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Complaint Review: Redwood Code Academy (Founder of Redwood Code Academy Harrison Spain) - Santa Ana California

Reported By:
PastRedwoodGraduate - United States
Submitted:
Updated:

Redwood Code Academy (Founder of Redwood Code Academy Harrison Spain)
2850 Red Hill Ave #130 Santa Ana, 92705 California, United States
Phone:
714-716-2128
Web:
https://redwoodcodeacademy.com/
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Redwood Code Academy Review

Title:

DO NOT GO TO REDWOOD CODE ACADEMY!… It’s BULLS*. It has been ONE YEAR, and I applied at OVER 250 developer positions, and I STILL DON’T HAVE A WEB DEVELOPER JOB!… AND I got banned from Redwood Code Academy for sending the Head of Outcomes an insulting email.

Background:

My name is Brian Chotisunanta.

I attended Redwood Code Academy from March 2017 – July 2017 for both the front end and full stack classes.

Part-time front end class (No longer being offered):

Date: March 7, 2017 – May 11, 2017

Days and Time: Tues & Thur, 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM

Instructor: Billy Pruden (lead instructor)

Full-time full stack class:

Date: April 24, 2017 – July 14, 2017

Day and Time: Mon – Fri, 9 AM – 5 PM

Instructors: Billy Pruden (lead instructor), Harrison Spain (founder and lead instructor), and Taylor Thomas (assistant instructor who joined during the week starting on May 15, 2017).

Starting in Sept. 2016, I visited every single coding bootcamp in the LA and OC area. I was going to attend General Assembly in LA in Nov 2016 but backed out because the admissions guy kept pushing me to enroll, which I didn’t like. After the part-time front end class ended, I was thinking about going to either Coding Dojo in April/May 2017, and considered going to General Assembly again in May 2017, because I figured since Billy Pruden attended the General Assembly Web Immersive Program a year prior, and seeing how good he is as a developer, I must have been wrong about General Assembly months ago, and thought about reconsidering because I wasn’t sure what the .NET framework was.

Before reading the Review, I would like to define what defamation is to avoid legal conflicts and to prevent my review from being removed:

My review for Redwood Code Academy is not an attempt at committing defamation, specifically libel, which is written defamation.

I am citing defamation from the following source:

nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/defamation-law-made-simple-29718.html

Defamation is not a crime.

To show Defamation, you need to show published, false, injurious, and unprivileged statements.

  • "Published" means that a third party heard or saw the statement -- that is, someone other than the person who made the statement or the person the statement was about.

 

  • A defamatory statement must be false - otherwise, it's not considered damaging. Even terribly mean or disparaging things are not defamatory if the shoe fits.

 

  • The statement must be "injurious." Since the whole point of defamation law is to take care of injuries to reputation, those suing for defamation must show how their reputations were hurt by the false statement.

 

  • The offending statement must be "unprivileged." Under some circumstances, you cannot sue someone for defamation even if they make a statement that can be proved false. 

I know Harrison Spain is going to try to have my review removed and/or threaten legal action against me.

I have to protect myself by stating what Defamation is before proceeding with my review.

All statements made by me in this review are accurate and true!

Review

It’s quite long, so you might want to sit down and get some coffee…

Look, initially a month after the bootcamp, I wrote a very positive, good review about Redwood Code Academy. But I never posted it on CourseReport.com or SwitchUp.org because I wanted to see how things played out after attending the coding bootcamp, especially in terms of post-bootcamp support, and in gaining employment as a web developer after going here.

I have to take some responsibility because I made the choice to go here. BUT, I only went here because after speaking with Harrison in-person TWICE, I felt like this is the guy that can help me and teach me the necessary skills to get a web developer job in 2017… I was wrong… it is now June 2018 and I still don’t have a web developer job… and honestly, I’m in financial trouble because of the SkillsFund loan that was used to fund my Redwood tuition.

The Good:

I mean…

You get a lot of errors when you code, especially with JavaScript and when you start learning Angular.js and the instructor is always running around class helping everybody fix errors to get our apps working. They do help you, and they are always open to questions. It was a pretty laid back atmosphere most days. The most stressful weeks were the three project weeks because you had to build a web app with the things that you learned, even though you don’t fully understand everything that you’ve learned.

