Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

blog.theironyard.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 139 posts

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#31

Post by brooklyn_ashey »

keyle wrote: post #4

Shouldn't place like these be growing instead of closing down? What did they get wrong? The demand for qualified developers isn't slowing afaik.

There is no demand for qualified developers, only a demand for cheap, skilled labor. If there were a demand, these coding schools would not have such a devil of a time getting decent jobs for their grads.(and they do- just talk to some honest, recent grads-- it will be tough to find honest ones who are unemployed/underemployed on a public forum, if you know what I mean.) Why, if there is such a great demand, isn't the burden to educate on the employer who needs the labor? It used to be, back before we made students pay for several degrees with no employment in sight. Now, it is all the fault of the individual. The corporations are just looking for honest work here, right? ;) We all just got used to being blamed if we could not fully fund faux-careers for our LinkedIn profiles a decade before any real employment emerged for us. If these bootcamps are actually filling such a great need in the industry, why should the students pay? I get why people pay for Harvard: the connections!! (but...is even Harvard free now if you can't pay?- so there's even that too, for Harvard!) Those law students get wined and dined for free and multiple offers from great jobs without even asking, much less "applying". This is NOT the case with these bootcamps, no matter what they claim. They are all struggling to get these junior devs decent work. Their meager "connections" got used up with their first crop of students, and now the ladders have been pulled up after them. Sure, there are a very very few exceptions, as always. If a school aims to teach, they should be able to keep enrollment low, and they should be able to teach anyone from zero with an interest serious enough that they drop out of society to do it for several months of their life. Because employers would pay big money for that service, just like they do for Harvard grads. BUT THEY DON'T. Instead, they seek those who could already do it without their help, and they seek payment from them too, thereby getting the benefit of looking like they "helped" an actual ivy league grad get a job, when it was more that that grad helped them look good. I wrote a more detailed response to A CIRR.org representative on the shorter of the threads about Dev Bootcamp's recent closing, if you are interested in a deeper analysis on what these bootcamps "did wrong", or are doing wrong. Here is the link to my response to "ewisesg" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14773016

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#32

Post by hkmurakami »

christophilus wrote: post #14
Flammy wrote: post #2

The comments are pretty heart warming and show they definitely got something right.

I was an instructor there for 2 cohorts. It was probably the hardest I ever worked. The same was true for my fellow instructors. We were/are senior engineers who took the job for reasons other than money (it was a pay cut for me). We wanted to contribute back. A few students had pretty bad experiences, I think. It was a very demanding program. Several times, I had full-grown adults break down and cry during our 1:1s.…

Question: if the pay was such that you weren't taking a pay cut, would that have made you stay longer? What would the conditions have to be like for someone who's a senior engineer to even consider making "a career change" into teaching swe for the next 10 years of their career, rather than a 2 year moonlighting stint? (Wondering what the setup had to be too make this sustainable)

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#33

Post by hkmurakami »

valuearb wrote: post #20
patio11 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I make a comment which is not specific about this school, to which I have no connection, or to coding bootcamps? For-profit education is a regulated industry in the United States and is experiencing significant adversarial attention at the moment, as a result of widespread looting of federal tuition assistance programs, to the tune of billions of dollars. Can I name a Greek god who has non-zero relevance to this…

The sad thing is that all higher level education in the U.S. is for profit. 30 years ago you could go to an average state college for $4,000 a year, that cost is roughly 10x as much. Where has all the money gone? Take a look at the salaries of school presidents, administrators, coaches, even professors, especially their pensions and benefits programs. Its as if all our non-profit institutions are really profit hungry…

There's no way state schools currently cost $40k. Maybe $15k.

Easy federal aid money certainly helps push up the price tag. It's effectively a subsidy.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#34

Post by oddevan »

Flammy wrote: post #2

The comments are pretty heart warming and show they definitely got something right.

I didn't have the chance to take their classes (timing for Cohort Zero in 2013 was just a LITTLE bit off), but all the people I knew involved were passionate about giving a quality education and moving the industry forward. I had no hesitations recommending them over other for-profit schools. And that's not even getting into how well they sponsored the local tech scene.

Cheers to everyone involved with this, and I hope you all land on your feet.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#36

Post by eropple »

tptacek wrote: post #10
keyle wrote: post #4

Shouldn't place like these be growing instead of closing down? What did they get wrong? The demand for qualified developers isn't slowing afaik.

