Byte Academy

Just read through the anonymous reviews here- it's loud and clear.

Skip past the 5 star reviews, they're by instructors and TAs who were once students here, but never held a job where production level code was necessary. They failed to get a job beause this place fails at preparing you for any technical role, so they come back to teach...

Every single event and meetup is a dud and a marketing ploy. Their ciriculum for fintech and medtech is a scam and is not followed at all. Their new data science ciriculum is literally stolen from another bootcamp and sold to you at a higher price. Director sits in his office never making contact with the students he ripped off.

 

I graduated here about a year ago and am still in touch with a number of the TAs. Of all the bootcamps out there, do not go here, it is the worst one and getting even worse.   You are better off studying from a book and asking your good friend google for help.   No one here knows best practices for production code, they were all noob students at this bootcamp at one point if that counts for anything. It's the blind leading the blind. The actual learning comes from building projects, but guess what? You can do that at home, without spending thousands of dollars!   Current job support includes sending your resume to recruiters and that's about it from what I hear.   They tout themselves as first in fintech, but they don't have fintech lectures at all. Their medtech track looks great on paper, but doesn't exist in reality.   Staff has absolutely zero clue what goes on and could not care less about what students are thinking. Even if a student went to tell them something was wrong, they might as well be talking to a brick wall for all the change that happens after. I have witnessed this first hand with other students who have complained, and apparently students are still loudly complaining about the same things as when I was there.   Oh and get this- they've got plans to run bootcamps in Singapore and India. They can barely communicate within the 4 walls of their grimy office space, you think they can manage across the globe? Sh*t started to hit the fan real hard when they sent their lead instructor to Singapore. Wait till it flies when they send their least qualified instructor to India.   50% of their instructors were consumed to work on their student platform. So instead of teaching the current, paying, students, they are preparing an app for future students to use. They won't have any future students at the rate they're going. Oh wait... they don't... Apparently they haven't had a new cohort in 4 months, which is pathetic because their most recent cohort only has 2 students in it to being with. They're supposed to have a new cohort every 2 months if I remember correctly.   Don't go here - it is quickly crumbling and about to implode.  

 

After graduation and Interviewing for development roles it becomes very clear how little relevant experience Byte Academy gives you.

You will quickly realize that almost nothing they teach you is used in real world development.

The core moto of this bootcamp is to teach python, and It fails even at that. 

They dont teach you how to test code, debug code, or how real production python should look and feel. 

I would say this bootcamp may be good for someone who wants to gain code literacy but doesnt expect or want a development job upon graduation.

In all honesty this course is taught by former students who really dont understand the real world development well enough to teach it. All of the teachers took jobs at the school upon graduation.

You are far better off either teaching yourself online, or going to antother bootcamp. 

Also it should be said there is honestly no Fintech or BioTech Curriculum. It's a maketing technique.

 

First I would like to state that I enjoyed my experience at Byte Academy very much.

The curriculum has proved useful for my ability to understand programming, computer science topics, and web development. Byte Academy is strong in the full stack development department, focusing on Python, SQL, HTML, Javascript, and CSS. If you are interested in these languages, you will definitely not regret attending Byte. The curriculum is extensive which is good for self-starters and highly motivated individuals who are willing to put in the extra effort to succeed. 

As for the other resources, Byte Academy aids in your job search by providing job postings, professional resume/resource advice, and meetups that pertain to your interests. However, similar to the curriculum, it is imperative that you have the motivation to search and discover the nuances of your specific target industry.

An instructor made the comparison that Byte Academy will teach you how to drive a car reliably rather than explain how the car works.  I think the analogy perfectly describes Byte and results in producing quality programmers rather than computer engineers.

pros: 

• some good teachers here, really know their stuff
• convenient location in midtown
• one of the only places that teaches python
• small cohorts of ~5 students
• somewhat cheaper than other bootcamps

cons: 

• business/management side of things are pretty shifty/shitty
• not very transparent about anything
• it's been at least a year since the same problems have been spoken about in other reviews here, and clearly they have not fixed them
  • their answer is "we're a startup." some BS if you ask me
• lectures happen whenever and topics tend to jump quickly without finishing up on the previous
  • problems are given after lectures, but what they taught gave no direction on how to solve. Might as well just continue self study at home. Yes it's supposed to emmulate "the real world", but students are paying you money to TEACH... do your job.
• no building passes issued even though classroom is open 24/7... wtf 
• careers person doesn't seem to understand the tech world, just networking
  • ​the "partners" they talked about are mysterious and are little more than an HR contact to pass your resume along to
• TAs are hit or miss - ps be wary of all the 5 stars reviews here- they are from grad turned TAs... maybe because they couldn't find another job...
• their "fintech" and "medtech" tracks are a joke... they don't exist!! marketing strategy.
• random co-working space guy tries to poach students as volunteer interns for his startup their first week of classes.