We played a lot of ping-pong. We had pizza parties, free candy bars and candy, and got a free Redwood tee-shirt, hooded sweatshirt, stickers, a water bottle, and a paper certificate (I actually disposed all of these things… as you keep reading my review you will understand why – I will be posting the video of this on my youtube channel, where I will be talking about my experience at Redwood – Stay tuned!). On the day of the final project presentation, there was lots of food and drinks.  These things are the only highlights of going to Redwood!

I did get some help with the code for a web app that I was building, in Dec 2017, a few months after the bootcamp, but it took them over two weeks to get back to me, and they only added 10-15 lines of code, to help me get my functionalities working properly.

ONE THING THAT REDWOOD IS GOOD AT:

Redwood Code Academy, specifically Harrison, is good at marketing his coding bootcamp as the go-to coding bootcamp in Orange County, CA. Redwood is claiming to be “… the Fastest Growing Orange County Coding Bootcamp” (taken from redwoodcodeacademy.com/full-stack-immersion/). Harrison is definitely good at misleading people into thinking that you will be learning current, in-demand, relevant skills, at least he did to me in 2017 and the rest of the other people that went to Redwood in 2017, when in reality, that was not the case. I mean, redwoodcodeacademy.com clearly states on its homepage:

We make becoming a software developer a reality. Join our growing community of passionate, driven, and motivated coders. People enroll at Redwood Code Academy Orange County coding bootcamp to change their lives by learning skills that the world needs.”

Now the last sentence in this quote is definitely hypocrisy! It’s BULLSHIT!

Basically, what I’m saying, Harrison is a master BULLS*R, Marketer, Scammer!... and he’s good at it 

The Bad:

I have to tell it like it is…

False promises, Misleading actions, and Breach of Contract:

I never received or undergone help in resume writing, online profile setup, such as LinkedIn, interview prep, mock in-person interviews, and mock phone interviews, like Harrison said we would do from Day 1. This is why I’m still struggling to this day. Let me tell you, I paid for this stuff and it never happened. I want my money back… seriously and immediately!!!

I actually had to take a resume/cover letter writing course 3 months after the bootcamp, to learn how to effectively write my resume.

Redwood never followed through with everything that they said, either in-person, on redwoodcodeacademy.com, and/or on their brochure.

I am referencing the 2017 Redwood Code Academy online pdf brochure because that was the year that I attended Redwood.

The brochure can be found here:

redwoodcodeacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Redwood-Code-Academy-Syllabus.pdf

I mean they say in their brochure, “Your success is our success. We will do everything we can to help you meet your goals.” BULLS*!

Here I am still without a developer job a year later.

Lack of Integrity, Transparency, AND Fraudulent and Misleading Statistics:

Redwood is claiming on their online pdf brochure that they “are confident that we can achieve a 95% graduate hiring rate within 120 days of graduation,” and “Our graduates are expected to receive entry level offers soon after course completion.” BULLS*!

Is the graduate hiring rate correct?

NOT TRUE… BULLS*!

It’s more like 95% NO HIRING RATE!

Redwood is claiming average salaries for roles in Southern California:

Full Stack Developer - $82,000

Front End Developer - $71,000

Mobile Developer - $69,000

Business Analyst - $69,000

… BULLS*!

What Harrison tells you at the end of the bootcamp is to expect salaries from $50,000 to $70,000 per year. The salaries listed on the brochure seem to be for experienced developers, not for coding bootcamp graduates, specifically Redwood graduates.

Negligence to review each student’s code:

Not all of my projects underwent “code reviews” to see if the coding was good. Your web application can still function, and function well, and look great, even if the code is bad, unorganized, needs refactoring, or just plain written sloppily.

Demo Day presentation lacked potential employers and recruiters:

I was disappointed that during the Demo Day: final project presentation on Wed, July 12, 2017, there were NO potential employers and recruiters, only other student’s friends and family. I was the only one that didn’t bring anyone. I was under the assumption that there was going to be company reps for job placement. This did not happen. Disappointing.

Lack of Integrity and Misleading:

After the bootcamp, as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months… I became frustrated and disillusioned about going to Redwood because I still haven’t found work as a developer. Other students who went to this bootcamp, that don’t have developer jobs yet, can probably and most likely relate. I understood that there was no job guarantee.

BUT, I was under the assumption from Harrison that there was going to be on-going job assistance and support… There wasn’t any!

