Live data from Hacker News

Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

ag.ny.gov

121–130 of 217 posts

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#122
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of a rant since I worked in the industry: > CS graduates going into other fields [like finance] Finance is just like every other high-professional industry, they train you for what you need to know because they are invested in your success. I worked in that industry for 6 years. Most banks run a 2-3 month internal bootcamp for fresh college hires. I was a math/econ double major and sat next to an english lit ma…

I can't speak for Finance but if your CS degree isn't equivalent to ~4 years of work experience you went to a bad school.

Some numbers:

College:

    30 weeks
    40 hours per week
    4 years
    = 4800 hours
Work:

    49 weeks
    50 hours per week
    2 years
    = 4900 hours
And that's being generous at only a 50 hour work week, as well as being generous in giving a full 40 hours worth of college work. I think your comment perfectly demonstrates my point.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The response times on approval can be pretty terrible and you get peppered with a lot of dumb requests by reviewers who don't actually understand the material. (I grew up around my parents' vocational school, board of education interactions looked totally insane)

This. I work at a coding bootcamp and last week we decided to include CSS Grids in the syllabus for the advanced HTML/CSS week and this week we are practicing it. This would never be possible if we needed our syllabus accredited.

> This would never be possible if we needed our syllabus accredited.

Good thing you don't need your syllabus accredited to have an approved curriculum (and in fact not even sure there's such a thing?)

Also, accredited institutions make small changes to syllabi (such as the one you mentioned) all the time.

(e: Just noticed your comment down-thread, and now assume you're not in the USA. So edit, prepend "In the USA" to my comment. Relevant at least to the article I guess.)

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Better" is tough to say - coding bootcamps are focused on getting a coding job, but university CS degrees are not (CS graduates going into other fields [like finance], research/grad school, etc). If the goal is to get a high-paying coding job as quickly as possible, bootcamps look good. Would be interesting to look at longer-term trends in a few years - career advancement, job type, management level, industry within…

A bit of a rant since I worked in the industry: > CS graduates going into other fields [like finance] Finance is just like every other high-professional industry, they train you for what you need to know because they are invested in your success. I worked in that industry for 6 years. Most banks run a 2-3 month internal bootcamp for fresh college hires. I was a math/econ double major and sat next to an english lit ma…

I’m going to mention it if you list it as a requirement and ask me about it.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#125
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can teach. Just look at the Khan Academy -- Sal started by just posting YouTube videos of his voice over Microsoft Paint. The thing that is held behind a barrier is issuing a credential. And it seems reasonable that someone generating diplomas (or claims they can teach you enough to get you a job) should itself be held to accreditation or a standards body. But we (software developers in industry) could be maki…

I agree. I don't think government is useless, but private industry is much better at innovation and meeting consumer demand. A story everyone speaking of education reform should be cognizant of is that of Jaime Escalante. Another issue aside from innovating to meet demand: Personally, if I want to sit down tomorrow and earn a degree in a subject, I don't know why I can't just self study and take exams to do this. To…

> To me, anyone in the world being able to earn the equivalent of a Harvard degree appears to be the ultimate policy in dismantling inequality and advancing opportunity.

What happens in the classroom is largely not what defines a Harvard degree/graduate -- quite the contrary, actually. While some classes are very well taught, many of them round to something like "hey, you're smart, I'm going to pretend to teach, give you some reading lists, and you can figure it out for yourself."

There are little learning hacks like office hours (maybe) or talking with TAs (maybe), but again these are not the defining features of a Harvard grad (high quality or otherwise).

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#126
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for Finance but if your CS degree isn't equivalent to ~4 years of work experience you went to a bad school.

Some numbers: College: 30 weeks 40 hours per week 4 years = 4800 hours Work: 49 weeks 50 hours per week 2 years = 4900 hours And that's being generous at only a 50 hour work week, as well as being generous in giving a full 40 hours worth of college work. I think your comment perfectly demonstrates my point.

CS majors are also doing 2-4 internships which are by and large more formational experiences than a bootcamp. I don't know where you work that a developer working "only" 50h weeks is "generous" but I hope I never find myself applying there.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#127
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of a rant since I worked in the industry: > CS graduates going into other fields [like finance] Finance is just like every other high-professional industry, they train you for what you need to know because they are invested in your success. I worked in that industry for 6 years. Most banks run a 2-3 month internal bootcamp for fresh college hires. I was a math/econ double major and sat next to an english lit ma…

I’m going to mention it if you list it as a requirement and ask me about it.

I would hope you answer if asked about it, but I don't see it as something to bring up unless directly asked about it. Maybe my experience is unique, but on the interviewee side of the table it has only come up once after being in the workforce for 2 years. The only reason was because we went to the same school and were joking about professors.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#128
I was a student at Hack Reactor Remote. They were supposed to be one of the best bootcamps. I don't know how they do it, but I feel like their stats are completely false. Most of the members in my cohort are still unemployed and they provide little guidance. They might have been good 5 years ago, but it seems times have changed.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#129

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good bootcamp? I have an employee (graphic design) that has shown an aptitude in web development, but I do not have the time to devote to mentoring him. I can afford to send him to a bootcamp, but stories like this make me hesitant. Also, I have a front-end guy and a CS intern, who both could benefit from a SQL bootcamp (as another poster mentioned, team development, source con…

I did AppAcademy, which seemed to deliver on the job placement rates when I attended (early 2015).

They spend about a week on SQL, mostly going through SQL Zoo, and later on you build your own toy clone of ActiveRecord.

For me, it was probably the best part of the whole curriculum -- it was the only part that I didn't already have experience in.

That said, I have sort of mixed feelings about that bootcamp and the industry as a whole right now. For the right people, on a short schedule, it's great. If you gave those same people the same curriculum for self study, they'd probably get the same out of it though. If your employee is motivated, I'd spend that same money on books and time in their schedule (or pay them for the extra study hours) and the promise of a pay bump if they can get through it and show competence.

Re: Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my country you can't function like a normal school if your syllabus needs to be accredited and it's not easy to change it. We didn't really drop anything, an extra day appeared because they were already better prepared before starting the course with basic materials.

I don't see the problem. A syllabus -- per dictionary.com, "an outline or other brief statement of the main points of a discourse, the subjects of a course of lectures, the contents of a curriculum, etc." -- is required by a governing authority that presumably has an interest in what citizen/subject (per your local regime) are being taught. This seems legitimate in the general case. Your syllabus can be "unit-n: over…

This kind of vaguness must certainly be tolerated for established universities and other parts of the traditional pantheon in any given jurisdiction. But, depending on jurisdiction, new schools and small schools might well be given no such wiggle room.
Post reply on HN