CareerFoundry

I've been taking UX and UI courses with Careerfoundry for about a year now and I HIGHLY recommend it!. The curriculum is great, they cover a lot of ground and it is truly an immersive experience. It can get easy to get side tracked, so make sure you figure out a schedule as there are no due dates for course work but there is a time period which they expect you to complete the course in. The instructors were very helpful and gave me a lot of resources. I enjoy speaking to my mentors via skype and getting feedback for my portfolio and such. Worth it!! 

6 months ago, I was lost in my previous job experience and was looking for a change. I discovered UX Design and the CareerFoundry course that I managed to complete. In only 4 months, I have learn so much from both theory to practical skills. This course is super strong manly due to the great content it provides. But especially thanks to this learning by doing approach link with the relationship with a mentor and a tutor. Many thanks, I am really proud of this achievement and look forward my future career in the ux world. 

I have finished the UX Immersion course and want to share with you about the experience. I have only heard about UX design about a year ago, by accident. When I started the course I was totally clueless about design, technology or business. I guess I just needed to learn something new as even if my work was very rewarding I was feeling kind of stuck and without growing a lot. Anyway, I am so happy I enrolled for the course. It was difficult I must say, I was always googling new words and everything was so new and hard to integrate with my previous knowledge, probably because I had no previous knowledge on the subject. However, the course has a great structure, offers basic information but also links to more advanced knowledge if you want to dig deeper. The tasks are also very much hands-on - which is the best way of learning - through doing. My tutor and mentor were incredibly supportive along the way and sort of feeling sad upon completion that there is not going to be a weekly email exchange for too long now. I will miss it. The slack community is also so great and diverse. People from all over the world and from different work backgrounds discuss there so openly and friendly. Even alumni still hang around to offer support and guidance to current students or just participate in conversations - I really liked that. I think CF very much has a "family" feeling. The only thing I have struggled with was to respect the timeframes they advised. It always took me longer, maybe twice or three times longer if not even more. However, don't say I've said it, but I even got 2 free months extension to help me finish the curse in time. ;) Shhh...! (I don't really know how this works but it was great for me as a young mum on a support worker's wage) Please get in touch if you want to know any more details. I will be happy to share. You can find me on Twitter @andreea_nesu . Best to all! 

I started the UX design course in May.

So far I have been enjoying the course very much. It is well structured and students can learn UX design from scratch, no knowledge is needed before starting the course.

I would like to write down some pros and cons.

- Pros

The course is very flexible. Students can do this course either part-time or full-time. I think it is a great advantage for people who are students or have jobs. As I am a student and have a part-time job, I do this course part-time. Usually, I just submit two tasks per week and I am supposed to finish this course by the end of January.

My tutor is very dedicated and responds pretty quickly. Every time I submit my assignment, my tutor will decide to approve this or not and gives me detailed comments. I found this system very helpful.

The course structure is well thought and very practical. Students are supposed to design a web app for a portfolio. I am enjoying this process and found this very useful to find a job.

- Cons

The first half of this course seems to be too general. The course is for people who never learned anything about UX. So, for me, the beginning of this was too theoretical and not so interesting. It was a bit shame that I could not touch design tools until the middle of this course.

I don't know how to interact with my mentor and it is difficult to change a mentor. Aside from a tutor, students are paired with a mentor, who is supposed to support a student. But I don't know what to consult with my mentor as all I need to do is to proceed with the course...Also, although I wanted to change my mentor, it was not easy because all mentors and tutors are paired, so if you want to change a mentor, you need to change a tutor too.

I'm just over half way through the UX Design course and I am thoroughly enjoying my experience. The coursework is a great combination of readings and practical assignments, which I find very conducive to learning, and it is so rewarding to see my portfolio coming together. CareerFoundry did a great job of pairing me with a tutor and mentor that work well for me and keep me motivated and on track. The coursework is a lot but I'm learning so much - and the course is flexible enough that I'm set to graduate ahead of schedule!

I am currently halfway through the UX Designer program, and it's been very intense, and sometimes a little hard, but after each assignment in the Achievements, I feel like I'm building upon my knowledge. Then when I finish a whole Achievement, I'm shocked when I'm pulling together my portfolio for that Achievement by what I've accomplished.

I am just starting the Job Preparation course and that's been quite an eye opener in regards to learning how to organize my time with goals, create strategies for motivation, and even ways to stay positive while going through this career change. And that's above and beyond building my portfolio, writing my resume, learning how to articulate how to interview for UX Design positions with confidence, and even target employers and apply for positions I'm interested in.

My Tutor has been amazing at guiding me through each Achievement. Sometimes, I need to make corrections to an assignment, whether it's missing something or just needs tweaking. I'm given a clear direction on what I need to do. In the same regards with assignments that come back approved, she still gives me resources to further my knowledge.

I have only spoke with my Mentor once online, but she reviews my portfolio that I build at the end of each Achievement, and gives me amazing feedback. My Job Prep Career Specialist is guiding me through the whole process to prepare myself for this new career. I'm looking forward to working with her for mock interviews and having her teach me how to interview to GET that job I want.

I look forward to applying my user-centered approach, creativity and detail-oriented work ethic to make digital products easier and more intuitive to use, and I have CareerFoundry to thank for this. If you're looking into a career change, whether it's UX Design, UI Design, or Web Development, I can tell you with great confidence, you can't go wrong going through this program with Career Foundry!

I really enjoyed the course and the material. I thought it the UI course was very well structured giving you a good understanding of how everything is connected. The course also includes your basic UX as you will always come across that. 

I did the course fulltime in 4 months which is a good amount of time but it is still a tightly run ship. I worked as a designer beforehand so it was not all new stuff but I believe some prior experience is very helpful for the UI course. 

Something that is also very helpful is the online community which you stay part of afterwards. So there are plenty possibilities to ask questions or get support which is a lifesaver when changing jobs.