He Lied!

Here’s the thing (The Bad Continued):

You are going to learn how to code. BUT, you’re not going to learn enough to get hired as a front end developer or full-stack developer.

MEANING: you are not going to be competitive enough in the job market for developer jobs, compared to the curriculum at other coding bootcamps. Redwood never taught my class Modern JavaScript (ES6 aka ECMAScript2015) and only demoed React WITHOUT Redux (The instructor, Billy, demoed React and clearly got the example from a Udemy course).

Throughout the past couple months after attending Redwood, I have had other developers, who have professional experience, review my code. They tell me it’s not good enough to get a “junior” developer role. After hearing this from a few professionally experienced developers, I realize that the THREE PROJECTS THAT I MADE AT REDWOOD ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO GET A WEB DEVELOPER JOB. You cannot just make a simple, basic CRUD application with RESTful APIs, either through the use of a third-party API, or by building your own API in the back end of your application, with a topic that you are interested in, like Star Wars characters, and expect to get hired as a front end developer, and/or full-stack developer. There is a lot more to web applications than just CRUD and RESTful API HTTP verbs. I did not know this!

The curriculum is NOT targeted for a Full-Stack Developer position:

The term Full-Stack Developer is a marketing ploy used by a lot of coding bootcamps, such as Redwood, but they just don’t give you enough training to get you to that position.

You are not going to get a job as a Full-Stack Developer going here!

Look at the job descriptions for Full-Stack Developer on Dice, Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn, Monster, ZipRecruiter, and other job sites, and you will see that the curriculum is not enough to get the job. I did not know this!

I have undergone a tremendous amount of learning months after the bootcamp to supplement the skills that I did not get while at Redwood. Why did I even pay Redwood, specifically Harrison Spain, $12,500 for leaving me with a lack of skills? F*** You Harrison!

Leaving Redwood without a full understanding of C# and the .NET framework:

Until this day, I somewhat know C#, through signing up with Treehouse.com, but I still don’t have a clue about .NET, ASP.NET, .NET Core 2.0, or any other functionality that the .NET framework provides… I don’t understand every single line in .NET because Harrison didn’t go over every single line of code in the .NET framework!!! You know what Billy’s answer was… go buy a C# and .NET course on Udemy. And these guys are claiming to be “supposedly” industry professionals? WTF!

Curriculum taught by a former Redwood Student with no Professional Experience in the tech industry:

SQL, which was taught by Taylor, who is the Head of Outcomes at Redwood, didn’t teach it very well and all I know is that you just do queries… SELECT, FROM, ORDER BY, WITHIN… that’s all I know about SQL. His lesson notes were sloppy, unorganized, and just a copy and paste of the markdown files.

Another frustration I have is that we never learned how to build a database. As of June 2018, Redwood is teaching their students MongoDB. We never learned MongoDB. They changed and updated their curriculum after my class.

Before going to Redwood, I asked Harrison if he would ever hire any of his past students like other bootcamps have done, and he said NO. He Lied. He did the exact opposite and hired Taylor (who was in his first class from Sept-Dec 2016).  You can see Taylor’s review for Redwood on CourseReport.com, dated on 12/28/2016, titled: A great experience.

How can someone teach someone how to be a web developer, if they have never worked professionally as one?

If I had known this, I would have never gone here. I was misled and misinformed = lack of integrity and transparency.

Unknown job placement statistics among students that attended Redwood:

I don’t even know if everyone from my class has a web developer job because Harrison doesn’t want to tell me how many students that attended Redwood have secured a developer job. He told me some guy from my class got a job at Microsoft. So I looked this guy up on LinkedIn and “supposedly” he works at Microsoft as a Support Engineer (which has nothing to do with web development, so I don’t think this counts). But I don’t know if this is true or not. Anyone could claim on LinkedIn that they work for “supposedly” Company XYZ. I know that a lot of students that went to Redwood don’t have developer jobs.

High Cost to attend Redwood:

I paid $12,500 to attend this coding bootcamp...$12,500…$12,500…

And NO!... this is not a typo, I actually typed out $12,500, 3x TIMES in a row to prove my point and frustration in wasting that much money. I had to get a loan to go to Redwood. Harrison financially screwed me!

I mean there were days where we played more ping pong than actually code.

I didn’t pay $12,500 to play ping-pong!!!

