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Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

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Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#101

Post by sandworm101 »

killjoywashere wrote: post #16
polpo wrote: post #3

Whether you believe code schools are good or bad (I lean somewhat towards good), I wonder if we have not fully learned the lesson from the rash several years ago of fly-by-night for-profit colleges preying on vets and providing substandard education and inflated job promises, all on the GI Bill's dime. I worry that if the GI Bill was extended to code schools, we'd see the exact same thing happen again.

When I was general medical officer in the Navy, among other clinic duties, I did exit physicals for sailors, sometimes 20 a week. I would always try to talk to them about their plans for the future. Some seemed to be squared away. But I can't tell you how many times someone told me their plan was to take online classes from some sketchy school I'd never heard of. I'd google it with them, it would be some online unive…

I met many on the GI bill at my 'brick and mortar' school. They still did not do well. I honestly think people who have only known the military since highschool need a step down program to reintroduce them to civilian-style learning. The concept of sitting in a class for months then writing one all-or-nothing exam was terrifying. They needed constant reassurances that they were keep pace. They wanted weekly testing and assignments. They also had serious reading issues. They could read, but ask them to read more than a few pages of prose and they would zone out. Military manuals, like most highschool textbooks, are written in easily digestible packets, bullet points. University texts are not. Whereas most university students wouldn't have trouble tackling a few hundred pages over a weekend, I saw Iraq vets in apparent combat with books, veins pumping as if they were preparing for an assault.

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#102

Post by nradov »

RandomOpinion wrote: post #28
jlarocco wrote: post #15

"Coding schools" are a sham, and I'm glad they're not covered by the GI Bill. There's nothing stopping these veterans from going to a regular university, college, or community college and getting a real degree in computer science, software engineering, or a related field.

> There's nothing stopping these veterans from going to a regular university, college, or community college and getting a real degree in computer science, software engineering, or a related field. Nothing? Have a little empathy, buddy. While I have some sympathy for your opinion of coding bootcamps, just bear in mind that it's not easy giving up something you've been doing for a couple of decades and going back to co…

Citation needed. Where is your proof that mental flexibility is inversely correlated with age?

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#103

Post by narribbi »

ma2rten wrote: post #91
aphextron wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I worry that if the GI Bill was extended to code schools, we'd see the exact same thing happen again. This is dead on. I am a veteran currently going back to school for an engineering degree on the GI bill. When I got out of the service I didn't even consider going back to school, and just taught myself how to code and started working as a web developer. Once I made it to the point of working with other software en…

Many people think that most developers don't actually need CS (and much less math) fundamentals in their every-day work life. That's why coding interviews like big tech companies tend to do are controversial ("Why would an iOS developer need to able to balance a binary tree?"). Can you give some examples where you hid road blocks because of your lack of education?

Balancing a binary tree is just an algorithm, like there are so many. As a programmer, you have to design algorithms on the fly, quite a few of which may actually be harder than just balancing a binary tree. Algorithms emerge automatically from designing data structures; when you end up manipulating these data structures. In turn, data structures emerge naturally from trying to model particular problems. There are too many branches in mathematics modeling too many types of problems than anybody could know them all.

In that sense, asking a developer about how to balance a binary tree, is a dumb interview question.

He should only know, if he happened to have worked on exactly that type of problem, only yesterday or so.

The question is rather: If the following is the description of the algorithm to balance binary trees, show that you understand it by dealing with the details in the following examples.

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#104

Post by Swizec »

ma2rten wrote: post #91
aphextron wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I worry that if the GI Bill was extended to code schools, we'd see the exact same thing happen again. This is dead on. I am a veteran currently going back to school for an engineering degree on the GI bill. When I got out of the service I didn't even consider going back to school, and just taught myself how to code and started working as a web developer. Once I made it to the point of working with other software en…

Many people think that most developers don't actually need CS (and much less math) fundamentals in their every-day work life. That's why coding interviews like big tech companies tend to do are controversial ("Why would an iOS developer need to able to balance a binary tree?"). Can you give some examples where you hid road blocks because of your lack of education?

I use my CS knowledge all the time when building webapps. Not directly of course, but as a general feel for things.

Stuff like "Oh hey, this problem fits a state machine approach" and "I can reduce the complexity of this sprawling if statement by making a truth table and minifying stuff"

And the good old "What you're asking for maps onto so and so problem and is fundamentally unsolvable. Can we tweak the requirements?"

