.
I think a scathing review like this deserves a bit of explanation, regardless of topic. It's so easy to say "this thing BAD!" Why should we believe you?
Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
251–260 of 306 posts
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
My youngest brother went through Dev Bootcamp in 2012. He had graduated from a top 30 university but wasn't able to find a great job and had been doing some part time, low skill work. DBC literally changed his life. Post graduation he immediately got a job at a dev shop as a programmer, and now 5 years later is a great developer gainfully employed in Silicon Valley. Not sure why you would shit on the grave of a progr…
Trouble with anecdotes is that it is not data. I'm happy for your brother but that still doesn't change the fact that most bootcamps are overpromising and underdelivering on their promises of gainful employment. It's simply not possible to learn to program in bootcamp time frames. I'm certain if we saw actual numbers it would not be a pretty picture. For the truly motivated it is much better to go to recurse.com or j…
>for the truly motivated
No matter how motivated you are, you'll be casting around and learning aimlessly a bunch of random material about "programming" because you don't really know the nuances of the market as well.
Me: Turbo nerd, generally well-informed in the ways of technology, but outside the industry. Was working as a teacher and then a recruiter. I even took Harvard's CS50x class, so I knew the very basics of programming (some languages are compiled, others... aren't?), but I didn't really know that web development was the hot hiring field, I didn't know Javascript was the language of the web, that you could even use it for backend if you wanted. In fact, I didn't even really consider that there was a difference between front and back end.
So for 17,000 I was able to have all that sorted for me in 3 months flat, then kicked out into the industry a viable app developer. I went from a shit set of jobs straight into a bonafide, legitimate, and stable career trajectory. ~5 months total time investment. It simply would not have been possible to be so efficient by self-teaching, I wouldn't have known where to begin, what to study, that web dev had the lowest barrier to entry, etc. Literally the job placement stuff was completely useless and unused to me, I was a recruiter and so didn't use any of that stuff from my bootcamp, the thing that made it valuable to me was the curriculum.
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trouble with anecdotes is that it is not data. I'm happy for your brother but that still doesn't change the fact that most bootcamps are overpromising and underdelivering on their promises of gainful employment. It's simply not possible to learn to program in bootcamp time frames. I'm certain if we saw actual numbers it would not be a pretty picture. For the truly motivated it is much better to go to recurse.com or j…
Most top bootcamps are very transparent with their numbers.
If you put your mind to it, you can think of many ways that this data can be manipulated to look favorable.
Not saying that any school has manipulated data, just that it's easy to do and the highly competitive environment creates pressure to do so.
This explains more: https://medium.com/@clintmania/in-person-coding-bootcamps-ar...
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's not really a need for a terms of service on a static page. We should probably get a privacy policy up. And there is a contact... both email addresses and forms. Do you need a physical address? We don't have someone sitting around waiting to answer the phone all day. We're Lambda Inc. Incorporated in Delaware. Haven't announced our fundraising yet but that will be public soon. Clearly need to work on making th…
Sorry, maybe legit is too harsh a word, but in many cases I've seen privacy policies and terms of service to be a requirement to do business with the likes of Amazon and Google etc...
terms of service is something you have if you're an app. Our students sign legal contracts. Our site is just a landing page.
But ya we'll work on it. Thanks for the feedback. Something something cobblers kids worst shoes.
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#255So, three years ago, I was attending DBC and getting my first exposure to web app development. Today, I write code for a living and am enjoying the work I do much more than what I had been doing before. Did DBC give me an education equivalent to a computer science degree? No. Did they teach me everything I need to know about data structures and algorithms? No. Did they help me get my first programming job? Sort of, b…
Wait, they didn't teach you data structures and algorithms?
They seriously stop at "hey deploy a CRUD app?"
That's rough. There's no way students are getting jobs with that in this environment. Maybe when they first started that was enough, but now the market is flooded with not-quite-competent junior devs.
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#256So, three years ago, I was attending DBC and getting my first exposure to web app development. Today, I write code for a living and am enjoying the work I do much more than what I had been doing before. Did DBC give me an education equivalent to a computer science degree? No. Did they teach me everything I need to know about data structures and algorithms? No. Did they help me get my first programming job? Sort of, b…
I've had one friend who swore by Dev Boot Camp in Chicago and told me I should be a teacher. He got me in touch with a director in my city, but before I could come in for an in-personal interview, they wanted me to do this really basic web app (CD database with artists, albums, etc.)
