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Dev Bootcamp is shutting down

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Re: Dev Bootcamp is shutting down

#11

Post by shawndrost »

ABaldwinHunter wrote: post #10
shawndrost wrote: post #6

(I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor, a competitor.) DBC launched an industry. Early students/staff went on to start Hack Reactor, App Academy, and Hackbright Academy. Early students/staff of Hack Reactor went on to found Zipfian Academy (acquired by Galvanize -- went on to lead Galvanize's education efforts), Codesmith, and a half-dozen other bootcamps. I'm sure AA and HB alums went on to pass the gift on in their own w…

Thanks so much for sharing! I was a DBC student in 2014 and have immense gratitude for the program's impact on me: Its students, instructors, culture, the powerful world of programming it introduced me to, and the career change it launched for me.

I feel like I can empathize. My strongest professional memories are of congratulating a student on getting their first job. Crazy to think that DBC is winding down.

Re: Dev Bootcamp is shutting down

#12

Post by phrowaway21231 »

Shereef Bishay sold out his staff and sold out his mission and he's going to the do the same to his staff at Learner's Guild in Oakland! He sold it off to Kaplan for 80M and his staff (with equity) got nothing!!! pump and dump.

I interviewed for a role at Dev bootcamp in 2016 and got an odd feeling from the place and the guy who interviewed me. He took several months to get back to me after I followed up multiple times and wow am I soooo glad I didn't get that.

Re: Dev Bootcamp is shutting down

#13

Post by sharksforcheap »

shawndrost wrote: post #6

(I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor, a competitor.) DBC launched an industry. Early students/staff went on to start Hack Reactor, App Academy, and Hackbright Academy. Early students/staff of Hack Reactor went on to found Zipfian Academy (acquired by Galvanize -- went on to lead Galvanize's education efforts), Codesmith, and a half-dozen other bootcamps. I'm sure AA and HB alums went on to pass the gift on in their own w…

Shawn was actually the person who sent me that link and said "some guy wants to teach people to code in a coffee shop or something, you should check it out." Back then, I had been hacking things together and had an engineering job, but never felt like I had enough credentials to be a 'real' programmer. I ended up deciding to join the first class of DBC to see what it would be like. There ended up being 21 of us in a tiny sublet at 923 Market. We literally had to go in through a door that was part of a larger garage door. CEO's and CTO's would come speak and everyone was very excited about what we were building together.

I think the thing I learned from the most was the way that Shereef carried himself and ran the community. We all felt like we were building something bigger than ourselves. Shereef was a next level community manager and wasn't afraid to cajole people into the uncomfortable spots for them. I think literally everyone in my class cried at some point. DBC was more than just a technical education, it was an emotional education. I've tried to emulate and embody the emotional balance I learned while in DBC, especially as Shawn and I were creating HR. I think DBC's longest mark on the industry will be in the insertion of 'engineering empathy' into the curriculum.

Shawn, don't forget that the founder of Epicodus came out of that first class of DBC, as did the founder of Codeunion. And the Bloc folks were working out of DBC early on as well. DBC set in motion a whole industry.

As a member of the industry, a former student at DBC, and a former staff member at DBC, I feel for the people (staff, students, alums) affected by this event and am saddened by the void that it will leave for many. I still have my dog tags, and took them out tonight in reverence. Props to everyone on the team who no doubt fought this closure until there wasn't fight left.

Anyone have great DBC memories to share? My two favorites: 1. Speed chess that happened just about every lunch in the first class 2. White water rafting with DBC2 students and staff

Re: Dev Bootcamp is shutting down

#16

Post by secretlyclever »

mattbaker wrote: post #5

As a former employee I have to say that Kaplan did a very fine job keeping the company afloat when it would have otherwise collapsed years earlier. I know the story of an evil corporate takeover is a tempting one, but that's not what happened here. Frankly, I was astounded at just how massive a bet they were willing to make on us. More than once they provided an influx of capital while Dev Bootcamp's leadership attem…

I was a part of Matt's first cohort at Dev Bootcamp and he saw us all the way through the program. I remember telling him afterwards that he was the best teacher I have had and I think everyone else in my cohort felt at least similar if not exactly the same. It was teachers like him that made Dev Bootcamp an awesome experience for many. He developed extra lectures beyond the curriculum on stuff like SQL injection and really thought out how to present them effectively, sought out things that we were struggling with like at one point I think it was scoping in Javascript when we had primarily been dealing with Ruby, or this one time where he was really excited to show us something he repeatedly said would "blow our minds.” I think it was predicate methods and how you could compose them to make new ones. I remember thinking at the time something like “That’s it? Or am I missing something…” Still, it was the effort and caring that stood out. I also remember him staying late with us to refactor a Javascript challenge that was already meeting specs to be object oriented, even though it wasn’t part of the challenge.