I paid $12,500 to learn all the necessary skills needed to secure a job as a front-end developer, full-stack developer, and/or web developer in general… but not enough was taught to get any of these jobs.

I WOULD SAY THAT I ONLY LEARNED ABOUT 20-25% OF THE SKILLS NEEDED TO BECOME A FRONT END DEVELOPER.

What is the point of going to Redwood, if Harrison tells me that I need to learn the other skills all on my own? Why did I pay Harrison $12,500, if his answer is that you need to learn it on your own? Redwood is basically saying pay them $12,500 and learn the rest through online learning platforms, such as Udemy. What!!! You have got to be F***ing kidding me!

Long Lunch Breaks:

In the beginning, lunches lasted for 1 hour and 10 mins, and towards the end of the bootcamp, increased to 1 hour and 30 mins, to 1 hour and 45 mins.

Redwood Code Academy’s website doesn’t’ use C# and .NET:

Redwoodcodeacademy.com is built with PHP and Wordpress, instead of C# and .NET. It’s very surprising that Redwood would teach a web technology, such as C# and ASP.NET, and not use it in their own website/web app.

I found out that it is so easier to build a website with Wordpress and PHP.

I really don’t know what to say about this.

Just go learn PHP and Wordpress on your own and you can get a dev job too I guess. You would think that since Redwood is teaching C# and .Net that these technologies would be the go-to-choice for the back end, not a competing technology.

I’m speechless!

Here’s the thing (The Bad Continued):

Misleading Job Network:

Redwood and/or Harrison has a list of “Employer Networks” and claims that “We have an extensive employer network who have hired and are looking to hire more of our graduates.

The companies listed on the redwoodcodeacademy.com are Cake, Glidewell Laboratories, First American, and Technossus.

Here’s what people don’t know, these four companies are Harrison’s past employers, except for Glidewell Laboratories. These companies are not going to hire you straight out of the coding bootcamp because they don’t hire junior level developers. I don’t know anyone who went to Redwood that got hired by any of these four companies. Maybe some have, but they just haven’t updated or posted their current workplace on their LinkedIn.

Here’s the truth:

Redwood states that “We are ready to take anyone from zero to hero.”

Here is the reality:

It is foolish of you to think that you can just go into this from Day 1 not knowing anything about web development (what is front end vs. back end? What is a full-stack?) and be able to pick up HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in a week. You should have some experience doing these three front end technologies before going to any onsite/online coding bootcamp. I would say spend at least 3 months, really learning these three technologies, and look up what back end technologies these bootcamps are teaching and have some basic understanding of them, before going to a bootcamp.

Too much competition for junior developer jobs:

Orange County, primarily the Irvine area, and LA is filled with many, skilled Web Developers. These hiring companies don't care that you've attended a coding bootcamp. In fact, you’re not even supposed to tell these companies that Redwood is a coding bootcamp. Harrison tells you at the end of the bootcamp to not tell these companies that you attended a coding bootcamp, UNLESS they ask you directly.

Why?

Because these companies (NOT ALL THOUGH) are VERY SKEPTICAL about people who attended a coding bootcamp. Once I bring this up or if they ask me this on my phone interviews, the interview immediately goes downhill from there. A lot of these companies want someone who has 3-5+ years (this is mostly mid-senior level developer jobs) of web development experience with proven “professional experience” NOT “academic experience.”

Other Redwood Students CourseReport.com and SwitchUp.org reviews:

I don’t understand how almost all the reviews on the coding bootcamp review sites are giving Redwood 5-stars for job assistance, yet these students failed to talk about what Redwood actually did for them in terms of job assistance, and what company they currently work for or got a job in thanks to Redwood. A lot of the Redwood reviews were written really fast, contain large amounts of grammar and punctuation errors, and just hype up the school WITHOUT providing details.

This should be a big red flag to prospective students.

Post-Bootcamp:

Two attempts to check-in with me only after the bootcamp, but not from Harrison:

After the bootcamp, I only received a phone call TWICE, by Taylor Thomas, the Head of Outcomes, at Redwood, and this was within two weeks after the bootcamp ended, around the first week of August 2017 and another phone call approximately a month after the bootcamp ended on July 14, 2017.

