4 ms·

The whole for-profit code school thing has been giving me the creeps since I started hearing about it years ago, precisely because it's the potential employees

by zrail 11y ago

The whole for-profit code school thing has been giving me the creeps since I started hearing about it years ago, precisely because it's the potential employees paying for hyper-specific training. I wonder if there would be fewer outcries about a talent shortage if companies were somehow incentivized to hire these more junior people with the explicit goal of training them up to a productive level.

tertius 11y ago
This should be less risky for large corps like MS, IBM etc. I believe this may already be done?
- zrail 11y ago
  Depends on the company. I think it's done much less now than it was in the past. I know when I was hired into my first job in 2007 I barely knew their default programming language and definitely didn't know their in-house framework, so I spent the first two months in organized training and the next six or so in "on-the-job" training on a low priority production system.
linkregister 11y ago
My opinion is divided about the "pay-to-play" model of workers paying for their own training. On one hand, they assume all the risk and financial hardship of training. On the other hand, compared to other developed economies (British, Australian), they have more opportunities to change careers because the risk of training has already been assumed by the worker. I've found that American hiring is far more flexible than the Commonwealth tradition of jockeying for an apprenticeship. And older workers have far less opportunity for apprenticeships. It's hard to defend the code schools though. There are a high amount of horror stories we hear about them on HN, from both the students' and hiring managers' perspectives.
- mseebach 11y ago
  > There are a high amount of horror stories we hear about them on HN, from both the students' and hiring managers' perspectives. Can you link to them? I'm trying to do due diligence on some of them, but haven't been able to find much at all of substance. I'm specifically interested in Maker's Academy in London.
  - linkregister 11y ago
    Just going from what I remembered reading, here are the ones that stood out the most. Comments vary from supporters to detractors. Ask HN threads I found interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8844848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8844848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7147664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7147664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9616691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9616691 The one I really wanted to find, which accompanied an article about some students who felt scammed by their bootcamp, is eluding me right now. It was an interesting article about how the students were required to post misleading stories on social media that made the school look better than it was. Edit: I found out why it was hard to find; it was taken down. Here's the link to the comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9492381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9492381
pjungwir 11y ago
Today's code schools may be new, but not code schools in general. Riding on the T in Boston 2000-2005 I saw plenty of advertisements for courses in Java, XML, etc. I always assumed those were low-quality classes for low-quality programmers. Nowadays the code schools teach Node.js and TDD, and their branding is more hip. I hope the quality has increased (of both instruction and students), but I still see it as a continuation of the training classes that have always been out there. Not the same people (I think), but the same market need.
skylark 11y ago
It's a tough situation. It's hard to identify people who have no background in computer science, but still have tons of potential if given the opportunity. Coding bootcamps exist to bridge that gap - in a sense, you can think of them as recruitment agencies and not as learning institutions. The goal isn't to replace a 4 year degree with 3 months of intense learning. That's simply not possible. The goal is to find smart, motivated people who can learn quickly, give them a skill which will let them hit the ground running, and present them to companies. Companies benefit because they get a low cost hire who has the potential to grow tremendously if given the right environment. Employees benefit because they can typically enter the workforce at a higher salary than they could command from self-study alone. Win-win all around. The key takeaway is that for-profit code schools are not schools. Code schools are primarily recruitment agencies designed to find high quality, non traditional talent. In that regard, I think the best ones are an absolute success.

by zrail 11y ago

tertius 11y ago

This should be less risky for large corps like MS, IBM etc. I believe this may already be done?

zrail 11y ago
Depends on the company. I think it's done much less now than it was in the past. I know when I was hired into my first job in 2007 I barely knew their default programming language and definitely didn't know their in-house framework, so I spent the first two months in organized training and the next six or so in "on-the-job" training on a low priority production system.

linkregister 11y ago

My opinion is divided about the "pay-to-play" model of workers paying for their own training. On one hand, they assume all the risk and financial hardship of training. On the other hand, compared to other developed economies (British, Australian), they have more opportunities to change careers because the risk of training has already been assumed by the worker. I've found that American hiring is far more flexible than the Commonwealth tradition of jockeying for an apprenticeship. And older workers have far less opportunity for apprenticeships. It's hard to defend the code schools though. There are a high amount of horror stories we hear about them on HN, from both the students' and hiring managers' perspectives.

mseebach 11y ago
> There are a high amount of horror stories we hear about them on HN, from both the students' and hiring managers' perspectives. Can you link to them? I'm trying to do due diligence on some of them, but haven't been able to find much at all of substance. I'm specifically interested in Maker's Academy in London.
- linkregister 11y ago
  Just going from what I remembered reading, here are the ones that stood out the most. Comments vary from supporters to detractors. Ask HN threads I found interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8844848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8844848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7147664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7147664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9616691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9616691 The one I really wanted to find, which accompanied an article about some students who felt scammed by their bootcamp, is eluding me right now. It was an interesting article about how the students were required to post misleading stories on social media that made the school look better than it was. Edit: I found out why it was hard to find; it was taken down. Here's the link to the comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9492381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9492381

pjungwir 11y ago

Today's code schools may be new, but not code schools in general. Riding on the T in Boston 2000-2005 I saw plenty of advertisements for courses in Java, XML, etc. I always assumed those were low-quality classes for low-quality programmers. Nowadays the code schools teach Node.js and TDD, and their branding is more hip. I hope the quality has increased (of both instruction and students), but I still see it as a continuation of the training classes that have always been out there. Not the same people (I think), but the same market need.

skylark 11y ago

It's a tough situation. It's hard to identify people who have no background in computer science, but still have tons of potential if given the opportunity. Coding bootcamps exist to bridge that gap - in a sense, you can think of them as recruitment agencies and not as learning institutions. The goal isn't to replace a 4 year degree with 3 months of intense learning. That's simply not possible. The goal is to find smart, motivated people who can learn quickly, give them a skill which will let them hit the ground running, and present them to companies. Companies benefit because they get a low cost hire who has the potential to grow tremendously if given the right environment. Employees benefit because they can typically enter the workforce at a higher salary than they could command from self-study alone. Win-win all around. The key takeaway is that for-profit code schools are not schools. Code schools are primarily recruitment agencies designed to find high quality, non traditional talent. In that regard, I think the best ones are an absolute success.