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Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

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Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#61

Post by rickthomas1980 »

sciguy77 wrote: post #55
feministy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We're asked to work upwards of 100 hours a week." No you're not. I went to Dev Bootcamp. You're required to be present 40 hours a week, any additional hours are because you choose to do so.

Hmm. Let me try and figure out where I heard this.

Here you go:

http://devbootcamp.com/faq/

"So I'm going to be sitting in class for 40 hours a week?"

"No. That would be terribly boring and ineffective. You will spend a little time every day learning through curated tutorials and books, and a lot of the time practicing what you learn. You'll work in pairs and small groups on an exciting integrated curriculum. Your brain will be buzzing as you solve problems, tackle challenges, and build applications until you're confident in your mastery of the skills. If you have an idea for a web app you want to build, then definitely bring it. Also it's important to note that even though class is 40 hours per week, you'll be working more like 70-100 hours per week!"

P.S.- I also attended Dev Bootcamp (with feministy, as it happens). I'd say 70-100 hours per week was accurate for my cohort, although this varies significantly depending on a student's programming background.

Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#62

Post by sbisker »

abecedarius wrote: post #50
glaugh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was an intentional choice, based on my (incorrect) impression that it was exclusively more advanced folks. Though now I'll act like vitno's logic was mine, too :) I think if I were to do it over I might include it, but at this point I'd rather not change anything and risk messing something up in the survey data. Thanks for bringing it up.

They don't accept people who's never coded before, but you don't need to have coded a lot . (I was surprised at this news of someone who'd never coded at all -- I'd still guess it's just a slight exaggeration.)

I just asked the guy. He had self-taught himself programming on his own for a few months prior to attending the program, but attended in part to make a career change (had done startup biz dev / operations / whatnot prior.) Maybe that counted, or maybe they just tightened the restriction since then.

That said, this was spring of 2012. I'm sure Hacker School has changed a lot since then! Suffice it to say he's a fabulous programmer now. :)

Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#63

Post by abecedarius »

sbisker wrote: post #62
abecedarius wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't accept people who's never coded before, but you don't need to have coded a lot . (I was surprised at this news of someone who'd never coded at all -- I'd still guess it's just a slight exaggeration.)

I just asked the guy. He had self-taught himself programming on his own for a few months prior to attending the program, but attended in part to make a career change (had done startup biz dev / operations / whatnot prior.) Maybe that counted, or maybe they just tightened the restriction since then. That said, this was spring of 2012. I'm sure Hacker School has changed a lot since then! Suffice it to say he's a fabulo…

That's in line with my experience (fall '12). I just don't want anyone reading this to be discouraged from applying because they're not 'advanced' -- there was a Hacker School blog post on that pretty recently.

Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#64

Post by deadfall »

zinssmeister wrote: post #21

We interviewed a few and will probably never consider resumes from bootcamp grads again. Calling them Jr. isn't even fair towards CS grads that are actual Jr. level

What grinds my gears is recently coming across some bootcamp grad's profiles that call themselves Software Engineers and have yet to get a job as an engineer. This is like saying you are a racecar driver and only took a class at the karting track.

Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#65

Post by jcdavison »

fishtoaster wrote: post #25

I worked with a Dev Bootcamp grad who had worked at a consultancy of some sort for 8 or 9 months before joining our company. It was definitely an interesting experience. I've worked with a number of fresh college grads, and I more or less know where they tend to be weak/strong. The dev bootcamp grad was pretty much the opposite of a college grad. He was strong with our specific tools (rails), good development practic…

i'm a dev bootcamp grad and I feel like you just described me well, but i'm very crafty with products and am very business leaning (mba as well), though I haven't had too much trouble doing things in js, my data structure/algo stuff is weak and I care about improving it.

Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#66

Post by doktrin »

greenyoda wrote: post #47
sciguy77 wrote: post #38

I'm a CS major, and have worked a few years as a programmer in embedded systems. For a number of reasons I'm making the switch to Ruby, and am attending Dev Bootcamp to accelerate that process. I find the practical-centered bootcamp makes a nice compliment to the theory-heavy computer science taught in college. I haven't attended the camp yet, but I've worked with a few students on projects so far (there's a lot of p…

"We're asked to work upwards of 100 hours a week." It doesn't seem like one could learn effectively while fighting physical and mental exhaustion. Asking people to work 100 hours a week sounds more like an indoctrination program to make them believe that the long work hours they're likely to find in startups are "normal". Or maybe a way for the bootcamp to market their grads to startups: "Our graduates survived 100-h…

It's driven by the amount of material that students need to ingest over a 3 month period. As sciguy noted, this is totally normal in academic settings as well. For instance, OS (15-410) at CMU requires 70+ hours a week. That's a single class.

These are of course completely different animals, but the scale of learning is similar. Getting a solid intuition for not only web applications but programming fundamentals when starting with neither requires serious effort and is a challenge of breadth. 3 months worth of 40 hour weeks will probably not cut it.

Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#67

Post by doktrin »

nanijoe wrote: post #54
sciguy77 wrote: post #38

I'm a CS major, and have worked a few years as a programmer in embedded systems. For a number of reasons I'm making the switch to Ruby, and am attending Dev Bootcamp to accelerate that process. I find the practical-centered bootcamp makes a nice compliment to the theory-heavy computer science taught in college. I haven't attended the camp yet, but I've worked with a few students on projects so far (there's a lot of p…

Just curious here..If you are already a programmer, why do you need a bootcamp to learn ruby? It seems to me you should be able to spend $40 on a book, and be up and running within a few weeks. Then try to implement some of the stuff you have done in other languages in ruby.

I can't speak for the parent, but most programmers and CS grads that attend bootcamps aren't so much interested in learning Ruby as developing a better intuition for web application architecture.

This, I'm sure you'll agree, makes much more sense than simply learning another Algol-based language. To turn this on its head, I can write C & C++ passably but that doesn't mean I'd feel qualified applying for a job as an embedded systems or game developer.

Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#68

Post by finally »

jw2013 wrote: post #39

So I took a quick search and find a list of 50 code bootcamps, and many are duplicate bootcamps on different locations: http://www.programmingisnothard.com/bootcamps A few things I noticed (through just a quick inspection): 1) Average training time is about 10 weeks; 2) 28 out of 50 teaches Ruby/Rails, 15 out of 50 teaches JavaScript, 5 teaches Python, 3 teaches iOS, and 3 teaches Android. --- So, yeah, the curriculu…

I have come across a few that do teach algorithms, although I've never been. How deep can you get on algorithms when you only learn it for a week?

With that said, I'm not a CS grad and I've learnt time complexity through self learning.

Personally I don't think algorithms are really necessary for people working to be front end web developers. The bottleneck on speed is in the back end.

Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#69

Post by nathan-wailes »

throwaway_camp wrote: post #29
dasil003 wrote: post #23

I've only worked with one bootcamp grad, but I've done a fair bit of hiring over the past 15 years, including a number of junior folks. My main concern with bootcamp grads is that it is not much of a positive signal. My (admittedly biased and unscientific) sense is that you really have to be hopeless to flunk out. The training period is so short that the assignments are necessarily small and limited in scope, so they…

I have encountered a number of people who share your sentiment, that attending a bootcamp is a negative signal. I went through one of these bootcamps after a few years of learning on my own. While it was an awesome experience and I learned a lot, I find it necessary to pretend it never happened - it's as if the years I spent teaching myself and my passion for the subject are undone by association with a bootcamp.

Have you not encountered people with the opposite sentiment? I'm in your same situation (but I haven't gone to a bootcamp yet) so I'm wondering what I should do.

Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#70

Post by AdrianRossouw »

mikeyanderson wrote: post #58
duaneb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, learning to code well is HARD and takes a lot of time, and more importantly, practice. Stayin inside coding as a kid was the best decision of my life, career-wise.

At Code Fellows we have quite a few students who use boot camps to switch stacks or they have legacy CS experience that they are getting back into. We also have a lot of newer folks. One of the things that we've seen at Code Fellows is that incoming students need to have a Foundational understanding of data structures, algorithms, and data types—and also a experience in the stack they are going to take a boot camp in…

I've noticed the same need, which is why I started a series of articles trying to cover that stuff.

http://daemon.co.za/2014/04/introduction-fullstack-fundament...

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