Great article. I fully agree that neither path tells you enough to know if a person is a good candidate or not.
I and many of my friends all maneuvered in to engineering jobs through coding bootcamps and our careers have been wildly successful. I would actually say that given the same individual, a strong bootcamp can do a better job preparing students for the real world than a university. I didn't pursue a degree when I was younger because there were no role models and CS represents itself as being only for egghead types. I also have ADHD and have never been a great student so the intensity of the bootcamp format worked way better for me. I was immediately productive when I started my first real job.
Unfortunately there are quite a few scammy programs that more about the money than whether the candidate would actually succeed in their program. I did a bootcamp in Spain where half my peers should not have been accepted in the program because they could barely use a computer. They were set up to fail (although some of those who really struggled still have managed to build a career for themselves as competent programmers). Meanwhile I've mentored CS grads who really struggle with problem solving skills and constantly need hand holding. Others are completely inflexible about the way they work and struggle to stay current. I guess what I would say is IME the people who succeed through the bootcamp path tend to make fantastic programmers. Unfortunately the cost is great for those that don't don't do well.
Some of the programs out there truly are infuriating, but yeah that's hardly unique to bootcamps: in the US we are still grappling with fraudulent for-profit colleges that were complete scams and ruined countless lives. I'm really glad for people like you and the peers you talk about that made it through these kind of programs and made it work and got to enjoy so much success! I currently work somewhere with people with all kinds of backgrounds (a lot of other STEM grads who then did bootcamps, educators who did, along with (naturally) CS grads and the whole group is awesome).
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Great article. I fully agree that neither path tells you enough to know if a person is a good candidate or not.
I and many of my friends all maneuvered in to engineering jobs through coding bootcamps and our careers have been wildly successful. I would actually say that given the same individual, a strong bootcamp can do a better job preparing students for the real world than a university. I didn't pursue a degree when I was younger because there were no role models and CS represents itself as being only for egghead types. I also have ADHD and have never been a great student so the intensity of the bootcamp format worked way better for me. I was immediately productive when I started my first real job.
Unfortunately there are quite a few scammy programs that more about the money than whether the candidate would actually succeed in their program. I did a bootcamp in Spain where half my peers should not have been accepted in the program because they could barely use a computer. They were set up to fail (although some of those who really struggled still have managed to build a career for themselves as competent programmers). Meanwhile I've mentored CS grads who really struggle with problem solving skills and constantly need hand holding. Others are completely inflexible about the way they work and struggle to stay current. I guess what I would say is IME the people who succeed through the bootcamp path tend to make fantastic programmers. Unfortunately the cost is great for those that don't don't do well.
Some of the programs out there truly are infuriating, but yeah that's hardly unique to bootcamps: in the US we are still grappling with fraudulent for-profit colleges that were complete scams and ruined countless lives. I'm really glad for people like you and the peers you talk about that made it through these kind of programs and made it work and got to enjoy so much success! I currently work somewhere with people with all kinds of backgrounds (a lot of other STEM grads who then did bootcamps, educators who did, along with (naturally) CS grads and the whole group is awesome).