The first time Taylor, the Head of Outcomes called me, he left a message, because I didn’t answer my phone (I forgot why but I must have been busy or maybe in an area with low cell reception). I returned the call and left a message back but he didn't answer his phone 

The second time that Taylor called me, he didn’t leave a message, so I HAD NO IDEA IT WAS HIM. I had to look back at my call logs to figure it out.

What is really disappointing about this, is that, why doesn’t Harrison (the founder and lead instructor at Redwood) himself make the phones calls to past students to follow up on their job progress? The answer must beis because he doesn’t care or is lazy to do so. F***ing BULLS*!!! Straight Up!

A lot of Redwood students are in my SAME SITUATION:

Not every single student that attended Redwood Code Academy has gotten a developer job. Even with what they are teaching in the front end part-time class (no longer being taught) is not enough to get a front end developer job, because they don’t’ teach you Modern JavaScript and React/Redux, and you still have to know the back end, you still have to know the full-stack… read the job descriptions from these companies that are looking for front end developers if you don’t believe me and you will see that I am telling the truth.

Harrison has made over $637,500 since he started Redwood Code Academy, so I don’t feel bad for him. He ruined me financially. I will hold him liable:

Redwood had the following number of students in the FULL-TIME CLASS ONLY (This doesn’t include the PART-TIME STUDENT CLASS numbers)

Sept-Dec 2016:

9 Students

Jan-Apr 2017:

3 Students

Apr-Jul 2017:

7 Students

Jul-Oct 2017:

15 Students

Nov 2017-Jan 2018:

17 Students

Total Full-Time Students from Sept 2016 to Jan 2018:

9+3+7+15+17 = 51 Students

51 Students x $12,500 cost of tuition = $637,500

(This doesn’t include the money Redwood made from the part-time classes)

Sought out advice from other competing bootcamps:

Beginning on May 2018, I started visiting other coding bootcamps to ask them for help because I was getting NO HELP from Harrison and from the instructors at Redwood. I told these other coding bootcamps that I went to Redwood and it has been almost a year and I didn’t have a job yet. Redwood and Harrison left me to hang dry. I was shocked to learn that for the past 3-4 months, several students from Redwood have approached these same coding bootcamps, that I visited, stating the same exact thing I was, that we went to Redwood and it’s been months and we still don’t have a job. I am not surprised!

So I brought this up to Harrison, in-person on Wed, June 6, 2018, and he simply says that they are bulls*g me, and not to listen to them. Harrison even confirmed to me a lot of students that went to Redwood are in the same situation as me. This wouldn’t and shouldn’t have happened if Redwood was really teaching the right stuff. Harrison, I think I know and the rest of the other Redwood students know, who the REAL BULLS*R is!

Job Assistance:

The question that pops into my head is,

What Job Assistance?

There is no Job Assistance. It’s more like Job Instruction or Job Tips. I was never given any instruction on how to write a well-written cover letter and resume. For the first 3 months post-bootcamp, I was submitting a not-so-good resume, which I thought was good because I threw in all the keywords, but I did not get any attention from companies or recruiters from it. All I got was rejections and no replies.

I had to take a resume writing course (that I paid for), 3 months after the bootcamp, so I could learn how to write my resume from the beginning, and get it noticed by the employers and recruiters resume software systems ATS.

Currently, I have submitted my resume and applications to over 250+ Developer jobs.

Applying for developer positions:

If you have applied to developer jobs, you should have noticed that there really is no such thing as a Junior Full Stack Developer position. The term “Junior” doesn’t really exist for these job descriptions. It also applies to a majority of Front End Developer positions as well. That’s why you have to actually click on every single job posting and read the descriptions. And this takes time, hours. To put into perspective, if you do this and actually apply to jobs you think you qualify for and want, 10 jobs can actually take up 7 hours of your time!

No Help and Response from Harrison:

On April 15 – 16, 2018, I contacted Harrison via Slack, for help in getting an interview with First American, because I applied for the Associate Software Developer position there, and figured he would have “connections”, since he used to work here years ago and that’s what he is claiming on redwoodcodeacademy.com.

Even while at the bootcamp last year, he told me, and the rest of the class, if there is any company that you are interested in to let him know so that he can make the connection. Now, did he make the connection for me (And this is the only time that I’ve asked him to make a connection for me with a company since the bootcamp)… NO!... In fact, he never responded and blew me off. This is what I’m saying… WHAT JOB ASSISTANCE??…

Coding-wise…

var jobAssistance = false;

var jobReadiness = null;

TO SUM THINGS UP:

Are you going to learn how to code at Redwood Code Academy?

