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Terrible camp for kids over the age of 2! I am 17 years old and i attended this camp assuming, like it said on the website, it would be age oriented for all the ages that attended. I am a senior in high school, almost moving on to college and they make me hold some ones hand as i crossed the street! Not only that, i had to call all the counselors by stupid "toy story" character names. To make it even worse, they made sure i washed my hands after lunch, as if i couldn't do it on my own! Do not attend this camp if you are older then 5! They do not give refunds!
I signed my son up for summer camp. Paid a lot of money for him to attend. An emergency occurred in our family that prevented him to go. Because I wasn't able to cancel in the 2 wk period that's stated in their refund policy, I didn't receive a refund for the camp. Well, that's not completely true, I received $60.00. It took a while to save that money and circumstances beyond our control prevented him from attending. I need some answers, but even better, my money back!
listen, if your reading this and your a kid who wants to get into game development then just learn the basics of C++ first and then start looking at C++ game examples.
Don't waste your parents money on this, ok?
Also, as an 11 year old C++ dev who TAUGHT HIMSELF PROGRAMMING AND DIDN'T WASTE HIS DADDY MONEY ON SOME STUPID CAMP, I can ensure all of you that there are already a TON of resources online that can help you progress in game development. I've also heard a lot of people saying that id tech is pretty slow to teach people and this is one of the reasons why teaching yourself is better. First you can teach yourself at your own pace, and second you can explore more concepts on the way such as vectors arrays graphics API, oh and by the way, people who went to id tech or people who work there, what C++ framework do you use to display graphics? I'm genuinely curious.
This is a review of the "Intro to Coding for Machine Learning" camp offered at Falls Church, VA in July, 2019, which turned to be more of a day care than an academically rigorous summer school.
I base my conclusion on my 17 year old daughter's report from the first day of the 5 day camp and my own first-hand observation of the afternoon of the second day.
I chose this camp in consultation with an ID tech associate, where I explained that my 17 year old daughter wanted to learn more about coding to see if she wanted to study it in college. The age range for this course was 13 – 17 years old. Our first disappointment came when we realized that all of the iD Tech camps shared the same classroom at the Falls Church campus, so my college prep daughter was seated literally next to 10 year olds enrolled in “Video Production: Start Your Own YouTube Channel.”
The camp counselor (I purposefully do not use the title “instructor”) made no initial attempt to survey the entering knowledge level of students.
When I visited the camp on the afternoon of day 2, I explained that it didn’t feel like a good fit for a college prep student. The site director (Vickie) was super polite but made no offer nor effort to modify their program to better suit my daughter’s goals. They seem to very purposefully be providing a particular service, which is not college prep. That service, best I could tell, is “themed daycare.”
If the “Intro to coding…” camp had a syllabus or learning objectives, the site director didn’t offer to share them.
Unlike a summer term academic term, where the content is compressed to fit into a shorter period of time, here the sparse content seemed to be spread thinly throughout the day to expand enough to fill an entire work day.
Contact hours discussing coding with the camp counselor were no greater than 50% of each day and multiple, extended blocks of unsupervised time were quickly filled by the younger campers with Fortnite gaming. I personally observed 8 of the 10 campers engaged in extended gaming sessions.
I withdrew my daughter from the camp before the end of the 2nd day and forfeited our tuition.
Same experience but opposite side of the student body so to be clear they aren't meeting anyone's expectations -- beginners nor experts and I suspect no one in between given the lack of actual teaching experience staffers have and the lack of actual interest or ability diretors have. My son signed up for the youtube production class -- it was all software based, and all the kids had experience except for him. The teacher didn't notice he didn't undertand, when I called the director mid way through Monday to identify the problem and ask him to call me back with solutions, he said he'd look into, didn't call me back and didn't talk to my son (no one did). So my son refused to go back. Alot of money down the drain. So sorry for your experience. Hope others learn first.
I'm an instructor for iD Tech Camps.
All the other instructors I've met take the job seriously.
Problems? About 9/10 of the instructors here are freshman/sophomore undergrads trying to gain "experience". Few are actually professional teachers who have prior experience in teaching a group of super annoying kids.
Most are just college students who learned a semester or two of Java and decided they can teach it to a bunch of middle school kids who are addicted to playing computer games and are absolute zombies to their iPhones. Couple this with the fact parents want something quick-and-easy to get their little snowflakes good at/interested in coding out of the hysteria that their kids need a head-start in STEM before college or they won't succeed later on in life. Now couple all that with the fact iD Tech capitalizes on that hysteria and uses it to trick parents into signing their kids up for this summer camp. Fear's a really great marketing scheme, isn't it?
