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Bootcamps vs. College

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Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#301

Post by elliotec »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #299
kemiller2002 wrote: post #78

Boot camps have their place, but they are not a replacement for a traditional CS degree. I have met good and bad programmers from both types of programs (some from well respected colleges who I still wonder how they exactly passed), but here's the thing, I don't care about practical skills. I care about the person being able to think. All those concepts that they teach in CS isn't about knowing the name of an algorit…

This thread is confusing me: >"Boot camps have their place, but they are not a replacement for a traditional CS degree" // Don't they teach different things. Boot-camps teach programming and CS degrees teach, well, computer science. Do boot-camps really address things [that I imagine CS degrees cover] like information theory and algorithm design, Turing completeness, language design and such? I imagined they chose on…

You're correct, and people are being ridiculous for conflating the two. They are different things. If you want to get a job as a developer, a bootcamp is clearly the way to go as far as efficiency, cost, and pragmatism. Otherwise do a CS degree.

A bootcamp is absolutely unquestionably a replacement for a CS degree in the context of getting a practical job.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#302

Post by lloyd-christmas »

marcelluspye wrote: post #235
lloyd-christmas wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would I pay them the same amount as a college graduate These people ARE college grads. I'm not sure where this seemingly pervasive view is coming from. My class had 1 person without an undgraduate degree, and several with masters. > i.e. the ability to communicate clearly, how to do research, how to learn independently The average age of my class was 29. 6-10 years in the workforce tends to demonstrate an exist…

It's a reaction to the question, "can bootcamps replace a CS degree?", to which these people would say, "no." On the question, "are bootcamps good or bad?" I think most people would tend towards good, though exactly how good is another matter of debate.

> It's a reaction to the question, "can bootcamps replace a CS degree?"

If someone is posing this question, it's not one based in reality. The question is 4 years of a CS degree vs a bootcamp, not 4 years of college vs no college. As I clearly stated, only one classmate didn't have an undergraduate degree. That question is a strawman at best.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#303

Post by joslin01 »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #115
nostrebored wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My CS degree was four years of heavy abstract thinking. If you can get those skills elsewhere great, but I don't think it's that common.

Based on what? The amount of bias in this thread is very strange. I think what's going on is that the people with CS degrees invested a significant chunk of their life and a significant amount of money into getting a CS degree. Therefore they're invested in denying the possibility that the qualities they achieved through their program can be achieved without. The article presents some evidence in support of this poss…

> that the qualities they achieved through their program can be achieved without > some evidence in support of this possibility > worse at algorithms and understanding how computers work

Can an amatuer guitarist play as well as a classically-trained guitarist? Sure.

Is it the exception to the rule? Yes.

Can an amatuer guitarist learn to play a few songs really well, but have no grasp of composition? Sure.

Will the guitarist be as skilled in composition as the classical guitarist? No.

The time spent learning {x} is the great difference. A plain old guitarist can pull out some composition manuals and teach himself how to craft music better than the lazy classically-trained musician.

My 2 cents -- don't underestimate 4 years. Clean code is quickly whipped into you at your first job, but typically the CS student is thinking in their head "wow this is so easy" because they were trained in building shit like compilers for the last 4 years. The bootcamper does not have the same experience because it's not prudent to train an employment-seeking individual in the subtleties of compiler design. So, 9 times outta 10, the CS graduate is the stronger programmer at least until the bootcamper has had some years to catch up.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#304

Post by yompers888 »

warlox wrote: post #240
brudgers wrote: post #184

There are several factors that don't enter this analysis. 1. Bootcamps can be selective over a range of non-academic criteria such as interview skills, personal hygene, and prior work experience. Or to put it another way, unlike a public university, a boot camp can select for culture fit both in its internal cohorts and in the workplaces it targets. 2. Bootcamps tend to attract people with previous work experience: s…

Isn't not letting C students graduate a good thing?

This probably depends on who you are. Like all organizations in higher learning, the boot camps serve two functions. The first, and what we'd probably like to think is the most important, is the value-adding function of education. The second is to serve as gatekeepers of their brand so that they maximize the marketability of their graduates, and thus encourage would-be applicants to come their way. Ideally you'd be able to offer such a stellar program that you have no one getting C's because they know all the material. In that case, yes, it's great that no one graduates with C's. And employers may not even care that the school is cruel and fast to shed students who are dragging. But for potential studenta, that situation is much worse. The school is much less valuable to students if they achieve their numbers by tough admissions and low retention, because then it's much less likely that the boot camp provides much in the way of education.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#305

Post by juped »

dang wrote: post #282
juped wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. Now instead of abrasiveness it's abrasiveness without context. Is your software just not capable of hiding things without "detaching" them, or is there reasoning behind this incomprehensible moderation policy?

I'm not sure I understand your question. But I shiver at the wrath of Hacker News were we to "just" hide things.

By that I mean "hide from people without showdead", of course. (I have it on.)

The question is "why do you move moderated comments from where they were to the top level?".

