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Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

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Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#11

Post by ryanSrich »

MattyRad wrote: post #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 coul…

When did you graduate? Between 2009 and 2013 my college cost was roughly $40k per year. This was about the average for similar schools (RIT). My wife went to a small liberal arts school during the same time and spent roughly $50k per year.

$20k seems like an incredible bargain, but my view is probably warped.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#12

Post by cwarrior »

aczerepinski wrote: post #7

Flatiron 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 wa…

How much was the tuition at Flatiron?

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#13

Post by vanessa98 »

shawndrost wrote: post #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 s…

Sounds like you owe the poster more than a beer

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#14

Post by analognoise »

shawndrost wrote: post #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 s…

"we charge $20k because the median student gets a ~$50k raise"

Horseshit alert if I've ever heard one.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#15

Post by paulmd »

49531 wrote: post #6

Honestly 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…

I didn't have any ability to follow my students' earnings but that '2-3 really great students per class' also correlates with my experience TA'ing CS110 students.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#16

Post by seangrogg »

Eh, I had a much better experience. But I don't chalk up my success to HR's curriculum nearly as much as I do the people (though getting exposure to Node.js has been a huge aspect of my life).

If you're going to any bootcamp/immersive and you're going for the curriculum all you're going to get out of it is the curriculum - which you could easily obtain from freecodecamp.com for... well... free. If you're going to go, you should be going for the people - your sprint partners, thesis groups, beer buddies, outcomes teams, tech leads, alumni network... that's what lasts after Hack Reactor and it yields dividends well beyond the (admittedly striking) sticker price.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#17

Post by gk1 »

aczerepinski wrote: post #7

Flatiron 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 wa…

> "$20k is indeed expensive, but it's only money."

That is a very substantial amount of cash for most people. Not to mention the time commitment. (As you say, life is short.)

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#18

Post by hoodoof »

This post reads like the author holds the school responsible for the students success. Programming does not work that way. You MUST make yourself successful. Even giving a minutes thought to a schools "result stats" entirely misses the point.

Taking this to the next level, I don't think people should be paying to go to any sort of coding school. Spend the money on a second monitor and living expenses and sit at home and work on building something real. There is no better, quicker or more effective way to learn, and every bit of knowledge that you need is published on the Internet for free.

Stop learning, start doing.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#19

Post by aczerepinski »

cwarrior wrote: post #12
aczerepinski wrote: post #7

Flatiron 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 wa…

How much was the tuition at Flatiron?

I think 15k plus living in NYC for a few months.
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