My biggest concern with coding bootcamps as an industry is that the people making the decision about which bootcamp to attend are dramatically under-qualified t

My biggest concern with coding bootcamps as an industry is that the people making the decision about which bootcamp to attend are dramatically under-qualified to make the decision and therefore relatively more prone to both scams and instructor incompetence. Here's how I imagine this goes, from the author's questions: > Do you want to do a bootcamp? I guess so? I'd like a job, and I hear this pays well and folks are hiring. > Do you want work as a professional developer? If so: front end or back end? I... what does that even mean? How do I know? > Any specific programming language you want to learn? I like the, uhh, curly braces? So... ruby? > How much money are you willing to spend on tuition? As much as it takes to set me on the right career path? > Do you need a lot of mentoring and teaching? Or are able to learn stuff by yourself? This phrasing is patronizing. How about "In your past experience learning STEM-type material, did you benefit disproportionately from having structured learning time and dedicated instructors, or were your more the 'learn from the book' type?" (As an aside, if you're not an autodidact, you'll probably not do well in the kinds of positions that people are hiring typical bootcamp grads into, C-grade start-ups with at most a seed round in funding) There is probably an opportunity out there for an assessment that yields a decent prediction for "if I take one of the better bootcamps, is there a decent chance I will get into an engineering career in tech, and, will I want to stay there?" This blog post isn't it. (Another aside, the better bootcamps (HackReactor, for one) have already gotten rather good at this sort of screening and are generating money based on their placements and the quality of their reputation).