I think it was experiences like that that make so many DBC grads so fond of it and why so many graduates still come back to pair with current students. Yet it wasn’t all good. I saw a cohort after us, if I recall correctly have around half of the students help back and have too many students and not enough teachers. Still, I think they tried to do the right thing most of the time. Why else would you allow students to repeat portions of the course and take up to 6 weeks longer instead of just churning through students as fast as possible or make a special effort to try to make the program more accessible underrepresented persons?

Personally, I was miffed by some stuff like finding out during the course that average salaries were lower and average time to employment longer than listed on the website and not seeing an urgency to update those numbers publicly. Or hearing about a plan to try to collect money from potential employers upon hiring a grad when the job search already wasn’t easy and they had already collected thousands from each student in tuition. Like student needed another barrier to being hired. I felt bad for people coming after me having to compete both with more Dev Bootcamp grads as more campuses popped up on top of all the new competing bootcamps, but I really hope most people made it work. DBC did always say that it wasn’t graduating there that’d get you a job, but what you make of that experience and how far you continue after, but still I always wished they were more forthright with their statistics and outcomes.

I don’t know where I’m going with any of this. Guess I'm saying it was a special place, but also a mixed bag in my experience.

Re: Dev Bootcamp is shutting down

#17

Post by secretlyclever »

secretlyclever wrote: post #16
mattbaker wrote: post #5

As a former employee I have to say that Kaplan did a very fine job keeping the company afloat when it would have otherwise collapsed years earlier. I know the story of an evil corporate takeover is a tempting one, but that's not what happened here. Frankly, I was astounded at just how massive a bet they were willing to make on us. More than once they provided an influx of capital while Dev Bootcamp's leadership attem…

I was a part of Matt's first cohort at Dev Bootcamp and he saw us all the way through the program. I remember telling him afterwards that he was the best teacher I have had and I think everyone else in my cohort felt at least similar if not exactly the same. It was teachers like him that made Dev Bootcamp an awesome experience for many. He developed extra lectures beyond the curriculum on stuff like SQL injection and…

The stupidest/silliest thing we ever built is still works. http://berniesbistro.herokuapp.com IIRC, we were having trouble coming up with an idea of what to build and made this in the last 30 minutes before we had to present.

Re: Dev Bootcamp is shutting down

#18

Post by ChrisdeLondon »

SlyShy wrote: post #3

As a former employee I have to say that Kaplan did a very fine job of running the place into the ground. Kaplan management managed to take an industry leader with first mover advantage and completely squander it by myopically focusing on quarterly profits. They really should have switched to a pay-after-getting-a-job tuition model that schools like AppAcademy offer. That would have simultaneously better met the missi…

Why is that superior? Strictly speaking, Dev Bootcamp doesnt have to worry about the success of students because it takes the payment upfront. AppAcademy take the first year payment with average graduating salary of $83K which works out at around $13K return for AppAcademy - the same tuition fees roughly as Dev Bootcamp - am I missing something here?

Re: Dev Bootcamp is shutting down

#19

Post by pensierinmusica »

Kudos to the school who started it all, and the vision behind it. Thinking about the future, and the million of people who could benefit from learning coding, is DBC going to open source their curriculum?

I think they should consider it, and I think that they could reach out to Free Code Camp to see if they can do something together. Hope to see this happening!

From the European side - https://codeworks.me/

Re: Dev Bootcamp is shutting down

#20

Post by avisnir »

DBC was really inspiring for me. Just before we opened the 1st coding bootcamp in Tel Aviv (@Elevation Academy) I came for a visit and they were so open, generous and helpful. Thank you for the breakthrough and the hard work!
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