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Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

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Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#51

Post by busterarm »

petey283 wrote: post #49
busterarm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lambda isn't even the most well known bootcamp[1], just the most well-known failure. Nearly everyone in my AppAcademy cohort was already a STEM grad and some from top schools. Also that didn't correlate with performance as the person with the most advanced degree was unhirable and the degreeless folks are among the most successful. More than half a decade on, we're still at like 98% of our cohort with long and succes…

My bootcamp experience built my confidence which helped during interviews.

This is such an underrated part of the experience.

I think we all felt that way. Is that worth the high cost of tuition? Debatable. We're just about all working though.

I was changing careers after a decade plus of low-level grunt IT jobs when I was capable of doing so much more. It took probably 3-5 years just to build my confidence enough to do the bootcamp -- I had developer friends who were telling me for years I was more than qualified and capable but I'd found it so hard just to start.

A huge part of the lack of confidence has to do with growing up always being poor. The idea of a stable, high-paying job that's rewarding is almost unimaginable from that position.

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#52

Post by srcreigh »

busterarm wrote: post #37
rickosborne wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't say I've seen anyone out of a bootcamp that was a great hire. My own experience has been that there's no correlation between where the dev graduated from and how productive/valuable/etc they've been at work. I've seen just as many rock-star bootcamp grads as I have complete wastes of space from Stanford/CMU/MIT.

I don't know what it is about Waterloo though, but everyone I've worked with who came through there was a significant asset to whatever team they were on. There could be some filtering function here like the pool of grads who made a significant effort to come to the US afterwards, but yeah. 100% rockstars every time. Don't just take my word for it -- from the lips of pg himself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6…

You haven't met me yet. I'm not that great. :-)

Waterloo internships last 3.5 months. 16-18 weeks. That's ~150-200% longer than some other schools summer internships.

Computer science students graduate with roughly 2 full years of work experience at 6 different orgs. Not including any extra curriculars.

Waterloo load balances internships across the entire year. Each class of CS is split into four schedules. Students will study in the summer and they will do internships in the fall and winter.

Many, many big companies offer internships to Waterloo coops students in the fall and winter. I'm not sure if other students are ever available at these times.

At Waterloo, computer science is a math degree and they teach students how to prove things. It's one of the first things they learn.

Also, we learn lisp as a first course in programming.

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#54

Post by flippinburgers »

908B64B197 wrote: post #24

I have to say this doesn't come as a surprise. Bootcamps have failed one after another. The most well known, Lambda, is even desperate enough they will "loan" you a new "grad" for free to try to get you to hire one [0]. And that's not even scratching the surface of what's wrong with bootcamps in general, like having instructors barely a few months ahead of students giving out lectures and grading assignments [1]. I c…

The only bootcamp graduate I have had to work with was a complete drag on team productivity.

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#55

Post by 908B64B197 »

srcreigh wrote: post #52
busterarm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what it is about Waterloo though, but everyone I've worked with who came through there was a significant asset to whatever team they were on. There could be some filtering function here like the pool of grads who made a significant effort to come to the US afterwards, but yeah. 100% rockstars every time. Don't just take my word for it -- from the lips of pg himself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6…

You haven't met me yet. I'm not that great. :-) Waterloo internships last 3.5 months. 16-18 weeks. That's ~150-200% longer than some other schools summer internships. Computer science students graduate with roughly 2 full years of work experience at 6 different orgs. Not including any extra curriculars. Waterloo load balances internships across the entire year. Each class of CS is split into four schedules. Students…

Kicking people that can't land an internship is a pretty good way to filter out students that won't perform well in the workplace.

> Many, many big companies offer internships to Waterloo coops students in the fall and winter. I'm not sure if other students are ever available at these times.

From my experience hiring, most target schools don't offer every classes at every semester (they are just too small). So taking a fall/winter internship can delay graduation by a whole year.

So I used to get flooded by resumes from Waterloo for the fall and winter because they were the only ones to apply (coupled with the school being larger than my usual target schools combined together!).

