I am starting boot camp today. At the end of the boot camp I'm supposed to have enough knowledge and experience to become an junior full stack dev....
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I spent 18 months self-learning via Freecodecamp and Codecademy, building static sites and mini-games, but it took about two days of bootcamp training to surpass that knowledge. The benefits of a carefully crafted curriculum and a focus on algorithms and problem-solving, plus assistance from tutors, meant I made far more progress than I had on my own.
We were told on our first day that none of the information was a secret and was all available online. But what we paid for was the group, the community and the teaching style that meant we cemented that knowledge fast. People have different learning styles and plenty of people have succeeded entirely self-taught. I thrive in a classroom. Others' mileage may vary. The career assistance and any networking relationships the camp may have with local businesses are a valuable asset.
The US model is a few years older than the UK and European models, so some of the pitfalls are becoming apparent - bootcamps rapidly expanding leading to a dilution of their teaching capability, courses delivered with a focus on speed rather than quality, job market saturation and a lack of post-graduation career support. Thankfully it seems the UK and other European cities with a bootcamp and tech-hub relationship are being more restrained and are aware of, and actively avoiding, these errors.
Thanks for you reply ;). That is great that you knowledge grew and solidified faster with bootcamp it's engouraging.The main reason I join was for the latter part of your post , post grad support. The bootcamp I'm attending is fairly new and not based in the US so I'm hoping they avoid those errors also.
I'm a bootcamp grad too - my bootcamp was 6 months long and 100% online. I echo what Sally said: the structured approach of bootcamp can easily impart learning better than a self-taught route. However, with new bootcamps starting everyday, there are TONS of bootcamp-graduate devs in the job market. I can't speak for all companies, but I've spoken to a few HR depts and they've shared that they have a separate pile for bootcamp grads because they're finding that they have much more breadth in several areas, than any considerable depth in a few areas.
So my top advice would be (1) get comfortable with Git and collaborative coding (2) always think about and be prepared to explain the WHY behind your code (eg why did you choose that method? why did you construct the class that way?) (3) get into high-quality opensource because IMHO that is the closest you can come to a professional environment (4) get involved in local dev groups and consider presenting at a conference
I think these points will help distinguish you from the growing pack of bootcamp-grad devs. Good luck!!
Thanks for your great advice on setting apart my self, I really would like to contribute to high quality open source project in due time.The only thing I think I will struggle with is speaking at a conference, the attention of people focusing on me makes me nervous which leads to issues.On a side note, second day of bootcamp has just past and I'm learning alot stuff that I thought I knew the structure in the curriculum is worth it thus far and working with a remote partner is definitely something to get accustom too.