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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

#131

Post by crdoconnor »

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?

Weirdly they seem to ask the CS fundamentals that aren't as relevant (algorithms) and skip those that are (e.g. the relational model, data structures (uses of), type theory, formal grammar).

I wouldn't say that you don't need it, but I would say that most companies ask about the wrong bits.

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

#132

Post by grogenaut »

jhbadger wrote: post #114
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'm from Wisconsin and am currently reading "Janesville: An American Story", which is about the city of Janesville, WI and what happened when the GM auto plant closed in 2008. A lot of subsidies went to retraining the unemployed factory workers because that's supposedly how you are supposed to treat factory closings. But it turns out that when you compare the salaries of the workers who went back to school (tech scho…

Got any sources for that from the book I can peek at?

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

#133

Post by grogenaut »

panzer_wyrm wrote: post #124
vivekd wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reason we can't have an accreditation program to ensure that only reputable schools can get access to GI bills. This whole problem of predatory colleges doesn't seem like an insurmountable one. It seems more an issue with legislative inertia and poor implementation rather than an intrinsic failing of GI education plans.

I am not sure that would even help. The current culture war on the elite campuses and the dominating narrative would probably not be welcoming to a lot of straight masculine males with somewhat conservative leanings and on government dime that participated in the US wars. And not be able to give them the environment and support to reintegrate them into society. Very shitty situation. The reason post WWII GI bill work…

Yes, god forbid we encourage mixing of world views because it might challenge both side's opinions of the other and gasp might even lead to some improvements. Lets continue to segregate as much as possible.

Also according to wikipedia there has been a form of the GI bill running basically continuously since WWII, so this isn't a new change.

What I think is hard about college for a lot of people is that much of the learning, even more than highschool, has no immediate relevance. Heck I remember hating a lot of intro CS classes because I was solving problems I didn't care about. Or think about asking a kid what they'd want to program a computer for. For most it's such an abstract problem to problems they haven't even encountered yet that they can't even think of anything. Same goes for a lot of people which can be a bug turn off for a more traditional college education. That said I still think you need a foundation in the theoretical as well as the practical.

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

#134

Post by grogenaut »

drawnwren wrote: post #31
cbhl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder whether it would be better to provide employers in tech money to train directly, on the condition that X% of them retain full-time employment of at least $XXX,000 for five years following "graduation". The idea is to align incentives -- the employers get to try vets, and if they succeed, everyone gets more money.

Code schools are not very conducive to retention, especially not on a 5 year scale. Keep in mind most boot camp grads are going to front end jobs at mid-early stage startups.

Is that the san francisco view of what code camp people do or the US wide reality. When we're talking about a US wide problem we should be really looking at US wide solutions because, like it or not, a lot of people don't want to live in San Fran. If code camps really only supply SF Startups with front end coders I don't think that's worthy of a national program.

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

#135

Post by pegas1 »

blhack wrote: post #86

If you live in Phoenix, AZ I will personally 1-on-1 mentor you if you want to learn how to code. Come to heatsync labs every wednesday from 9:00am-3:00pm. (But you have to actually show up AND you have to agree to the curriculum. Email in profile.)

I would do the same: Kennesaw GA, just no office available

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

#136

Post by killjoywashere »

sheepmullet wrote: post #130
georgemcbay wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why reasonable, rational people are losing and will continue to keep losing. Because we accept calling Trump unscrupulous and incompetent as a partisan opinion when it is actually clearly a statement of fact based on ample amounts of evidence.

There are certain topics that destroy otherwise rational discussions. You know this. We all know this. So why bring it up in an unrelated thread? All it does is damage the quality of conversation.

OP here. In response to your question, I was seizing on a well-known phenomenon (voters responding to a hollow jobs promise) to make an illustrative comparison to my thesis, another situation that evokes similar behavior.

To me, it was like being in a thread about trees and saying "Trees are green, you know, like money." The "like money" part, was just a comparison.

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

#137

Post by enraged_camel »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #99
ma2rten wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You need it if you don't want to work on cookie cutter applications.

Cookie-cutter isn't a bad thing. If it solves a real problem or addresses a real need, it will be successful.

I mean Facebook started out as a cookie cutter app. Heck, it was a basic CRUD app. Look at where it is today.

Outside of such unicorns there are also many examples of reasonably successful products that can be categorized as cookie-cutter. Basecamp. Trello. Snapchat. These apps don't do anything groundbreaking or operate on the bleeding edge of technology. But they are well-known and profitable.

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

#138

Post by grogenaut »

bernardlunn wrote: post #108
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?

What is the problem that MOOCS are solving here that other solutions aren't? There's really no way to have a discussion about why it's not happening or why it may or may not work without actual discussion of the benefits of a MOOC vs alternatives.

Also many many veterans, during their service, avail themselves of old school MOOCs before they exited. They're called correspondance courses or sattelite courses and most of them are from traditional colleges and even allow you to finish up your degree at said college. What does a MOOC offer over this? If enough vets aren't using these why is a MOOC going to be the magic bullet?

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

#139

Post by randomdata »

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.

The benefit of self-teaching is that you do not have to try and learn everything in four straight years and then set forth into the world with what you were able to take in during that time. In practice, the gaps become quite apparent when the gaps become problematic and one can quickly fill in the gaps on the fly thanks to no dependence on the schedule of others to fill those gaps.

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

#140

Post by grogenaut »

I guess another question I have is what is a coder camp doing that it costs more (http://www.bootcamps.in/san-francisco/coder-camps/) $9,900 for a 9 week (just over 2 months) course, when in state tuition for a year at University of Washington (https://admit.washington.edu/costs-and-financial-aid/total-c...) is $10k for around 7 months and out of state is $34,791 for the same time. Eg are they really equivalent to a #12 ranked computer science school (https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-washingto...)?
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