Parents, don't blame it on the dumb instructors. You're pretty much in the same niche as them.
Instructors and parents are both baited into thinking iD Tech is this amazing, high-quality company that can provide everyone with good experiences, with their fancy words and marketing. The CEO Pete-Ingram Cauchi doesn't seem like a bad guy, but like any other businessman, his mind's probably set on the money and I doubt he actually cares much or at all about "cultivating the next generation of software developers and engineers". Who would have thought?
Honestly, if you're looking to have your kid actually learn something useful, might as well sit down with them, like real parents, and teach them something yourselves. That takes time and effort, huh?
To be honest, I don't see where all of this negativity is coming from. Perhaps it's from the poorly taught instructors, or the no refunds policy. However, I was quite happy with my experience at the University Of Michigan.
The instructors were energetic, intelligent, and helpful. The meals were wholesome and delicious. The activities had a bit of room for improvement, but everything else was great.
Perhaps it varies from camp to camp, but I can assure you that I had a good time in the C# game programming with Unity class at the University Of Michigan.
of course you didn't read the whole argument so you didn't get the whole problem here.
the problem is that this camp isn't rigouros ENOUGH and it doesn't matter if you had a good time or not it matters that you progress as a game developer. And another thing is that most game developers are actually self taught, and they know more than the kids who wasted 1000s of dollars of there parents money so it would actually be better to be self taught then to go to this camp.And even though I never did go to this camp, it's pretty obvious that a school should teach you, not just be a daycare center where you learn a little bit of programming.
I am a 12 year old girl who attended the Alexa Cafe Design Barista camp in Houston this summer. This camp was horrible and I do not recommend it. Here is why I disliked this camp. My teacher took twenty minutes to come help me after I had asked her twice AND put up my question mark sign what I should do to fix my problem. This happened several times. On top of all this, the teacher had favorites. She spent all of her time helping this one very tech savvy kid make her website look amazing. And, in the end, my website ended up looking unprofessional and this was very frustrating for me. The only thing I enjoyed about the camp was that we got to take pictures. Lastly, our classroom looked like it was from 200 years ago. You would think that if you were attending a modern web design camp that the classroom would also match the modern vibe. This camp was very disappointing. I do not recommend it.
These camps are all about making--taking--your money. Simple as that. My son had medication issues and difficulty sleeping the first night there. It wasn't going to work, due to medical issues. They refused any sort of refund and tried selling me a different and another session! The person on the "help" line was not at all interested in helping my son return home, and was only interested in making money for this "camp."
Stay away. It's all about money and not at all about the kids. So sad...
shoot- I wish I would have read this beforehand. Should I take the $250.00 fee for dropping the course? My son is supposed to go this summer and I just paid out $4500! for two weeks. Please advise.. Thanks.
so sad that you wasted this much money.
you could've paid at least one week of rent with that money. so sad.
I would recommend going with small independent local companies who offer more personalized service. ID Tech is like the "Whole Foods" of organic. Way to expensive and overpriced!
Completely agree. iDTech is a Summer jobs program for otherwise unemployable geeks, who rip off families trying to find a camp where their kids can both learn and be entertained.
Oh, by the way this summer (2014) she was attending NYU campus.
And I do not think I will be referring iDTech to anyone or returning next year. I feel totally ripped off. My daughter wasted first 2 weeks learning nothing. And again, the 4th week, she is been asked to look at tutorials. I am really disappointed and my daughter is also very disappointed.
My now 10 yr old attended 3 different camps last year. She did OK assuming that she went for different subject each week. She is a gifted child and I assumed that this camp will help her develop coding skills. Before registering her for ALL 7 weeks in Java [for the age group], I had called in asked if they would actually have her work on something decent instead of her making some good for nothing silly games. They assured me that she will be taken care of appropriately and confirmed that I can come up with some project that I want she wants to work on for all 7 weeks.
On the 1st day of the 1st Camp, I talked to the camp Assistant Director and he assured me again that he will take appropriate steps to ensure that she gets proper guidance. Till the end of 2 weeks, she was still doing some ### coding using Scratch. And in those 2 weeks, she had to de-bug her own code twice which the instructor was unable to do! (Am I the only one thinking that paying close to 1000/ week for self-debugging is appalling!)