Yes

But is the curriculum competitive enough, compared to other coding bootcamps, for you to get a job as Full-Stack, Front End, or even Web Developer in the tech industry?

NO

Does Redwood teach enough coding for you to have the necessary skills needed to be employable?

Personally for me… NO!!!

Do some students who went here, have a job, or have gotten a job while, or immediately after the bootcamp?

I DON’T KNOW… really I have no idea! Harrison doesn’t keep track of where students go, or at least Harrison doesn’t publicly post it on their site.

I have asked Harrison for this valuable information and he responded very aggressively and defensively towards me on Slack on June 21, 2018, and vaguely in-person on Wed, June 6, 2018. This is why I had to write my insulting email to Taylor, and got banned from Redwood for life.

And those students that have gotten jobs probably have connections or know someone from the company.

The Real Question:

When Redwood started in Sept 2016, why didn’t Harrison teach Modern JavaScript, also known as ES6 (ECMAScript2015), since it came about in June 2015? He had over a year to prepare.

It’s probably because Harrison and the other instructors didn’t know ES6 at the start and probably didn’t learn it until late 2017. Redwood knew that many, and I mean many developer jobs needed ES6 JavaScript, yet failed, was unable, was unknowledgeable, or just didn’t want to teach Modern JavaScript. By doing so, Redwood under-qualified a lot of students, including myself, from learning the essential skills needed to get developer jobs in 2017 and 2018.

I even asked Harrison, in-person, on Wed, June 6, 2018, after 4 PM at Redwood, because I was in the Irvine area, how many students have gotten jobs? He told me some students have got jobs and this is not a scam. Some? Scam? So I said how many? He said he couldn’t tell me the exact number.  I don’t understand why he cannot even say how many students or give a percentage of the number of students who have gotten developer jobs, out of the 80+ students that have attended Redwood. This to me is sketchy, deceptive, and malicious.

I actually asked Harrison in-person, at Redwood on Fri, June 15, 2018, between 2:00-2:30 PM, before going to my interview at Technossus, which he managed to secure, but failed to inform them (more like unintentionally left out the info) that I’m at the level of a junior developer, knowing since he has worked there as the Director, that Technossus only hires senior developers. I asked him what he told them about me, and he just said why does it matter in a condescending way. He just said I managed to sidestep the phone interview for you, so just be grateful, show up, and interview.

I asked for interview prep 2-days prior and he wouldn’t help me out. If this is his idea of job assistance, it is very lacking and non-existent. Like I said earlier, What Job Assistance? He told me that he taught my class ES6, which is completely false.

I was wondering why no past students from Redwood who have spent months and almost a year like me without work, haven’t written Harrison a review below 5-stars, and I think I know why. It is because he possibly sends them an email and threatens to take legal action against them. He cannot take legal action against someone calling him out for his false, deceptive business practices.

Harrison comes across as a very dishonest person. I just don’t trust him.

Harrison doesn’t want to answer how many students have gotten jobs because only a very few students from Redwood have gotten jobs (Redwood has like a 95% NO HIRING RATE!). He doesn’t want to be held liable. He doesn’t want to help any of his students get jobs. His job network is his past employers that only hire senior developers, not junior developers. He has no connections or refuses to share them with the students.

Those very few students that are on LinkedIn, that have an association with Redwood Code Academy, that have dev jobs ALREADY have experience in the tech industry, either professionally or academically. Some of these students have Computer Science degrees from Cal State Fullerton or Cal Poly Pomona. Some of them have actually worked as developers prior to attending Redwood. I have no idea why these students would go here if they already have jobs in the tech industry as developers. Probably to switch over to web development and learn C# and .Net I guess.

Harrison is trying to convince companies to hire junior developers instead of senior developers. Who is he to tell these companies how to conduct their way of business? This makes no sense!

Does Harrison not realize that people go to coding bootcamps in order to learn modern, current, in-demand skills, to become a web developer… right?

Yet he is not teaching those things.