1. People who can effectively teach others to program well enough to secure professional employment may have better options than teaching open-enrollment entry-level programming classes. 2. Because of that, and for any of a number of other reasons, we may generally be overestimating how effectively these kinds of schools are educating people. 3. It's an open secret that hiring in the technology industry isn't based o…

Regarding #1, an Iron Yard competitor offered a six-month contract for $45,000, 1099, here in Boston (with "an option" to re-up, at the same rate). It would not exactly be difficult to beat that number by doing almost anything else.

Another was talking about $80K/year...in freaking Ohio.

I would love to teach more than I do, and I'm starting to work on some web courses because I've learned from corporate training that I'm good at it, but the money doesn't make sense at all.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#37

Post by valuearb »

ec109685 wrote: post #29
valuearb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad thing is that all higher level education in the U.S. is for profit. 30 years ago you could go to an average state college for $4,000 a year, that cost is roughly 10x as much. Where has all the money gone? Take a look at the salaries of school presidents, administrators, coaches, even professors, especially their pensions and benefits programs. Its as if all our non-profit institutions are really profit hungry…

Public school tuition doesn't cost 40k a year. An employee is not the same as a shareholder.

Your right, it's only about $30k per year. And an employee isn't the same as a shareholder, unless that employee controls a non-profit, runs it to make substantial profits and skims those profits by paying themselves and their cronies massive salaries. Go look up the salaries of your state school President, Administrators, Athletic Director, Football and Basketball Coaches, and Professors.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#38

Post by munin »

ams6110 wrote: post #27
valuearb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad thing is that all higher level education in the U.S. is for profit. 30 years ago you could go to an average state college for $4,000 a year, that cost is roughly 10x as much. Where has all the money gone? Take a look at the salaries of school presidents, administrators, coaches, even professors, especially their pensions and benefits programs. Its as if all our non-profit institutions are really profit hungry…

It's not the administrative salaries so much as the bloat. Look at the org chart of any major state school 30 years ago compared to today. Coach salaries tend to be eye-catching but they are generally entirely funded by the athletic department and its supporters, not tuition or state funds.

> Coach salaries tend to be eye-catching but they are generally entirely funded by the athletic department and its supporters, not tuition or state funds.

This is only true at a small number of schools. Most subsidize the athletics department through fees they levy on students in addition to the normal tuition.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#39

Post by _delirium »

valuearb wrote: post #37
ec109685 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public school tuition doesn't cost 40k a year. An employee is not the same as a shareholder.

Your right, it's only about $30k per year. And an employee isn't the same as a shareholder, unless that employee controls a non-profit, runs it to make substantial profits and skims those profits by paying themselves and their cronies massive salaries. Go look up the salaries of your state school President, Administrators, Athletic Director, Football and Basketball Coaches, and Professors.

I dunno about elsewhere, but in-state tuition in Texas is no more than $10k (varies by school, but none are above that). Still too high, but it's not yet at private-school levels of absurdity.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#40

Post by bphogan »

christophilus wrote: post #14
Flammy wrote: post #2

The comments are pretty heart warming and show they definitely got something right.

I was an instructor there for 2 cohorts. It was probably the hardest I ever worked. The same was true for my fellow instructors. We were/are senior engineers who took the job for reasons other than money (it was a pay cut for me). We wanted to contribute back. A few students had pretty bad experiences, I think. It was a very demanding program. Several times, I had full-grown adults break down and cry during our 1:1s.…

I taught at a traditional institution and had the same experiences you did. Although I had to leave because I lost confidence in the institution. I think you'd find the same challenges in a slower-paced program, to be honest - there's plenty to do. While I only spent 4 hours a day in the classroom, I spent the rest of it either grading, revising lessons to keep things fresh, or grading assessments. The most time consuming part was providing meaningful feedback. Sure I could've phoned it in, but nobody likes getting a grade without feedback. And nobody learns from it either.

Despite the hours, it was worth it tho. I love hearing from my former students. There are times when I wish I was still doing it.

When you care like you and I do, you put your whole self into helping people make a better life for themselves learning to do what you already love to do, you'll take the low pay and the stress because it outweighs the negative.

The sad thing is that people who run a lot of these places know that, so they can get away with paying you a lot less than you'd make if you stayed in dev.

Post reply on HN