5 ms·

I went to one and now a couple years in I'm working at one of the "big 4" companies. It worked out for me but I still wouldn't recommend them to other people. I

I went to one and now a couple years in I'm working at one of the "big 4" companies. It worked out for me but I still wouldn't recommend them to other people. It only worked for me because it helped lay the groundwork but I put in countless hours every night studying and getting better while working as well. Too many of my former classmates graduated and expected that to be the end of the hard work, like they were now entitled to a good job and that they knew enough. It was enough for a junior role but not at a huge company. Also because of the negative stigma of having gone to one of these I scrubbed it from my history as soon as I could. I don't bring it up in conversations either. It only seems to do more harm than good because people will hear it and look down on me. You only have to look at these discussions to see how much vitriol people have against those of us that attended one.

carc 10y ago
Funny, I have almost the exact same experience. Quit my job as a CPA at a big firm to go to a coding bootcamp, made myself put in the same number of hours coding/learning as I was working my old job (70+/week) until I found a job... got a job at a startup first and 2 years later got a job at one of the "big 4". I also don't list my bootcamp anywhere mostly because I'm worried about assumptions people will make about my technical knowledge if I do (rather than judging based on my actual performance). I'm also hesitant to recommend it to others because while I have to say it was 100% worth it to me... I've tried to help too many people learn to code who just failed because they weren't willing to fight past the frustrations of the learning curve (which is very steep at first). I just assume now that most people don't have what it takes (and that is NOT intelligence or cleverness... it's mostly just discipline/work ethic/intellectual curiosity).. so I'll never really encourage people to follow my path.
- tannhauser23 10y ago
  I also transitioned from a professional services career to programming through a bootcamp. When others ask me for advice, I only recommend the bootcamps that have a rigorous precourse/admissions process. And even then, I tell them it's a really difficult process to graduate and find a job afterwards, and that they better be ready for six to nine months of hard work and financial uncertainty. In the end, it was totally worth it for me and I couldn't be happier!
- dvdhnt 10y ago
  > Funny, I have almost the exact same experience. I left the world of government contracting to attend a code school on the east coast. Now, I'm on my second year of my second startup, and truthfully, I've learned more here than at code school. Not because the school was terrible, but due to the dynamic environment. When I left code school, there's zero percent chance I could have successfully deployed one of my applications containerized, secured, scalable, etc. However, after working here, I either (a) know how to do step X or (b) can successfully read documentation and use context clues (or ask peers for help). To your point, I have trouble recommending code school to friends and family. It's not that I don't value what I learned, but I can't compare my intelligence/persistence/etc to theirs, I wouldn't know how. I haven't worked for one of the "big 4" although I did interview with Google and am in consistent contact with Amazon. I've always wanted to get together with other code school graduates and develop material for graduates focusing on different areas in more depth, specifically I believe more information on databases, production environments, and open source would be highly beneficial to alumni. After code school, there's a lot of knowing about some topic, but it's so much more important to understand that topic, IMHO.
- jwhitlark 10y ago
  It's worth noting that in the military, bootcamp is where you go to get prepared to learn your job; you usually have a separate school afterwards. The specialties that do train at only one station are much longer. I'd say boot camps are a way to get yourself oriented, so that you can seriously pursue your education, not an end in themselves.
- burger_moon 10y ago
  Ya same feeling. I wasn't sure if I got that across in my original post but you summed up what I was trying to say.
kimsk112 10y ago
Just curious who are those "big 4" companies?
- chinathrow 10y ago
  FB, Google, Amazon, Microsoft.
  - rexreed 10y ago
    Incorrect. The Big 4 are the big 4 accounting firms with big IT consultancies: Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and Ernst & Young. You can't get a job at Google out of a code academy, but you can get a project job at Deloitte.

carc 10y ago

Funny, I have almost the exact same experience. Quit my job as a CPA at a big firm to go to a coding bootcamp, made myself put in the same number of hours coding/learning as I was working my old job (70+/week) until I found a job... got a job at a startup first and 2 years later got a job at one of the "big 4". I also don't list my bootcamp anywhere mostly because I'm worried about assumptions people will make about my technical knowledge if I do (rather than judging based on my actual performance). I'm also hesitant to recommend it to others because while I have to say it was 100% worth it to me... I've tried to help too many people learn to code who just failed because they weren't willing to fight past the frustrations of the learning curve (which is very steep at first). I just assume now that most people don't have what it takes (and that is NOT intelligence or cleverness... it's mostly just discipline/work ethic/intellectual curiosity).. so I'll never really encourage people to follow my path.

tannhauser23 10y ago
I also transitioned from a professional services career to programming through a bootcamp. When others ask me for advice, I only recommend the bootcamps that have a rigorous precourse/admissions process. And even then, I tell them it's a really difficult process to graduate and find a job afterwards, and that they better be ready for six to nine months of hard work and financial uncertainty. In the end, it was totally worth it for me and I couldn't be happier!
dvdhnt 10y ago
> Funny, I have almost the exact same experience. I left the world of government contracting to attend a code school on the east coast. Now, I'm on my second year of my second startup, and truthfully, I've learned more here than at code school. Not because the school was terrible, but due to the dynamic environment. When I left code school, there's zero percent chance I could have successfully deployed one of my applications containerized, secured, scalable, etc. However, after working here, I either (a) know how to do step X or (b) can successfully read documentation and use context clues (or ask peers for help). To your point, I have trouble recommending code school to friends and family. It's not that I don't value what I learned, but I can't compare my intelligence/persistence/etc to theirs, I wouldn't know how. I haven't worked for one of the "big 4" although I did interview with Google and am in consistent contact with Amazon. I've always wanted to get together with other code school graduates and develop material for graduates focusing on different areas in more depth, specifically I believe more information on databases, production environments, and open source would be highly beneficial to alumni. After code school, there's a lot of knowing about some topic, but it's so much more important to understand that topic, IMHO.
jwhitlark 10y ago
It's worth noting that in the military, bootcamp is where you go to get prepared to learn your job; you usually have a separate school afterwards. The specialties that do train at only one station are much longer. I'd say boot camps are a way to get yourself oriented, so that you can seriously pursue your education, not an end in themselves.
burger_moon 10y ago
Ya same feeling. I wasn't sure if I got that across in my original post but you summed up what I was trying to say.

kimsk112 10y ago

Just curious who are those "big 4" companies?

chinathrow 10y ago
FB, Google, Amazon, Microsoft.
- rexreed 10y ago
  Incorrect. The Big 4 are the big 4 accounting firms with big IT consultancies: Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and Ernst & Young. You can't get a job at Google out of a code academy, but you can get a project job at Deloitte.