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Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

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Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#101

Post by hrgradaswell »

analognoise wrote: post #14
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.

chiming in here - i went from making salary ~80k at google in a non tech role, to 106k salary at a start up working remotely. i'd say with all the benefits at google, i probably made more with bonus, stock, and perks, but i'm happier now with what i'm doing - my work is more fulfilling. the investment i made in HR was worth it to me.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#102

Post by b_t_s »

stevewilhelm wrote: post #47
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…

UC Davis tuition is currently $14,046 a year.

There are plenty of state schools where 30 grand or so will get you a BS in CS. 15 years ago when I went that route it only cost 20k. That makes 20k for what's effectively one semester seem pretty pricy. Still I suppose it's the same as a semester at a expensive private college.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#103

Post by davegonzalez »

analognoise wrote: post #14
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.

another HR06 grad here. worked as a customer support rep making $43k/year to $110k/year + 5k signing bonus right out of Hack Reactor.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#104

Post by neaumusic »

yompers888 wrote: post #75
mageemooney wrote: post #53

Full disclosure: I am part of the instruction team at Hack Reactor. This amazing team that I work with are completely committed to our students, their experience and their success. I have colleagues who almost don't go home, who work weekends, obsess over how to help our students succeed. We lose sleep. We worry. Truth is, I find the tone of this article dismaying knowing what these remarkable people do for our stude…

>"...the most vindictive account of a student's experience at Hack Reactor ..." You give yourself so much benefit of the doubt, but offer none to the author, who you've decided is out to get Hack Reactor? That one swipe at the former student is more concerning than the rest of your comment is reassuring, to me. An alternative reading of the situation, if you're not seeing one: the author has attempted to better herse…

OP is unhappy with HR, though the school is top notch

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#105

Post by neaumusic »

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…

this is exactly what HR is like... just because someone breaks up with their girlfriend and goes on a rant doesn't mean the school actually sucks

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#106

Post by ns42 »

gk1 wrote: post #24
vanessa98 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you owe the poster more than a beer

Seriously. The author feels as though they've lost $20k and months of their time, and the co-founder thinks the right response is to offer a beer and a chat.

The author also landed a job paying 6 figures after the program. To me it sounds like she got exactly what she paid for, the process just wasn't as perfectly amazing as she had hoped. She claims she could've done it without the program, but that's a pretty easy claim to make with no way of backing it.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#107

Post by davegonzalez »

sixtypoundhound wrote: post #73

Ouch! As a hiring manager, the "Javascript only" model is a serious roadblock. Nothing against node.js, but a candidate would be marketable to a broader range of shops if the program gave them a basic grounding in Python and SQL. Python is well accepted for both web servers and sysadmin type scripting. SQL is the most common choice for databases. I don't think either one would be a incremental burden and would really…

"a candidate would be marketable to a broader range of shops if the program gave them a basic grounding in #{LANGUAGE} and #{DB}"

Seems like people fail to realize that the language is the medium through which they teach concepts (algorithms, data structures, etc).

I'm an HR06 grad; we focused on fullstack Javascript, but that hasn't stopped me from working in Ruby/Rails, or more recently, Go.

Beyond that, we did actually have lectures/sprints on MySql, Postgresql and Mongodb. Not sure if that's changed at all.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#108

Post by azat_co »

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…

Creating a dev bootcamp is not easy. I was there in almost the very beginning as a guest instructor. It's hard. Hack Reactor did a great job overall. It helped change the lives of many. The ROI is 200-300% over traditional CS degrees.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#109

Post by MattyRad »

ryanSrich wrote: post #11
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.

2009-2013 as well, (accredited) state school (of which I am a resident), cost me a little less than $10,000 per year for a Computer Engineering degree. However, my junior year, engineering classes level 300 and above increased by 25%, continually increasing per year until they were 100% more expensive. I narrowly dodged that bullet.

Perhaps the west coast is cheaper? $50,000 per year seems like lunacy to me.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#110

Post by trednas »

analognoise wrote: post #14
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.

Hack Reactor Cohort 32 graduate here -- 50k bump in salary
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