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Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

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Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#81

Post by learc83 »

wildmusings wrote: post #68
austenallred wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really no different than any university. A lot of the value of Harvard or Stanford is that they only pick the top n% of the country. The signaling factor is as important as the education, often times. Bootcamps are this weird space where, because they're so short and so expensive, even the most legitimate are considered mediocre by most employers because you can only teach so much in three months. So you can m…

Another part of the value of a university is that they factor in SAT scores heavily into admissions. SAT scores correlate strongly with IQ. Hiring based on IQ tests is illegal, but hiring mostly from certain universities is not.

It's not illegal, it's just considered defacto discrimination and you have to prove it's actually beneficial.

There's no reason that you couldn't be sued the same way if you're only hiring from a certain university and that leads to excluding people from a protected class.

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#82

Post by brooklyn_ashey »

arikr wrote: post #11

If Dev Bootcamp was unprofitable, are other bootcamps also unprofitable, or was Dev Bootcamp an exception?

Recently, I had the opportunity to do some number crunching on actual outcomes data for one of the tier 1 bootcamps. (all its years of operation to date) I discovered that some major changes needed to be made in their business model in order for them to be truly profitable. Their big innovative business idea seemed to be: we are gonna be the best at bootcamping. I don't get how that even passes as an innovative business idea at the first funding round. Their delivery on that awesomeness idea didn't show itself in their outcomes. They still love their model though. This may be because they don't have to be profitable. I was puzzled.

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#83

Post by learc83 »

phillc73 wrote: post #65
GauntletWizard wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gee, $40k per year? But with huge return on investment in education? Why don't we give people loans, and tie them to their future income? I smell a business opportunity.

That's how undergraduate University education works in Australia (at least it did when I attended. Perhaps someone younger than me can comment if things have changed in the last 20 years). Effectively the government pays your undergraduate university fees. There is then an additional tax applied against your salary, after it reaches a certain threshold. This of course results in jokes that Arts graduates may as well…

That's effectively how it works in the US as well for most people.

Federal loans (90% of all loans) come with income based repayment plans that charge 10% of your disposable income and are cancelled after 20 years if you don't pay it off.

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#84

Post by learc83 »

xiaoma wrote: post #53
micahlucretius wrote: post #14

Burst of bootcamp bubble? Dev Bootcamp seems to have been the first ever coding bootcamp. Think Hack Reactor (another popular bootcamp) was founded by Dev Bootcamp grads. Or maybe the herd would just distribute to other bootcamps? Even if the failure of Dev Bootcamp doesn't directly hurt the business of other bootcamps, it has a psychological effect on the bootcamp industry: suddenly the bootcamp experience doesn't s…

The bubble is credentialed post-secondary schools and the 1.3 trillion dollar student debt crisis. Just like the credentialed schools, there's a wide variety in quality and outcomes, but I think it's pretty clear they're doing better on ROI (and at least people aren't going into decades of debt for them en masse). > "If the school failed to survive, does it affect the survival of its graduates? Is this going to have…

Federal loans (90% of all loans) come with income based repayment plans that charge 10% of your disposable income and are cancelled after 20 years if you don't pay it off.

The income based repayment plans are also retroactively available to all Federal borrowers.

It's not actually as big of a problem as it sounds.

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#85

Post by brooklyn_ashey »

morgante wrote: post #76
bovitclan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of the value of Harvard or Stanford is that they only pick the top n% of the country. The difference between the people who go to Harvard and those that don't has much more to do with money. Hire people with this assumption at your own peril.

Not really. Money helps to get in, but elite universities provide the most generous financial aid of any schools in the country. If you come from a anything below the middle class and get in, you likely won't pay a cent.

yes, money helps in so many ways. it sure does help you get in. It starts helping you when you are an infant. It helps the whole way. I know this because I worked in the tutoring idustry that helps people get in in exchange for money.

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#86

Post by busterarm »

brooklyn_ashey wrote: post #75
busterarm wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who can afford to live in San Fran without working for 2 years (9 months)?

And who can afford to have $15,000 taken off the top of their salary between $51,000 and $100,000? I hope this graduate can find remote work and live in a tent in a national park campground nearby a major tech employment city with a killer public transportation system that reaches its public park campgrounds. There are actual bears on Bear Mountain by the way.

I made it work... Also that's cheaper than what it costs to live in SF for 2 years, even assuming your rent in that situation is free.

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#87

Post by learc83 »

Top tier boot camps are essentially 12 week long interviews that the interviewee pays for.

It's a great business model for those top tier boot camps, but there's a limited number of students who can make it through, pay for it, and take time off to do it. It's just not that scaleable.

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#88

Post by panorama »

smt88 wrote: post #8
booleandilemma wrote: post #5

Does this mean coding is starting to lose its sexiness? Is the fad over?

Possibly, but there certainly is an over-abundance of bootcamp grads, and it's hard to choose among them.

I'm not a fan of this line of thinking. Not every bootcamp graduate is the same. There may be less variance between them from a purely technical standpoint but their backgrounds are far more diverse than what you'd get out college.

In other words, I don't think it's fair to say "there's an over-abundance of graduates from XYZ university. It's hard to choose among them." Regardless, stereotyping job candidates based on where they learned to code is poor practice. A good hiring manager ought to take the time to treat a candidate respectfully, but I know this behavior is rare. If your organization simply doesn't want to take on junior/entry-level programmers, it should be clear in the job post _and_ IMO, you shouldn't be open to receiving college-grad applications, either.

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#89

Post by morgante »

brooklyn_ashey wrote: post #85
morgante wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Money helps to get in, but elite universities provide the most generous financial aid of any schools in the country. If you come from a anything below the middle class and get in, you likely won't pay a cent.

yes, money helps in so many ways. it sure does help you get in. It starts helping you when you are an infant. It helps the whole way. I know this because I worked in the tutoring idustry that helps people get in in exchange for money.

It helps, but it's certainly not the dominant effect. I don't know anyone who went to an elite university without significant baseline intelligence. I've seen so many students who still didn't do that well even after extensive, expensive tutoring.

For example, SAT coaching only increases scores by around 50 points. [0]

[0] https://www.jefftk.com/p/sat-coaching-what-effect-size

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#90

Post by temp20160423 »

Techonomicon wrote: post #71
dkarapetyan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trouble with anecdotes is that it is not data. I'm happy for your brother but that still doesn't change the fact that most bootcamps are overpromising and underdelivering on their promises of gainful employment. It's simply not possible to learn to program in bootcamp time frames. I'm certain if we saw actual numbers it would not be a pretty picture. For the truly motivated it is much better to go to recurse.com or j…

I fully support this comment, and have been doubling-down for a while on the notion that people who come out of hacker schools and "do well" just had a knack for it in the first place. We have been looking for a very entry-level dev to be in a pretty entry level role that would be perfect for someone to get their feet wet in the industry. Every single person we've interviewed from a "hacker school" has been from Hack…

Are you paying below market? The good ones probably are shooting for better paying companies. I know some Hack Reactor alumni have made their way to Google.
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