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Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

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Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#11

Post by smsm42 »

shurane wrote: post #6

Training programmers in 10 short weeks? Albeit these have experience with programming via codecademy, but 10 weeks? That is a fantastic turnaround and sounds a bit too marvelous. How does it work? This is just the first batch, but does it work consistently? This is fascinating. Do the programmers at Hackbright have any particular traits? Ambition, drive, or a ridiculous work ethic? Surrounding themselves with the hel…

Looking into the article, they don't start from zero:

It helps that Hackbright students usually aren’t starting from scratch, but have instead developed their initial skills using Codecademy or by attending development workshops. After all, Phillips said, Hackbright is for people who are serious about programming as a profession, and you can’t decide that you’re serious until you’ve tried it out.

So as I see it's for somebody who knows some basic programming but wants to get some skills that would get her hired.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#12

Post by davj »

meaty wrote: post #7

10 weeks is not enough time to learn any skill. I wish people would stop these boot camps with ridiculous claims. We've had a couple of victims of these schemes apply to us and we've had to rather sadly tell them 'no way' and explain why. A lot of them have come from business and arts backgrounds and think it's an easy way to make quick cash (hint: it isn't - writing software is hard and laborious and pays crap for t…

Thanks for your feedback. This is not a boot camp. Have you ever committed 100% of your time to learning a new skill over a short period of time?

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#13

Post by nhebb »

sliverstorm wrote: post #9
shurane wrote: post #6

Training programmers in 10 short weeks? Albeit these have experience with programming via codecademy, but 10 weeks? That is a fantastic turnaround and sounds a bit too marvelous. How does it work? This is just the first batch, but does it work consistently? This is fascinating. Do the programmers at Hackbright have any particular traits? Ambition, drive, or a ridiculous work ethic? Surrounding themselves with the hel…

I'm just waiting for the guys who decide, "If Hackbright can train full-fledged programmers in 10 weeks, we can do it in 5"

5 weeks? That's practically a lifetime! Nothing tops "Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 10 Minutes":

http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Minutes-2nd/dp/067...

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#14

Post by meaty »

davj wrote: post #12
meaty wrote: post #7

10 weeks is not enough time to learn any skill. I wish people would stop these boot camps with ridiculous claims. We've had a couple of victims of these schemes apply to us and we've had to rather sadly tell them 'no way' and explain why. A lot of them have come from business and arts backgrounds and think it's an easy way to make quick cash (hint: it isn't - writing software is hard and laborious and pays crap for t…

Thanks for your feedback. This is not a boot camp. Have you ever committed 100% of your time to learning a new skill over a short period of time?

No, I believe learning a skill is an investment, which is why I take my time (sometimes years) and study for a long time before I even put pen to paper.

My latest learning exercise was postgresql. I've done a proper engineering evaluation on it which has taken a whole year, but i tell you, i know it inside out now. I am confident i can handle any edge case or problem. Can your 10 week old developers even handle a simple edge case failure efficiently? That's where the skills are important or there is a roadblock every 30 minutes in this industry.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#15

Post by davj »

smsm42 wrote: post #8

I wonder what's special in this training program that makes it more suitable for women?

Hackbright may not be for everyone. We have received positive feedback regarding the composition and community surrounding our classes. We create a positive and productive environment to maximize the effectiveness of the program. The quality of instruction is high - and with a strong, supportive community, we have seen some success so far.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#16

Post by dools »

meaty wrote: post #7

10 weeks is not enough time to learn any skill. I wish people would stop these boot camps with ridiculous claims. We've had a couple of victims of these schemes apply to us and we've had to rather sadly tell them 'no way' and explain why. A lot of them have come from business and arts backgrounds and think it's an easy way to make quick cash (hint: it isn't - writing software is hard and laborious and pays crap for t…

I learned enough C in a semester to get a (pretty crap) job writimg Javascript and PHP having never programmed before.

Given that was first year university with a bunch of other courses on my plate, I would say 10 weeks is ample.

EDIT: Just to add to that, in the following year I learned to program the Motorola 68HC11 microcontroller in a single semester well enough to build a 48 note midi controller (with Hyperterminal text based interface!) and the year after that learned PIC assembly language in a single semester well enough to build a miniature device to track an object in 3d space using sonar and infrared, including an integrated user interface with buttons and a little LCD screen. All of these projects were only a single university semester which is about 13 weeks, and with normal course load outside of that. I'd say the amount you can accomplish in 10 weeks if you focus solely on that in terms of programming experience would be enough to make you useful in many entry level positions.

EDIT AGAIN: I should also note that I taught a course in database design to students in Ghana with skills ranging from never have seen a computer before, to those who had used word and excel before. Most of them didn't own a computer. In 4 weeks, using only the mysql command line client and notepad, all of them were able to design and implement a basic database. A couple of them would have been useful as juniors writing SQL for reporting purposes or learning DBA stuff on the job (depending on the size of the company of course...) but they showed incredible progress in just 4 weeks.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#17

Post by ht_th »

davj wrote: post #12
meaty wrote: post #7

10 weeks is not enough time to learn any skill. I wish people would stop these boot camps with ridiculous claims. We've had a couple of victims of these schemes apply to us and we've had to rather sadly tell them 'no way' and explain why. A lot of them have come from business and arts backgrounds and think it's an easy way to make quick cash (hint: it isn't - writing software is hard and laborious and pays crap for t…

Thanks for your feedback. This is not a boot camp. Have you ever committed 100% of your time to learning a new skill over a short period of time?

Yes, fairly simple skills. I would concur with my grandparent that it is impossible to master a complex skill set in just a short amount of time. That's not to say that it is useless. On the contrary: it gives your graduates a basis companies can work with to turn them into productive programmers for the company. Especially because your students will have a solid background in some other field (?). That can make them valuable employees if they are able to take the hurdle of working as a underpaid entry-level programmer for a while.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#18

Post by kaonashi »

meaty wrote: post #14
davj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your feedback. This is not a boot camp. Have you ever committed 100% of your time to learning a new skill over a short period of time?

No, I believe learning a skill is an investment, which is why I take my time (sometimes years) and study for a long time before I even put pen to paper. My latest learning exercise was postgresql. I've done a proper engineering evaluation on it which has taken a whole year, but i tell you, i know it inside out now. I am confident i can handle any edge case or problem. Can your 10 week old developers even handle a sim…

What does a proper engineering evaluation entail?

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#19

Post by davj »

meaty wrote: post #14
davj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your feedback. This is not a boot camp. Have you ever committed 100% of your time to learning a new skill over a short period of time?

No, I believe learning a skill is an investment, which is why I take my time (sometimes years) and study for a long time before I even put pen to paper. My latest learning exercise was postgresql. I've done a proper engineering evaluation on it which has taken a whole year, but i tell you, i know it inside out now. I am confident i can handle any edge case or problem. Can your 10 week old developers even handle a sim…

I agree, to become an expert takes time (some say 10,000 hours). We don't claim to train people to be experts. Our students do not graduate knowing the solution to every edge case. They graduate with a strong foundation and confidence. They spend a lot of time learning how to learn - how to grow as a developer. The journey doesn't end with the end of the program. For many of our graduates, the end of the program is just the beginning (one graduate just wrote about this today: http://www.mercedescoyle.com/last-day-of-hackbright-first-da...). Our goal is to provide them with the skills they need to start a career in software development. So far, the majority of our graduates from the first batch (8 out of 8 seeking employment) have already started their new careers in software development.
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