Woz U's focus is on making tech education affordable. From @stevewoz: "Our goal is to educate and train people in employable digital skills without putting them into years of debt" I'm curious how this is different from Codecademy, Udemy, Skillshare, Treehouse, and many other incumbents.

I was interested in signing up with these guys and went through the application process. It was a pretty relaxed application process and I got accepted within the first phone call. I was a bit sketched out about how fast they wanted me to sign up and pay. They kepy saying the class started Oct 30 when that was two weeks away and I should pay soon etc. I eventually just stopped accepting calls because they would call me at work (I work nights and specifically said don't call that time.) Did further research and found out they where cold calling veterans trying to get them to sign up. Thanks but after all that I'm ok.

Pros:

Didn't really have any

Cons:

Uses Woz's name thats it, cold calls you twice a day pressuring for decision

Here's the thing and most of you should ask this question; say Wozniak wasn't the face of this platform, would you take the course? What's left or different then other courses out there?... To me this sounds like well branded course that is jumping on the bandwagon of online education for thos aspiring a tech carreer. So they pulled Steve in to persuade the flock that wants to jump on the bandwagon for people unhappy with their current jobs.

The form to enroll on mobile doesn’t work on iPhone 6

Is this the Trump University of bootcamps? There little transparency on WHAT this exactly is.

Pros:

Not sure. Doesn't give any demos

Cons:

Asks for phone number. Doesn't allow you to log in immediately. Not transparent on pricing or if it's free.

Looks scammy

Pros:

None

Cons:

Sounds like just using the Woz name. What will this cost people?

it says "part of SCI" on the footer, which links to http://www.scitexas.edu/ suddenly this looks really cheap licensing of Woz picture on the front to sell traditional online courses...

I'm always looking for more ways to learn, so I eagerly downloaded this when I got the Product Hunt email about it.

Went to sign up with email/password, and right away: there are hidden password restrictions. It says "must be at least 6 characters with one capital letter and one number", so a long 1Password random-word-string won't work, but I used a 32-character generated 1Password random string, and the fields stayed red. After a bunch of trial and error, I discovered that there's a max of 15 characters. Why 15? Who knows? Why not tell the user why the password is invalid? Who also knows?

Then I did the Evaluation, which was intriguing and I was excited to see what it told me, but the (I assume) final screen simply says "Please enter your phone number so we may contact you about scholarships and additional free learning material." There's one form field, and a grayed-out submit button. No way to opt out or not provide phone number. No way to continue without giving it or agreeing to what are clearly spam phone calls. My phone is constantly getting unwanted calls already, so I'm not interested in giving it out with the expressed intent of increasing that volume.

That's when I came back here and discovered the other reviews. I guess I don't know a ton about what Woz has been up to lately, but I'm surprised he would put his name and likeness on this.

Pros:

None that I could find. Presumably aims to educate people?

Cons:

Terrible signup experience; possibly a scam?

This is super, crazy, disappointing. @stevewoz? You believe in 'redefining' education and you essentially give you name to SCI? "Inspired by" isn't you doing much beyond lending your name. Trump Steaks would be a bit much of a comparison, but gezz, after all these years, this is the best you can do? No pricing? People cold calling me? Really? Disappointing...

Pros:

Another Educational opportunity

Cons:

This is linked to Southern Careers Institute who is going to call you and press you to sign up.

This program is not a new product developed by Woz and team. It appears to be a licensing gimmick with http://www.scitexas.edu/ which, no one here would be up-voting and signing up for a software dev course from that website.

Do your research before you give your phone number to scam artists.

Pros:

None, nothing new/unique

Cons:

Does not appear to actual involve Woz in any way, just his name.

I haven't been to any of the online classes but I downloaded and installed the app from the app store. It turns out i'm supposed to be a developer!

Pros:

fun times

Cons:

not sure

- Website name has a dash =) Really?

- No association with Wozniak apart from first three letters of the last name

- Expensive

- Poor mobile app (iphone only, not even universal)

- They said that I can only fill out an application over the phone with the same rep that called me, who then asked for my name, address, phone and Social Security Number. =) Claiming that the SSN is required for FAFSA and that I have to disclose it over the phone in order to see, if I qualify for the financial aid. REALLY?

At this point, I hope that it is just another bootcamp, and not some sort of bigger scam.

It did get a lot of press coverage, so I would think that a lot of people will show interest. But giving my full information to some guy over the phone having all of the above on the back of my mind makes me wonder.

Pros:

Not sure

Cons:

Looks like another way of selling a dying down interest in bootcamps

I'm excited to learn more for sure. As a General Assembly and Code Fellows alum I'm interested in the assessment and how that will work. I called the number but nobody answered : (

I'm curious how is it different from all the programming tutorials out there 🤔

Looked through uninformative Website.

I was extremely surprised Wozniak put his name on something so anti-tech.

Pros:

Nothing

Cons:

Missing PHP. Missing Perl. Missing *NIX

I originally signed up with Woz for full stack development with a focus on Ruby on Rails. My biggest problem with Woz is that I signed up for Ruby but I was placed unknowingly into Javascript with no consent on my end or notification. The mentors and/or other staff i spoke with about this during my time essentially told me to shove it when I approached them regarding this issue. The content was decent. I felt that they threw the code at us not caring if we understood what was going on. I feel like I spent 33+ weeks to learn how to code and spent 7+ grand on it when googling would have been better. Other than weekly meetings with your mentor it was like pulling teeth to get mentors help when i started. Now this did improve towards the end with Woz tenfold. Another problem I had was they referenced wikipedia multiple times. It seemed like the content was written with 1 persons learning style in mind. I also graduated with a 3.7 gpa? somewhere around there and I can tell you right now I am not anywhere close to being a professional dev as I didn't retain as much as the information as I really felt i should have. If i was given the chance to go back I would have taken the free alternative of freecodecamp over anything woz has to offer. That being said I do think they have the potential to be the best paid code camp out there. There just has to be tweeks from top to bottom.