...don't byte

I learn a great deal from this place. I came in with a finance background but very limited technology experience. The people in my cohort were quite different. A couple had no work experience. Others had over 5 years of experience Overall, I think all of us enjoyed our time here. The small cohorts do help. I don't think I ever had to wait for long to get helped by someone.

I also learned a ton from the events these people hold in the evenings. I attended presentations from entrepreneurs and CEO's. I also went to my first hackathon with Byte Academy. Great experience - I highly recommend this. I even attended a weekend workshop for trading algorithms for free. This by itself was well worth my investment here. I don't think I would have ever attended this if I had not come here.

Their career counseling person helped me a lot. I was able to get an internship, which I have already been told will turn into a full time position. 

 

My experience at Byt Academy has been quite different from some of the reviews that I've now read on this site. Classes are small. Instructors are ready to help. However, there is no easy way to learn coding without putting in the hours. I had to put in a lot of time, and it was worthwhile in the end. I was always able to get help from the TA's and the instructors whenever I had any problems.

The program is not easy. Every day there are new topics, so to get the most out of it, you do need to stay on top of the daily assignments.

The people were quite nice and willing to help me out on any of the issues I faced. I even reached out to instructors like Billy and Tom who were not responsible for my cohort and they helped me a ton.

On the job front, they organize career fairs every few months. Also, I got introduced to few different companies that they had relationships with. I am quite happy with the job I ended up with. So overall time well spent.

Okay, first off don't believe anything they tell you! I fell for their scams and lies. They lied about everything! They have no connections and cannot get you a job. The stats they have on their pamphlets are complete lies. I was told 98% of their graduates have landed a job with 78k+ salaries. THAT WAS A LIE KAI !  While I attended, ever so often they printed new pamphlets that showed their stats decreasing: salaries decreasing, fewer students landing a job, new courses they've supposedly added. Even when they showed stats decreasing it was still a lie, the actual numbers are far lower than that. I can honestly say less than 10% of all students in 2016 landed a job. Only students who were able to land a job had a computer science background or other technical backgrounds.  

Every few months they add some random course they claim they teach just to get more students to attend.

Most employers now do not hire students that have only a bootcamp on their resume. Trust me over 15 of us have spent over 6+ months looking for work now. Some of us are in worse situation than before, but Byte Academy does not give a **** 

Rak (The head) just wants your money, I wonder what he does all day in his room on the laptop, not talking to potential partners that can hire the graduate studets, that's for sure. He doesn't even talk to the students, he knows he's cheating them. 

Byte hired about 3-4 students to work for them, just so they can "try" to back their really low actual stats.

One student got a 75% refund because they claimed they would teach her MedTech, which obviously was bs because they have no such thing. She left after phase 1.

Another student was a TA for over a year at Byte, they had to kick him out to let new graduate students become TAs while looking for work. He had been looking for a job for over a year, mind you, he was a decent programmer.

BE AWARE !  most of the positive reviews you are reading here are from students asked to write reviews before they graduate, which they based only off of the education they received. And if you are a noob to computer science, the education would seem great only because it would be tough for anyone new.

Also, theres only small cohorts because no one else wants to join this bootcamp, no matter how much of our money they are spending on internet ads.

I beg you, even to the students in phase 1, leave and get your money back, if needed attended a more competitive and honest bootcamp (app academy, GA, ect.) 

 

The people there are amazing, but here are my real insights and opinions about the program that are shared among a lot of people, at this point I feel ripped off:

1. Intructors: GREAT! This is the best part, except for one or two who need to be more professional and have more discipline. 

2. Listen carefully: THIS IS NOT A FINTECH BOOTCAMP! Let me repeat it, so you know this. THIS IS NOT A FINTECH BOOTCAMP! This is, to me, the major scam! They hold finance lecture going over financial terms, that is it. Not connection between coding and finance. This is a Full Stack Program. I chose this program because it was a fintech program, but in reality, it never was. Careful here. They need to do something about it. 

3. Job Assistance: Non-existent. They have really nice people working, but saying to set up a LinkedIn account (which should be done prior) and just forwarding job links is not real job assistance. They talk about their partners, what partners? Seriously. I am sad, because I want to see Byte grow, they have excellent assets, as the instructors, and the people in general, but this is a wake up call.
 

The is the owner's responsibility, he has been so worried about expanding so fast in India and Singapour that he has forgotten about what is going on in NYC and people are really dissatisfied. 

I hope they do something about this. I wish them the best of lucks, but I think these reviews are necessary in order to push them.

My son, a rising senior economics and math major at a top liberal arts college took the course this past summer. He was diligent, sailed through with a lot of work and did an awesome final project. He learned to code but if you really need a job after taking this course, I'd like to be very clear, Byte Academy offers ZERO employment support. They don't provide leads, introductions, they have no lists of potential jobs, they offer no guidance on places to apply. They don't know you anymore after you've paid and left the course. Their website intimates all sorts of help. It does not exist.