Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks • Hacker News Board

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#71

Post by irahul » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 6:05 PM UTC

meaty wrote: post #67

irahul wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact I'd go as far as to say that (to the nearest whole percent) 10 weeks is long enough to learn any skill to a competent level. I agree with most of your post. Learning Java in 10 weeks(5 days/week with about 5 hours/day) is more than enough. You sure aren't going to learn all nooks and corners, but you can learn a lot of general purpose programming and Java programming. But "10 weeks is long enough to learn a…

You can learn Java syntax in 10 weeks, but you can't learn how to write Java that isn't a piece of shit.

At this point, you are just trying to validate your investment. I see that you somehow studied postgres for 1 year before using it. Study postgres for whole your life; I couldn't care less. 1 year is neither the desired nor the required time it takes. But since you invested 1 year, you will go all out declaring anyone who can use postgres efficiently after studying it for 2 weeks is lying.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#72

Post by ellaVader » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 6:06 PM UTC

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…

If Hackbright didn't have the capability to teach skills in a short period of time, we wouldn't have jobs, wouldn't have our own working apps, and certainly wouldn't be winning any prizes at hackathons.

Before the first program was half over, these two students won 2nd place: http://www.women2.com/two-student-programmers-build-their-1s...

Another example is the ESPNW event that took place before the second program was over: http://www.twilio.com/blog/2012/11/female-hackers-represent-...

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#73

Post by irahul » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 6:16 PM UTC

MichelleGlauser wrote: post #70

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 will remember not to approach any company where you work, Meaty, because of your lack of faith in people being able to dedicate themselves and learn quickly. It also sounds like you would never invest in any employee, which makes it clear that you would not be the right one to work with anyway. Developers are in demand so much right now that I have no idea how you find the perfect candidate. The market will not get…

> The market will not get any better without the investment of employers.

I won't know anything about how the market will get better, but please don't count on your employers for your personal growth. If the employer does that for you, that's an added advantage. Also, the way your employer shapes you very rarely aligns with your optimal growth. An ideal employer is a facilitator viz. RailsConf will be paid by the company, buy whatever books you want etc.

> but I have a wonderfully firm basis that will help me build an amazing career I never dreamed of.

It will help you eventually, but unless Hackbright has arranged interviews for you, be prepared for not hearing back from the employers. People who have formal education for at least 4 years in computer science secure an interview once in a while, and a desirable job takes many such secured interviews. From the employers perspective, if many such formally educated people turn out below par, a 10 week training program doesn't really excite anyone.

My unsolicited advice is start building things - small tractable things which you can build in less than 3 weeks. Build it and put it on github. It might not work for big companies, but small companies are more likely to give you a chance if they can see your code and verify that you can build things.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#74

Post by irahul » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 6:20 PM UTC

davj wrote: post #10

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…

Thanks for your message and the kind words. This is our second batch. We trained 12 students in our first class, and 16 in the second (graduated on Friday). Our students do have the qualities you mentioned: ambition, drive, strong work ethic, and technical aptitude. I think it helps that they are surrounded by a supportive and encouraging community.

Please tell me someone fat fingered(the comment above is in gray), and this relevant, non-rude comment isn't really getting downvoted.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#75

Post by smsm42 » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 9:42 PM UTC

davj wrote: post #15

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.

We create a positive and productive environment to maximize the effectiveness of the program - this is very generic. Of course everybody would try to create productive environment and maximize the effectiveness - did you ever encounter an education establishment that tries to create negative and unproductive environment and minimizes the effectiveness of their effort? The question is how you do it - and how it is specifically fit to women. This is the interesting topic. I understand if you don't want to reveal trade secrets, etc. but there must be something beyond genetic platitudes that can be said about it.

Why Hackbright may not be for everyone? So far what you explained is certainly for everyone - everyone would want high quality instruction in a positive environment and a supportive community. So what is different?

