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edits to correct typos made on my phone. I am skeptical of developer bootcamps because they often aren't open enrollment. You generally have to have the aptit

by bphogan 11y ago

edits to correct typos made on my phone. I am skeptical of developer bootcamps because they often aren't open enrollment. You generally have to have the aptitude and background to get through their admissions process and interview. That weeds out some people right away. They are right to have this admissions process, because if you let everyone in, lots of people won't make it, and then the promise of good paying jobs is much more hard to advertise. Let's not forget that it does favor a certain type of people over others; namely people who have grown up in an environment that teaches them how to learn. Most people on HN know how to learn on their own and see value in bootcamps because they feel that candidates from bootcamps can learn the material easily. But folks, that's not everyone. A lot of people don't like school. They aren't good at it, or they had bad experiences, etc. And a lot of people transitioning into software development have been trained for many years to do what they were told, so they have to develop those critical thinking skills. I think these people have a harder time making it through the application processes for some of these camps. And that's a shame. I would be 100% behind an immersive bootcamp experience that had an open enrollment process. I work at a school that has that right now, and we do have lots of people who don't make it very far. But we have many more that go from minimum wage to doing very, very well for themselves and their families. If I had those students for 12 weeks straight where they could learn and apply through immersion, oh man, the things we could do together!

confuseddotcom 11y ago
> That weeds on some people right away. > people who have grown up around how to learn Neither of these phrases makes any sense.
- mhink 11y ago
  Oh, come on. It's clear enough from context what the parent means: "that weeds out some people right away". The latter phrase could be rephrased as "people who have grown up in an environment which taught them how to learn".
- mbrameld 11y ago
  You honestly couldn't figure out what those mean?
d2xdy2 11y ago
> I work at a school that has that right now, and we do have lots of people who don't make it very far. When it comes to those "who don't make it very far"; how do you handle tuition and possible refunds? I'm not really advocating that they deserve or should get a full refund; I'm just skeptical that an open enrollment type thing where anyone can join (like I've experienced with a MOOC)-- you'll have a lot of students starting out, and end up with very few. The one's who couldn't make it should have been screened out, as they're both spending a lot of their own money on this, spending a lot of their own time on this, and potentially taking time away from others with remediation or tutoring-- at the very least, there could be various levels of classes for them to work things out before being introduced into the subjects where they might tend to fail. From the perspective of someone who has been taught and who has taught, in both cases I prefer small group sizes of people I have some confidence in being relatively adept at what's going on-- the need to reiterate and reintroduce certain core concepts on things goes down a bit as well.
- bphogan 11y ago
  I agree with all of this. But I've seen people who came from nothing rise to the occasion and turn things around. And if we'd screened them out, the world would be worse off for it. The perspective they bring demonstrates the true, non-politicized idea of diversity. And so that's what I fear happens if the industry picks this bootcamp thing and runs with it; that we'll end up with a very homogeneous group of developers. People from middle income families where education was held in wide regard and who had parents encourage them to explore things on their own. Yea, as a teacher, I really enjoy it when everyone in my class wants to learn and is highly motivated. But I also enjoy getting them there. :) Refunds? I really don't know. But this is why traditional schools can compete - they have the resources for tutoring, remediation, and open enrollment. Of course, if all the motivated people skip that and do bootcamps because it's a "guaranteed" path to a job, well....
  - d2xdy2 11y ago
    The hard part of it, to me, really is the notion of a "guaranteed job". They're no more guaranteed a job than I am to wake up tomorrow; though the odds of being successful probably not so bad. I've seen that "problem" in college graduates as well, and the flurry of problems arising after that guaranteed job never came to fruition. I can see the fulfillment in having taken someone from nothing to being prepared for (or having) gainful employment in that field. I'm sure screening out folks who perhaps weren't immediately going to be competitive / successful plays into that fulfillment and success as a teacher; higher risk, higher potential gain (or at least, personal fulfillment). I'm actually signed up for the General Assembly WDI next month in Atlanta; while its interesting to hear that Google has done this with GA, it wont strictly affect my class (I don't think it will, at any rate)... but speaking to that "guaranteed job"-- I do have _slightly_ more confidence that I'll be able to find a place I want to work (vs what I'm doing now, basically doing triage on broken webapp backends for various folks as a consultant). As for the refunds; yeah, idk-- I could just imagine some really sore feelings surrounding it, and I'm sure there would be individuals raising cain about having spent money and time on the program (though, I don't know of a college that offers refunds...). I can't really speak to a solution there besides having possible remediation style "classes" or having a really strong network of after-hours study groups.
tdaltonc 11y ago
> open enrollment Do you mean that the program should be made available to anyone who wants to take it? What if there just isn't enough capacity to take that many people?
- bphogan 11y ago
  Yes, I mean that. It's so tricky because you do get a percentage of folks that are not realistic about the expectations or requirements. But you handle demand the way other open enrollment places do - with waiting lists.
- learc83 11y ago
  The usual solution is to raise prices until demand dies down to a level you can handle.
  - bphogan 11y ago
    It's not entirely effective if you can get grants and loans to pay for it though.