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#306

Post by p4wnc6 »

eropple wrote: post #284
sotojuan wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you're saying. Here and on Reddit you see a lot of programmers who say they have been hired or say they hire based on ability to think and not domain knowledge. They say language doesn't matter and that personal projects are a nice bonus but what matter is if you can think and program. That's awesome—I learned how to think in school and love solving problems. The problem is that in real life I've had the o…

That sucks that that's the experience you've had, but I've had the exact opposite experience. I got my first job building mobile software with zero Android experience--I knew Java, but was up-front with my concerns about the differences between Dalvik and Java being significant enough to throw me. I understood enough about Android to talk coherently about it, but had never written a line for it. After I decided to ge…

I would say your experience is a significant outlier, especially becoming a consultant. I don't know how much of your previous job movements were based on having a contact at the hiring company: if few then yes your experience is indeed an extreme outlier, if many then it makes some sense because someone vouched for you.

I agree that in many cases it boils down to subjective ideas about whether someone likes you -- and too often, especially in the startup world, "liking you" becomes equivalent to whatever social and status signaling you do in terms of which hip and trendy pieces of tech you choose to affiliate with. It rarely has anything to do with your innate talents. And there are plenty of failure modes having to do with whether you like open-plan offices, alcohol-centric gatherings, dog-friendly offices, and tons of other start-up bullshit.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#307

Post by Bluestrike2 »

mattnedrich wrote: post #103
kemiller2002 wrote: post #78

Boot camps have their place, but they are not a replacement for a traditional CS degree. I have met good and bad programmers from both types of programs (some from well respected colleges who I still wonder how they exactly passed), but here's the thing, I don't care about practical skills. I care about the person being able to think. All those concepts that they teach in CS isn't about knowing the name of an algorit…

If the most important quality is being able to think abstractly and solve problems, why does it matter if they have a CS degree or come from a bootcamp? I do agree with you that CS degrees are very valuable, though it seems like you are saying that they are important because they teach problem solving and abstract thinking - but aren't there many ways to obtain those types of skills?

I think it's less a case of CS degrees teaching abstract/critical thinking skills, and more a case of a four-year program honing them over time in an environment that can be beneficial (interactions with--and bouncing ideas off--fellow students, professors, etc.).

I regret not taking more CS courses, or majoring in it in addition to philosophy and psychology, but I don't think it's been too detrimental because I'm aware of what I missed and am able to correct it on my own.

Anyhow, self-taught, bootcamp, or CS degree, there are going to be tradeoffs in terms of what's learned and what's missed. No matter what path you take, it's on you to work on balancing that out and improving yourself. Just knowing that they exist, and that you have work to do, is a huge part of the battle. If you're able to do that, I don't think your background will matter much in the end.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#308

Post by p4wnc6 »

GVIrish wrote: post #291
jegutman wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think companies really don't want employees that think independently. These employees come with a ton of upside. However, not everybody turns out to be a star and in some companies (plenty still foster it) they don't want their average employees to be completely rogue.

> However, not everybody turns out to be a star and in some companies (plenty still foster it) they don't want their average employees to be completely rogue. I think it's more that most companies don't want employees challenging decisions made higher up in the org chart, star or no star. A lot of people don't like having their decisions challenged, especially when they're wrong or they have a hard time defending tho…

There is even a vein of organizational management research literature on topics like this, see e.g. [0]

[0] "Reversing the Extraverted Leadership Advantage: The Role of Collective Employee Proactivity." by A. M. Grant, F. Gino and D. Hofmann

[PDF] https://mgmt.wharton.upenn.edu/files/?whdmsaction=public:mai... >

Briefly, the paper suggests some evidence that the most disliked type of employee is a subordinate who is introverted and also proactive. Someone who takes initiative, solves problems independently, and is self-reliant, is seen as a problematic and uncooperative subordinate.

Employers say this is the type of employee they want -- someone with a lot of self-reliance, independence, ability to think on their own and needing little oversight. But actually they don't really want that, because the micromanagerial oversight and the need for the manager to step in to direct people is what the management layer uses to justify their compensation and status in the firm. If everyone beneath you handles things without your intervention, it's just a short step to a situation where they claim credit instead of you, and maybe get promoted above you. This makes a lot of middle managers sweat and become paranoid about putting their stamp of micromanagement on everybody's work, which means they need subordinates who require more attention and who reliably can't find the right direction or solve the problem fully independently, and who will be satisfied when given work that doesn't allow for as much autonomy.

High performers and independent thinkers will want autonomy (there's actually a lot of literature about this too), and giving them autonomy would be overall good for the company. But it would be bad for specific gatekeeper middle managers.

That's why they talk a big game about hiring people based on their creative thinking abilities and general aptitude, but in reality they instead focus on micromanagerial things, like how much of some specific Hadoop tool API have you memorized, or how much direct experience do you have in precisely our exact tech stack. These are just status games to protect them from actually productive subordinates.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#310

Post by danellis »

I swear, articles like this are going to cause me to have an existential crisis. I started learning programming as a child in the 80s. More than 30 years later, I like to think that I've acquired a lot of valuable knowledge and experience across a broad range of topics, and yet... when I hear about people training for three months and walking into decent jobs, I start to wonder what actually differentiates me at all.

For the sake of my ego, I'd love to hear that these bootcamp graduates have shallow, fragile knowledge in a narrowly focused area.

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