Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate • Hacker News Board

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#111

Post by veebuv » Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 1:32 AM UTC

analognoise wrote: post #14

shawndrost wrote: post #9

(I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor.) It's always a bummer when an alum would not recommend the program. I hate reading posts like this and I'd love to buy the poster a beer and learn more so we can do it different next time. (Email is in profile!) Here's a bit of inside baseball: This post is representative of a troubled period at our school. We had a couple of overlapping key problems and recent alums have been less s…

"we charge $20k because the median student gets a ~$50k raise" Horseshit alert if I've ever heard one.

Went from 55K consultant mech eng to 95K. Took a lot of self hustle and the HR marketing and alum outcome results.

If not this would have got to that number after maybe 2 years so definitely helped.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#112

Post by paulmd » Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 6:43 AM UTC

daxfohl wrote: post #31

As an employer I'd look at bootcamp participation as a sign that the applicant doesn't know how to program. Just like all of Sun's nee Oracle's and MS's (well, and Oracle's) cert programs 15 years ago. If you truly don't know how to program but want a coding job, then here's a $0 class. Start with JavaScript. Why? The entire internet is based on JavaScript, it can do anything, it runs on any OS, and it's easy to lear…

Or to put it another way, if you knew how to program you wouldn't need to take a crash course. One of the unique things about programming is that many places will hire you without formal certification if you have the (non-language-specific) skills, so there's no real reason to do a bootcamp just for the credential.

Conversely, even if you have credentials you're useless if you can't churn out decent code, and it's just not possible to get the chops to do that in a few weeks of study if you don't already have a basic level of skill. And if you do, there's again no reason to actually go to a bootcamp.

Not that we don't have our problems with stuff like brogrammer culture (particularly in startups) but in terms of credentialling we're actually remarkably meritocratic. Pumping out good code is what matters, not the credential. A credential is one signal that an individual may be competent, but just like any other signal it's by no means foolproof, and there's plenty of other ways to demonstrate competence.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#113

Post by rdiddly » Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 5:46 PM UTC

markbnj wrote: post #49

Ugh, how could anyone hope to teach programming by beginning with "Data Modeling and Classes?" That stuff only becomes interesting after you've become enthralled by getting the computer to do stuff.

I thought the same thing - weird way to start off.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#114

Post by wnmurphy » Sun, Jun 12, 2016, 8:16 AM UTC

Dr_tldr wrote: post #28

shawndrost wrote: post #9

(I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor.) It's always a bummer when an alum would not recommend the program. I hate reading posts like this and I'd love to buy the poster a beer and learn more so we can do it different next time. (Email is in profile!) Here's a bit of inside baseball: This post is representative of a troubled period at our school. We had a couple of overlapping key problems and recent alums have been less s…

So you were part of the group of schools that refused to agree to a transparency initiative ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11872261 ) but you think self-publishing your own methodology with zero breakdown of what your categories mean is just as good? Like, where are all of the grads employed by Hack Reactor to pad the numbers accounted for? What percentage of your students already have a CS degree when they w…

Grads who choose to apply to mentoring jobs with Hack Reactor are not counted in the hiring stats. Once they leave and begin their engineering job search full time, they are.

Also, I believe there is only a single company that has 'blacklisted' HR grads, and it was because they had a bad interpersonal experience with a few people from a single cohort.

Re: Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate

#115

Post by nbclark » Sun, Jun 12, 2016, 5:16 PM UTC

seangrogg wrote: post #68

nbclark wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of my concern with bootcamps is the sentiment expressed above that you need it to get exposure to some arbitrary technology. In my experience, the best indicator to success in an industry or technology is a desire to learn that technology. Not someone giving exposure. I a happy it is working out for you, but as Node falls out of fashion, it will be on you to learn the next wave.

I hate when people make the assumption that learning JavaScript is somehow a limiting factor. It hasn't stopped me from picking up Java, Ruby, Python, or PHP. I still have some trouble with Go structs and I still have some learning to do on Rust lifetimes... but seriously. What "next wave" of server application development does Node.js leave me so woefully unprepared to deal with? Are people really having issues mars…

Was not my intention to imply javascript was a limiting factor. Nor that web frameworks for python, java, ruby, etc. are all that different. My comment was simply challenging the thought that a bootcamp is necessary for being exposed to technology. There are plenty of free resources online from which to learn. If a bootcamp helps jumpstart that, great. But picking up the next framework (while similar) will require diving in on your own.