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What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

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Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#21

Post by gcatalfamo »

paradite wrote: post #19

> I couldn’t work because I really needed to do job searching full time. This is the part that don't quite understand. To me, the period when you search for jobs is exactly when you should be working as freelancer or working on side projects. Working helps you get into the coding zone so that you are more prepared for coding sessions during interviews. Working helps to add your resume and things to talk about when th…

Job search is a full time activity if done right. It doesn't leave you time to do freelancing.

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#22

Post by alsirg »

pulpwave wrote: post #18

I used to teach front-end development at a bootcamp several months ago. What once was a great opportunity to share my 15 years of experience with various startups and fortune 500 tech companies ended up being a nightmare with management. First and formeost, I liked most of my students. They came from all kinds such as: Background Actors, wives of programmers, students, military veterans, teachers, and a hodgepodge of…

If I were in a similar situation, I would feel an ethical responsibility to publicly out the school, report them to the state regulator and report them to VA. They can do a lot of harm and ruin a lot of lives.

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#23

Post by austenallred »

pulpwave wrote: post #18

I used to teach front-end development at a bootcamp several months ago. What once was a great opportunity to share my 15 years of experience with various startups and fortune 500 tech companies ended up being a nightmare with management. First and formeost, I liked most of my students. They came from all kinds such as: Background Actors, wives of programmers, students, military veterans, teachers, and a hodgepodge of…

The incentives for the bootcamp model are just so completely broken. You suck in people with promises of a career, have them pay $10k each, and if they don't get a job it's somehow their fault. It's really hard for word of mouth and reputation to kill a bootcamp because the demand outstrips supply right now. You could really suck, buy users with advertising, and make a killing for a looooong time.

I truly hope the future of education is something in which the incentives of the school are aligned with the students, and if the student fails the school doesn't get paid.

We've been trying to do that at https://lambdaschool.com. We're a 6 month CS or Machine Learning/AI education, and instead of students paying up front we give them an education for free and take a portion of future earnings if they get a job in their field that pays >$50k/yr. If they don't get a job in their field it's 100% free.

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#24

Post by sethrin »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #11

But do bootcamps train people to program well? The metrics they measure against are money and job based. Which gives me the impression that we either don't know how to determine if people know how to program, or that no one really cares. We need some kind of standardized test or similar. I know of the Advanced Placement CS exam[1], but we need something more practical and not focused on a particular language. [1] htt…

Nothing trains people to program well. Colleges teach fundamentals like lambda calculus, but fail to teach practical skills. Bootcamps have the opposite problem, and the actual industry seems to assume that trained developers spring up out of the ground like sowing dragon's teeth.

The requirement of 'not focused on a particular language' is actually something that I would be forced to disagree with. That leads to things like HAGGIS[0].

Generally we can probably say that determining whether people can program is difficult at best, but HackerRank[1] seems to have a good model. Problems are given in English with examples of input and output, and the testee may select from some five dozen supported languages. Programs use standard inputs and outputs.

Alternately I would support the use of a standard language. People do okay with computers even though they're not really Turing machines; it would not be harmful to concede conceptual purity to satisfy some real-world constraint. Python or Ruby would probably be fine. In a bootcamp environment I'm afraid it would have to be JavaScript.

Either way, the part about "more practical" conflicts with the "not focused on a particular language" part, and the right answer is whatever is furthest from HAGGIS.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAGGIS [1] https://www.hackerrank.com

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#25

Post by NoCoastCoder »

alsirg wrote: post #22
pulpwave wrote: post #18

I used to teach front-end development at a bootcamp several months ago. What once was a great opportunity to share my 15 years of experience with various startups and fortune 500 tech companies ended up being a nightmare with management. First and formeost, I liked most of my students. They came from all kinds such as: Background Actors, wives of programmers, students, military veterans, teachers, and a hodgepodge of…

If I were in a similar situation, I would feel an ethical responsibility to publicly out the school, report them to the state regulator and report them to VA. They can do a lot of harm and ruin a lot of lives.

Veterans Association ?

