About Coding House (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: About Coding House (2014)

#11

Post by rpcope1 » Tue, May 05, 2015, 7:27 PM UTC

nfoz wrote: post #4

rpcope1 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I am incredibly dubious that "bootcamps" have any value whatsoever in any case, except maybe for introducing practicing developers to new technologies. I know tech is the hot place to be any more, but man it's amazing the number of charlatans that have started to show up surrounding "hot technology."

Different people have different learning styles. And many people do not have an effective or appropriate learning environment where they can learn new tech through free resources. So I think direct-mentorship can be very helpful to some people; even it can help wade through what's out there to understand what's important to learn, how long you should spend learning x, etc. But until this article, I had never thought…

I get that not everyone can sit down and start grepping how a kernel works, how to architect database solutions, or get what it means to be reentrant in the context of parallel programming. Not everyone can be efficient successful autodidacts; however we have places to learn, like colleges. I would rather see community colleges or university start offering more individual courses to help you get up to speed. There is probably some room for just emerging people in technology completely for a period of time, like some bootcamps seem to do, but these sort of operations reek the same way for-profit universities do, feeling very strongly like whoever is teaching is in it for the money and that the whole operation is a fly-by-night. Beyond that, I wouldn't hire someone out of a bootcamp to do much more than maintain my generic off the shelf CMS, as I'm not sure 6-12 weeks is enough to truly gain the experience and knowledge to avoid anything but the most superficial problems when attempting to build and maintain effective codebases.

Re: About Coding House (2014)

#12

Post by clavalle » Tue, May 05, 2015, 7:29 PM UTC

I can see what Coding House was trying to accomplish from this description: give the attendees a 'solved' but real problem that they could start building day 1. Show them how to be self reliant in terms of finding answers for themselves (important for any development career). Address the commonly neglected area of interpersonal networking and personal branding (I can't believe I just used that phrase with a straight face, but there it is).

But it seems like it was geared toward people who already had a handle on programming. This, along with inflated marketing promises (welcome to the business world) is where things collapsed.

These are fixable problems. First, time should be split between instruction on concrete beginner level topics and the project. Preferably relevant to the task they will be tackling in the project itself. The instructor should be very well versed in the technologies at least so far as the previously solved project the students build is concerned. The project itself and the steps needed to accomplish the project should be very well understood. The instructor should have a step by step guide from start to finish. This would take doing the project from scratch a few times using the notes from the previous one as a guide. That guide shouldn't be shared with the developers but it should serve as a reference to get them unstuck after beating their head against Google and Stack Overflow.

And, of course, you shouldn't make promises of employment that you can't keep.

Now, those seem to be very core problems but I do see the logic behind a lot of the rest. Exercise is important to work into your routine. Networking is important. Learning to solve your own problems is important. Working with others is important. Doing promo photoshoots and locking your laptop? Not so much.

I can see why this person would want their money back and if I were Coding House I'd pay it, but I don't think everything is as damning as this letter makes out. With some serious tweaks it is recoverable. I think their heart was likely in the right place.

Re: About Coding House (2014)

#13

Post by danso » Tue, May 05, 2015, 7:29 PM UTC

sleazebreeze wrote: post #10

EDIT: Turns out this Quora review is written by a different Jose who attended Coding House. My bad! Was this review by Jose written under duress or legally compelled somehow? http://www.quora.com/Reviews-of-Coding-House It is written by the OP, but it is quite positive and recommends the experience from Coding House. It was written in April 2015. The article was from September 2014. Something is off here...

I'm assuming two different Joses?

edit: Keep reading that Quora thread. In one of the hidden responses (hidden because it really isn't a review), it mentions the source of the OP, which has apparently been removed since its original posting: http://joselcontreras.com/about-coding-house/

Re: About Coding House (2014)

#14

Post by cansync1 » Tue, May 05, 2015, 7:54 PM UTC

Hi All,

I am one of the founders at Coding House. Let me provide some insight on the post from last year.

