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Show HN: App Academy Open – Free Online Coding Bootcamp

open.appacademy.io

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Re: Show HN: App Academy Open – Free Online Coding Bootcamp

#12

Post by byproxy »

CesareBorgia wrote: post #2

Hey all! We launched App Academy on HN 6 years ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4505752 ), and since then a lot’s happened. We’ve graduated and placed thousands of folks as engineers and actually placed more people as software engineers at Google (30 vs 22) than UC Berkeley has since 2016! Today, we are fulfilling a dream that I’ve had for some time: to put the whole curriculum online, for free. We’ve built…

What does the paid service offer that this free one doesn't? I'm assuming career guidance/placement. If that's the case, will completing this free offering still grant me access to a better career?

Re: Show HN: App Academy Open – Free Online Coding Bootcamp

#13

Post by skinnymuch »

Almost all the work hours (vast majority) seem to be for the projects in the sections I looked at that I’m interested in. But the projects are almost entirely done on your own with little guidance. For a project that’s supposed to take 6 hours for example, maybe the equivalent of 2 pages of content is given for it. I was hoping it would be more involved than that.

Still great to release the content of course!

Re: Show HN: App Academy Open – Free Online Coding Bootcamp

#14

Post by skinnymuch »

byproxy wrote: post #12
CesareBorgia wrote: post #2

Hey all! We launched App Academy on HN 6 years ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4505752 ), and since then a lot’s happened. We’ve graduated and placed thousands of folks as engineers and actually placed more people as software engineers at Google (30 vs 22) than UC Berkeley has since 2016! Today, we are fulfilling a dream that I’ve had for some time: to put the whole curriculum online, for free. We’ve built…

What does the paid service offer that this free one doesn't? I'm assuming career guidance/placement. If that's the case, will completing this free offering still grant me access to a better career?

Free version teaches you things. Just like many other resources of self-learning. In that way it gives you access to a better career. Not sure what else you might mean.

Re: Show HN: App Academy Open – Free Online Coding Bootcamp

#15

Post by byproxy »

skinnymuch wrote: post #14
byproxy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does the paid service offer that this free one doesn't? I'm assuming career guidance/placement. If that's the case, will completing this free offering still grant me access to a better career?

Free version teaches you things. Just like many other resources of self-learning. In that way it gives you access to a better career. Not sure what else you might mean.

Yes, of course. I wasn't trying to denigrate that aspect. Just wondering if there were any other perks the paid version provides.

Re: Show HN: App Academy Open – Free Online Coding Bootcamp

#16

Post by CesareBorgia »

byproxy wrote: post #12
CesareBorgia wrote: post #2

Hey all! We launched App Academy on HN 6 years ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4505752 ), and since then a lot’s happened. We’ve graduated and placed thousands of folks as engineers and actually placed more people as software engineers at Google (30 vs 22) than UC Berkeley has since 2016! Today, we are fulfilling a dream that I’ve had for some time: to put the whole curriculum online, for free. We’ve built…

What does the paid service offer that this free one doesn't? I'm assuming career guidance/placement. If that's the case, will completing this free offering still grant me access to a better career?

We have 2 paid options. The mentorship option is a $29.99/month subscription to a Slack channel (i.e. chat room) with one or more App Academy instructional staff 60 hours a week (M-F 6AM-6PM). If it sounds like an insanely good deal, that's because it is :) The placement based plan is the same experience as our full-time, in-person course, but online. You get instructional support, live q&a, pair programming, career support, etc. On this option, we don't get paid until you find a job, so we keep fighting until you do. In that case, it's 17% of your salary for two years, up to $30k total.

Re: Show HN: App Academy Open – Free Online Coding Bootcamp

#17

Post by anonymous5133 »

bruceb wrote: post #6

The quote from the learner: "I learned more real-world skills in 12 weeks than my Stanford degree taught me" reminds me of that both ways penguin meme. On one hand shows App Academy is "better" than Stanford. On the other hand to be successful one already has to have a degree from a top 3 school. That being said nice job having the materials available for free

That's because we live in the old way of thinking (degree = smart, no degree = you are an idiot). Overtime, I can see that way of thinking slowly degrading, especially as more people are exposed to high-quality online courses.

Re: Show HN: App Academy Open – Free Online Coding Bootcamp

#18

Post by Kaveren »

> "I learned more real-world skills in 12 weeks than my Stanford degree taught me."

I'd hope the author of that quote was paying very little attention, because I find this hard to swallow.

My problem with these programming bootcamps is that they seem almost more focused on a shallow but fun dive than teaching people thoroughly. That's not problematic in it of itself if it gets people interested, but I'd hunch a guess that most of the graduates of these bootcamps are not going on to self-study more intensely after.

In my opinion, these bootcamps generally teach you to be a barely average web developer. If you are sufficiently self-motivating, self-study is a great idea, but you don't need a bootcamp for this.

I'm not one to judge people on whether or not they have a degree, but I think there is real value in an equivalent curriculum for self-studying.

If I have the choice to hire someone fresh out of a web development bootcamp and someone who was self-studying compiler design, I'm hiring the compiler design person every time, even if it's a web development job.

I don't know why this is teaching jQuery anymore. But why do you need this course for JavaScript when you have the excellent MDN guides for beginners to use? I think people are afraid of reading and prefer to be spoonfed.

If you want mentorship, there's usually a good subreddit, Discord or Slack server that doesn't cost you $30 / month.

I'm just extremely skeptical of the value that any of these bootcamps bring. AppAcademy appears to bring good results for hiring, but I don't believe that it's the most effective method of learning.

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