If I hadn't been employed I probably would have done it. I was working full-time and then came home to do some more open source work. There was no money on the table for the problem ($200 ~ $400 would seem reasonable for a pre-interview project like this). I sent them an e-mail with 5 major tasks I was working on, all for open source projects or things I would open source. They could pick one, I'd finish it and I'd do a full presentation on it.
They said they had tried to do reviews based off Github pull requests in the past and that, no, I had to do the original problem they gave me. I didn't contact them back.
I really want to teach, but I was weary of these for-profit boot camp programs. They also talked about how they wanted teachers to push/promote the programs at events and such. I have another friend who went through a different boot-camp like program and told me she felt really rushed through it, but she didn't want to swear them off either.
It's cheaper to go to a state community college and get a 2-year programming degree in many places in the US. It will take longer, yes.
I know CS majors with masters degrees who've only written in C/Java and don't keep up with tech. I've know people without degrees at all who have learned BigO notation and learning algorithm development all on their own. You get out of any program what you put into it.
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#257Earlier 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.
Aren't most bootcamp grads being hired for frontend roles?
And this is exactly the issue with most of them.
There are a million resources online to learn javascript, that isn't challenging. I want a solid DBA / backend developer bootcamp.
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#258So, three years ago, I was attending DBC and getting my first exposure to web app development. Today, I write code for a living and am enjoying the work I do much more than what I had been doing before. Did DBC give me an education equivalent to a computer science degree? No. Did they teach me everything I need to know about data structures and algorithms? No. Did they help me get my first programming job? Sort of, b…
Wait, they didn't teach you data structures and algorithms? They seriously stop at "hey deploy a CRUD app?" That's rough. There's no way students are getting jobs with that in this environment. Maybe when they first started that was enough, but now the market is flooded with not-quite-competent junior devs.
They can and they do. Which is somewhat problematics. A lot of companies are trying to scale, and with the demand for software developers being so high (plus the push for diversity), bootcamp "grads" are a pretty popular target.
But companies rarely make the difference between a CS major (especially those with multiple internships or coops often spawning longer than the bootcamp on their own) and bootcamp graduates.
So they both start as SWE or Junior/Associate SWE. Often there's a drastic difference in ramp up and output, and people around them won't always know why (unless people stalk them on linkedin or ask).
That puts a ton of burden on teammates that may not be properly prepared to coach these people (they go through the same hiring process, same onboarding process, etc). Don't get me wrong, its a failing on the companies who hire people they are not prepared to handle, but they're often pressured to.
It's a really awkward situation.
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#259Attending Dev Bootcamp in March 2013 is the best decision I've ever made, it totally altered the trajectory of my career and I'm happier and more fulfilled as a result. I'm not sure I would have been able to make the switch from consulting to software engineering without DBC. That being said, I'm extremely lucky to have enrolled during the narrow window I did. The entire bootcamp industry is suffering, not just DBC.…
I'm already web developer, but I want to move into Software Engineering. I wish there was a bootcamp out there that would train people who already work with JS and coding, but are not as strong in CS. Bootcamp L2, for example.
Check out the guys at outco!
Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down
#260It always frustrates me when commenters are overwhelmingly undereducated about a topic but continue to make broad, sweeping generalizations. There's a ton of negativity, outright assuming, and misinformation being thrown around here. It happens in every bootcamp-related thread (and topics in other subjects of course). No, not every bootcamp was legit. No, making assumptions about all bootcamps based on a handful of b…
Bootcamps are threats to ego. If it turns out that random person can do the same with three months of study, then one is not such a huge exceptional genius as one would like to believe. A lot of the negativity is insecurity.
> If it turns out that random person can do the same with three months of study
The best bootcamps invariably have a selective recruitment pipeline ensuring that they train students who have both natural aptitude as well as a baseline technical skillset. These aren't really "random" people at all : programming isn't particle physics, but it's not as easy as the sales pitch makes it sound.