by bphogan 11y ago

confuseddotcom 11y ago

> That weeds on some people right away. > people who have grown up around how to learn Neither of these phrases makes any sense.

mhink 11y ago
Oh, come on. It's clear enough from context what the parent means: "that weeds out some people right away". The latter phrase could be rephrased as "people who have grown up in an environment which taught them how to learn".
mbrameld 11y ago
You honestly couldn't figure out what those mean?

d2xdy2 11y ago

> I work at a school that has that right now, and we do have lots of people who don't make it very far. When it comes to those "who don't make it very far"; how do you handle tuition and possible refunds? I'm not really advocating that they deserve or should get a full refund; I'm just skeptical that an open enrollment type thing where anyone can join (like I've experienced with a MOOC)-- you'll have a lot of students starting out, and end up with very few. The one's who couldn't make it should have been screened out, as they're both spending a lot of their own money on this, spending a lot of their own time on this, and potentially taking time away from others with remediation or tutoring-- at the very least, there could be various levels of classes for them to work things out before being introduced into the subjects where they might tend to fail. From the perspective of someone who has been taught and who has taught, in both cases I prefer small group sizes of people I have some confidence in being relatively adept at what's going on-- the need to reiterate and reintroduce certain core concepts on things goes down a bit as well.

bphogan 11y ago
I agree with all of this. But I've seen people who came from nothing rise to the occasion and turn things around. And if we'd screened them out, the world would be worse off for it. The perspective they bring demonstrates the true, non-politicized idea of diversity. And so that's what I fear happens if the industry picks this bootcamp thing and runs with it; that we'll end up with a very homogeneous group of developers. People from middle income families where education was held in wide regard and who had parents encourage them to explore things on their own. Yea, as a teacher, I really enjoy it when everyone in my class wants to learn and is highly motivated. But I also enjoy getting them there. :) Refunds? I really don't know. But this is why traditional schools can compete - they have the resources for tutoring, remediation, and open enrollment. Of course, if all the motivated people skip that and do bootcamps because it's a "guaranteed" path to a job, well....
- d2xdy2 11y ago
  The hard part of it, to me, really is the notion of a "guaranteed job". They're no more guaranteed a job than I am to wake up tomorrow; though the odds of being successful probably not so bad. I've seen that "problem" in college graduates as well, and the flurry of problems arising after that guaranteed job never came to fruition. I can see the fulfillment in having taken someone from nothing to being prepared for (or having) gainful employment in that field. I'm sure screening out folks who perhaps weren't immediately going to be competitive / successful plays into that fulfillment and success as a teacher; higher risk, higher potential gain (or at least, personal fulfillment). I'm actually signed up for the General Assembly WDI next month in Atlanta; while its interesting to hear that Google has done this with GA, it wont strictly affect my class (I don't think it will, at any rate)... but speaking to that "guaranteed job"-- I do have _slightly_ more confidence that I'll be able to find a place I want to work (vs what I'm doing now, basically doing triage on broken webapp backends for various folks as a consultant). As for the refunds; yeah, idk-- I could just imagine some really sore feelings surrounding it, and I'm sure there would be individuals raising cain about having spent money and time on the program (though, I don't know of a college that offers refunds...). I can't really speak to a solution there besides having possible remediation style "classes" or having a really strong network of after-hours study groups.

tdaltonc 11y ago

> open enrollment Do you mean that the program should be made available to anyone who wants to take it? What if there just isn't enough capacity to take that many people?

bphogan 11y ago
Yes, I mean that. It's so tricky because you do get a percentage of folks that are not realistic about the expectations or requirements. But you handle demand the way other open enrollment places do - with waiting lists.
learc83 11y ago
The usual solution is to raise prices until demand dies down to a level you can handle.
- bphogan 11y ago
  It's not entirely effective if you can get grants and loans to pay for it though.