1) 50% of the the post is true and my fault

2) 50% is untrue and students fault

3) It was our very first cohort and we had a lot to learn about what worked and did not work

4) The student has been refunded

5) We wanted to make it like a real boot camp and that was to hard on some of the students

6) We have fantastic instructors you can find there bio's on our site

7) We have change our policies to insure it dose not happen again

8) Look up all the reviews of Coding House and you will find we have great outcomes and satisfied students

Re: About Coding House (2014)

#15

Post by wyc » Tue, May 05, 2015, 8:02 PM UTC

cansync1 wrote: post #14

Hi All, I am one of the founders at Coding House. Let me provide some insight on the post from last year. 1) 50% of the the post is true and my fault 2) 50% is untrue and students fault 3) It was our very first cohort and we had a lot to learn about what worked and did not work 4) The student has been refunded 5) We wanted to make it like a real boot camp and that was to hard on some of the students 6) We have fantas…

> 50% is untrue and students fault

This statement does little to make me feel any better about Coding House.

Re: About Coding House (2014)

#16

Post by techpeace » Tue, May 05, 2015, 8:04 PM UTC

cansync1 wrote: post #14

Hi All, I am one of the founders at Coding House. Let me provide some insight on the post from last year. 1) 50% of the the post is true and my fault 2) 50% is untrue and students fault 3) It was our very first cohort and we had a lot to learn about what worked and did not work 4) The student has been refunded 5) We wanted to make it like a real boot camp and that was to hard on some of the students 6) We have fantas…

http://codinghouse.co/#!partners

Don't list those companies as "partners" if they just allowed you to tour their offices one day, unless your intent is to receive a C&D from Google.

Re: About Coding House (2014)

#17

Post by hikz » Tue, May 05, 2015, 8:06 PM UTC

cansync1 wrote: post #14

Hi All, I am one of the founders at Coding House. Let me provide some insight on the post from last year. 1) 50% of the the post is true and my fault 2) 50% is untrue and students fault 3) It was our very first cohort and we had a lot to learn about what worked and did not work 4) The student has been refunded 5) We wanted to make it like a real boot camp and that was to hard on some of the students 6) We have fantas…

Why do you and other coding bootcamps pretend to be anything else than intensive web development courses?

Another coding bootcamp called "Hack Reactor" is claiming to be "The CS degree for the 21st century" on the front page and on another page they write "Become a Software Engineer".

Re: About Coding House (2014)

#18

Post by hikz » Tue, May 05, 2015, 8:10 PM UTC

zastavka wrote: post #9

rpcope1 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I am incredibly dubious that "bootcamps" have any value whatsoever in any case, except maybe for introducing practicing developers to new technologies. I know tech is the hot place to be any more, but man it's amazing the number of charlatans that have started to show up surrounding "hot technology."

I think caveat emptor absolutely applies with bootcamps, but there are also ones that are certainly worth the money. I'm a recent App Academy grad (full disclosure) and almost all of my cohort are now at high-paying jobs at companies they love, including Google, Groupon and Tumblr. (I'm still looking for work right now, but only because of extenuating personal circumstances.) Having talked with my friends who are wor…

  I've heard very good things about Hack Reactor as well

My first impression of them is dishonesty.

They claim to be "The CS degree for the 21st century" which is simply not true for an intensive web development course.

Re: About Coding House (2014)

#19

Post by joshrotenberg » Tue, May 05, 2015, 8:21 PM UTC

wyc wrote: post #15

cansync1 wrote: post #14

Hi All, I am one of the founders at Coding House. Let me provide some insight on the post from last year. 1) 50% of the the post is true and my fault 2) 50% is untrue and students fault 3) It was our very first cohort and we had a lot to learn about what worked and did not work 4) The student has been refunded 5) We wanted to make it like a real boot camp and that was to hard on some of the students 6) We have fantas…

> 50% is untrue and students fault This statement does little to make me feel any better about Coding House.

Should be more like "We take 100% responsibility for the issues and plan to do something about it."

Re: About Coding House (2014)

#20

Post by cansync1 » Tue, May 05, 2015, 8:24 PM UTC

cansync1 wrote: post #14

Hi All, I am one of the founders at Coding House. Let me provide some insight on the post from last year. 1) 50% of the the post is true and my fault 2) 50% is untrue and students fault 3) It was our very first cohort and we had a lot to learn about what worked and did not work 4) The student has been refunded 5) We wanted to make it like a real boot camp and that was to hard on some of the students 6) We have fantas…

I invite anyone who wishes to check out the program.

To come over for a workshop we have a few coming up on Saturdays.

See for your self.

http://www.meetup.com/EdgeCoders/