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#26

Post by bdcravens »

pulpwave wrote: post #18

I used to teach front-end development at a bootcamp several months ago. What once was a great opportunity to share my 15 years of experience with various startups and fortune 500 tech companies ended up being a nightmare with management. First and formeost, I liked most of my students. They came from all kinds such as: Background Actors, wives of programmers, students, military veterans, teachers, and a hodgepodge of…

I did some mentoring sessions (via CodeMentor) with a student from a bootcamp teaching Angular 2. Mind you, this was while Angular 2 was still in beta and the API was changing every week it seemed. Turns out the bootcamp started with one thing (React maybe) and shifted gears in the middle of the cohort. I was able to help them, but it was totally a WTF moment - not only were they teaching a beta framework, with no jobs at the moment, but I'm certain it wasn't what the students thought they were paying for.

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#27

Post by rukuu001 »

gcatalfamo wrote: post #21
paradite wrote: post #19

> I couldn’t work because I really needed to do job searching full time. This is the part that don't quite understand. To me, the period when you search for jobs is exactly when you should be working as freelancer or working on side projects. Working helps you get into the coding zone so that you are more prepared for coding sessions during interviews. Working helps to add your resume and things to talk about when th…

Job search is a full time activity if done right. It doesn't leave you time to do freelancing.

You're corroborating a quote from the article, which I don't think deserves downvotes.

Would you like to expand on your point? It might be illuminating for people already established in the industry.

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#28

Post by KGIII »

NoCoastCoder wrote: post #25
alsirg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were in a similar situation, I would feel an ethical responsibility to publicly out the school, report them to the state regulator and report them to VA. They can do a lot of harm and ruin a lot of lives.

Veterans Association ?

Affairs.

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#29

Post by stale2002 »

rukuu001 wrote: post #27
gcatalfamo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Job search is a full time activity if done right. It doesn't leave you time to do freelancing.

You're corroborating a quote from the article, which I don't think deserves downvotes. Would you like to expand on your point? It might be illuminating for people already established in the industry.

I can expand on it.

Fairly recently I left my job at a startup (I've been in startups for 4 years as a software enginer).

Every single day I am practicing interview questions. I am talking with recruiters on the phone. I am talking with HEADHUNTERS on the phone (not the same as recruiters). I am doing tech phone screens. I am doing take home projects. And I am going to tech meetups.

And I haven't even gotten to point in the process where I would be spending the entire day doing an onsite interview, so when that starts happen in a couple weeks I'll be even more busy.

I have perhaps over-prepared, but boy do the results show. I've passed every single one of my phone interviews and been invited to an onsite interview for Google, Cruise automation, Uber, Linkedin, Twilio, and a few other smaller startups.

2 years ago, when I was also looking for jobs, I took my job search much less seriously. And the results were predictably much less good. I was only about 50-50 on passing phone interviews, and only ended up getting 2 offers, and they were at no name startups.

Zero offers from any of the big 5 tech companies, as well as many failed interviews.

This time around my success has been much much better, because of how seriously I am taking the process. And this success is going to add up to literally 10s of thousands of dollars in pay increases.

Take your job search seriously. The difference in pay between "top" tech companies, and rando startups is 10s of thousands of dollars, and perhaps even over a hundred thousand dollars when you add up ALL the benefits/stock/401k matching/bonus/ect. Obviously money isn't everything, but it still matters.

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#30

Post by 75dvtwin »

austenallred wrote: post #23
pulpwave wrote: post #18

I used to teach front-end development at a bootcamp several months ago. What once was a great opportunity to share my 15 years of experience with various startups and fortune 500 tech companies ended up being a nightmare with management. First and formeost, I liked most of my students. They came from all kinds such as: Background Actors, wives of programmers, students, military veterans, teachers, and a hodgepodge of…

The incentives for the bootcamp model are just so completely broken. You suck in people with promises of a career, have them pay $10k each, and if they don't get a job it's somehow their fault. It's really hard for word of mouth and reputation to kill a bootcamp because the demand outstrips supply right now. You could really suck, buy users with advertising, and make a killing for a looooong time. I truly hope the fu…

Interesting idea. Looking at your website " $0 up-front + 17% of salary for 2 yrs (or $20,000 up-front) "

is 17% before or after tax? Also does location/country matter?

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