I agree 100%. I've been in the UX field for about 6 years, and if there's one thing I've noticed, it's intense fragmentation when it comes to that actual job title. What's the difference between them? I couldn't tell you as at each job my responsibilities were basically the same.
Also, one of the biggest issues that I have with UX bootcamps is that there's a lot of emphasis placed on making the portfolio look visually appealing, but when you get into it there's not always a lot of substance. Same goes for a lot of work on Dribbble that's tagged as "UX" or "UX/UI".
We tried to build in design-heavy curriculum partway through when we realized how misaligned those expectations were, but couldn’t do an effective job in such a short time frame, so those students just got more frustrated.
It’s totally fair, we should have done a better job communicating and shouldn’t have tried to call an audible at the last minute to fix everything.
https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1213711252175740928
You say that no “professional environment” would encourage this, but it’s actually a legally protected right in every workplace:
https://www.dol.gov/olms/regs/compliance/EO_Posters/Employee...
I cannot believe how often Austen flat out lies on things so easily disproven.
Luckily, that's easy to fix by adding a sentence or two to this section.
Student:
“I wish there was a safe place for upset students to chat to each other outside of Lambda’s slack. A worry-free environment, unmonitored by Austen & whoever has viewing permissions on our messages. Fear and uncertainty would be eliminated, and the real issues would be uncovered”
You:
“ That would not only be unwise for everyone involved but an enormous legal liability for the school. No professional environment you’ll ever be in will encourage something like that.
There are a huge number of ways to submit feedback or complaints and we read all of them.”
Which again, discussing your workplace conditions is protected, by law, under the NLRA. Why are you telling your students that “no professional environment you’ll ever be in will encourage something like that,” counter to what’s guaranteed them by US labor law?
Encouragement and acceptance are two completely different things.
Also, did you release the cohort from their contractual obligations after failing them?
We also put every student in a group of 8 students with one TA, where a TA is a student a few months ahead of them (on payroll). But that is only in addition to the full-time instructors.
We all know UX is extremely important to the success of any startup, but quantifying it is a different story. Designers can’t even agree on their own responsibilities and what to call themselves, with job titles and responsibilities I’ve seen at many companies having 0 correlation to the next.
Any great UX/product/service/interaction/blah blah designer I’ve worked with is a former graphic designer with great taste, who over the years learned how to build usable software by working on tons of software products and spending tons of time with users.
It’s not exactly something that lends itself to the bootcamp model. It makes much more sense in an apprentice model.
If it makes her feel any better, I’m certain 90% of schools teaching multi-year “UX” design programs would not have done a better job. At least she doesn’t have to go into debt this way.