Sure, you're not inverting binary trees every day, but it's useful to be able to see where a binary tree would help you solve the problem.

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#105

Post by narribbi »

kyleschiller wrote: post #22
jcoffland wrote: post #10

All the resources to learn coding are freely available. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to make a buck.

There's a huge difference between the theoretical ability to learn something and actually having access to education. I completely agree that we're living at a time when anyone with a decent laptop and internet connection has access to the basic required materials, but learning something from scratch with minimal guidance is difficult, and the huge amount of mythologizing around programming has made it even worse. Bo…

> but learning something from scratch with minimal guidance is difficult

Unfortunately, that is the only real skill. Everything else you can learn by using exactly that.

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#106

Post by narribbi »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #65
abeyer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been self teaching since before online was a thing, and the materials available online today are vastly better and more complete than what was available pre-web. You could just as well argue that someone isn't qualified to offer an opinion if they didn't teach themselves to program from photocopied systems and hardware reference manuals. (That's the way some of us did.) There can be advantages to a formal…

The problem with self-teaching is that you don't know what you don't know, so you don't realise where the gaps in your knowledge are. There's quite a difference between programming, in the sense of knowing how to put (say) Python code together, and being a professional developer. The latter should include a whole extra set of analytical, algorithmic, social, and professional skills. In practice it may not - but it do…

> The problem with self-teaching is that you don't know what you don't know, so you don't realise where the gaps in your knowledge are.

That is why the only valid starting point is : the problem at hand and to solve.

From there, you can work your way back to what lack of knowledge prevents you from solving the problem.

If knowledge does not show up somewhere, assisting you while solving a problem, it is most likely useless knowledge and undoubtedly just a waste of time.

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#107

Post by lsjdfkljdfwkwdf »

muninn_ wrote: post #17
lsjdfkljdfwkwdf wrote: post #4

expecting the government to take care of you? where did your personal responsibility go?

Well even if you wanted to say that, part of the compensation package of joining the military is having school paid for afterward. So think of it as more of a contract, because it is.

Then you need to educate those uninformed to read their the fine prints. It is a "contract" that one party can unilaterally change the terms.

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#108

Post by bernardlunn »

polpo wrote: post #3

Whether you believe code schools are good or bad (I lean somewhat towards good), I wonder if we have not fully learned the lesson from the rash several years ago of fly-by-night for-profit colleges preying on vets and providing substandard education and inflated job promises, all on the GI Bill's dime. I worry that if the GI Bill was extended to code schools, we'd see the exact same thing happen again.

We need a revolution in EdTech as well. Something that leverages online MOOCS and flipped classrooms at the local level staffed by developers in the real world working on a volunteer basis. The tools are there, the will is there, why is this not happening?

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#109

Post by iak8god »

sandworm101 wrote: post #101
killjoywashere wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was general medical officer in the Navy, among other clinic duties, I did exit physicals for sailors, sometimes 20 a week. I would always try to talk to them about their plans for the future. Some seemed to be squared away. But I can't tell you how many times someone told me their plan was to take online classes from some sketchy school I'd never heard of. I'd google it with them, it would be some online unive…

I met many on the GI bill at my 'brick and mortar' school. They still did not do well. I honestly think people who have only known the military since highschool need a step down program to reintroduce them to civilian-style learning. The concept of sitting in a class for months then writing one all-or-nothing exam was terrifying. They needed constant reassurances that they were keep pace. They wanted weekly testing a…

> The concept of sitting in a class for months then writing one all-or-nothing exam was terrifying. They needed constant reassurances that they were keep pace. They wanted weekly testing and assignments. They also had serious reading issues. They could read, but ask them to read more than a few pages of prose and they would zone out.

This all sounds like pretty much every starting undergraduate student I've ever encountered.

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#110

Post by BWStearns »

polpo wrote: post #3

Whether you believe code schools are good or bad (I lean somewhat towards good), I wonder if we have not fully learned the lesson from the rash several years ago of fly-by-night for-profit colleges preying on vets and providing substandard education and inflated job promises, all on the GI Bill's dime. I worry that if the GI Bill was extended to code schools, we'd see the exact same thing happen again.

I despise the GI Bill scavengers disguised as schools, but that's no reason to not find a way to integrate boot camps into the offerings. There are still plenty of traditional schools that take GI bill money and provide basically no benefit. At least there will be built in skepticism when assessing code schools which may help weed out the shadier folks (even if it makes it a pain in the ass to get approved by the VA/state approvers).
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