Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Codecademy launches Reskill USA

reskillusa.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 32 posts

Re: Codecademy launches Reskill USA

#11

Post by nperez »

brandonmenc wrote: post #9

> 3 months: How long it takes a dedicated beginner to learn the skills to qualify for computing and web development jobs. I'm genuinely curious as to how many people here, who either program or hire programmers, will say that the above is a true statement.

Not jobs. Maybe an internship. I self-educated starting at a young age, and started almost every job until recently with a very low paying trial period. If someone is showing interest and room for growth, they may qualify for that. It's more of an investment than a hire at first.

Re: Codecademy launches Reskill USA

#12

Post by dccoolgai »

I love that we are bringing people into the industry, but I wonder if it's really responsible to plaster figures like "$80K for 3 months of easy training" is really a responsible way to market that... I know you have to pragmatic to some degree and speak to people in the language they will listen in... but people who go into coding "just to make money" generally end up like anyone who goes into a field just to make money without any love of the craft: unhappy. After 20-some years in and around tech, I have come to just accept this cycle while humming Elton John's "Circle of Life" in my head: "Make a ton of easy money in tech!" ::>> "So many people in tech just to make money." ::>> "Tech Crash Due to Overhype About How Much Money There Is" ::>> "No one makes money in tech - go get an MBA" ::>> "Someone in tech made a ton of money!" ::>> "Make a ton of easy money in tech!"

Re: Codecademy launches Reskill USA

#13

Post by malandrew »

chrismealy wrote: post #6

There once was an island with a population of 100 dogs. Every day a plane flew overhead and dropped 95 bones onto the island. It was a dog paradise, except for the fact that every day 5 dogs went hungry. Hearing about the problem, a group of social scientists was sent to assess the situation and recommend remedies. The social scientists ran a series of regressions and determined that bonelessness in the dog populatio…

Meh. While entertaining, this is a fallacious allegory. This fails to consider the divisibility of bones, some dogs getting more than one bone or the fact that in real life scenarios that the number of bones can fluctuate (more or fewer bones).

Furthermore, the site states that there are 1 million unclaimed bones. While I won't argue either in favor of or against that figure, but assuming there are unclaimed bones, your allegory would be more correct if there were something like 105 bones and 5 dogs still went went hungry every day despite the 5-bone surplus.

Re: Codecademy launches Reskill USA

#14

Post by dashboardfront »

colbyh wrote: post #7
fourstar wrote: post #2

> ReskillUSA will close the gap between technical education and employment. No it won't. > By connecting students with accessible vocational education programs and employers eager to hire from them, we're training more Americans for the jobs of today. Yeah because the "jobs of today" all require you to know: HTML and CSS Javascript jQuery Github

I actually asked their CEO about this on PH. Building websites != engineering, and we need more of the latter. I do think there's a place for skills-based learning to take up some of the slack, but simply rehashing the same Rails/JS tutorials isn't going to cut it unfortunately.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there's much resources online that say "Learn How to Become a Software Engineer!" without costing you three/four years of extra education and a sizeable sum of money. I'm learning how to program at the moment alongside my degree, and almost all the resources I've seen online are oriented towards web development; consequentially, that's what I'm learning, even though I'd much rather be learning whatever lets me go program things like rockets, robots, self-driving cars, etc., with the hope that I'll be able to eventually move towards that end goal.

Re: Codecademy launches Reskill USA

#15

Post by analog31 »

brandonmenc wrote: post #9

> 3 months: How long it takes a dedicated beginner to learn the skills to qualify for computing and web development jobs. I'm genuinely curious as to how many people here, who either program or hire programmers, will say that the above is a true statement.

Just for historical context: Back in the early 80s, a relative of mine taught the intro programming course in an adult education program. Her students were getting hired. Now, they were adults -- mature and motivated. At the same time, I went through pretty much the same curriculum in a high school course in BASIC, that has been my only formal training in programming.

