Are you contemplating a bootcamp or in the process of starting one, this article is for you?
Deer in headlights:
It's okay if you do...
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Avoid "bootcamps" completely should be the advice. Waste of time and money. And if I have equal candidates and the only difference is "bootcamp" experience, I'm never choosing the one with it. They just don't offer enough to actually make any difference.
Wow. Seems like a very negative outlook... But why?
I'm not sure if you actually meant for it to sound this way, but that statement is saying if you have two "equal" candidates, you will literally not choose the one with bootcamp experience. That is an insanely negative bias (at least that is what it seems like from my perspective.)
I graduated from a bootcamp and immediately landed an amazing job (I actually had to postpone my first interview so I could finish my final team project first). I now also help teach part time at a boot camp (a different one from mine).
I've met a lot of hiring managers from impressive big name companies who love hiring boot camp graduates as well. (So the opposite of your opinion.)
You're welcome to your opinion of course. But just realize you are applying a negative carpet bomb of a generalized statement that is incredibly discouraging to a lot of people working very hard to change there careers. With your statement, you've literally become another obstacle that people will list they had to overcome in there success stories.
Thanks, Chad for writing this! I'm about to go to bootcamp and I've read plenty of positive reviews from every point of view. Basically, everything comes down to putting your best effort forward every day and keeping it up post-graduation.
Thanks for your word of encouragement.
You're welcome!
Thank you for this amazing reply!
What is it that makes you feel that way?
In my city we have a strong bootcamp of 3 years with connections to the growing local tech centre, and successful graduates who've been hired within days. Early graduates are now being promoted into elevated developer roles. We graduated in MERN stack but some went on to roles in Java, C#, Python and Ruby. I myself am one happy graduate, and just over a year now as an employed developer. I wasted neither time nor money.
I do know I am lucky in that the bootcamp model, providing juniors to enthusiastic and prepared companies, is still strong here. In some cities and countries, yes: the bootcamps grew too fast and spread too thin, quality can be variable and the market saturated with graduates. However, this isn't automatically universal, and I wouldn't discourage everyone with a blanket statement due to the poor experiences in one location.
Good info, but "more harder" was like the reading equivalent to nails on a chalkboard.
βBesides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.β
β Edsger W. Dijkstra
Iβm in STEM for a reason!
I hear you! π From someone who knows nothing about software (but wants to learn) I can definitely appreciate that. Any suggestions for where a person with zero experience can start learning software dev?
Decide what you want to do?
Front End or Back End
blog.teamtreehouse.com/i-dont-spea...
Decide on a language
fullstackacademy.com/blog/nine-bes...
Start learning to code:
udacity.com
freecodecamp.org
udemy.com
youtube.com
Start doing projects and put them on GitHub.
GitHub.com
makeuseof.com/tag/beginner-program...
Data Structures and Algorithms
medium.com/basecs
I hope this helps a little! :)
Yes, very helpful! I really appreciate it. Just started watching the CS50x course online through Harvard.
That was interesting insight. I have worked with a few code camp grads and I was always happy to have them on the team. Btw. Iβm glad that you have a healthy outlook on learning. Recommending self-care practices like that is the main reason I write. I particularly enjoyed this part: βIt's doesn't have to be all at the same time.β Gotta take things in strides. :)
Great advice! Just remember, if you're not getting the information at first, it doens't mean you're stupid or don't know anything. It takes a while to get a handle on the concepts. Always be searching anywhere you need, to find the answers.
all the animated gifs/memes seemed a bit much, and was very distracting btw...
I agree :p
I think that one major point this article makes is self learning. You speak about searching for resources, reading books, participating in a community etc.
The bootcamp in itself won't make you more employable than an intern - I am struggling to believe that someone in 3 months of bootcamp training can have equal value with someone with 4-5 years in engineering studies.
Having said that, someone in a bootcamp with passion for it and willingness to go above and beyond it and seek resources, read at home, interact with like-minded people may find that they can learn A LOT in those 3 months and continue their learning after it and until they land a job.
On the other hand, someone that spends 4-5 years in engineering studies but is unwilling to pursue knowledge, will just complete the degree at some point because they have to and not be valuable in the workplace necessarily.
So - to me - the key is passion and willingness to do something. If this exists, the bootcamp may accelerate the path to it.
Some great points!
I'd add one more to that:
I completed a bootcamp only a year ago, but the way we learned app development was already outdated. I learned to build a monolithic app using containers. My junior dev job is at a fully-serverless startup, where I need to know way more about AWS services than any of the languages I learned.
Even if your bootcamp is super modern and you're learning React, you're probably not learning hooks or anything else that just came out but will be in general use by the time you get a job, because the curriculum hasn't been updated yet.
That's ok, though. As a developer, you never stop learning, and keeping up with the trends is a huge part of that. A bootcamp should give you a good foundation, and everything else you'll learn on the job and on your own, once you actually know what you need to know.
Wow, I'm about to start a bootcamp, so it's super awesome that you have these tips. I was already worried about the "deer in headlights" paranoia, so it's good to know its not just me that will experience that!
As another bootcamp grad. This is all spot onπ
Thank you! I really appreciate your kind words!
As someone just starting out, I found this blog to be super helpful, thank you!
I'm glad it did! :)
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