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If you don't mind elaborating, what was your experience like with coding boot camp? I entered the profession "traditionally" (via a comp sci degree) so I don't

by krisrm 7y ago

If you don't mind elaborating, what was your experience like with coding boot camp? I entered the profession "traditionally" (via a comp sci degree) so I don't know much about the boot camp experience.

duxup 7y ago
My program was "full time" (5 days a week) for 12 weeks. The camp was through my local university, but really they had bought a snap in program from an outside company. The course was basically front end to back end via, HTML - CSS - JavaScript - Node - React (in that order). There were other items covered but those were the big focus. Little to no CS, CS theory, algorithms or anything like that. IMO it does a good job getting you started in a specific area and a place to keep learning / jump off from. My instructor was great, his assistants were horrendous (couldn't help with anything, seemed disinterested, straight up were terrible at debugging). If someone puts in the extra time (and they make it clear that you HAVE to put in extra time outside of class) a capable person can come out of the camp as IMO, a useful entry level web developer with potential and a good place to learn from. I have kids so my life for that time was basically, class - take care of family - code - sleep ... repeat. Actually I've kinda kept that up for a year now. I had a technical background (network engineer) for a long time and was working with engineering teams and had done some scripting and reading about coding here and there. Even just a little background can help a lot in a a class that throws things at you quickly. Other folks without a technical background could do well too (one was an accountant, another a director of some sort of organization, some worked odd jobs but were capable folks). The catch in my class was that they do NOT filter candidates in any meaningful way and that ws arguably the worst aspect of the class. There was a test but I think it was more of a sales pitch (it was virtually the same test as several other camps in the area). I'd say at least 50% of the class was unemployable, and the worst of it was they were often on everyone's team for group projects. These people were often a net negative impact, they just couldn't do it couldn't finish their own work, and created more issues than helped. I don't look down on them for it, because how do you know if you ... don't know? I think they were brave for trying. But IMO the class should have done evaluations and invited some folks to save them self some time and move on but of course that might involve a partial refund so ... doesn't happen. That might sound like I'm talking smack about folks in order to talk myself up, but having a class with people who are either not trying (shockingly there were those) and / or not capable really disrupts the flow of the class and the amount of material covered. Everyone struggled at various points in the class, but some from week two and then constantly from there on they were so far behind it was never going to click. There's a lot of "everyone can code" out there, it's BS, everyone can write it, but troubleshooting and coding and getting a good outcome is another matter. Despite the negatives I have good memories of the class, it was a great experience. I didn't have a traditional education and I loved going to class every day and working with everyone. I do wish the class had gone about twice as long and filtered out candidates (as someone said, it's a bootcamp, shouldn't people be booted?). I think the bootcamp system can be useful (let's put aside the robots and AI for a bit) but I do worry the companies involved might be so profit driven that they make it ... less useful for society as a whole. One side note, a few students decided to go back to school for a traditional CS degree and they really appreciated their bootcamp experience on top of getting into CS where they felt the theory can get a bit deep and academic. They feel their fellow students (and some professors) maybe can't see the forest through the trees / what they're actually learning as it would apply to actual programming you might do when you apply that theory. I've worked with some great CS grads since graduating and they're good guys, most know way more than I do, but no amount of CS can make up for deciding that "I have no idea what is going on, I'm going to dive into the code and see where it goes until I figure it out." Quite a few just want to ask someone, and then ask, and then ask, and ... I wish I had a CS degree and if it was an option I would do it in a heartbeat, I think it is a far superior path. But I do think the boot camp system "can" work, for the right people.
- krisrm 7y ago
  This is a fantastic overview - thanks for taking the time to write it. I think probably a lot of the negatives seem more to do with the "for profit education" angle (not rejecting obviously disruptive or incapable candidates) than the "boot camp" format itself, which is interesting. I expected that part of it to be challenging, as I remember a lot of cases in uni where I needed time to let problems "simmer" for a while before I could actually sit down and write the code. It makes me wonder if there's a way that the public education system could offer something semi accredited (and publically funded) in the boot camp "format" for software education, and maybe alleviate some of the challenges you mentioned. My classes certainly didn't slow down when people struggled or weren't trying, those people simply weren't around for much longer (or mostly weren't there in the first place. Anyway - very glad that it's worked out for you, and I think you're spot on with the questions bit. At the end of the day, there's too much to know out there, so all one can do is ask questions and stay curious!
  - duxup 7y ago
    Thanks. I absolutely think a given university could come up with a good boot camp like program. How willing some folks in say a CS department might be is another matter, but there is no reason they couldn't create such a program and dramatically improve it pretty quickly. I think an accredited system would be a great option to lend some credibility to the system / stand out from the for profit systems that are questionable. It might also address one of the challenges being that even some recruiters I talked to had no idea what a coding boot camp even was.