3rd week, they put her in Scratch and Java and she was actually happy with the new coding she was learning. But by the end of the week, she was asked to help her classmates since she was advanced (In lieu of her own learning coding!). 1st Day of the 4th week, I get a call stating that the camp will not be able to help my daughter. The lady (zone in-charge or something) tells me these things:
- We will not be able to give your daughter a dedicated instructor [to which I replied that my daughter NEVER had a dedicated instructor. I had requested that she be assigned to same instructor for the entire duration of the 7 week camp]
- Then she said that my daughter has 3 options:
a) Keep on repeating the same thing again and again [she agreed that my daughter has surpassed their assigned course level long back]
b) The camp will not be able to bump her into Advanced class since she is only 10 and other teenagers in the advance class might object. So instead, they can offer her to see the videos and self learn. They cannot guarantee that an instructor will be able to attend to her promptly. [and I was thinking, she could do this for FREE at home!]
c) 3rd option (best according to the caller lady) was to ask my daughter which Instructor she like the best and then private tutoring!
When I declined all 3 offers, she suggested refunding back remaining 3 weeks. The lady actually acknowledged that iDTech camp cannot cope up with my daughters learning curve since she is only 10 and she has 3 more years before she can join advanced classes and by then, he would have outgrown what they have to offer.
I do not know what to make of all this. iDTech camp was suppose to be a good camp with locations at really prestigious locations. At this time I have the following thoughts:
1) Is this camp good for just the beginners?
2) This camp cannot cater to good and advanced kids.
3) I seriously doubt the education background and knowledge of the instructors.
4) iDTech staff is very irresponsible. In middle of the summer they just upped and cancelled my daughters camps. They did not bother to think that we might have plans around what was scheduled way back in Feb.-March.
5) iDTech camp is unreliable. They make promises they cannot deliver. If they are as good as they say they are, then how difficult was it to assign my daughter to same instructor's class and have her learn something substantial. They already are charging hefty amounts.
I would suggest parents to exercise caution when enrolling for this camp. If your kid is advanced or even average good, make sure the expectations from the camp are clear. This camp might be a good option for those parents who just want their kids to have fun. Definitely not good for those who want their kids to learn something along with having fun. I am having my daughter look at online tutorials on YOUTUBE and make whatever she wants to make. She loves coding and she has brains!
My 11 year old son attended the minecraft camp at Stanford. Major disconnect between content of course and what actually went on...we thought he would be creating mods and programming instead he was doing game design(!) - that probably would have been OK except that instead the kids were left playing the game for large chunks of time...the tool they used was not the best they could have been using- many of the kids were suggesting more functional, easier to use tools - my son was not the only kid under the impression that they would be programming - at least one other ( out of 8? ) thought they would be programming mods. In addition the counsellors left the kids to their own devices a lot which mean't the kids were left playing minecraft for large chunks of the day. I talked with the camp director about moving him to the programming unit but was told it was full and that the java programming prerequisite meant that he would not be eligible anyway...they referred me to corporate...and that's were things got interesting...as it became clear that they were a well oiled 'no refund' scripted marketing machine. Talking to a 'rep' got the 'no refund but here is a credit towards a camp next year' spiel...which I declined - escalated to supervisor who was very well rehearsed in this process; the angle is that the error is unit selection on the part of the parent..my experience as a business person is that whenever a company has a complaints process structured that well, that means that there are a lot of them - which is never a good sign... this is not an organization focused on creating a good service with high customer staistfaction...it's a revenue maximization machine...proceed with caution...
I was just informed that the iD Tech lunch program in Manhattan has the kids going out to various restaurants each day instead of remaining inside the campus building! I've informed the organization that this was never communicated to me and that I'll be asking for a complete refund if this is the case.
iD Tech Camp was great in theory but was by far the worst learning experience my children have ever had. My girls, ages 11 and 13 at the time, took Programming in Java, a one week beginner's programming class at Adelphi last summer. On day 1, they were told to teach themselves to use an online programming tutorial by following the tutorial's step by step instructions. They spent 3 days on this online tutorial. The instructor never spoke to them during that time and never reviewed their work to see if they were making progress. I am not exaggerating when I say he NEVER spoke to them. What's worse was that the online tutorial was for Scratch, not Java, and was (and still is) available for free to the public, and was a kiddie program that I later taught my 6-year old to use.