I don't know about three months, but people were getting programming jobs with what would seem like pretty minimal training. I got to see some programming getting done thanks to internships etc., and the work environment was pretty loose, where you could get away with a fair amount of learning on the job.

It didn't seem all that hard, and despite the fact that I enjoyed programming, I wasn't sure that I wanted to make a career of it, so I pursued other interests. Today I use programming extensively in my work, but am not employed as a programmer per se.

Re: Codecademy launches Reskill USA

#16

Post by zorrb »

brandonmenc wrote: post #9

> 3 months: How long it takes a dedicated beginner to learn the skills to qualify for computing and web development jobs. I'm genuinely curious as to how many people here, who either program or hire programmers, will say that the above is a true statement.

Definitely not a true statement, unless you have some other background/experience that a company is willing to give you a shot in a junior role.

Re: Codecademy launches Reskill USA

#17

Post by analog31 »

dashboardfront wrote: post #14
colbyh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually asked their CEO about this on PH. Building websites != engineering, and we need more of the latter. I do think there's a place for skills-based learning to take up some of the slack, but simply rehashing the same Rails/JS tutorials isn't going to cut it unfortunately.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there's much resources online that say "Learn How to Become a Software Engineer!" without costing you three/four years of extra education and a sizeable sum of money. I'm learning how to program at the moment alongside my degree, and almost all the resources I've seen online are oriented towards web development; consequentially, that's what I'm learning, even though I'd much rather…

Are there any chances at your school to learn Matlab or LabVIEW? Another option is to look into what people are doing with Arduino boards. I think that the Arduino crowd have created a lot of tutorials and example codes online.

I'm not touting these languages or tools as the best, but as ways to be exposed to the kinds of programming that people do in areas that you're interested in.

Re: Codecademy launches Reskill USA

#18

Post by dashboardfront »

analog31 wrote: post #17
dashboardfront wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there's much resources online that say "Learn How to Become a Software Engineer!" without costing you three/four years of extra education and a sizeable sum of money. I'm learning how to program at the moment alongside my degree, and almost all the resources I've seen online are oriented towards web development; consequentially, that's what I'm learning, even though I'd much rather…

Are there any chances at your school to learn Matlab or LabVIEW? Another option is to look into what people are doing with Arduino boards. I think that the Arduino crowd have created a lot of tutorials and example codes online. I'm not touting these languages or tools as the best, but as ways to be exposed to the kinds of programming that people do in areas that you're interested in.

Sadly, no. I attend the worst of schools; a business school. As my education is European, I'm not allowed to just switch majors either. I'll take a look at your recommendation, though; thanks.

Re: Codecademy launches Reskill USA

#19

Post by analog31 »

dashboardfront wrote: post #18
analog31 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any chances at your school to learn Matlab or LabVIEW? Another option is to look into what people are doing with Arduino boards. I think that the Arduino crowd have created a lot of tutorials and example codes online. I'm not touting these languages or tools as the best, but as ways to be exposed to the kinds of programming that people do in areas that you're interested in.

Sadly, no. I attend the worst of schools; a business school. As my education is European, I'm not allowed to just switch majors either. I'll take a look at your recommendation, though; thanks.

I suggest starting with something like an Arduino robot kit.

Re: Codecademy launches Reskill USA

#20

Post by jlees »

dashboardfront wrote: post #14
colbyh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually asked their CEO about this on PH. Building websites != engineering, and we need more of the latter. I do think there's a place for skills-based learning to take up some of the slack, but simply rehashing the same Rails/JS tutorials isn't going to cut it unfortunately.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there's much resources online that say "Learn How to Become a Software Engineer!" without costing you three/four years of extra education and a sizeable sum of money. I'm learning how to program at the moment alongside my degree, and almost all the resources I've seen online are oriented towards web development; consequentially, that's what I'm learning, even though I'd much rather…

I'd say the closest things would be actual honest-to-goodness academic courses online, e.g Coursera/MIT/etc computer science tracks.
Post reply on HN