Harrison is teaching legacy developer libraries and frameworks:

jQuery from 2006 and Angular.js from 2010, Agile/Scrum from the 1990’s instead of the current TDD software cycle. He should have started teaching React/Redux and/or Angular 2 and above, when he started Redwood, instead of Angular.js. He misled a lot of students like myself, walking into his school excited and naive about web development, into thinking that what he was teaching was current, modern, in-demand developer technologies, so he could fill in the seats in his classroom.

Notice on the Redwood brochure and even on their website, there is no mention of MODERN JAVASCRIPT!

I helped him fill in one of those seats and helped provide income for his family. Harrison was teaching the wrong stuff and he doesn’t want to admit it because of liabilities.

Banned from Redwood:

Harrison and his only staff member, Taylor, clearly do not care about the outcome of their students. They just like to collect thousands of thousands of dollars from naïve, prospective students. I felt like they gave me a big

F*** You,

so I had no choice but to send them an insulting email with a lot of F-bombs.

Now I am banned from Redwood Code Academy, in-person and on their Slack account. Harrison has stated that he will be recording my emails for possible legal reasons. What legal reasons? For sending an insulting email?

I’m the one that should be taking legal action against Harrison and Redwood Code Academy.

I did not pay $12,500 to support Harrison’s lifestyle and Taylor’s vaping/smoking lifestyle (This is some of the things I said in the insulting email). Clearly, Redwood does not have a drug-testing policy for its employees.

You cannot take legal action against anyone for insulting someone. I think Harrison just wanted to stop “supposedly” helping me, and he is using the insulting email, as an excuse and legal threat against me to do so.

Last words:

My view of Harrison:

I don’t think Harrison never really liked me. I was just there because I was there. I just think that he just let me in his coding bootcamp because he was desperate for people like me to sign up. I helped him fill in a seat for his bootcamp. That seat cost $12,500.

He just wanted to make money. When he met me, he saw “easy money.”

Harrison, you just don’t get it or give a F***! I didn’t pay you $12,500 to go to your school and get a useless paper certificate with the wrong date of completion on it.

By the way, getting a certificate from Redwood or any other coding bootcamp is irrelevant. It’s the skills that these bootcamps are teaching, that enable you to get a dev job, is what makes it relevant.

The way I see it, I hired Harrison for his “services”, which is to teach me relevant, in-demand skills to become a proficient web developer, so that I can get a web developer job in 2017. Harrison didn’t provide that “service” because he didn’t teach current, relevant, in-demand skills. Harrison and Redwood Code Academy was teaching our class legacy, out-dated technology libraries, and frameworks.

They were teaching S*!... S* that will not get you a job in 2017 and forward.

I have never had any great conversations with Harrison. All of our conversations involved S* that we said to each other just to be nice, or it seems like. It was made very obvious to me especially after the bootcamp ended.

Harrison has never called me once to follow up with me, at all, about whether or not I have a dev job or not.

He never provided feedback on what I should put on my resume (remember I had to take a resume writing class after the bootcamp!), and never looked at my LinkedIn profile. Harrison has never even endorsed me for my developer skills on LinkedIn. All these things say a lot about the guy.

It says he doesn’t give a F*** about whether or not you succeed in getting a job or not, he is just there to collect the cash.

So when I showed up at Redwood on Wed, June 6, 2018, at around 4 PM, frustrated and pissed off, what kind of reaction does he expect from me. A happy and friendly interaction?

You have got to be F***ing kidding me!

The guy robbed me of $12,500, and it has been a year, I still don’t have a dev job. He taught our class Angular.js in April 2017 but knew that it was no longer in demand.

Why do you think I had to send that insulting email to the Head of Outcomes?

I probably should have sent that email directly to Harrison himself.

Harrison is a pathological liar. I don’t trust him. At this point, I’m disgusted by the guy.

Better onsite coding bootcamp options:

If I could go to another coding bootcamp again, I would have chosen to attend General Assembly or Coding Dojo in the LA area. Even LearningFuze would be an option (a lot of their students have jobs in the OC area). Sabio, I am not sure about them. Orange County Code School, is like the Hack Reactor of Orange County, it is very difficult to get accepted into, which is why they have a 100% Graduate Hiring Rate.

The illusion that you could code:

Redwood gives you the illusion that you could code well. But in reality, that is not the case. And I’m sure other students have realized that probably sooner than I did. They didn’t teach Fundamental JavaScript well, and they don’t spend any time on Vanilla JavaScript, which is very important. Modern JavaScript (ES6) and React/Redux, was not covered, which are highly in demand and very important for front end developer jobs in 2018.

