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I completely disagree. I went to Hack Reactor in 2013 and the ROI was fantastic. I really leveled up my JavaScript and coding skills in general and ended up dr

I completely disagree. I went to Hack Reactor in 2013 and the ROI was fantastic. I really leveled up my JavaScript and coding skills in general and ended up dramatically increasing my earning power. I was hired about a week after graduating and just the signing bonus paid most my tuition. If I ever see a similar kind of school for the next skill I want to build, I'll probably enroll. That said, I've heard some of the Lambda School claims and don't believe they're honest. Vincent Woo did some solid reporting on Lambda.

andrewzah 6y ago
I don't disagree that some of these bootcamps teach some knowledge and lead to jobs afterwards. But what you're really paying for is networking. Even junior development work requires a fairly robust set of knowledge, that isn't going to be grokked within 6 weeks or even 3 months (unless they were already familiar with computing/unix etc). That model only works for companies that are willing to onboard -very- green junior developers and mentor them long-term. You can accomplish the same thing by following courses/books online, making a handful of projects on github to show interviewers, and networking at conferences/meetups. That's how I landed my first part-time job with programming, and then my first full-time job.
- greenie_beans 6y ago
  People learn differently. Not everybody can learn on their own, especially not when encountering something like programming. I went to a bootcamp and the network isn't what I paid for. The network hasn't given me much at all. I had a mix of previous self-learning experience, and decided to do a bootcamp to get more serious about it. It was definitely beneficial and the investment paid of 5x within two years.
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  > But what you're really paying for is networking. When I went, there was no network. Nobody had ever graduated from the school yet. Nearly 100% of what I got from the school was hard skills.

andrewzah 6y ago

I don't disagree that some of these bootcamps teach some knowledge and lead to jobs afterwards. But what you're really paying for is networking. Even junior development work requires a fairly robust set of knowledge, that isn't going to be grokked within 6 weeks or even 3 months (unless they were already familiar with computing/unix etc). That model only works for companies that are willing to onboard -very- green junior developers and mentor them long-term. You can accomplish the same thing by following courses/books online, making a handful of projects on github to show interviewers, and networking at conferences/meetups. That's how I landed my first part-time job with programming, and then my first full-time job.

greenie_beans 6y ago
People learn differently. Not everybody can learn on their own, especially not when encountering something like programming. I went to a bootcamp and the network isn't what I paid for. The network hasn't given me much at all. I had a mix of previous self-learning experience, and decided to do a bootcamp to get more serious about it. It was definitely beneficial and the investment paid of 5x within two years.
AlchemistCamp 6y ago
> But what you're really paying for is networking. When I went, there was no network. Nobody had ever graduated from the school yet. Nearly 100% of what I got from the school was hard skills.