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Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

blog.theironyard.com

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Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#41

Post by valuearb »

hkmurakami wrote: post #33
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…

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.

UO -> In-state: $26,000, out of state: $49,000

OSU -> In-state: $26,000, out of state: $45,000

PSU -> In-state: $30,000+, out of state: $43,000

MSU -> In-state: $27,000, out of state: $51,000

UM (Michigan) -> In-state: $29,000, out of state: $60,000

UM (Miami) -> $64,306

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#42

Post by valuearb »

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.

Athletic department revenues are entirely property of the school, and partly funded by mandatory student fees. The NCAA could cap coaches salaries at $250,000 and the line of qualified candidates to become a NCAA coach would still be out the door for every school.

Instead they allow coaches and athletic directors to coordinate a conspiracy where they and their employees get to skim all of the profits of the program for themselves. When you are "forced" to pay your AD over a million dollars a year, that's the best possible thing to justify paying the president far more.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#43

Post by bphogan »

hkmurakami wrote: post #32
christophilus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

I don't know about the original poster, but I'd have stayed teaching full time if I could have afforded it. But I was literally making half of what my students were making after a couple of years in industry.

Another thing to think about is this: Just cos you know SWE really well doesn't mean you have the ability to teach it to others. Not everyone "gets" things quickly, or will understand your explanations on the first attempt, so you must be patient. Not everyone learns the same way, nor do they have the same educational experiences, so you must be kind. And not everyone has a great home life, and has a ton of distractions that prevent them from learning, so you must be empathetic. Finally, not everyone loves to code - they just want the dollars that come from a job and will do whatever it takes to get there, including lie, cheat, and do the bare minimum, so you must be firm and strong to avoid burning out and thinking they're all terrible lazy students.

There are people who can do this. But they're rare. And even rarer when they see the low paychecks offered.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#44

Post by valuearb »

_delirium wrote: post #39
valuearb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Look at total cost of attendance. Schools could set tuition to zero, but require students to pay $40,000 a year for "room, board and books" and it wouldn't actually make tuition cheap.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#45

Post by christophilus »

bphogan wrote: post #40
christophilus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cons…

Thanks for that perspective. I wonder if there's a better way to go about teaching? It sounds like the current model for both code-schools and universities is pretty crappy for the teachers. What can be done to improve this, do you think?

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#46

Post by detroit1234 »

microcolonel wrote: post #23

There are a great number of excellent reasons not to be in Detroit, as a business or an individual. The taxes are outrageous, the government is corrupt, the people who could afford to leave have all but left, the infrastructure is even worse than you'd expect given the ratio of revenue to services. 90% of murders go completely unresolved. That is, out of every ten people killed, and there are a lot, the perpetrators…

I moved from Ann Arbor to Detroit because of a wonderful group of musicians that I get to perform and spend time with.

From a Detroiter to one who clearly has never been here, kindly go fuck yourself. Detroit has problems, but it's been four years since the bankruptcy and we're actually building new offices downtown because the existing buildings are only 5% vacant. There's progress being made every day, but that would require doing some research.

Maybe pay Detroit a visit before you spew your crap. :)

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#47

Post by christophilus »

hkmurakami wrote: post #32
christophilus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Well, market-rate pay would be a good starter. TIY was really close. It was almost a horizontal move for me.

But there are a few other things that these kinds of institutions need to solve:

- How to keep your staff from burning out

- How to keep your staff up to speed

Both are hard problems. TIY (at the time that I taught there, anyway) was staffed by people who had 10-15 years (and more in some cases) of industry experience in a broad range of fields. If I spent the next 10 years of my career teaching, I suspect my value proposition would go down over time, as I began to have less and less relevant industry experience.

One thought was that schools of this nature should be a two-sided business. Instructors would teach for a cohort (or two) and then flip over into the consultancy side of the business for some time doing real-world industrial work.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#48

Post by johnvonneumann »

bpicolo wrote: post #5
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.

"qualified developers" is probably the key word there. These bootcamps are all trying to train out a pretty specific set of basic proficiencies. That's not to say the training can't be useful, it's just to say that they all seem to be going for the same basic web development skills, and probably the majority of companies looking to employ developers and looking for more than that, or something entirely different. Cou…

I think this comment nails it to be honest, I am a bootcamp grad and a lot of the time I do feel that most junior web devs are pushed into the cult of Javascript very early, React is pushed as if gospel and whilst much "emphasis" (IMO only in spoken ways) is placed on being a full-stack, I feel that there is next to no real education provided on basic back end/operations skills. So most of the grads come out as front-enders with front end skills and very little understanding of how front end decisions impact (and help in many cases) the back end and as a result, the entire stack. It makes me kinda sad tbh, because I find the back end tasks super engaging and they really fill out the gaps in your knowledge, especially as a Junior.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#49

Post by trowawee »

detroit1234 wrote: post #46
microcolonel wrote: post #23

There are a great number of excellent reasons not to be in Detroit, as a business or an individual. The taxes are outrageous, the government is corrupt, the people who could afford to leave have all but left, the infrastructure is even worse than you'd expect given the ratio of revenue to services. 90% of murders go completely unresolved. That is, out of every ten people killed, and there are a lot, the perpetrators…

I moved from Ann Arbor to Detroit because of a wonderful group of musicians that I get to perform and spend time with. From a Detroiter to one who clearly has never been here, kindly go fuck yourself. Detroit has problems, but it's been four years since the bankruptcy and we're actually building new offices downtown because the existing buildings are only 5% vacant. There's progress being made every day, but that wou…

Seconding this. I have a bunch of friends who live in Detroit. It's not Robocop World over there.
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