I discussed my concerns with the program director at the end of the 2nd day and then again at the end of the 3rd day of the 5-day camp. On the 4th day, a different instructor spent 20 minutes showing the campers how to use an online Java tutorial and left them on their own again for the entirety of the 4th day and the morning of the 5th day. My girls said many of the campers played video games all day rather than struggle with the self-taught program. The second half of the 5th day, parents were invited in to see the codes their children had written. My children had each written a few lines of code which didn't work. I could see that the other children who sat nearby had similar results.
I tried to asked their instructor what he's been teaching them but he was extremely shy. He did not know my girls by name, he mumbled short one and two word answers to my questions, kept his head down, never looked at me while we spoke, and worst of all, said that he was not very familiar with Java programming. The other instructor had given the campers the 20 minute intro to Java because he, the Java instructor, did not know how to program in Java. He did not even know how to save their work so that we could log in and access it from home. He gave ZERO instruction on Java programming and performed ZERO monitoring of the campers' progress on the self-taught tutorials throughout the entire 5-day camp. He was too lacking in communication skills, knowledge of the subject matter and interest in teaching to be an instructor.
I complained in detail to the local director on the 4th and 5th days of the program. After I made several phone calls over several weeks to the regional director, I was given a full tuition refund for both my girls and was told that the instructor had been fired. iD Tech sells out every summer because parents like me know how important it is that our children develop strong computer skills to be competitive at school and at work. However, iD Tech did not have a well-planned curriculum, or any curriculum at all for that matter, and its instructor was completely ineffectual in the basic programming class last summer. It was a huge waste of time and dampened my girls' budding interest in programming. This "computer" camp is not worth $900. You're better off finding self-taught Java tutorials online for free at home.
My child attended this camp and had the worst experience of his life. He said he was often bored, learned nothing. Most of the time all they did was play video games or go outside and play Kickball. I've since learned that some of the programs they use to "teach" kids can be gotten for relatively cheap in comparison to this camp (http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/) and there is already extensive help online for ways to do things, not to mention included within the program itself, any 13 year old with motivation could teach himself to make a rudimentary RPG over a weekend. The 900 cost (to play games I gues?) is simply uneccesarry.
Avoid avoid avoid! Terrible scam company. Please educate yourself before throwing money away.
I really don’t understand the negativity, and totally agree with Jeff’s post above. Is the IDcamp going to be the best experience for everyone, no, of course not. But this is true for any item or service available for purchase. Some things are just not going to work out for some people. From my experiences, was the camp honest and reliable? Yes. Did they provide value through their camps? Yes. Did I feel my child was safe? Yes. Does their website contain relevant information and was the company available to answer any questions I had? Yes. On top of all of this, my child had fun and learned something. There might be a few things that I might change if I had the power, but that is what you get in any purchase situation. While I understand frustration and disappointment, is it fair to post the camp is a scam? Not in my opinion. The camp would not still be in business and would not have positive endorsements if it was a scam. In my opinion, this was a great experience for my child and I will continue to endorse it to friends and family until I have a good reason not to.
you seem like a well oiled joker how much id tech pays for your input ? clown
My son attended ID Tech camp last summer at Bentley college. We had pretty much forgotten about the horrible experience until it surfaced again when we started looking for summer camps for 2011. We were searching around and revisited the ID site and my kid practically fell out of his chair. He LOATHED this program and thought it was a joke. He was bored, uninspired, and wished he would have spent a week at home playing video games because that's pretty much what he did all week. I'm comfortable paying a premium for a QUALITY program, but ID Tech Camp fell short. Way short.
id camp at smu last summer was a highlight of my 17 year old daughters summer. she actually produced a game using the unreal template. i think this is a great camp and she is going this summer
BTW my children are 11 and 14
My two children attended this camp in D.C. this summer and had a wonderful experience.
I find it interesting that the complaint talks only about incidental issues, and mentions nothing about his/her learning experience. Also ironic that s/he complains about having to call counselors by their handles yet signs his complaint "Super Secret."
The other complaint by sanjoseca is completely the opposite of my experience. My kids were both enrolled in the web design session and both got a lot out of the experience. I am a manager at a company that does web design and my kids were exposed to using professional methods and tools, and came away really stimulated by the experience. If sanjoseca's kid was playing video games for 6 hours, maybe he was in the video game class, I don't know. My kids did have an opportunity to play video games during breaks but they also had some time outdoors.