by krisrm 7y ago

duxup 7y ago

My program was "full time" (5 days a week) for 12 weeks. The camp was through my local university, but really they had bought a snap in program from an outside company. The course was basically front end to back end via, HTML - CSS - JavaScript - Node - React (in that order). There were other items covered but those were the big focus. Little to no CS, CS theory, algorithms or anything like that. IMO it does a good job getting you started in a specific area and a place to keep learning / jump off from. My instructor was great, his assistants were horrendous (couldn't help with anything, seemed disinterested, straight up were terrible at debugging). If someone puts in the extra time (and they make it clear that you HAVE to put in extra time outside of class) a capable person can come out of the camp as IMO, a useful entry level web developer with potential and a good place to learn from. I have kids so my life for that time was basically, class - take care of family - code - sleep ... repeat. Actually I've kinda kept that up for a year now. I had a technical background (network engineer) for a long time and was working with engineering teams and had done some scripting and reading about coding here and there. Even just a little background can help a lot in a a class that throws things at you quickly. Other folks without a technical background could do well too (one was an accountant, another a director of some sort of organization, some worked odd jobs but were capable folks). The catch in my class was that they do NOT filter candidates in any meaningful way and that ws arguably the worst aspect of the class. There was a test but I think it was more of a sales pitch (it was virtually the same test as several other camps in the area). I'd say at least 50% of the class was unemployable, and the worst of it was they were often on everyone's team for group projects. These people were often a net negative impact, they just couldn't do it couldn't finish their own work, and created more issues than helped. I don't look down on them for it, because how do you know if you ... don't know? I think they were brave for trying. But IMO the class should have done evaluations and invited some folks to save them self some time and move on but of course that might involve a partial refund so ... doesn't happen. That might sound like I'm talking smack about folks in order to talk myself up, but having a class with people who are either not trying (shockingly there were those) and / or not capable really disrupts the flow of the class and the amount of material covered. Everyone struggled at various points in the class, but some from week two and then constantly from there on they were so far behind it was never going to click. There's a lot of "everyone can code" out there, it's BS, everyone can write it, but troubleshooting and coding and getting a good outcome is another matter. Despite the negatives I have good memories of the class, it was a great experience. I didn't have a traditional education and I loved going to class every day and working with everyone. I do wish the class had gone about twice as long and filtered out candidates (as someone said, it's a bootcamp, shouldn't people be booted?). I think the bootcamp system can be useful (let's put aside the robots and AI for a bit) but I do worry the companies involved might be so profit driven that they make it ... less useful for society as a whole. One side note, a few students decided to go back to school for a traditional CS degree and they really appreciated their bootcamp experience on top of getting into CS where they felt the theory can get a bit deep and academic. They feel their fellow students (and some professors) maybe can't see the forest through the trees / what they're actually learning as it would apply to actual programming you might do when you apply that theory. I've worked with some great CS grads since graduating and they're good guys, most know way more than I do, but no amount of CS can make up for deciding that "I have no idea what is going on, I'm going to dive into the code and see where it goes until I figure it out." Quite a few just want to ask someone, and then ask, and then ask, and ... I wish I had a CS degree and if it was an option I would do it in a heartbeat, I think it is a far superior path. But I do think the boot camp system "can" work, for the right people.

krisrm 7y ago
This is a fantastic overview - thanks for taking the time to write it. I think probably a lot of the negatives seem more to do with the "for profit education" angle (not rejecting obviously disruptive or incapable candidates) than the "boot camp" format itself, which is interesting. I expected that part of it to be challenging, as I remember a lot of cases in uni where I needed time to let problems "simmer" for a while before I could actually sit down and write the code. It makes me wonder if there's a way that the public education system could offer something semi accredited (and publically funded) in the boot camp "format" for software education, and maybe alleviate some of the challenges you mentioned. My classes certainly didn't slow down when people struggled or weren't trying, those people simply weren't around for much longer (or mostly weren't there in the first place. Anyway - very glad that it's worked out for you, and I think you're spot on with the questions bit. At the end of the day, there's too much to know out there, so all one can do is ask questions and stay curious!
- duxup 7y ago
  Thanks. I absolutely think a given university could come up with a good boot camp like program. How willing some folks in say a CS department might be is another matter, but there is no reason they couldn't create such a program and dramatically improve it pretty quickly. I think an accredited system would be a great option to lend some credibility to the system / stand out from the for profit systems that are questionable. It might also address one of the challenges being that even some recruiters I talked to had no idea what a coding boot camp even was.