Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate
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Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate
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Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate
#2Thank you for sharing this. There needs to be a better system for bootcamp shoppers, but until then, these kinds of posts will probably save others lots of money.
Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate
#3The money is always in selling the shovel, not digging.
Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate
#4This is a great post and more of these are surely needed. I think the reason we don't see many graduates speaking out is because they feel it might "de-value" their degree which I totally understand.
However the lack of transparency with bootcamps is frightening. Especially regarding how much they charge. I'm not saying all of them are bad. In fact I think it is refreshing to that so many bootcamps popped up since now you have a lot of options. However there doesn't seem to be a lot of price warring yet which I find kind of odd.
Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate
#5I went to a bootcamp in 2014. I think it was detrimental. I came out of it depressed and wholly unequipped for the roles their marketing suggested I'd be ready for.
I don't recommend them.
Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate
#6Honestly I feel like the golden age of bootcamps is coming to an end. A lot of schools jumped into the market and it just seems like quality is dropping.
Having worked at a bootcamp as an instructor and having hired multiple bootcamp grads I've noticed that typically you'll have 2 or 3 really great students and then 20 who got little value from the program. Bootcamps work wonders for that small percentage of students though. A lot of people who had some pretty shitty career paths ended up going from $12.00/hr to $100,00/yr within a few years of the program.
That's life changing; sadly it's the exception, not the rule.
Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate
#7Flatiron School was nothing like this. We had long lectures every day by a great senior-level dev, and then review sessions with recent grads later in the day. It was a really polished curriculum, and a great environment to work hard in. $20k is indeed expensive, but it's only money. I used to do something I didn't love for a living and now I get to write code. Life is short. I'm thankful bootcamps exist and there was a path for me to transition into a challenging, engaging career.
I've been out for almost a year now. I hope they're still keeping the standards high.
Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate
#8$20,000 is about half of what my 4 year college education cost (although it's more expensive now, certainly). That seems incredibly expensive for a bootcamp. I'm obliged to ask what on earth that money is going towards, besides directly into somebody's pockets.
> Another observation, most people who get in, are already qualified people, with top university degrees.
I'm afraid to ask how large their student loans could be, this bootcamp included.
Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate
#9(I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor.)
It's always a bummer when an alum would not recommend the program. I hate reading posts like this and I'd love to buy the poster a beer and learn more so we can do it different next time. (Email is in profile!)
Here's a bit of inside baseball:
This post is representative of a troubled period at our school. We had a couple of overlapping key problems and recent alums have been less supportive of the school. We care and we've made big moves to fix it. 1) Candidates were gaming the admissions process -> we rewrote it. 2) Students only had access to 2014 data and didn't know how it was calculated -> we published our 2015 data (and some stuff on 2016) and we published the world's first guide to "how to publish employment statistics that aren't bullshit", and we ramped up messaging to students "expect that your job search might be harder".[A] 3) Students stopped knowing who we were and stopped feeling like they could trust us -> we bought back two leaders to focus full-time on the campus (vs working at the umbrella organization). Lots of smaller changes as well.
Even during this difficult period, students are generally having a great experience and getting an ROI that we are proud of. Our most recent NPS measurements have all been above 80, which is bonkers. (This means that nearly everyone is a 9 or a 10 on a 1-10 scale of "how likely are you to recommend HR to a friend?")
There are a lot of details in this post that I don't disagree with. Eg "Ironically the number of lectures drops dramatically after the first week." This is true and we tell students about it during w1. It's the correct design decision. Etc. For other students, those same details have added up to a different gestalt. We care and we try to fix things when things aren't adding up. The diagnosis is not linear (you can't just fix the problems that alums cite) but we listen and try to sort out the right decisions.
I empathize with a lot of things going on and I want recent alums to know we care. I also think it's bonkers that our 98% placement rate in 2015 (94% in 3 months, ~85%ish in 3 months for one recent cohort) is being cited like it's weak sauce. That's a towering accomplishment of staggering magnitude in my books, and we charge $20k because the median student gets a ~$50k raise and we employ lots of staff to make that happen.
[A] http://www.hackreactor.com/student-outcomes, http://reactorcore.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/StandardSt...
Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate
#10(I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor.) It's always a bummer when an alum would not recommend the program. I hate reading posts like this and I'd love to buy the poster a beer and learn more so we can do it different next time. (Email is in profile!) Here's a bit of inside baseball: This post is representative of a troubled period at our school. We had a couple of overlapping key problems and recent alums have been less s…
Have you considered a career in politics?