I'm of the opinion that bootcamps are an overpriced way to jump into a narrow segment of web programming. I point to the closure of some of the best known ones as evidence that it's not a productive way to join the field: twitter.com/codinghorror/status/90...
Being self-taught is certainly a thing, and everyone needs to be a self-directed learner eventually in order to keep pace with changing technology, but a university degree is very nearly required for professional work. That's where you're going to be exposed to computer science theory and algorithms in ways that bootcamps don't have time for.
That said, I've interviewed plenty of candidates with university degrees that couldn't code their way out of a paper bag. But being self-taught makes you a bigger unknown during the hiring process; we have to target questions to see if you have knowledge gaps that we would have assumed you'd have covered in a degree program.
I went to a Bootcamp back in the era when they were relatively new, and I think the thing that they help with the most is teaching you what questions to ask so you can be an effective self-paced learner in the future. However, there are just too many boot camps now, producing too many grads for the market, and they’re of varying quality.
I’m going to disagree that you need a college degree for professional work. If you want to do well in the field, you’ll study and learn low level stuff and algorithms on your own time, after a class or Bootcamp has helped you get a feel for the unknown unknowns ahead of you.
Definitely agree though, that while I wholeheartedly recommended my Bootcamp (which is now dead) back in 2014, I don’t think I’d recommend a Bootcamp to a new learner now. The market for juniors is totally different, in large part because of those very bootcamps.
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I'm of the opinion that bootcamps are an overpriced way to jump into a narrow segment of web programming. I point to the closure of some of the best known ones as evidence that it's not a productive way to join the field: twitter.com/codinghorror/status/90...
Being self-taught is certainly a thing, and everyone needs to be a self-directed learner eventually in order to keep pace with changing technology, but a university degree is very nearly required for professional work. That's where you're going to be exposed to computer science theory and algorithms in ways that bootcamps don't have time for.
That said, I've interviewed plenty of candidates with university degrees that couldn't code their way out of a paper bag. But being self-taught makes you a bigger unknown during the hiring process; we have to target questions to see if you have knowledge gaps that we would have assumed you'd have covered in a degree program.
I went to a Bootcamp back in the era when they were relatively new, and I think the thing that they help with the most is teaching you what questions to ask so you can be an effective self-paced learner in the future. However, there are just too many boot camps now, producing too many grads for the market, and they’re of varying quality.
I’m going to disagree that you need a college degree for professional work. If you want to do well in the field, you’ll study and learn low level stuff and algorithms on your own time, after a class or Bootcamp has helped you get a feel for the unknown unknowns ahead of you.
Definitely agree though, that while I wholeheartedly recommended my Bootcamp (which is now dead) back in 2014, I don’t think I’d recommend a Bootcamp to a new learner now. The market for juniors is totally different, in large part because of those very bootcamps.