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Bootcamps vs. College

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431–440 of 449 posts

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#431
The problem I have with bootcampers is that the bootcamps greatly over promise where they will be skill level wise when they finish, so expectations are way beyond junior developer roles. They also usually come out of bootcamps with a very narrow skillset; they can somewhat easily whip out a web app with a simple backend and rudimentary data sets using whatever framework that bootcamp focused on. Increase the complexity of the project even just a little and they get stuck.

There are some diamonds in the rough and some bootcamps are better than others but in general I'd much rather see someone who learned by hacking on things alone than a college or bootcamp grad.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you illiterate? He's sniffing at pop stars who haven't gone to the right conservatories.

You've got it flipped. I'm saying that having a deep knowledge of theory isn't what enables you to make great music. I am also saying that most working musicians' knowledge is extremely limited and that absolutely makes their work outsider art. That's not saying that anyone should go to conservatory (anything but - if you want music ruined for you by all means go), but yes probably every musician _writing music_ shou…

I used to work in the music industry. I think your beliefs about writers' knowledge of music theory are way off.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confident you can get through an Algorithms and Data Structures course (which is the most difficult aka "weeder" course at most institutions) by memorizing a handful of sorting and search methods. You probably won't impress the Professor, but I'm sure you can pass. OOP and other design patterns are also susceptible to memorization. I suspect that you're bringing this up because we have vastly different views of w…

Ok, you'll pass but how will you get through the advanced courses? I don't really understand the point you're making. If I combined these two statements together, I get "it's the exception to the rule because most grads just memorize enough to pass" No, we don't have varying views of what abstract thought is (let's drop the "difficult" cause it's irrelevant). Your view is simply wrong because even your "how would you…

Thank you for your valuable input.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And decoupling them from the environment I was in, the work that I was doing, and the people that I was around is absurd.

So when I developed the same areas and wasn't in studying how do you explain that?

It's not a winner take all game. Of course you can develop skills both ways. One way places an emphasis on it. Think of a good CS degree as an interface for abstract thinking.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got it flipped. I'm saying that having a deep knowledge of theory isn't what enables you to make great music. I am also saying that most working musicians' knowledge is extremely limited and that absolutely makes their work outsider art. That's not saying that anyone should go to conservatory (anything but - if you want music ruined for you by all means go), but yes probably every musician _writing music_ shou…

I used to work in the music industry. I think your beliefs about writers' knowledge of music theory are way off.

That's cool, don't really need your validation.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#436
post #354
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If a bootcamp doesn't even introduce its students to such concepts as classes, instances, OOP, and basic data types, then it has failed to adequately serve its students with fundamental knowledge and offered a shitty introduction to programming. Honestly, if someone doesn't understand these very basic concepts, what's his/her curiosity level regarding computer programming? I would not want to hire him/her based sole…

It's still the bootcamp's fault for not at least introducing them to those concepts. I mean, you can't really google what an int is if you don't even know that an int is a thing.

Oh, bootcamps are certainly failing here, but if I were to google "Computer Science," or "Computer Programming," I'd eventually run into the concept of types.

As an analogue, I learned about the functional programming paradigm far before it was ever brought up in a classroom setting. Sure I knew what programming paradigms were, so maybe it's not a perfect example...

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm even considering a bootcamp after graduating university for the reasons that this article points out. I feel woefully inadequate when it comes to practical programming skills.

I'd also love to go to one like Maker Square after graduation but sadly they cost a lot.

Strictly speaking, if you have a degree you can learn all of that on your own.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should get a download link from Manning in your email, let me know if you dont!

I haven't seen anything yet. Do I have to register the book after it ships?

What is your email? I'll have Manning check on the order.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#439
post #24

I think a well-run bootcamp is a better coding education than college computer science. The only thing most grads have on bootcamp people is algorithm knowledge. This is easy to fix. Just teach algos in bootcamp. It really isn't that hard to understand. Ideal bootcamp: -css/html/javascript -angular or any mvvc data mirroring framework -OOP and ntier patterns -Stored Procs/ORM/SQL training -Algos -Webservices SOAP/RES…

> The only thing most grads have on bootcamp people is algorithm knowledge. "Just teach algorithms." Do you have two years to spare to do so? Because I'm a platform engineer and I regularly use the extent of my CS mathematics education to write better code--you'd think this'd just be Ruby slinging, "what sort of math do you need to automate systems", but it ends up being remarkably more than that! But you know what e…

> I use the lessons from my economics courses. I use the lessons from my sociology courses. I use the lessons from my political science courses. Are you gonna bootcamp those, too? Or are you going to turn out a marginally skilled worker with a worse educational foundation?

Every single person in my boot camp class had a college education. One person was a college professor prior to attending. Several people actually had CS degrees that they felt didn't prepare them to do actual practical programming. We also had a lawyer and a couple of people with mathematics and physics degrees as well.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#440
post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 -- a…

Of my four full-time jobs in my career, one had a prior contact and one was a you-know-nothing,-you're-a-college-hire job. (Much of my consulting comes from my personal network, of course.) Two were startups, two were big companies. Interestingly, the startups were more amenable to "you don't know this but you are obviously capable of picking this up". Your point about personal appeal is well made, and I'm pretty goo…

Thanks for providing the extra detail. I think it helps to confirm that your situation is a major outlier experience.
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