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#76

Post by smsm42 » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 9:50 PM UTC

runarb wrote: post #47

nhebb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Agree. With Sams all you need is about an hour, and you could know all this: "Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes" - http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Minutes-Edition/dp... "Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 10 Minutes" - http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-PHP-Minutes/dp/067... "Sams Teach Yourself UNIX in 10 Minutes" - http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Minutes-Yourself/d... "Sams Teach Yourself AJA…

They also have the same with "24 hours"... For the slow readers among us I guess. Given the 10-minute book on PHP has 264 pages, it's about 26 pages per minute, or a little more than 2 seconds per page, not counting the time it takes to turn the pages. One must be really quick.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#77

Post by smsm42 » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 9:53 PM UTC

jerrya wrote: post #28

zedshaw wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a few same-sex educational organizations around. I think you're confusing this with equal opportunity employment, which only applies to certain sized companies or ones that take Federal money.

Well, I think I am comparing it to any company selling any product, of which very few seem allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex.

Some definitely are. I don't think there are many male waiters in Hooters, are there?

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#78

Post by dools » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 10:25 PM UTC

meaty wrote: post #52

dools wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Hypertermi…

I get what you're saying (I designed a 4-bit CPU at university, prototyped it in basic TTL and got it fabbed and it worked (!) in two semesters) but it doesn't mean I'll ever be able to throw a useful microcontroller core out of the door or that the work I did was of any merchantable quality. Progress is good but if you throw someone into industry too early, then you're going to hurt the reputation of the education m…

You missed the part where I said I got a job, producing code which made someone else money, after only a semester of C having never done any programming before.

The other examples were there to give credence to the fact that you can learn vast amounts in a semester.

Also you missed the bit where I trained people in 4 weeks who had never programmed before how to hand write SQL queries on the linux command line.

There were 2 out of a class of 16 whom I would be comfortable recommending as junior DBA or reporting type folks.

"Too early" depends on the industry. In neurosurgery you need an undergrad degree, then a postgrad degree in medicine, then 4 years as an intern, and blah blah (it's been a while since I watched "Scrubs" :) but for programming, particularly writing web based C.R.U.D apps, deploying Wordpress sites, maintaining existing projects, or writing internal tools for business automation, you can basically start as soon as you understand the basics of programming.

Not every company in the world is a 4 person startup looking for "full stack unicorns" - there is a huge industry out there that can make use of people with a solid grounding in the principles of programming to product "merchantable" work with real value.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#79

Post by dools » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 10:27 PM UTC

meaty wrote: post #60

zedshaw wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you get to say something incredibly invalid and easily disproven like "you can not learn any skill in 10 weeks" because I wrote an essay in 2008? Four years ago? Let me guess, you aren't very good at this whole logical argument thing which why you're just wrong here. Again, merchantable skill is subjective and based on the free market, so no, I could learn a "merchantable" skill in 2 hours. Cleaning toilets comes…

No that's not what I suggested. Read it again a couple of times, carefully. I think it was a logical and concise argument. Perhaps a better statement is: "any semi technical skill takes way more than 10 weeks to become productive and not a risk". Are you happy now?

I still disagree. There are a shitload of very technical skills you can learn in 10 weeks proficiently enough to produce valuable work.

Risk management is up to the employer.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#80

Post by MichelleGlauser » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 11:10 PM UTC

irahul wrote: post #73

MichelleGlauser wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will remember not to approach any company where you work, Meaty, because of your lack of faith in people being able to dedicate themselves and learn quickly. It also sounds like you would never invest in any employee, which makes it clear that you would not be the right one to work with anyway. Developers are in demand so much right now that I have no idea how you find the perfect candidate. The market will not get…

> The market will not get any better without the investment of employers. I won't know anything about how the market will get better, but please don't count on your employers for your personal growth. If the employer does that for you, that's an added advantage. Also, the way your employer shapes you very rarely aligns with your optimal growth. An ideal employer is a facilitator viz. RailsConf will be paid by the com…

Yes, that is a problem sometimes. That is another thing really awesome about Hackbright--they provide a lot of networking opportunities and even a Career Day. I have nine interviews so far.