4 ms·

It's difficult to make an argument for bootcamps, though, when they won't teach you most of what you'd need to know either. The curriculum is typically focused

It's difficult to make an argument for bootcamps, though, when they won't teach you most of what you'd need to know either. The curriculum is typically focused around a single tech stack (many teach Mongo for unfathomable reasons), leaving students ill prepared for the workforce. Debugging? How to sort a lidt efficiently? What is a hash? All of these are arguably critical to understanding simple, common code; you'd be lucky to make it through a year as a junior dev without being fired if all the skills you have come from a bootcamp. Of course, Galvanize et all just hire their own grads to inflate the post-graduation job placement stat. So maybe it's not necessary to know anything outside the course to get a job!

adzz 9y ago
Classic internet. The argument for bootcamps is easy! It costs a FRACTION of a college degree, takes a fraction of the time, and almost guarantees you a job. "you'd be lucky to make it through a year as a junior dev without being fired if all the skills you have come from a bootcamp" LOL. I know literally hundreds of people who have done just that, and it aint luck. There is tons in a comp sci degree that you don't need to know right away to be an effective working programmer. And lots of bootcamps do teach "How to sort a lidt(sic) efficiently". It's a little hard to generalise because bootcamps vary in quality - like anything - but they give you a good structured introduction to lots of relevant material and the tools to keep learning as you go.
austenallred 9y ago
You have a point. Here's the problem the bootcamps will start to run into: They're teaching as much as they can in twelve weeks, but lengthening the program increases the cost dramatically. Why Mongo? Because they're already using JS so they don't have to teach two languages (no time), and mongo is super easy to pick up. They'll learn other stuff on the job. Why aren't they teaching how to debug and what a hash is? Well we have to choose between that and understanding what a database is, so you take your pick. They would love to have classes be six months or a year, but then they'd have to double their prices (eliminating a lot of the demand) and people would have to support themselves with no pay for twice as long (eliminating most of the rest of it). It's hard enough finding people to take 12 weeks off and pay $10k, and now we need to charge $20k for six months? No one can afford that, what we have now works well enough. In order to do something longer and more thorough/in-depth you'd probably have to start with a fundamentally different business model.
- gkop 9y ago
  Longer programs would also compete with flexible programs from traditional institutions. For example, Mills College's MA in Interdisciplinary Computer Science [0]. The traditional institutions arguably have large advantages in accreditation, financial aid, quality control, social status, signaling, and branding. [0] https://www.mills.edu/academics/graduate-programs/computer-science/ma-interdisciplinary-computer-science.php https://www.mills.edu/academics/graduate-programs/computer-s...
  - austenallred 9y ago
    Very true
- vram22 9y ago
  >In order to do something longer and more thorough/in-depth you'd probably have to start with a fundamentally different business model. Interesting point. Maybe something in between bootcamps and full-fledged 4-year CS or Software Engineering degrees? Say a 2-year course, with some of each of: tech stack topics, algorithms, data structures, and other CS-y topics, and software engineering topics. That would make for more well-rounded junior devs than the trend of just teaching the hot tech stack du jour plus git plus some DB (and all at very basic level, as many of them seem to do). Some Indian software training institutes (such as Aptech and NIIT) already did have long courses (with corresponding high fees), but to the best of my knowledge, they may not have had much in the way of the higher-level topics in those courses, i.e. CS and s/w engg. ones - AFAIK they mainly had the hot language and DB of the season, like Java and Oracle some time ago, now probably something else like JS and Mongo, etc.
  - austenallred 9y ago
    Ya, I think so. I'm a co-founder of https://LambdaSchool.com/computer-science https://LambdaSchool.com/computer-science and that's part of our goal
ouid 9y ago
>how to sort a list efficiently list.sort(comparator)
vram22 9y ago
>The curriculum is typically focused around a single tech stack (many teach Mongo for unfathomable reasons) Could be because many startups used to use Mongo. Not sure about current state of affairs, but somewhat recently, plenty of them did. One of the stated reasons was "schemaless", and other might have been scaling. I don't necessarily agree with either, because it can depend on a lot of factors, and scaling may not be the first thing that a startup should plan for. Just saying what I've heard/read.

adzz 9y ago

Classic internet. The argument for bootcamps is easy! It costs a FRACTION of a college degree, takes a fraction of the time, and almost guarantees you a job. "you'd be lucky to make it through a year as a junior dev without being fired if all the skills you have come from a bootcamp" LOL. I know literally hundreds of people who have done just that, and it aint luck. There is tons in a comp sci degree that you don't need to know right away to be an effective working programmer. And lots of bootcamps do teach "How to sort a lidt(sic) efficiently". It's a little hard to generalise because bootcamps vary in quality - like anything - but they give you a good structured introduction to lots of relevant material and the tools to keep learning as you go.

austenallred 9y ago

You have a point. Here's the problem the bootcamps will start to run into: They're teaching as much as they can in twelve weeks, but lengthening the program increases the cost dramatically. Why Mongo? Because they're already using JS so they don't have to teach two languages (no time), and mongo is super easy to pick up. They'll learn other stuff on the job. Why aren't they teaching how to debug and what a hash is? Well we have to choose between that and understanding what a database is, so you take your pick. They would love to have classes be six months or a year, but then they'd have to double their prices (eliminating a lot of the demand) and people would have to support themselves with no pay for twice as long (eliminating most of the rest of it). It's hard enough finding people to take 12 weeks off and pay $10k, and now we need to charge $20k for six months? No one can afford that, what we have now works well enough. In order to do something longer and more thorough/in-depth you'd probably have to start with a fundamentally different business model.

gkop 9y ago
Longer programs would also compete with flexible programs from traditional institutions. For example, Mills College's MA in Interdisciplinary Computer Science [0]. The traditional institutions arguably have large advantages in accreditation, financial aid, quality control, social status, signaling, and branding. [0] https://www.mills.edu/academics/graduate-programs/computer-science/ma-interdisciplinary-computer-science.php https://www.mills.edu/academics/graduate-programs/computer-s...
- austenallred 9y ago
  Very true
vram22 9y ago
>In order to do something longer and more thorough/in-depth you'd probably have to start with a fundamentally different business model. Interesting point. Maybe something in between bootcamps and full-fledged 4-year CS or Software Engineering degrees? Say a 2-year course, with some of each of: tech stack topics, algorithms, data structures, and other CS-y topics, and software engineering topics. That would make for more well-rounded junior devs than the trend of just teaching the hot tech stack du jour plus git plus some DB (and all at very basic level, as many of them seem to do). Some Indian software training institutes (such as Aptech and NIIT) already did have long courses (with corresponding high fees), but to the best of my knowledge, they may not have had much in the way of the higher-level topics in those courses, i.e. CS and s/w engg. ones - AFAIK they mainly had the hot language and DB of the season, like Java and Oracle some time ago, now probably something else like JS and Mongo, etc.
- austenallred 9y ago
  Ya, I think so. I'm a co-founder of https://LambdaSchool.com/computer-science https://LambdaSchool.com/computer-science and that's part of our goal

ouid 9y ago

>how to sort a list efficiently list.sort(comparator)

vram22 9y ago

>The curriculum is typically focused around a single tech stack (many teach Mongo for unfathomable reasons) Could be because many startups used to use Mongo. Not sure about current state of affairs, but somewhat recently, plenty of them did. One of the stated reasons was "schemaless", and other might have been scaling. I don't necessarily agree with either, because it can depend on a lot of factors, and scaling may not be the first thing that a startup should plan for. Just saying what I've heard/read.