Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why are there so few reviews for coding bootcamps?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 49 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few reviews for coding bootcamps?

#21

Post by Terr_ »

skyyler wrote: post #11

Kind of relevant: Are bootcamps worth it? I'm looking to get into programming, but I have a full time support job right now that I need to be able to live and eat. I can save my money and do a bootcamp, or I could learn how to program in my downtime. I'm not sure which route to go through. My friend did a local bootcamp and now he's doing ASP.NET work and loves it! I'm just scared of doing that specific one because I…

I think the answer to this depends on how much experience or practice you already have with programming.

It sounds like you're just starting out and you're nervous about your situation. In that case, I'd focus on a bit of simple private learning that will help prime you to get more out of any bootcamp or formal-learning stuff you may do later.

For example, set up a basic Python interpreter, grab one of those "teach yourself" books from the library, and at least run through using basic building-blocks like algebra, if-then conditionals, looping, functions, etc. It doesn't matter too much what language you use.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few reviews for coding bootcamps?

#22

Post by jefft255 »

skyyler wrote: post #11

Kind of relevant: Are bootcamps worth it? I'm looking to get into programming, but I have a full time support job right now that I need to be able to live and eat. I can save my money and do a bootcamp, or I could learn how to program in my downtime. I'm not sure which route to go through. My friend did a local bootcamp and now he's doing ASP.NET work and loves it! I'm just scared of doing that specific one because I…

It depends what kind of job you've got now. If it's technical, let's say engineering or science, data analysis etc... , then you can learn how to code on your own and build something that you can show to potential employers. You'll need a certification or something if you have no prior experience in a technical field.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few reviews for coding bootcamps?

#23

Post by throwaway847027 »

A number of employers (at least in SV) are so biased against bootcamps that the only sensible course of action is to pretend it never happened as soon as is feasible.

If you review a bootcamp, you risk a permanent association with having attended a bootcamp.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few reviews for coding bootcamps?

#24

Post by davegonzalez »

accountatwork wrote: post #20
FireBeyond wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As good as the course sounds, and though it's small fish in the grand scheme, this turns me off: "Also, you get this hoodie for writing a review so...)" - http://www.yelp.com/biz/hack-reactor-san-francisco?hrid=mVJT...

That's shady. Normally, there's a bias such that people who are disgruntled are more likely to post a review than people who had a good experience. If you take that bias into account, a 4 star rating is pretty good, 5 stars is excellent, and so on. But if you flip that bias on its head, 5 stars becomes a mediocre rating. That's ok if you've disclosed what you've done, but out of 165 reviews only one mentions that peo…

Disclosure; I graduated from Hack Reactor in October 2013.

The lack of negative reviews may seem strange, but I genuinely believe that everyone who has written about HR does so in a sincere manner (whether it be positive or negative). I can understand how it seems shady, but with a $17k tuition, a "free" hoodie is not enough to sway a review one way or the other.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few reviews for coding bootcamps?

#25

Post by jrumbut »

afarrell wrote: post #12
skyyler wrote: post #11

Kind of relevant: Are bootcamps worth it? I'm looking to get into programming, but I have a full time support job right now that I need to be able to live and eat. I can save my money and do a bootcamp, or I could learn how to program in my downtime. I'm not sure which route to go through. My friend did a local bootcamp and now he's doing ASP.NET work and loves it! I'm just scared of doing that specific one because I…

> learn to program in my downtime The hard part here is curation of resources and environment setup.

It's funny to hear that because I just typed "learn to code" into Google and the first page (ads included!) are all fine and mostly free resources, many requiring only a web browser to start.

Just 10 or 15 years ago the process was completely opaque, a lot of books in your local store had omissions or bugs that made them impossible to follow, it was a seriously frustrating process unless you stumbled into the right community, were a genius, or had lots of guidance.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few reviews for coding bootcamps?

#26

Post by vyrotek »

skyyler wrote: post #11

Kind of relevant: Are bootcamps worth it? I'm looking to get into programming, but I have a full time support job right now that I need to be able to live and eat. I can save my money and do a bootcamp, or I could learn how to program in my downtime. I'm not sure which route to go through. My friend did a local bootcamp and now he's doing ASP.NET work and loves it! I'm just scared of doing that specific one because I…

Which bootcamp did your friend attend? Did they teach your friend .NET at the bootcamp? I love the .NET ecosystem and even have a company built on it. I'd love to learn more about bootcamps that expose new developers to .NET.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few reviews for coding bootcamps?

#27

Post by xiaoma »

I wrote a fairly detailed review on my blog. http://logicmason.com/2013/hack-reactor-review-life-at-a-hac...

It lead to several sites emailing me and asking me to write a review or to link to their sites. Here is what I wrote to coursereport:

>By completely ignoring the issue of student outcomes, your resource does prospective students a disservice. How about listing average salaries, listing graduation rates, linking to yelp profiles and linking to student directories for those schools confident enough in their outcomes to share them?

