A friend of mine was looking for a life change, and I suggested he try out Tech Elevator, with the caveat that I'd only heard the ads and thought it might be a

A friend of mine was looking for a life change, and I suggested he try out Tech Elevator, with the caveat that I'd only heard the ads and thought it might be a good thing to try out. It was ~$15k. He wasn't sure he could do it at all, but we wound up meeting about once a week to make sure he was on track, as I'm a programmer. It was challenging for him, but he made it through. I think the most powerful part of the bootcamps isn't necessarily the curriculum, but their ability to place you in a job afterward. This one boasted something like a 90%+ placement rate in the first ~6 months after completion. And, true to the ads, they placed him in a job! And he's been there since. I believe it's been well over a year now that he's done it. He learned a lot, too -- they really put him through the wringer. I watched him come to understand a lot of important concepts in a very short period of time. So so so. It's hard to say. I'd say definitely give a discerning eyeball to any of these bootcamps: what's their placement rate? What's the curriculum like? What will you actually learn? A big part of it for him was that he wasn't sure he wanted to be a programmer full-time. But then, if you really don't like it... just work until you pay your loan off, and you can try something new. I dunno. Ymmv of course, but when he went through it seemed like an awesome and worthwhile experience. Of course, this is anecdata. Keep reading and researching to make the right choice for you.