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Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

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Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#131
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some numbers: College: 30 weeks 40 hours per week 4 years = 4800 hours Work: 49 weeks 50 hours per week 2 years = 4900 hours And that's being generous at only a 50 hour work week, as well as being generous in giving a full 40 hours worth of college work. I think your comment perfectly demonstrates my point.

CS majors are also doing 2-4 internships which are by and large more formational experiences than a bootcamp. I don't know where you work that a developer working "only" 50h weeks is "generous" but I hope I never find myself applying there.

> CS majors are also doing 2-4 internships which are by and large more formational experiences than a bootcamp

This seems like a left turn from my comment. Nowhere did I say bootcamps are a replacement for formal education. I was comparing the value of time in the workforce vs. time spent in school. I was discussing finance majors who, shockingly, also do internships. I don't know anyone that took a bootcamp as a replacement to a college education, so I'm not sure where you pulled any of this from.

> I don't know where you work that a developer working "only" 50h weeks is "generous" but I hope I never find myself applying there.

Maybe my part of the world is unique, but I've never worked less than 50 hours per week in my 10 years and I honestly can't say I know anyone that does excluding people with "non-professional" jobs.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#132

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good bootcamp? I have an employee (graphic design) that has shown an aptitude in web development, but I do not have the time to devote to mentoring him. I can afford to send him to a bootcamp, but stories like this make me hesitant. Also, I have a front-end guy and a CS intern, who both could benefit from a SQL bootcamp (as another poster mentioned, team development, source con…

The answer is Hack Reactor or bust. Don't bother with any of the tier 2/3 Bootcamps such as general assembly, ect.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#133
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CS majors are also doing 2-4 internships which are by and large more formational experiences than a bootcamp. I don't know where you work that a developer working "only" 50h weeks is "generous" but I hope I never find myself applying there.

> CS majors are also doing 2-4 internships which are by and large more formational experiences than a bootcamp This seems like a left turn from my comment. Nowhere did I say bootcamps are a replacement for formal education. I was comparing the value of time in the workforce vs. time spent in school. I was discussing finance majors who, shockingly, also do internships. I don't know anyone that took a bootcamp as a rep…

I've worked exactly one job that routinely took more than 40 hours/week and I make sure to not fall into that trap again. 50 hours a week standard is the same as a 20% per hour pay cut

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#134
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CS majors are also doing 2-4 internships which are by and large more formational experiences than a bootcamp. I don't know where you work that a developer working "only" 50h weeks is "generous" but I hope I never find myself applying there.

> CS majors are also doing 2-4 internships which are by and large more formational experiences than a bootcamp This seems like a left turn from my comment. Nowhere did I say bootcamps are a replacement for formal education. I was comparing the value of time in the workforce vs. time spent in school. I was discussing finance majors who, shockingly, also do internships. I don't know anyone that took a bootcamp as a rep…

> I was discussing finance majors

I wasn't, I explicitly said I can't speak for finance majors. My point I would not consider 2 years of work and a 4 year CS degree from a well-regarded school to be equivalent for technical hires.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#135
post #7

Funny to look back at this now: https://nyti.ms/2vtd04V NYT on 24 August 2017: "The Flatiron School in New York may have discovered one path. Founded in 2012, Flatiron has a single campus in downtown Manhattan and its main offering is a 15-week immersive coding program with a $15,000 price tag. More than 95 percent of its 1,000 graduates there have landed coding jobs." two months later NY AG, 17 October 2017: "Howeve…

Makes the Times look pretty stupid and/or like shills either unwitting or paid!

Or perhaps, as seen directly in the quote "Flatiron did not disclose clearly and conspicuously...".

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#136
Why are students willing to pay so much to for-profit coding boot camps? In many areas you can learn the same skills from community colleges and university extensions for far lower tuition. For example in the Bay Area the UCSC Extension has a good reputation and offers several certificate programs in software development.

https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/certificate-program/software-...

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having done some work for a school that's jumped through these hoops, I believe that it's a different definition of "approved." It's not "choose one of these curricula we made up and do that," it's "show us your complete curriculum and defend how this makes a complete program."

The response times on approval can be pretty terrible and you get peppered with a lot of dumb requests by reviewers who don't actually understand the material. (I grew up around my parents' vocational school, board of education interactions looked totally insane)

What’s even more worse is people being defrauded of time and money by what amounts to at best an accidental scam. The stakes are high enough that there is arguably an appropriate level of rigor in certification

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#138
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> take exams to do this and who manufactures these magical exams you speak of, and on what authority?

They're not magical. If I want to be a doctor, there are two primary sets of exams I need to take: 1-the MCAT, and 2-the USMLE. Both sets are managed by non profits. There should be no reason why a poor minority, boy or girl, struggling to make ends meet in a rough neighborhood cannot get online, self study, and one day go and take a seat for these exams. In fact, this should be subsidized by government more than uni…

An objective test removes the power of picking winners and losers from the academics, they will never allow that to happen.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#139

Back in 2014, coding bootcamps were advertising rates in the 90s. See https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-job-placement-rates-at-va... . From that post, this is what the director of admissions at Fullstack Academy claims are the job placement rates of some popular bootcamps: - Fullstack Academy: 97% - Hack Reactor: 99% - App Academy: 98% - Dev Bootcamp: 90% - Flatiron School: 98% (He edited his post to take this down…

There's other ways of manipulating the numbers too. I attended App Academy, but as an "auditing student" meaning I paid the same price and did the same work but, according to the information, I might not get a pair to program with if the classroom count was odd. However, I'd bet a shiny nickel that auditing students aren't part of their advertised statistics. Or at least auditing students that don't make the numbers…

I too will chime in! I attended App Academy as well, as a fulltime student in New York a couple years ago. Between my cohort, the cohort before and the cohort after, I would say it was something like 80% of people were placed in fulltime jobs by three months. I was one of the last to be employed (we graduated in late Feb, I was finally working by the end of June). A few people had jobs before the whole 12 weeks were up. I can't say for sure about salary, but it wasn't drastically lower than advertised.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#140
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some numbers: College: 30 weeks 40 hours per week 4 years = 4800 hours Work: 49 weeks 50 hours per week 2 years = 4900 hours And that's being generous at only a 50 hour work week, as well as being generous in giving a full 40 hours worth of college work. I think your comment perfectly demonstrates my point.

CS majors are also doing 2-4 internships which are by and large more formational experiences than a bootcamp. I don't know where you work that a developer working "only" 50h weeks is "generous" but I hope I never find myself applying there.

My internship experience was what made CS click, rather than the curriculum itself. Agree that they're a critical ingredient. :)
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