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Should The Government Pay For Veterans To Attend Code Schools? (backchannel.com)
mirandakatz writes: David Molina was finishing up his 12-year time in the army when he started teaching himself to code, and started to think that he might like to pursue it professionally once his service was done. But with a wife and family, he couldn't dedicate the four years he'd need to get an undergraduate degree in computer science -- and the GI Bill, he learned, won't cover accelerated programs like code schools. So he started an organization dedicated to changing that. Operation Code is lobbying politicians to allow vets to attend code schools through the GI Bill and prepare themselves for the sorts of stable, middle-class jobs that have come to be called "blue-collar coding." Molina sees it as a serious failing that the GI Bill will cover myriad vocational programs, but not those that can prepare veterans for one of the fastest-growing industries in existence.
The issue seems to be quality. The group estimates there are already nine code schools in the U.S. which do accept GI Bill benefits -- but only "longer-standing ones that have made it through State Approving Agencies." Meanwhile, Course Report calculates 18,000 people finished coding bootcamps last year -- and that two thirds of them found a job within three months.
But I just liked how Molina described his introduction into the world of programmers. While stationed at Dover Air Force Base, he attended Baltimore's long-standing Meetup for Ruby on Rails, where "People taught me about open source. There was pizza, there was beer. They made me feel like I was at home."
The issue seems to be quality. The group estimates there are already nine code schools in the U.S. which do accept GI Bill benefits -- but only "longer-standing ones that have made it through State Approving Agencies." Meanwhile, Course Report calculates 18,000 people finished coding bootcamps last year -- and that two thirds of them found a job within three months.
But I just liked how Molina described his introduction into the world of programmers. While stationed at Dover Air Force Base, he attended Baltimore's long-standing Meetup for Ruby on Rails, where "People taught me about open source. There was pizza, there was beer. They made me feel like I was at home."
No. New schools, even if they're "coding schools" still need to go through the normal procedures to attain recognition that they are a real school.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of schools scamming veterans. They offer fairly useless courses and the government pays.
Of course it would be good for veterans to learn coding but it should be a properly accredited school. It looks like there is a mechanism in place to properly vet (sic) schools and it should be followed.
Pizza and beer do not necessarily make a good school.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I've had coworkers that were veterans and they got their masters degrees while in the military. There are apparently some really good C.S. programs like UMD that bend over backwards to accommodate their schedule and ensure credits transfer.
Why do Americans apparently feel such a massive debt of gratitude is appropriate for ALL military vets?
Apart from anything else, they chose the job.
Where's the recognition for the police or firefighters or others who clearly face far more danger in 1 day than the average so-called vet who spent their entire enlistment (which could be as small as 2 years) in some stateside base nowhere near any actual danger?
Want a Job in Silicon Valley? Keep Away From Coding Schools: https://www.bloomberg.com/news... This isn't the whole story, of course, because there are good schools, and not all jobs are in Silicon Valley. But once the government starts providing tuition for these places, lots of these "coding schools" with low quality and high tuition will pop up everywhere.
There is zero reason to give them anything but their last paycheck on the way out the door.
As a veteran, I pretty much agree with this. The military is 100% volunteer, and the pay is pretty good. Of course we need to take care of people that were wounded or disabled in the line of duty, but for everyone else, the handouts and entitlements are excessive. The benefits are also heavily skewed toward those that need them the least. I used a VA loan to buy a house in San Jose, one of the most expensive housing markets in the world, and over the life of the loan I will get about $200k in taxpayer funded subsidies, which I am happy to accept but certainly don't "need". Yet many veterans living in trailer parks don't have the ability or knowledge to benefit from the same program.
In many ways, veterans are just another special interest group, with a huge voting block to back them up. It is difficult for politicians to resist their demands because they don't want attack ads claiming they "don't care about vets".
if you can't learn to code on your own you can't learn to code. This is not an industry where you can learn some skill and be done. Coders are constantly retraining themselves to handle new technologies. Maybe this little snowflake should grow up and realize millions of people actually work there way through college studying late at night after working an 8 hour shift and then taking care of there kids.
He was paid wages for hose 12 years. He got *exactly* what he deserves.
Yeah, they want unreasonable things like treatment for medical conditions caused by their service, or the government to live up to the promises made when they signed up. People sign up under the promise of the GI Bill and other benefits, only to see them harder to get than promised.
Learn to love Alaska
There are a good number of defence technology companies who will consider veterans.
When I left the military, my first coding job was with a defense company. They hired vets for several reasons:
1. I already had a security clearance.
2. I knew military lingo and acronyms.
3. When interacting with our military clients, I knew that colonels and generals don't like to be addressed as "dude".
Veterans benefits was a throwback to a time when service wasn't voluntary. Then, because VA is not "military spending", the veterans had all the benefits separated, inflated, and are now a political, not practical, issue. VA loans, near guaranteed employment (many places have overt veteran preference, and it's illegal for the US government to hire a person to a job if there's a less qualified veteran that meets the minimums). The benefits are a lure to get people in. Because the pay is low (compared to salary in the private sector), mainly because the military doesn't include the benefits (uniforms provided, housing provided, vehicles, transportation, recreation, and other things provided). So $20k in the military would be like 40-60k in the private sector. But, since that's not well advertised, the recruiters focus on your "exit bonus" of the GI Bill, and other benefits. If the VA benefits weren't there, the recruits would reduce.
