps seem to ignore) – is a big deal. We don’t think people understand that because – well, they are new to all of these ideas.
Visual design is PART of the process.
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We support many ways of learning
Most schools pick a path. Some schools like Launch School are purely pages of text. Other schools like Springboard are basically a Udemy course – with a series of videos and that’s all.
Some schools have 30 minutes of mentorship on Saturdays – or 4 hours of group video meetings 1 day a week. They usually have a shared chat program. You often only have access to a TA through text because it’s on the free Slack plan.
PE doesn’t just pick one. We have all of them.
- Daily written lesson
- An engaging video
- Set of exercises
- Slack chat (pro plan: video features and legally private)
- Full access to pick and plan one-on-one meetings with the teacher
- Full access to pair up and video/screen share with anyone on the team
- A parallel track of study materials (recently added) (study hall)
- A collection of guided follow-along study videos (practice exercises)
- We have real client projects (for those who have room in their schedule)
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Based on value, we really are the least expensive school
Some schools cost $1,800 – but what you get is not comparable. Other schools cost 30k for a 12-week program.
It’s apples and bananas. They just aren’t the same thing. Sure – you can “go to school” for cheaper. But can you actually get to your true goal? You aren’t paying for “School.” You’re paying for the outcome.
Our ISA is the lowest in the entire industry.
You can get into our program for the same price as 25 hours of tutoring. PE takes a big chance on our students.
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Unique and effective learning pace
Some schools say they are 6 or 8 hours a day (but really end up being 12). They have a full schedule for every day where you meet with your cohort on video, and a variety of tasks and times of day you need to be online together. Those Classes are usually 14 weeks (3 months or so). You can’t have a job while you do that – and besides that, we feel like it is a very ineffective way to learn. This is your classic boot camp. Your teacher is usually someone who just graduated themselves.
Other courses are at your own pace – which means you can binge the videos – but also that the students are all on their own timeline. You’re getting people in their first week and in their last week (who aren’t qualified to be teachers) – teaching each other in the chat room. From what we’ve seen – it’s a mess – at best.
PE has a daily drip – and everyone in the session can discuss and work together on the focused concept of the day. This creates a clear story arch, but it also allows you to continue working at your job while you learn. We require 2-3 hours a day to administer the lesson. If you’re serious about learning this stuff – then you’ll put in a few more hours. You have a little wiggle room here and there – but it keeps you on a meaningful schedule.
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We're not trying to be the only school
We’re just who we are. We have a passion for this field and we want to help people become the best designers and developers they can be. It’s that simple.