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30k?! You are honestly better off taking two yeas of night courses at a community college, and it will probably cost you half of that for more classroom time.

30k?! You are honestly better off taking two yeas of night courses at a community college, and it will probably cost you half of that for more classroom time. Bootcamp programs are really crap. Even in a traditional classroom setting, you only get out of it what you put in. I know CompSci majors who graduated only knowing Java and who were totally lost if they had to replace a ram chip in a computer. I knew others who would try new languages every semester and who probably still keep up with tech news in our industry. Boot camps are more of a filter to find people who are going to put in that effort anyway. You have to in order to be able to make it. But I feel they're also part of this hustle culture bullshit; you're better off taking your time and learning slowly (and more affordably) rather than trying to cram everything in to 12 to 24 weeks.

austenallred 7y ago
Lambda School is 9 months full-time (40+ hours/week) and 18 months part-time (20+ hours/week).
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mre5364 7y ago
  20 hours for PT? Schedule only has PT down for 15 hours, 3 hour blocks x 5 nights, which is why FT has advantage over PT. Also the 5 extra hours are not explained at the start that we have to do on our own. Makes planning ahead a bit of a hassle. Another reason a lot of PT tell new people to do FT, it is more organized and better program.
manfredo 7y ago
I think as far as learning to code, bootcamps aren't much better than following tutorials online. I do, however, think that bootcamps are good at getting people who already know how to code to learn how to code well, and code in a job environment. There's probably a good market for classes aimed at people who have already learned basic coding through online tutorials but now want to refine their skills to the point that they are viable in the job market.
- ammanley 7y ago
  There are exceptions, I think, when the boot camp instructors are able and willing to impart significant industry knowledge, war stories, and personal teaching time to students. You don't get this at the vast majority of boot camps (not even Hack Reactor these days), but they do exist. That kind of experience isn't the kind that's easy to pick up, and getting it in a highly condensed time frame to facilitate a career change can be a worthwhile investment. Source: graduate from one of said rare boot camps, and gainfully employed (not on the frontend, though many from my cohort chose that route as well)
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
> I know CompSci majors who graduated only knowing Java and who were totally lost if they had to replace a ram chip in a computer. The rest of your post notwithstanding, I don't see why a CompSci major should need to know how to replace a stick of ram.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  They don't need to. As astronomer doesn't need to know how to repair his or her own personal telescope either. But if you're into the field, it's nice to know how your tools work.
  - cosmodisk 7y ago
    You may not know how to fix it but surely you'd know they have lenses inside,right?
- heisenbit 7y ago
  Would you hire such a person for embedded software work? Also having a feel for what can go wrong with RAM can be useful in case a computer acts up. Then there are details like price, speed and parity which may or may not play a role when it comes to hardware selection. And last but not least software security researchers have been seen using cooling sprays and taking out RAM bars to extract information from systems.
- cosmodisk 7y ago
  They should know it all: where the cpu and ram is, how the motherboard look like and etc. Nobody expects them to go out there and start fixing computers, however if someone spends 4 years studying the subject and can't even be asked to look inside the box,well then there's not much hope... A couple of weeks ago I was on the sales floor and was about to change RAM on a couple of PCs( it's not my job,just wanted to do it). The sales rep pulled the PC from underneath the desk, took the side cover off,removed the old ram and put the new one in.If sales can do it, I'm confident anyone in CompSci should be able to do so as well.
  - 7y ago
mox1 7y ago
I'm currently teaching a Bootcamp by one of the major players in this space. 100% in classroom. On week 12 of 24. It's a side / fun job for me. Not my day job. While I disagree they are "crap", it's definitely a what you get out of it is what you put in situation. I have students who knew very little about the subject matter, put in a ton of effort and are rocking. I have other students who knew some, put in 0 effort, and are clearly struggling / stopped caring. I feel that I'm basically a long-term tour guide for the subject matter (Cyber Security in this case). I absolutely cannot teach the ins and outs of all aspects of the subject matter. I regularly remark "I could probably teach a class on this thing we spent 10 mins talking about". What I feel I can do (and actually do) is give them a subject or concept, introduce it, and let them run with it. I'm then available to answer any questions, provide lots and lots of anecdotes about the reality / theory of theses subjects. We definitely move fast and skip over more theoretical things...but I think the students want that. I spent 1 day talk about the OSI 7 layer model...in college I spent weeks learning about that.

austenallred 7y ago

Lambda School is 9 months full-time (40+ hours/week) and 18 months part-time (20+ hours/week).

