3 ms·

> 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"; ho

by 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.
- jtmcmc 11y ago
  traditional schools absolutely don't have open enrollment. Try telling that to MIT or Stanford. While I agree that there should be programs out there that reach out to underprivileged people and teach them to program I don't think the bootcamp model really suits them. There are a number of organizations that do things like this (there should definitely be more though) but one of the main things is that the should generally be free and allow people to keep to differing paces. Otherwise you run into a large number of people who have spent a lot of money on a program that they won't do well at.
  - bphogan 11y ago
    MIT is launching a micro degree that is open-enrollment-based. The number of students in K-12 is trending downward, thus the number of students in the pipeline is also trending downward. So more schools are opening their doors to bring in more people. You'll see the trend continue.

by d2xdy2 11y ago

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.
jtmcmc 11y ago
traditional schools absolutely don't have open enrollment. Try telling that to MIT or Stanford. While I agree that there should be programs out there that reach out to underprivileged people and teach them to program I don't think the bootcamp model really suits them. There are a number of organizations that do things like this (there should definitely be more though) but one of the main things is that the should generally be free and allow people to keep to differing paces. Otherwise you run into a large number of people who have spent a lot of money on a program that they won't do well at.
- bphogan 11y ago
  MIT is launching a micro degree that is open-enrollment-based. The number of students in K-12 is trending downward, thus the number of students in the pipeline is also trending downward. So more schools are opening their doors to bring in more people. You'll see the trend continue.