Zero Outcomes and 0% job placement for front end classes:

No one student from the part-time front end classes has a front end developer job. You cannot get a front end position just knowing HTML, CSS, Some JavaScript, jQuery, and Angular.js, without Vanilla JavaScript or React/Redux in 2018. I don’t know what they were thinking in 2017. Like I said… BULLS*!

Teaching the wrong framework and lack of skillset:

Why did they even still teach Angular.js in 2017 when they knew that it was no longer in demand? Because that’s all the instructors knew at the time and they didn’t know Modern JavaScript and React/Redux…obviously. BULLS*!

Online learning platforms are a better option than attending Redwood:

I would have just signed up for the Udacity’s Nanodegree or Treehouse’s TechDegree programs that cost $200/month and saved myself thousands of dollars on the price of going to Redwood, hundreds of dollars on gasoline and maintenance cost for my car, and most importantly, not wasted almost 4 months of my life learning outdated, “supposedly” best practices in web development. I would find another onsite or even online coding bootcamp to go to in the Orange County/LA Area in Southern California.

Modern JavaScript is essential to getting a developer job in 2017 and for the future:

Notice on the Redwood brochure and even on their website, there is no mention of MODERN JAVASCRIPT!

The reason why a lot of students, that attended Redwood in 2017, don’t have a developer job is because Redwood didn’t teach Modern JavaScript (ES6 and above). Before you can learn and understand React/Redux and Angular 2 (and above), you need to be familiar with Modern JavaScript. Even Vanilla JavaScript wasn’t taught and emphasized.

Just because you can build a CRUD application with Angular.js, doesn’t’ mean that you know JavaScript.

Billy is telling me in an email that Redwood taught us everything that we need to get the job. Well Billy, if

```

function isRedwoodTeachingCurrentSkills(){

 let ES6;

 let modernJavaScript;

 let reactRedux;

    let curriculum = ES6 = modernJavaScript = reactRedux = false;

    if (curriculum != false) {

        return `Redwood students have a developer job`;

    } else {

        return `Harrison is a F***ing Liar. Redwood is NOT teaching ES6, ModernJavaScript, and React/Redux; ES6 = ${ES6}, Modern JavaScript = ${modernJavaScript}, and React/Redux = ${reactRedux}`;

    }

}   isRedwoodTeachingCurrentSkills();   // "Harrison is a F***ing Liar. Redwood is NOT teaching ES6, ModernJavaScript, and React/Redux; ES6 = false, Modern JavaScript = false, and React/Redux = false"  

```

why are a lot of Redwood Students without jobs? BULLS*! And you know it. You cannot get a job as a Front End Developer in 2017 and 2018 without knowing Modern JavaScript.

Apparently, the policy at Redwood is to teach you some fundamentals and you have to LEARN THE REST ON YOUR OWN, either through Udemy courses (like Billy suggest) or through other resources. Well, the REST THAT YOU NEED TO LEARN is what you NEED TO GET THE DEVELOPER JOB, like I said earlier in my review. So does Redwood actually teach you enough code to be job ready immediately?

HELL NO!!!

Other Redwood Students:

If you have attended Redwood and it has been over 6 months and you have applied to over 100 developer jobs, and still don’t have a job, and if you want to connect, contact me on LinkedIn (I am not on the Redwood Slack channel because Harrison banned me from Redwood).

You still want to go to Redwood:

Despite reading my review and you still decide to go to Redwood, my question to you is WHY? Like I said, there are other bootcamps and options out there. I would not recommend anyone go to Redwood Code Academy.

Do not go to this coding bootcamp!!!... It is F***ing BULLS*!

 

Most importantly, if Harrison thinks that I’m just going to let him walk away with my $12,500 tuition, and be left thousands of dollars in debt by his BULLS* coding school, he is wrong. Harrison claims in the Redwood contract that Redwood Code Academy is part of the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education. This is NOT TRUE. I am going to report Redwood Code Academy and Harrison Spain to the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (bppe.ca.gov/).

 

To sum up my experience at Redwood in several one-word words:

 

Bulls*!

 

Disappointed!

 

Dishonest!

 

Expensive!

 

F***!

 

Misinforming!

 

Misleading!

 

… I could keep going but I’ve already made my point!

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