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mre5364 7y ago
20 hours for PT? Schedule only has PT down for 15 hours, 3 hour blocks x 5 nights, which is why FT has advantage over PT. Also the 5 extra hours are not explained at the start that we have to do on our own. Makes planning ahead a bit of a hassle. Another reason a lot of PT tell new people to do FT, it is more organized and better program.

manfredo 7y ago

I think as far as learning to code, bootcamps aren't much better than following tutorials online. I do, however, think that bootcamps are good at getting people who already know how to code to learn how to code well, and code in a job environment. There's probably a good market for classes aimed at people who have already learned basic coding through online tutorials but now want to refine their skills to the point that they are viable in the job market.

ammanley 7y ago
There are exceptions, I think, when the boot camp instructors are able and willing to impart significant industry knowledge, war stories, and personal teaching time to students. You don't get this at the vast majority of boot camps (not even Hack Reactor these days), but they do exist. That kind of experience isn't the kind that's easy to pick up, and getting it in a highly condensed time frame to facilitate a career change can be a worthwhile investment. Source: graduate from one of said rare boot camps, and gainfully employed (not on the frontend, though many from my cohort chose that route as well)

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

> I know CompSci majors who graduated only knowing Java and who were totally lost if they had to replace a ram chip in a computer. The rest of your post notwithstanding, I don't see why a CompSci major should need to know how to replace a stick of ram.

djsumdog 7y ago
They don't need to. As astronomer doesn't need to know how to repair his or her own personal telescope either. But if you're into the field, it's nice to know how your tools work.
- cosmodisk 7y ago
  You may not know how to fix it but surely you'd know they have lenses inside,right?
heisenbit 7y ago
Would you hire such a person for embedded software work? Also having a feel for what can go wrong with RAM can be useful in case a computer acts up. Then there are details like price, speed and parity which may or may not play a role when it comes to hardware selection. And last but not least software security researchers have been seen using cooling sprays and taking out RAM bars to extract information from systems.
cosmodisk 7y ago
They should know it all: where the cpu and ram is, how the motherboard look like and etc. Nobody expects them to go out there and start fixing computers, however if someone spends 4 years studying the subject and can't even be asked to look inside the box,well then there's not much hope... A couple of weeks ago I was on the sales floor and was about to change RAM on a couple of PCs( it's not my job,just wanted to do it). The sales rep pulled the PC from underneath the desk, took the side cover off,removed the old ram and put the new one in.If sales can do it, I'm confident anyone in CompSci should be able to do so as well.
- 7y ago

mox1 7y ago

I'm currently teaching a Bootcamp by one of the major players in this space. 100% in classroom. On week 12 of 24. It's a side / fun job for me. Not my day job. While I disagree they are "crap", it's definitely a what you get out of it is what you put in situation. I have students who knew very little about the subject matter, put in a ton of effort and are rocking. I have other students who knew some, put in 0 effort, and are clearly struggling / stopped caring. I feel that I'm basically a long-term tour guide for the subject matter (Cyber Security in this case). I absolutely cannot teach the ins and outs of all aspects of the subject matter. I regularly remark "I could probably teach a class on this thing we spent 10 mins talking about". What I feel I can do (and actually do) is give them a subject or concept, introduce it, and let them run with it. I'm then available to answer any questions, provide lots and lots of anecdotes about the reality / theory of theses subjects. We definitely move fast and skip over more theoretical things...but I think the students want that. I spent 1 day talk about the OSI 7 layer model...in college I spent weeks learning about that.