I hadn't looked at any of these sites in a long time, but to the best of my knowledge, very little has changed. They offer a comparison only of the costs of the various options, not the value. The person who emailed me did seem to express some vague interest in adding that kind of information later but two years later it's still not there.

At least for me, the main reason I avoided the "bootcamp review" sites is that I didn't feel any would have given me useful guidance as a prospect (whereas Quora, Yelp and HN threads would have if they'd been around when I applied).

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few reviews for coding bootcamps?

#28

Post by jhylau »

xiaoma wrote: post #27

I wrote a fairly detailed review on my blog. http://logicmason.com/2013/hack-reactor-review-life-at-a-hac... It lead to several sites emailing me and asking me to write a review or to link to their sites. Here is what I wrote to coursereport: > By completely ignoring the issue of student outcomes, your resource does prospective students a disservice. How about listing average salaries, listing graduation rates, linki…

Disclaimer: I run switchup.org

The reason we don't have average salaries and grad rates is because the only org publishing that is the school itself. Can we trust that number? Has it been reviewed/audited by a third-party? Only one school does that and we report their number on the site.

However, we constantly publish data on industry trends and overall placement rates and job stats to help guide the conversation. https://www.switchup.org/research/coding-bootcamp-survey

We do have independent school by school database of job outcomes based on our independent surveys, but sample sizes are generally small and we are not at liberty to disclose school specific info.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few reviews for coding bootcamps?

#29

Post by skyyler »

Terr_ wrote: post #21
skyyler wrote: post #11

Kind of relevant: Are bootcamps worth it? I'm looking to get into programming, but I have a full time support job right now that I need to be able to live and eat. I can save my money and do a bootcamp, or I could learn how to program in my downtime. I'm not sure which route to go through. My friend did a local bootcamp and now he's doing ASP.NET work and loves it! I'm just scared of doing that specific one because I…

I think the answer to this depends on how much experience or practice you already have with programming. It sounds like you're just starting out and you're nervous about your situation. In that case, I'd focus on a bit of simple private learning that will help prime you to get more out of any bootcamp or formal-learning stuff you may do later. For example, set up a basic Python interpreter, grab one of those "teach y…

I am pretty much just starting out. I took a few classes in high school and I've done some really minor projects since then, but I'd definitely still call myself a complete noobie.

I've been considering trying out Learn Python the Hard Way, it comes up in pretty much every "I want to learn programming" thread on /g/.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few reviews for coding bootcamps?

#30

Post by skyyler »

vyrotek wrote: post #26
skyyler wrote: post #11

Kind of relevant: Are bootcamps worth it? I'm looking to get into programming, but I have a full time support job right now that I need to be able to live and eat. I can save my money and do a bootcamp, or I could learn how to program in my downtime. I'm not sure which route to go through. My friend did a local bootcamp and now he's doing ASP.NET work and loves it! I'm just scared of doing that specific one because I…

Which bootcamp did your friend attend? Did they teach your friend .NET at the bootcamp? I love the .NET ecosystem and even have a company built on it. I'd love to learn more about bootcamps that expose new developers to .NET.

"The Software Guild" in Akron, Ohio. Here's a copy/paste of his review of them, I tried to get him to comment here but he's a little busy.

"I was an apprentice in the Software Craftsmanship Guild's .NET cohort in August 2014. Eric Wise is definitely one of the best teachers I've ever had, as well as one of the coolest people I've come to know. His 15 years of development experience in many aspects of development shows in all of his work. Combined with his devotion to his students and seemingly endless energy creates a unique and exciting classroom experience. He's /always/ available for questions and advice on Skype or Email, even after we graduate from the course. The PowerPoint slides are an incredible resource that we get to keep to review in the future. It gives us not only the necessary information, but the best practices for many common problems we face in coding in an easy to navigate package. They're so great that they are being licensed by colleges to be incorporated into their curriculum.

One of the most valuable parts of the course, in my opinion, was the job placement "speed-dating". At the beginning of the 9th week, the guild brought in 25 companies, and had us Apprentices sign up for 15 minute interviews with as many companies as we wanted and could schedule. This allowed me to get a lot of face-to-face interview experience, and it took pretty much all of the stress of job searching out of the equation. I mean, they literally put the hiring managers in front of you. It can't be any easier than that. From those short interviews, I had multiple full-length interviews with several companies I was interested in, and accepted a position at the end of week 11.

As of the last day of classes, we 87% of apprentices that chose to stay in the area have accepted positions, and I have no doubt that my out-of-state classmates will find positions quickly.

I don't have a single complaint. I've made friends for life, learned an incredible amount of material, and accepted a position making nearly triple my previous wages. They did everything they advertised, and I enjoyed every minute of it."

Post reply on HN