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#56

Post by srcreigh »

908B64B197 wrote: post #55
srcreigh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't met me yet. I'm not that great. :-) Waterloo internships last 3.5 months. 16-18 weeks. That's ~150-200% longer than some other schools summer internships. Computer science students graduate with roughly 2 full years of work experience at 6 different orgs. Not including any extra curriculars. Waterloo load balances internships across the entire year. Each class of CS is split into four schedules. Students…

Kicking people that can't land an internship is a pretty good way to filter out students that won't perform well in the workplace. > Many, many big companies offer internships to Waterloo coops students in the fall and winter. I'm not sure if other students are ever available at these times. From my experience hiring, most target schools don't offer every classes at every semester (they are just too small). So taking…

> Kicking people that can't land an internship is a pretty good way to filter out students that won't perform well in the workplace.

Humour me! At Waterloo, nobody gets kicked out of school for not doing co-op. It is an optional program. You must be talking about something else.

> From my experience hiring, most target schools don't offer every classes at every semester (they are just too small). So taking a fall/winter internship can delay graduation by a whole year.

At Waterloo some specialized upper-year courses are only offered once a year, but the first 2 years of courses are usually available year round.

My first internship was Sept - Dec 2013. They liked me enough that they asked me to stay an extra 4 months. I was able to say Yes immediately. I just took all my 2B ("second half of sophomore year") courses in the summer after working until May.

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#57

Post by 908B64B197 »

srcreigh wrote: post #56
908B64B197 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kicking people that can't land an internship is a pretty good way to filter out students that won't perform well in the workplace. > Many, many big companies offer internships to Waterloo coops students in the fall and winter. I'm not sure if other students are ever available at these times. From my experience hiring, most target schools don't offer every classes at every semester (they are just too small). So taking…

> Kicking people that can't land an internship is a pretty good way to filter out students that won't perform well in the workplace. Humour me! At Waterloo, nobody gets kicked out of school for not doing co-op. It is an optional program. You must be talking about something else. > From my experience hiring, most target schools don't offer every classes at every semester (they are just too small). So taking a fall/win…

> nobody gets kicked out of school for not doing co-op

But you'll get kicked out of co-op for not having internships right? I meant someone can't graduate co-op without working in industry.

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#58

Post by srcreigh »

908B64B197 wrote: post #57
srcreigh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kicking people that can't land an internship is a pretty good way to filter out students that won't perform well in the workplace. Humour me! At Waterloo, nobody gets kicked out of school for not doing co-op. It is an optional program. You must be talking about something else. > From my experience hiring, most target schools don't offer every classes at every semester (they are just too small). So taking a fall/win…

> nobody gets kicked out of school for not doing co-op But you'll get kicked out of co-op for not having internships right? I meant someone can't graduate co-op without working in industry.

True, but here's the thing. By the time a Waterloo student has had 3-4 co-ops, the co-op program needs them more than they need the co-op program.

It's trivial to switch to non-co-op Computer Science. The co-op program admins try to guilt you out of it, but there isn't any real penalty.

The admins want to keep upper year students in the program to attract companies, since companies often want to hire more experienced interns.

Why do students drop co-op in later years? The co-op program costs extra (~$1500/year). There's some more or less useless professional development courses you must take, as well as reports you must write after 5/6 terms. In other words it can be a somewhat expensive hassle.

Maybe the one thing the co-op program can provide is they help with J1 visa to the USA. And tax incentives for Canadian companies to hire interns. Those benefits often aren't enough of a draw for someone who has 1+ years professional experience at 3-4 companies.

Hence, what often happens is that upper year students drop co-op or go outside the program to find internships. They find their own jobs, in some cases the company arranges the J1 for them.

For example this term, a bunch of Waterloo coops wanted to go to SF, but the coop program wasn't offering positions which required travel to the USA due to covid. They just made arrangements with the companies directly.

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#59

Post by srcreigh »

srcreigh wrote: post #58
908B64B197 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nobody gets kicked out of school for not doing co-op But you'll get kicked out of co-op for not having internships right? I meant someone can't graduate co-op without working in industry.

True, but here's the thing. By the time a Waterloo student has had 3-4 co-ops, the co-op program needs them more than they need the co-op program. It's trivial to switch to non-co-op Computer Science. The co-op program admins try to guilt you out of it, but there isn't any real penalty. The admins want to keep upper year students in the program to attract companies, since companies often want to hire more experienced…

re: reports, I typo'd. I meant for 5/6 internships, you must write a report
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