So I graduated from DBC 3 years ago and I agree with most of the sentiments already stated in this thread. However, I think the red flag for me was seeing some of my cohort graduate and then immediately after become instructors at DBC. I don't care what you say, you cannot teach programming after being exposed to programming for 12 weeks. For one thing, a "good" teacher isn't just someone who has been coding for a while (which obviously you lack if you have just graduated from the program); you actually have to understand pedagogy and take an actual interest in being a mentor or guide. If DBC had hired instructors with industry experience, I often found that they lacked the proper skills to make them effective educators.
Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
171–180 of 306 posts
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rent is certainly huge. These guys are renting prime time space in city centers.
I wonder if these posh locations are worth it. I'm sure it attracts some students, and there's some advantage in the proximity to hip startups also in city centers. But students are low income during the program and hardly have a chance to do anything outside the office, given the workload of these bootcamps.
Ding.
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#173"Hi Andrew, we had actually been working too find a sustainable business model since the very beginning. Ultimately we couldn't find one that didn't sacrifice on our commitment to provide the highest quality program possible while keeping our program open to the most diverse students possible." What does that mean? It seems like this should've been a profitable business - 3000 graduates @ $10k/piece = $30mm revenue.
e.g. Financial aid sponsored by dev bootcamp for some students, or even corporate sponsors for financial aid didn't work? There also seem to be a number of other bootstrapped bootcamps running that are doing fine, so this is confusing.
This explains it: https://medium.com/@clintmania/in-person-coding-bootcamps-ar...
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#174For anyone seeking alternatives, $0 up-front cost software engineering bootcamps that I'm aware of: Learner’s Guild https://www.fastcoexist.com/3068200/when-this-entrepreneurs-... 42 (completely free) https://www.42.us.org/ Holberton School https://www.holbertonschool.com/ Lambda Academy https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science
42 student here. The school is 100% free as in no upfront cost and no later charge. The difficulty is to get in, one has to make it through a 26 day C heavy selection process and pass logic tests beforehand. The school is really meritocratic in the sense that formal background is irrelevant and financial assistance makes it accessible for almost everybody.
Provided you happen to be between the ages of 18 and 30.
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's really no different than any university. A lot of the value of Harvard or Stanford is that they only pick the top n% of the country. The signaling factor is as important as the education, often times. Bootcamps are this weird space where, because they're so short and so expensive, even the most legitimate are considered mediocre by most employers because you can only teach so much in three months. So you can m…
Another part of the value of a university is that they factor in SAT scores heavily into admissions. SAT scores correlate strongly with IQ. Hiring based on IQ tests is illegal, but hiring mostly from certain universities is not.
>Hiring based on IQ tests is illegal
Citation pls?
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's how App Academy works already. Put a deposit down, go through the program, then pay them a percentage of your first years wages from your new job. I did it, and rich people at the golf club where I worked were telling me it was a bad idea, sounded illegal, etc. In my opinion I got an awesome job in an awesome career for super cheap. I had no money, someone was finally willing to give me a chance based on my ab…
Ya, we're kinda like App Academy except not a bootcamp (a longer, more exhaustive CS program), online (so you don't have to move to San Francisco), and with no down-payment (because most of our students just don't have $4k, even for a down-payment).
Please add a Java based web development option (ideally with JSF), I'd join in a heartbeat. The web dev is too javascript / front-end centric, and the CS (I'd assume) is too math-centric.
Java / JSF / MyFaces is the best of both worlds, imo. No need to write most front-end javascript, 80% of dev time can be spent on business logic.
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Possibly, but there certainly is an over-abundance of bootcamp grads, and it's hard to choose among them.
I'm not a fan of this line of thinking. Not every bootcamp graduate is the same. There may be less variance between them from a purely technical standpoint but their backgrounds are far more diverse than what you'd get out college. In other words, I don't think it's fair to say "there's an over-abundance of graduates from XYZ university. It's hard to choose among them." Regardless, stereotyping job candidates based o…
I actually don't hire junior/entry-level devs, but I do get flooded with their resumes even though I'm very explicit that I'm looking for experienced devs.
If I were considering entry-level hires, I wouldn't hire bootcamp grads if their only experience were at the bootcamp. If someone has been coding for less than 4 months, I'm going to spend most of my time teaching them how to code. That kind of employment provides more value to the employee than the employer. That might work for some big companies, but I can't do it in a small company.
> There may be less variance between them from a purely technical standpoint but their backgrounds are far more diverse than what you'd get out college.
I agree with you, but it doesn't make it any easier to hire them. I have no idea if I'd rather have an ex-ballerina or an ex-salesman as my employee. Neither of those careers give you training as a developer.
So if I'm just trying to decide if someone can do the job, seeing 20 people with 12-16 weeks of experience isn't helpful. And, as someone who has been writing code for 20 years and still has a lot to learn, it's insulting to suggest someone can become competent in that short a time. I know for a fact that they can't. It sometimes takes that long for an experienced dev to learn a new stack, and bootcamps are claiming to teach people a huge array of technologies.
> A good hiring manager ought to take the time to treat a candidate respectfully, but I know this behavior is rare.
I treat candidates with respect. I think (most) bootcamps should treat their customers with more respect and stop promising to teach them to code. Bootcamps are mostly "teaching to the test" in my experience -- they teach you how to get hired. That's valuable, but it's a totally different thing.
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ya, we're kinda like App Academy except not a bootcamp (a longer, more exhaustive CS program), online (so you don't have to move to San Francisco), and with no down-payment (because most of our students just don't have $4k, even for a down-payment).
Please add a Java based web development option (ideally with JSF), I'd join in a heartbeat. The web dev is too javascript / front-end centric, and the CS (I'd assume) is too math-centric. Java / JSF / MyFaces is the best of both worlds, imo. No need to write most front-end javascript, 80% of dev time can be spent on business logic.
The CS Academy does teach Java. It's our main tool for understanding a lot of the lower-level stuff such as architecture, scaling, etc.
We use JavaScript as the front-end web language, for reasons that are likely obvious (as well as React/Redux), and also use JS learn a lot of the data structures/algorithms portion, but Java is our main compiled language.
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please add a Java based web development option (ideally with JSF), I'd join in a heartbeat. The web dev is too javascript / front-end centric, and the CS (I'd assume) is too math-centric. Java / JSF / MyFaces is the best of both worlds, imo. No need to write most front-end javascript, 80% of dev time can be spent on business logic.
The CS Academy does teach Java. It's our main tool for understanding a lot of the lower-level stuff such as architecture, scaling, etc. We use JavaScript as the front-end web language, for reasons that are likely obvious (as well as React/Redux), and also use JS learn a lot of the data structures/algorithms portion, but Java is our main compiled language.
Does it cover JSF?
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
The CS Academy does teach Java. It's our main tool for understanding a lot of the lower-level stuff such as architecture, scaling, etc. We use JavaScript as the front-end web language, for reasons that are likely obvious (as well as React/Redux), and also use JS learn a lot of the data structures/algorithms portion, but Java is our main compiled language.
Does it cover JSF?
No. We use JavaScript for front-end stuff as that's the native language of the browser.
We'll also use a little bit of Spring, so JSF isn't far away, but I wouldn't go into looking for a school that teaches exactly one (relatively small) framework. Look for the fundamental principles and worry about frameworks later.