Academy Class Reviews

Usually on courses like this, you're given handouts to follow a curriculum, and that you can refer to when trying things out at home. We've not been given anything, and we're starting each day without a clear understanding of goals and what's to be achieved or the likely outcomes for each day. Computers are slow and crash a lot.

Course material was very similar to the After Effects 101 course that we had recently taken, so did feel a bit of a repetition and didn't push skills along much from there. Hardware (PC's) do not have the performance to handle the Software and crashed on a number of us at times. This meant that it was difficult to keep up with the instructor, and by trying to play 'catch-up' didn't fully understand some of the material.

Terrible Training facility, squashed in and only able to move to a (only just) larger classroom on the final two days! Temperature uneven and chairs awful. Cramped desktop conditions not conducive to learning....

IT PROBLEMS! When taking an online course it is really irritating to spend almost 1/3 of the first day with computer problems. Since the sound from the computer I was controlling was not transferred, I was unable to edit sound. When I started using my own computer, the instructor could not see my monitor live. Just some issues I did not expect of a professional course provider.

I'm not sure which course content you are referring to. I didn't receive any course content, nor did Adrian refer us to any content or job aides. It's difficult to take notes and complete practical activities at the same time. Context was missing for me during the course. We covered 'how' to do something without really understanding 'why' we would do it. The course seemed very unstructured, which is not ideal for my learning style.

There were no course materials. We did way too much in the three days and the pace was way to quick for me. I had no time to write down notes. Dom really knows his stuff but I found it very hard to follow him.

The course give me insight into InDesign, but I struggled to correlate the practicality of the exercises with work I would normally undertake.

Am only on day two of the course so its really hard to tell if it has met my objections - would rather give feedback at the end.

It was very apparent that the course has recently moved premises. There were computers in the training room but they were't set up for our needs so in the end just took up desk space and got in the way of us seeing each other. This was quite disappointing along with there being no internet access that worked in the training room, one person ended up using all of their personal data allowance on their phone during the course. Access to the room was also difficult, to get in and out Rafiq had to shuffle in so we could shimmy past him which was a huge fire hazard. Rafiq was great and we finally found the courses correct pace on Thursday. He was very knowledgeable in the field and gave us a great overview of the whole UX process. It seemed he hadn't taught the course before and didn't see what the exam was like until the end of the week which caused us some worry. Our questions of its structure couldn't be answered until late in the week when he'd seen it, and then could put together a practice question. He taught the syllabus but it came across that was the first time he had taught that particular course. In terms of location it worked well for me and there was a variety of shops/restaurants to go to for lunch which was great. The range of different people who attending the course was also very good, good to have diversity in skill set I'd say we learnt a lot of each other's different perspectives. What was really good is it came across that Rafiq genuinely cared that we not only take in the subject matter for the exam but learn and practice it so we can put it to use in the real world.

Frustratingly, there was drilling outside often so I felt like I had a headache and it was hard to concentrate. Ruta was a fantastic teacher, but the internet was down and we couldn't take the test, so it we will have to come back another time, which is difficult with work.