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Community colleges could probably do it for cheaper, but they probably wouldn't do it as well. Most colleges are really terrible as teaching relevant material.

Community colleges could probably do it for cheaper, but they probably wouldn't do it as well. Most colleges are really terrible as teaching relevant material. My friend learned more about coding from 4 months of FlatIron than I learned going to a prestigious state school for 4 years.

alistairSH 5y ago
But coding (literally coding) is a small fraction of a software engineers job. I hope you came away from your 4 years with the tools to learn & investigate, communicate, design systems, all with a heaping side of general education you might not have otherwise obtained. Not to mention a background in OS, database, programming languages, etc that there’s no possible way to cover in a boot camp. If none of that happened, then you did get ripped off. Most four year degrees shouldn’t be viewed as jobs programs. Yes, they’ve effectively become that, but that’s a mistake, IMO. Exceptions would be true professional programs (engineering leading to a PE, nursing, etc).
- bdcravens 5y ago
  Even limiting the college discussion to technology, most CS students will be discovering their interests and talents during that time, dabbling in different languages, not just learning one curated stack. (Every developer will shift language focus at some point in their career; discovering the how and why is important) Many may take on internships. That said, I think there's a place for essentially "assembly line" developers. However, the income and career trajectory will reflect that, and that's not the dream they are being sold.
  - alistairSH 5y ago
    That said, I think there's a place for essentially "assembly line" developers. However, the income and career trajectory will reflect that, and that's not the dream they are being sold. This is fair. And I’d argue for a 2-year degree here. Or, employer-run apprenticeships. The for-profit boot camp, like much of the for-profit college industry, is mostly just an awful industry that shouldn’t exist.
  - JamesBarney 5y ago
    What's an assembly line developer?
    - alistairSH 5y ago
      Somebody who builds basic CRUD business applications over and over. Not everybody is building the next Google or Uber or solving complex technical problems.
- JamesBarney 5y ago
  I don't know what coding jobs you've had by mine have all been > than 75% writing code, reading code, reviewing code, talking about what code we should write, talking about how to organize the code, supervising someone else writing code, etc... There is the part where you talk to someone to figure out what you need to code. And that parts important but defense wasn't taught at my university. to learn & investigate, communicate I did not take a learning and investigation course in my CS program, not did I take a communication course. design systems Are there good books that teach you how to design systems in general? How to build a good chat app, vs EMR app vs a good embedded code is completely different. So every book or article I've seen on design is so abstract to be useless, or very focused on a subdomain. Not to mention a background in OS Honestly this hasn't really ever come in handy. I'm sure someone can come up with a time or too it was helpful but I'd trade all my knowledge about OS's for better understanding of CSS. database Learned a little about databases from a 6 month course but equal or less than amount my friend learned from a boot camp. programming languages I had experience with a bunch of esoteric languages like Haskell, lisp, but I didn't know any language well. We didnt learn anything about JavaScript. Things he learned that I didn't, how to use an ORM, how to build a web application, how to use libraries and frameworks, how to use ruby on rails, JavaScript, react, css. Overall we learned a similar amount of useful stuff, but he did it in 4 months for 10k and it took me 4 years and 100k. Why is it a mistake to view them as job applications? Maybe you want to take out 100k in debt to just learn interesting things about computers, but i did it because i wanted a career.
dcchambers 5y ago
FWIW, most community colleges/technical schools work directly with employers in their region to figure out what kinds of skills they are looking for and build their curriculums around that. They change much faster than 4-year schools. Their goal is to graduate people with practical skills that can get jobs quickly. For 2 year programming degrees, this usually means directly teaching popular frameworks and programming paradigms like MVC, APIs, or mobile app development. Those graduates won't be able to answer many questions about algorithms, compilers, or how Unix works, but they will be able to build a basic rails application or react website immediately. Traditional comp sci degrees are not set up like that at all. Yes, you'll learn to program. But your university might offer ONE class on web development, or mobile development, etc. Comp sci degrees are really math/theory degrees...not focused much in the way of practical software engineering skills.

alistairSH 5y ago

But coding (literally coding) is a small fraction of a software engineers job. I hope you came away from your 4 years with the tools to learn & investigate, communicate, design systems, all with a heaping side of general education you might not have otherwise obtained. Not to mention a background in OS, database, programming languages, etc that there’s no possible way to cover in a boot camp. If none of that happened, then you did get ripped off. Most four year degrees shouldn’t be viewed as jobs programs. Yes, they’ve effectively become that, but that’s a mistake, IMO. Exceptions would be true professional programs (engineering leading to a PE, nursing, etc).

bdcravens 5y ago
Even limiting the college discussion to technology, most CS students will be discovering their interests and talents during that time, dabbling in different languages, not just learning one curated stack. (Every developer will shift language focus at some point in their career; discovering the how and why is important) Many may take on internships. That said, I think there's a place for essentially "assembly line" developers. However, the income and career trajectory will reflect that, and that's not the dream they are being sold.
- alistairSH 5y ago
  That said, I think there's a place for essentially "assembly line" developers. However, the income and career trajectory will reflect that, and that's not the dream they are being sold. This is fair. And I’d argue for a 2-year degree here. Or, employer-run apprenticeships. The for-profit boot camp, like much of the for-profit college industry, is mostly just an awful industry that shouldn’t exist.
- JamesBarney 5y ago
  What's an assembly line developer?
  - alistairSH 5y ago
    Somebody who builds basic CRUD business applications over and over. Not everybody is building the next Google or Uber or solving complex technical problems.
JamesBarney 5y ago
I don't know what coding jobs you've had by mine have all been > than 75% writing code, reading code, reviewing code, talking about what code we should write, talking about how to organize the code, supervising someone else writing code, etc... There is the part where you talk to someone to figure out what you need to code. And that parts important but defense wasn't taught at my university. to learn & investigate, communicate I did not take a learning and investigation course in my CS program, not did I take a communication course. design systems Are there good books that teach you how to design systems in general? How to build a good chat app, vs EMR app vs a good embedded code is completely different. So every book or article I've seen on design is so abstract to be useless, or very focused on a subdomain. Not to mention a background in OS Honestly this hasn't really ever come in handy. I'm sure someone can come up with a time or too it was helpful but I'd trade all my knowledge about OS's for better understanding of CSS. database Learned a little about databases from a 6 month course but equal or less than amount my friend learned from a boot camp. programming languages I had experience with a bunch of esoteric languages like Haskell, lisp, but I didn't know any language well. We didnt learn anything about JavaScript. Things he learned that I didn't, how to use an ORM, how to build a web application, how to use libraries and frameworks, how to use ruby on rails, JavaScript, react, css. Overall we learned a similar amount of useful stuff, but he did it in 4 months for 10k and it took me 4 years and 100k. Why is it a mistake to view them as job applications? Maybe you want to take out 100k in debt to just learn interesting things about computers, but i did it because i wanted a career.

dcchambers 5y ago

FWIW, most community colleges/technical schools work directly with employers in their region to figure out what kinds of skills they are looking for and build their curriculums around that. They change much faster than 4-year schools. Their goal is to graduate people with practical skills that can get jobs quickly. For 2 year programming degrees, this usually means directly teaching popular frameworks and programming paradigms like MVC, APIs, or mobile app development. Those graduates won't be able to answer many questions about algorithms, compilers, or how Unix works, but they will be able to build a basic rails application or react website immediately. Traditional comp sci degrees are not set up like that at all. Yes, you'll learn to program. But your university might offer ONE class on web development, or mobile development, etc. Comp sci degrees are really math/theory degrees...not focused much in the way of practical software engineering skills.