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Four Code Bootcamps Are Now Eligible For Government Financial Aid (hackeducation.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp notes a pilot program for improving computer science education which includes financial aid for students at four code bootcamps:
In this week's Hack Education Weekly News, Audrey Watters writes, "The US Department of Education has selected eight higher ed institutions and eight 'non-traditional providers' that will work as partners to pilot the DoE's new EQUIP experiment, meaning that students will be able to receive federal financial aid for coding bootcamps, MOOCs, and the like...
"Good thing there haven't been any problems with for-profit higher ed and exploitation of financial aid, otherwise this would all seem like a terrible idea."
The original submission has more details on the participants (including the four code bootcamps). Ultimately the program involves pairing "non-traditional" providers with higher education institutions -- and then monitoring their results with a third-party "quality assurance entity" -- to improve the ways we measure a school's performance, but also testing new ways to fund training for computer careers. (I'm curious how Slashdot's readers feel about government loans for attendees at code bootcamps...)
"Good thing there haven't been any problems with for-profit higher ed and exploitation of financial aid, otherwise this would all seem like a terrible idea."
The original submission has more details on the participants (including the four code bootcamps). Ultimately the program involves pairing "non-traditional" providers with higher education institutions -- and then monitoring their results with a third-party "quality assurance entity" -- to improve the ways we measure a school's performance, but also testing new ways to fund training for computer careers. (I'm curious how Slashdot's readers feel about government loans for attendees at code bootcamps...)
What proportion of competent programmers are self-taught? I would expect the majority. On my degree, the only people who could program were the ones who had learned themselves, and the students who relied on the lectures knew practically nothing.
You can't just sit in a classroom and expect to be able to program at the end of the course. You only become a competent programmer by spending a lot of time working on real applications, which generally involves dedicating a lot of your free time.
If I were recruiting for a programming job I wouldn't even consider qualifications and wouldn't care whether the applicant had a degree or not. What I'd instead want to see is examples of the programs the applicant had produced. This would confirm that they could actually program (since many people with degrees can't) and that they have the enthusiasm and dedication to be good programmers. If all you have is a degree or some certificate from a bootcamp, and can't show any work that demonstrates your programming skills, then it's clear that you have no programming skills, nor do you have any interest in programming.