Since a few people have messaged me with their bootcamp questions, I thought to aggregate my suggestions into a blog post. Please share with anyone who is struggling to transition to tech or considering a bootcamp as their best bet for becoming a developer.
This article isn't to say that all bootcamps are terrible. There are great programs out there and free ones, too. Personally, though, I think bootcamps reached their peak years ago. But attending a bootcamp in 2021 just doesn't make financial, career, or educational sense. Why?
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There are too many bootcamps and bootcamp grads. It used to be that attending a bootcamp was a way to stand out in a sea of would-be developers. But now we see a new one popping up every season and individual bootcamps churning out hundreds of graduates every month.
- Unfortunately, this also means larger classes, fewer instructors, and, worse of all, inexperienced TAs. Many bootcamps hire TAs directly from their graduate pool, which is a great way for the TA to continue learning. But is that fair to the future students who need support from a qualified teacher?
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The curriculum is mostly ineffective. I graduated from Flatiron School, one of the largest bootcamps in New York. The reviews were great, their marketing even better, and at the time, they had a reimbursement program. This meant grads unable to land a job within 6 months of graduation had that debt written. Enrolling at the time felt like a relatively safe choice.
- Even for a free education, I took issue with the school curriculum. Students were promised to learn Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, and React over 12 weeks.
- We're talking about 1 new topic/framework/language every 3 weeks. With 1 week dedicated to passing that module's "code challenge", we technically received 2 week's instruction on each topic. This was barely enough time to grasp the high-level concepts, before moving on to something new.
- In addition to the watered-down curriculum, many of us struggled with the school's course material. Instead, we relied on each other, overworked instructors who stayed behind after class, and mostly free resources online to learn just enough to pass each code challenge.
- Even for a free education, I took issue with the school curriculum. Students were promised to learn Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, and React over 12 weeks.
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There isn't enough career support. Many bootcamps parade their high job placement rates and post-grad career support in front of eager applicants. Some bootcamps have career coaches and career fairs that guarantee you a job interview.
- In my case, that career support was basically weekly emails of job posts I could find online. The career advice and resume feedback were pretty outdated. And rather than tailor each resume to the student, my career coach insisted I use the same boring template that every student was forced to use.
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Bootcamps are too expensive. Flatiron was $17K. If not for the reimbursement program available at the time, I would be kicking myself now. Given that all of the material is available online for FREE, I would have basically paid for the structure.
- I understand new devs often feeling unsure and overwhelmed by the wealth of information online. There seem to be a million languages, frameworks, and places to start. That's how I felt before attending a bootcamp.
- After graduating, I still felt totally unprepared for the job market. But I did have a much better idea of where to focus my attention. But honestly, is that worth $17,000? I've seen people go into major debt to attend a bootcamp, only to graduate without the career they were promised, and without the basic knowledge they should have gained.
One of the best things I did after graduating was to create a self-study curriculum focused on learning the fundamentals. I would recommend starting there before spending over $10,000 to enroll in a bootcamp.
This blog was initially supposed to offer a list of alternatives to attending a bootcamp. But it was important to cover some of the issues first. I'm still going to write the article. I'll be going to detail on how to best use each resource. I'll also be sharing a list of FREE BOOTCAMPS I learned about too late.
Below is what the bootcamp alternatives list is looking like so far:
- Udemy
- Coursera
- Frontend Masters Handbook
- FreeCodeCamp
- Chingu
- Technical blog
Photo by Gabby K from Pexels
Latest comments (44)
I really like the other kind of take on this topic, so thank you! There are soooooo many ways of becoming a dev today and as I haven't been through bootcamps myself, it's great to see other perspectives.
I was wondering if you'd be interested in talking about your experiences on this topic in my Youtube channel called Developer Habits (youtube.com/channel/UCJLZwePkNHps5...)?
I can understand some points. I recommend bootcamp.uw.edu/. I like it better than Code Fellows.
Totally!
17K for an online "boot camp" of 4 or 5 months, to learn stuff that you can find for free on the Net ... crazy amount of money.
In some countries (not the US, mind you) yearly tuition fees for official university/college level education might be a fraction (say, a quarter, or less) of that amount, and then you're getting bona fide academic education.
17K, what a rip-off.
Yeah this is what I also think.
Curriculum and career resources aside, I think I would have given up learning how to code without a community or teacher to fall back on.
I generally agree with a lot of what you're saying but think everyone should weigh the cost of a boot camp against their level of motivation to learn independently and ability to hold yourself accountable. $17k is a ton of money, and sure you can find free content online. But will you complete those courses and get those 20 half-finished projects presentable? Totally a personal question.
I hear you. The classroom and community aspects of my bootcamp were fantastic. Learning to code without that would have admittedly been more challenging. Maybe if I'd done a 6+ month bootcamp, my experience would have been more positive
Problem, stackoverflow, repeat.
12 weeks holy fucking shit.
That's barely enough time to grasp the basics.
My guess is that even if you succeed it would leave you totally stressed out.
Getting a job afterwards, would probably double down on that stress as you frantically try and fill in the gabs.
I took a short education of 19 months, and I still felt really unprepared for real work.
That was in 2007, when things were much simpler.
19 months to get a degree or something else?
The entry requirement was having completed gradeschool. :)
So far from, it was taught at a practical school where they also educated plummers, welders, CAD design etc. they called it webintegration.
The only reason I got a job afterwards was scarcity, being able to do HTML/CSS was in high demand then.
This was before the local industry worked out how to out/insource obviously.
I do not believe I would not have gotten a job today with that knowledge.
Junior developers are expected to know much more today, and to have a degree usually.
The only thing I hate about bootcamps and other similar structures is they compare themselves to a 4 year college degree to justify their price, I don't think a bootcamp can ever come close to a 4 year degree, the only thing it can do is actually teach material that are better suited for an entry level job in a specific role (enough to get you in) whereas the degree tries to combine a lot of stuff in the field with fundamentals to make sure you can choose a direction and still have something that can be applicable.
For me they are just online video course like those available for free, with a TA , some resume and LinkedIn service added together and marketed as a one stop solution for an absurd amount of money only because desperate people will find them easily and can be convinced better this way.
Totally agree with the statement of 12 weeks to learn all that stuff.
I believe that bootcamp in the first place have a lot of sense when a real expert take a few people who already are in the industry and accelerate they learning process and/or take they to a new point.
Nowadays you can find a lot of bootcamps like "from 0 to hero" but with the same timings than "you are already a developer who seek a new goal", there are good bootcamps out there but as always there are more "bad" bootcamps or at least they do more noise.