Yes, this is more expensive than a camp where the kids go swimming, make lanyards and eat s'mores. The staff has to be very specialized to teach this, and it requires a lot of equipment and logistics. In the room I visited on the last day, there was probably $40K worth of computers in one room. They're also using Photoshop, which even at educational discounts goes for several hundred dollars a seat. The price is comparable to another camp my son attends for musicians where the experience includes going into a studio to record a CD.
Jeff Seigle
Vienna, VA
This camp is a rip-off. It's VERY expensive (double the price of regular Summer camp) and my kid has complained it from day 1 (today is day 3 for him). All he does is 'playing video games for 6 hours straight' and got sick of it. Considering he is a typical 12-year-old boy who LOVES to play video games, this is a shocking. We deeply regret for signing him up for this camp. This will be the first and last time for us to be iD tech camp.
My oldest son attended his first overnight camp with ID Tech Camp at UC Berkeley five years ago. This year, at age 15, was his fourth time attending (he missed one year), along with his brother who was attending for the third time. My wife and I have seen this camp grow considerably and it has improved each year. I, too, thought the nicknames were a little much at first, but it has become a part of the experience. I can understand the op's comments (sounds like a lot of 17 year olds I know!), but this is a camp where the attendee will get out of it what he or she puts into it. Both of my kids, who will be 14 and 16 next summer, have already asked to attend again next year and are looking forward to possibly working in a staff position when they are in college.
My name is Pete and I am the President of iD Tech Camps. I wanted to take a minute to address your comments—feedback is important to me. Both good and bad.
To start, our camp experience is not for everyone. I know that. But thousands pass through our program each year and gain the real-world technology skills needed to thrive in today’s digital world. iD Tech Camps is a stepping stone and can help our students get ahead…I hear from thousand of parents and students each season…and our Do Something Big stories corroborate what I believe.
We are a summer camp and we are pretty darn good at what we do – but far from perfect. Participants range in age from 7 to 17.
I checked the rosters for your class and it only included those of the advertised age range. Of course, “all group” activities, check-in/check-out, acknowledgements, walking to and from class – all of these things are done with the camp as a whole, inevitably combining kids and teens of different ages.
I am not discounting your comments, as camp nicknames are part of the experience, and I really am sorry to hear the differences in age greatly impacted your time at camp. Just keep in mind that we have had many students your age who use their camp experience positively for their own benefit – some have even written books, started businesses and directed movies as a result of their experience with iD Tech Camps. Thanks for reaching out and sharing your thoughts.
Sincerely,
Pete
CEO, iD Tech Camps
I’m a 16years old student from Taiwan attending video production and special effects for YouTube at Ming Chuan University. It was the most expensive and unefficient summer camp I have ever been... First the “ teacher” was supposed to be “ profession” but no. The teacher that “ teaches” us, was a Ming Chuan exchange student from Asia. I guarantee the student isn’t a major in film or media, cause she sometimes doesn’t know how to do it too. Second, if we knew that this course would be mainly reading the instructions from the ID tech website, why don’t we homeschool? Third, I did tick the box that says lunch plan- dining buffet when I first apply, but I didn’t get any emails telling me I don’t need to pay US 60 dollars more, because my friend didn’t choose it, but everyone still has lunch prepare by ID Tech( by the way, the university lunch was horrible but expensive). Fourth CAN I GET REFOUND? Cuz I don’t want to waste my time learning how to do simple editing by Premire, when I know how to use Final Cut Pro
Pete (ID Tech camp CEO), sorry, but the camp is a rip-off, despite your best efforts to list all of the things you'd like for the camp to be! Look at the reviews across the internet. Everyone is saying the same thing. Pete, you're in the best position, because you're profiting off of everyone's misfortune & bad investment into ID Tech camp for their beloved children. You should consider offering partial refunds to account for how parents have been and are being jilted over and over by false advertisement of what ID Camp claims to offer. Or, better yet, check in on your staff, the instructors, to see how camps are really being conducted...you'd be unpleasantly surprised!
how about adrresing a refund of 1,300$ and a week of wasted summer time
who do you hire? incompetent kids , mostly those who arent very bright and have zero communication skills, where did you find those ? on graiglist?
my 13 year old could have taught the class better after watching a you tube video
FRAUD AND SCAM
yes! this camp is ###