Pros:

It was online which was nice

Cons:

see the tell us more box

Wow, disappointed to read negative reviews. Had I read these, it would have scared me away. HOWEVER, lucky for me, I didn't. Now, I came from a 14 year background as a data analyst in the old days. Took 7 years off to raise my kid, and want to get back into IT formally and needed to update my skills to what the kids are using nowadays. I have enjoyed my classes in Woz-U. I find it challenging and on par with what I did when I received my bachelor's in IT. IT is shorter (5 weeks), bootcamp style, and the pace is very quickly, but I think the dashboard makes it easier to keep track of. I do wish there was more interface besides using SLACK built within the modules themselves, but using SLACK also gives real world experience into what we use on the outside. Is it expensive? I don't know. I think that's relative. I like we have lifelong access to Woz-U. Yes, it comes via SCTI, but I find that to be helpful because it qualified me to use my student loans, of which I wouldn't be able to do school without. I was also accepted into a state school for my master's degree in Data Science, however, the classes we are doing via WOZ-U I needed to have 'familiarity with' in order to do my masters. Enter Woz-U. Each module is set up in 5 weeks, we have about 10 assignments due every few days and a final project at the end. It keeps me motivated and on track. There are times I feel the lessons touch just the surface, but that's why we have a mentor team (that we have to meet with once a week and they are available at our beck and call it seems, as well as our classmates in SLACK, as well as the usual online resources. By time I get to the final project, it seems to come together and I have a greater understanding than I thought I did, AND actually enjoy doing to the work. LISTEN GUYS.... I have read the cranky 'scam' cranky reviews.... Don't believe it. Definitely worth it.

I enjoyed my time in the program. It was harder then i thought, but I learned more then I thought I would.

Pros:

I had a mentor that I spoke with each week. Learned more then when I did free courses online.

Cons:

Not for everybody. Had to spend 15 to 20 hours a week learning subjects and doing projects.

I am a disabled veteran and worked for Woz-U in 2017 in admissions. I was hired to 'vet' those interested in the new Cyber Security program given my degree and background in the field. I had never sold education or worked for a 'school' prior to this job. We trained for a few weeks before making calls to enroll and I was under the impression that I basically was working for the one and only Woz. I was stoked! I met my one person team, the cyber security team lead was Javi and he was great at his job but didn't know anything about CS outside of what I was able to briefly teach him. The environment started out really cooperative, my team supervisor was Calvin. They're were 4 teams all together and out of the supervisors, Calvin was most lively which vibed well with me. The first few months were great, I got to talk to cool people on the phone about cyber security and learn about what their goals were. Now, I really like connecting with people so I would be on a single call for hours and Calvin liked that I could keep future students engaged for hours. I sold them what I thought would be an instructor lead taylored program with lots of hands-on elements that are absolutely crucial to understanding that field. I had a solid group of students to start the first ever CS class and that is when I noticed all was NOT as it seemed. Red flags starting popping up when students reached out to ME for help. I only enrolled people into class, there are mentors and professors they're supposed to reach out to but when those folks do not respond, I am the only other person they had contact with besides finance. It was during this time that I discovered the mentors were actually NEWLY graduated FULL STACK WEB DEVELOPERS. They were NOT trained in CS and actually referenced Google and Youtube to help the students. I was not happy but also couldn't say much as a lowly admissions representative. My students did NOT have a CS teacher, all of their lessons were actually recorded when I was told, and told the students, they were live lectures. All of my students eventually dropped out due to the lack of substance in the program and lack of support from the providers. I failed these people for the sake of a company that didn't care about them, or me for that matter. The environment changed after about 6 months. People were getting fired, there was constant pressure to work late and on weekends without extra pay to make the numbers they wanted so yes, they had us calling folks at 8am on a Saturday morning to convince them to go in debt 10k+ for a program that doesn't even have a complete curriculum. Also, STEVE WOZNIAK DOES NOT DO ANYTHING WITHIN THIS COMPANY BESIDES PR WORK. The Woz, as we called him, did come to our campus a few times for photos and to look around. He has NO hand in creating the curriculum and is being paid for the use of his name. If they tell you otherwise THEY ARE LYING. Do NOT let this company fool you like they did to me.The last straw was when Calvin used my military injuries againt me purposefully and knowingly triggered my PTSD by screaming at me in a small locked room for saying something to him in a way he didn't care for. I filed a report and discovered many had been filed against him for similar doings. HR did nothing besides tell me there wasn't anything they could do. Everything I thought I knew about this place was a lie. I still have guilt 3 years later for causing folks stress over this place. Good luck if you try to drop this place, they will still attempt to get tuition out of you and I only know this because my then students were still trying to get this place off their back after months of dropping. Only the worst of people can thrive in that environment, there is no other way to climb that ladder unless you're kissing ass, making them money and backstabbing where necessary. The physical and mental turmoil I went through at this place as been so great that at the age of 35, the VA has deemed me unable to work (unemployable) due to the extent my ptsd was triggered and this place doesn't give a damn. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STAY AWAY FROM WOZ-U/SCI SOUTHERN CAREERS INSTITUTE. If I was your admissions rep, please know I had only the best intentions for your future and I am SO sorry for the stress this place caused you!

I actually did the program and enjoyed it. It was harder then i thought, I think most of these reviews are not accurate or old. For exampleWoz U has a STEAM program for k-12, provides curriculum to universities, and helps business train their employees. It is actually not a boot camp. I attended their program through a partner school. Just my 2 cents.