There are abuses on both sides. Those that get good benefits they didn't "need", and those who need a benefit that is provided in some form, but not in the form they need (education for this guy, housing for the homeless vets).
Learn to love Alaska
The benefits are a lure to get people in.
I wonder how effective that is. I enlisted in the Marines on my 18th birthday, and I had never heard of any benefits (and in general, had no idea what I was signing up for). Maybe the more brain-oriented branches (AF, Navy) are different, but I never heard any Marine say he enlisted to pay for college, or to get a home loan.
The recruitment process now has pamphlets of the benefits. Lines them up and sums them up, makes it sound like a $200k bonus for signing. At least when I last saw, around the time of the first Gulf War.
Learn to love Alaska
I imagine the pay isn't as good as in the private sector
You imagine wrong. For an 18 year old high school graduate, the pay is pretty good. When you add in basic necessities that are provided for free (food, housing, ammunition), it is a pretty good deal
... and volunteering is more noble than otherwise.
My reasons for joining had nothing to do with being "noble" or "serving my country" or any of that crap. It was a testosterone driven desire for adventure. I wanted to jump out of airplanes, ride in helicopters, and go see the world (Yes, I did all of those things as a Marine).
Perhaps some effort should be spent ensuring active duty personnel and veterans are offered opportunities ...
Veterans benefits, like any other entitlement, will always be twisted toward those that can organize, manipulate the system, and contribute to politicians, ... in other words successful people that don't really need the benefits.
Giving you some opportunity to catch up with the rest of us seems reasonable.
Except that we don't need to "catch up". According to the DOL, veterans are doing better than average in median income.
I meant catch up in other ways. Sorry if that was unclear.
Okay, but I don't think there is any catching up to do. I felt like my military experience gave me a head start. When I later went to college, I had a much deeper and more mature perspective. To other students in history class, the places mentioned were just names on a map. But I had been there. I had a better understanding of the world, I had learned to speak some Japanese and Tagalog, and even more Mandarin (and eventually married a Chinese girl), and that opened a lot of opportunities in business and high-tech, especially as so much of the world's economy has shifted to Asia.
If you want to pay higher taxes to subsidize the mortgage on my McMansion in San Jose, I am not going to refuse the money, but I certainly don't need it, and veterans in general don't need it anymore than anyone else.
If you need more structure in your education, code monkey almost certainly isn't a good career choice for you.
You're going to get an education more suited to writing good code from a philosophy major than you are from a coding school.
The only vets you have to worry about are the ones who carry a loaded finger gun on the bus and telling themselves, "Never surrender! Never give up!"
First we need a "coding school" that is worth a damn. For the rest of this post I am going to say programming and not coding.
No, these people are certainly turning out coders and not programmers. They will know git and unit testing, but they won't know Knuth or Turing from a hole in the ground.
If such a program is to be instituted, It's going to have to be designed by the likes of Google, Canonical, and even Microsoft.
The industry is not interested in training its own. Otherwise there wouldn't need to be these programs. But I'm taking the words "self paced" and "internship" to mean that you haven't seriously thought about this issue. Internships are not replacements for classroom instruction, and getting someone from being a complete novice to the point where it's even worth it to pair them with a more senior dev takes quite a lot of instruction.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
I disagree. The skill being taught is the ability to learn programming. I'm attending a coding academy at the moment (for reasons which are becoming increasingly obscure) and no one could possibly mistake the curriculum for a complete education, but unfortunately there's essentially no place offering anything better. CS grads can probably be trusted to have learned either Java, Python, or perhaps Javascript. They can probably discuss a bit about algorithmic complexity and may know something about compilers, parsers, and lexers. They may know something about OS design or circuit design. They may or may not have learned anything about source control. Unit testing is less likely. The actual day-to-day practice of programming will be pretty obscure. I'm betting that the average coding school graduate will have a much better handle on whether they have an affinity for programming than your average CS grad, and if there are "skills needed to succeed" they're not going to be taught at either place.
We likely need a further bridge between the coding school and the real world (some sort of apprenticeship, say), but providing these services is pretty expensive. The industry isn't stepping up. The private sector is finding it difficult (from conversations and observing a few schools go under). Does government have a role to play here?
To answer my own rhetorical question to some degree, the DoL is actually running a study to see if it's worthwhile to give veterans and people who suffered from the 2008 crash (career-wise) grants to attend coding school. It's called Reboot Northwest. So, whilst we argue, others are gathering data, but there are of course both philosophical and practical matters at stake.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Probably because, they don't know, how to use commas, either.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I felt like my military experience gave me a head start. When I later went to college, I had a much deeper and more mature perspective. To other students in history class, the places mentioned were just names on a map. But I had been there. I had a better understanding of the world,
A bit off topic... I agreed to your statement here. Though, I would add that it is not just military experience, but rather any real life experience would give a head start in college education. Simply go directly from high school to college isn't for most people. Majority of them should at least come out of school and work in order to see what the real world is. Then they should get some ideas about what they are expecting before they go back to take higher education. The real world experience will help them understand how to study and what to look for in the future from the education.