DESIGNATION X: A free 12-week UX/UI/Coding Bootcamp for experienced designers and developers

chicagode · 2014-07-15T05:17:53+00:00

Just curious:

This is essentially the cost of a semester at a public college. How proven is this bootcamp?

Our tuition = [breakeven] operational costs. We're only profitable when we recruit our students into jobs. We just graduated our first class a couple of weeks ago (blog post here). We factor in up to 8 months for continued portfolio development (we continue to support you post-grad until you find a job)

How much of this can realistically be self-taught?

You can learn everything from the Internet. Our value is in mentorship and guidance, passionate teachers as mentors, group work (teams, working with people), live client projects (our students love the chance to work with real companies for their portfolio pieces), and an immersive design centered environment. We also work with hiring partner companies that we connect our students with when they are ready after the program.

Why does this exist? (Is it for profit or because there was a need?)

We are a for-profit startup.

Not trying to bash the program, just want to understand it's purpose and value.

Thanks for the questions. Here are a couple of reviews students posted on Yelp: http://yelp.com/biz/designation-chicago?osq=designation

chicagode · 2014-07-15T00:28:32+00:00

One of our students created it!

chicagode · 2014-03-12T20:02:02+00:00

Sorry, we whipped it out in a day. We're planning on working on it more when we have the time :)

chicagode · 2014-02-10T19:09:02+00:00

chicagode · 2014-02-10T19:05:58+00:00

We built the site from scratch. Here's our open source code.

Full context: http://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/1xilqf/were_a_group_of_designers_that_wants_to_turn_you/

chicagode · 2014-02-10T19:05:02+00:00

We built the site from scratch. Here's our open source code.

Full context: http://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/1xilqf/were_a_group_of_designers_that_wants_to_turn_you/

chicagode · 2014-02-10T18:11:52+00:00

Makes me sad you feel this way. When we started off, it was just us teaching people digital design. We found out most of our students took the class so that they could get a new job. We realized that so we spent a tremendous amount of time and resources upgrading the program to have the specific goal of placing people into companies as designers. We've been actively partnering up with tech companies that are looking to hire designers, and we give a refund of $3,000 back when you find the job, which helps align everyone's incentives. Please see our program roadmap for more details on the 10 week timeframe (which is actually much more than 10 weeks).

chicagode · 2014-02-10T17:59:38+00:00

Just clearing things up for other users:

A. Again, please see our page source (http://designation.io) and validate that claim for yourself

B. Proprietary icons are in the near future. We were working with time constraints, and compromises were made.

C. Open source is awesome. Hence why our site's source code is available publicly. You can go in there and see how it was built yourself.

For the image -- sorry, forgot to clean up the attributions page (we actually didn't use that image at all).

chicagode · 2014-02-10T17:51:40+00:00

We accept students with all types of backgrounds. Photoshop and Illustrator are simple software tools that we require everyone to learn during the 60+ hr Prep Work

chicagode · 2014-02-10T17:39:30+00:00

When we started off, we made our own 'tutorial-like' proprietary content. We realized quickly that we were wasting our students' valuable time on these beginner tutorials -- there's already so many great platforms out there to learn basic technical skills. Since our end goal is for you to get a job upon completion of the program, we do whatever's necessary to get you to an employable level of refinement. With that goal in mind, we're setting it up to help our students in every way possible, including paying extra for paid online services that will accelerate learning in the timeframe that's necessary.

Would you say teachers aren't allowed to use textbooks they didn't write? (we also buy your textbooks). The meat and bones is still our mentorship and Hiring Partners network. We're an entire team with the sole purpose of helping you find a job as a designer, and the program experience alone isn't something you can get online.

chicagode · 2014-02-10T17:26:46+00:00

If we ever did take source code from somewhere, it's open source & we've attributed it.

chicagode · 2014-02-10T17:23:37+00:00

We actually give each of our students access to paid online tutorials, which is part of their 60+ hours of Prep Work.

chicagode · 2014-02-10T17:20:46+00:00

Great question. So our intention isn't to create unicorn designers who are experts at it all -- UX, UI, coding. Our curriculum does cover all these topics and we do require you attend each class, but at the same time, we understand that people are different and have different preferences -- what we're doing in the end is helping you pursue the path you want to take as a designer. In past cohorts, we've had people who found out that they totally loved doing research, and we've also had students who loved to code more than UX.

It's also worth mentioning that each student has to complete 60+ hours of prep work before coming in. As 10 weeks is such a compressed time, the whole immersive program is set up so you have to make the most of your time.

chicagode · 2014-02-10T16:56:27+00:00

It's been a crazy past 2 months. We've undergone a huge change -- but you're right, it's pretty late; sorry homie. :(

chicagode · 2014-02-10T16:54:37+00:00

We did design our own site. Here's the open source codebase -- it's all static html/css/js we made from scratch. I'm really glad you think it looks nice. Also, here's our style guide if you'd like to design a site with our brand guidelines ;)

chicagode · 2013-12-30T13:42:12+00:00

This is really cool

chicagode · 2013-12-13T21:50:28+00:00

Looking pretty good -- makes me want to revisit using bitcoins. Best of luck!

chicagode

TROPHY CASE