Pursuit

1. They have continually changed the terms of their ISA for students and alumni, according to how much debt they're in to their investors. The contract would hardly hold up in court but they use shady means to pursue students who are not paying, including harassing other students they are friends with.
2. They're not an accredited educational institution and encourage students to use certain language on their resumes to avoid the tax burden of being such. Students are told to list themselves as employees and call themselves "fellows". An actual fellowship involves being paid, whereas at Pursuit you give a portion of your pre-tax income to the school.
3.  When Amazon announced HQ2, Pursuit dropped any pretense of supporting affordable housing at the proposed office site, and went so hard in support of the new headquarters that they joined in signing an open letter, published by the NY Times, begging Bezos to come back.
4. So detached from the BIPOC community they claim to serve that they held graduation ceremonies on the 1 year anniversary of the Pulse shooting, which killed many Latine people. 
5. When they received a 2 million dollar boost from Google last year, they announced they were prioritizing growth and "financial literacy" about their ISA -- not helping students and alumni with better services. Many of their students are very poor or even homeless. 
6. "Helpful" alumni services are only available during work hours (9-5, weekdays). Pursuit treated it as ridiculous to suggest that they offer alumni services before/after common work hours, or on weekends, even though those services are ostensibly for people with tech jobs that are notorious for demanding overtime.
7. Next to no assistance finding a job afterward. They talk up giving students an education from scratch, but they only care about getting jobs for the most likely students, aka white men with tech degrees, and whoever else they feel would make for good inspiration porn.

• not a safe space--they allow sexist people to enter and no training on social awareness or sexual harassment 
• the organization only sees students as money, they do not help previous students
• staff is not diverse
• staff is extremely understaffed so they do not care about you and the 4 years of career advancement after graduating is a disappointment because there is none! 
• when students cheat they lie to other companies about their capabilties
• the staff ignores students who are sexist or racist because they do not care or know how to handle it
• at the end of the job hunting process you are by yourself

all the "good" reviews are asked/begged from staff to students

please go to a better boot camp this is not worth your money. pursuit is not a real bootcamp, there is no license or cerfication at the end. 

This experience was pretty humiliating, after losing relationships, money, sleep, other opportunities on a promise, you are mostly ignored if you are not a top performer from the onset. Staff will use you at will to continue to sell the organization to vulnerable people, all the while being super secretive about next steps in your existing relationship with the organization. 

It's a super hostile environment for no good reason and can get unbearably uncomfortable. I have second thoughts and regrets and I do feel like they pulled a big one over on me and my classmates.

Someone on here or yelp mentioned the google forms. GOSH the google forms the bane of a pursuit students enrollment. Oh how they use google forms to decieve partners and fellows!

Honestly, it was the most exhausting 10 months of my life. Quality of education varies between nights and weekends vs day time students. Students confronted staff about this over and over and we were basically shrugged off. The ISA is a sham. If you already have student loans from pursuing a college degree or have any other significant loan payments or debt already attached to your name - don't come here! Their agreement is incredibly predatory and immoral. They claim to want to help those from marginalized communites rise themselves up and out of poverty - but not before getting their cut to pay off their debt to their investors. They're relying on applicants to overlook the fact that they want 12% of your annual salary AFTER taxes. So they want a percentage of your income that you don't actually take home. It's a huge hit to your wallet and there is no bootcamp on EARTH that is this much money. It really isn't worth it. Teach yourself, go to meetups for networking, you don't need Pursuit. They're scam artists masquerading as a non-profit.

Beware of the income share agreement, they expect to take 12% of your salary of you graduate and get a job making 60k. For the kind of instruction that they give and resources they provide you can go to a better program and pay less. Lots of free resources that you can use to learn yourself as well out there, which they use instead of creating their own. Very disorganized instruction wise. Too long of a program and nights and weekends students get less instruction yet expected to pay the same. No way to evaluate the program before you commit as well. No job guarantee and if you get a job thru a different referral they will still expect you to pay them. They made it so that they are not held accountable for anything. It’s not a good deal if you expect to put in the work to get a good job after you graduate. Some teachers are recent grads themselves. Unequal opportunities as well for students. Does feel like they want to foster a love of tech in students they highlight the amazing jobs u can get and everyone seems obsessed by that. Don’t seem to care about the students and about inclusivity, not good vibes at all.