I spend a lot of time thinking about the current state of coding bootcamps in America.
On the one hand, going to a bootcamp is probably the fastest way to start a career in software development.
On the other hand, there are a significant number of students who fork out upwards of $20k only to end up back at the same jobs they were in before attending.
I spent nearly 5 years of my engineering career teaching and mentoring students at different bootcamps.
Here are some of the key things I think every prospective student should be aware of.
Bootcamp Quality varies Wildly
Coding bootcamps are very lightly regulated, meaning almost anyone with a website can write a few pages and begin marketing themselves as a bootcamp. It is very difficult to determine in advance how good your instructors will be.
CourseReport lists a large number of coding bootcamps around the country, but almost all of them have high ratings and glowing reviews – can they all be that good? In their list of ‘top bootcamps’, they rank Flatiron school as #1 – despite the company being fined $375k for operating without a license, (amongst other things.)
“The Attorney General’s investigation also uncovered that Flatiron made inflated claims on its website concerning the percentage of its graduates who obtained employment after completing their courses and the average salaries of their graduates”
From a press release by Attorney General Schneiderman at ag.ny.gov
With such a large number of bootcamps, you can afford to be selective. Do not even consider an institution with an average rating below 4.8.
If you can, find out if you can try any of the lessons first – CodeSmith has an exceptional youtube channel, and the co-founder frequently runs free, high-quality workshops on Javascript (titled Javascript – the Hard Parts).
Every high-quality institution should have some form a free intro class that you can take to check out before you take the leap.
So what should you do to find out more about your preferred bootcamp?
- Read all the reviews you can from real students. The people that post reviews tend to be clear evangelists, or people who feel very hard done by. Both can be useful.
- Go to LinkedIn and search for your bootcamp. You want to see that former students are now employed in tech.
- Go to YouTube and see what kinds of projects students end up building.
- Go to CIRR (Council on Integrity in Results in Reporting) and analyze the graduate outcomes for different schools.
- Find out what the acceptance rate is for your school. High quality bootcamps have higher bars, and will frequently reject people – this is a good sign. You want to feel challenged when you are interviewed.
Bootcamp Hiring Rates are mostly… Inaccurate
Inaccurate is a polite word.
Do not trust anyone from a coding bootcamp who tells you their hiring rate or average graduate salary.
Common tricks are to only include students who fulfill ‘certain requirements’ as determined by the school. Or perhaps the school might hire a portion of the graduating students to teach the next class, and thus consider them now ’employed’.
The career coaches might even tell you to market yourself as a ‘tech freelancer’ online, and then say you are employed because you have this new title.
There is only one resource that you can confidently use to compare different schools, and that is the CIRR website (Council on Integrity in Results in Reporting).
“The CIRR standards prevent deceptive graduation and job placement marketing practices and ensure a student can trust what a school advertises.”
https://cirr.org/
Go to CIRR and check out a few bootcamps. If your preferred bootcamp is not on there, that is a big no-no (I’m looking at you, General Assembly!)
Do you think Flatiron School is part of CIRR? No, of course not.
Don’t Be Old
Sorry folks.
I know everyone Quora and Twitter says it’s never too late to learn to code.
The good news is that they are right! You can learn to code at any age! But it will be harder. It will take longer. And companies will not hire you when you graduate.
I’ve seen it time and time again in almost every coding classroom I’ve taught in.
You will be learning alongside 21 year olds who are fresh out of university.
They have boundless energy and capacity for learning.
If you are over 40, trust me, you are going to have a tough time. Your fellow students are not going to want to hang out with some old fogie who just can’t grasp it.
I know – there are exceptions, and it is indeed possible that you will be the best programmer in your class. But if you think age discrimination is bad in your current industry, just wait until you try looking for a job in tech.
So what do you do if you’re over 40 and want a job in tech?
I’d recommend sticking with your current industry and use programming to make it better.
Automate your workflow.
If you do any kind of data analysis (and let’s face it, every job now requires some form of data analysis), learn some python to make your life easier. Your co-workers will wonder who this old wizard is, who now gets so much done.
At the very least it’ll be a fun new hobby for you instead of doing crosswords in your cardigan and slippers.
Know That This May Be the Hardest and Most Frustrating Thing You Have Ever Done
Making the decision to attend a coding bootcamp is very difficult in itself. However, it may be the easiest part of all this. Once you are in, you may be tempted to think that you are on a conveyor belt to a high paying job in tech.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
This is not a degree.
You can’t cruise through, get your piece of paper that says you are ready for the real world, and have employers lining up to hire you.
A coding bootcamp is self-driven. What this means is that you will learn most of the material by yourself or in small groups, and not from lectures or examples. This is a trade school. So you will be writing code. All day. Every. Single. Day.
If you get stuck, you will be expected to search out solutions for yourself first.
Your instructors and teaching assistants are merely sherpas guiding you to your personal Everest. They will help you when you cry, which you will, but it is up to you to put your hoodie on, put your headphones in your ears, and do the work.
And the hard work doesn’t stop when you graduate. You will enter perhaps the most demoralizing 3 to 12 months of your life as you apply to literally hundreds, maybe thousands of companies. You will probably hear back from around 50 of them if you are lucky. Maybe you’ll get 4 or 5 interviews if you’re a real superstar.
Then you’re in for a real treat – your first real technical interview! Hurray!
This interview will be the most awkward experience of your career. But that’s a topic for another post.
And if you make it through all this and get a real job in coding?
Congratulations! You have entered a hallowed guild. You now have a career that for many people is just a hobby. To the muggles, you are a wizard. So enjoy it, it’s worth it.