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Do Code Bootcamps Work? (inc.com)
"Computer programming is highly specialized work; it can't be effectively taught in an intensive program," writes Inc. magazine's contributing editor:
Last month, two of the country's largest and most well-regarded coding bootcamps closed. While there are still over 90 such camps in the U.S. and Canada, these for-profit intensive software engineering schools aren't successfully preparing their students for programming jobs. According to a recent Bloomberg article, the Silicon Valley recruiter Mark Dinan characterized the bootcamps as "a freaking joke," while representatives of Google and Autodesk said respectively that "most graduates from these programs are not quite prepared" and "coding schools haven't been much of a focus for [us]."
In one sense, the failure of coding bootcamps reflects the near-universal failure of for-profit universities, colleges, and charter schools to provide a usable education. In another sense, though, coding bootcamps represent a profound misunderstanding of what computer programming is all about... Coding at the professional level is highly specialized and requires years of practice to master... the idea of a bootcamp for coding is just as practical as the idea of a bootcamp for surgery.
In one sense, the failure of coding bootcamps reflects the near-universal failure of for-profit universities, colleges, and charter schools to provide a usable education. In another sense, though, coding bootcamps represent a profound misunderstanding of what computer programming is all about... Coding at the professional level is highly specialized and requires years of practice to master... the idea of a bootcamp for coding is just as practical as the idea of a bootcamp for surgery.
In one sense, the failure of coding bootcamps reflects the near-universal failure of for-profit universities, colleges, and charter schools to provide a usable education.
News to me, one I take my kids to seems perfectly fine. Plus they did Hour of Code thing... and it teaches kids to code! What, do you expect to become an expert in anything - foreign language, electrical work, skiing - in 90 days? Doesn't work like that. It gives you an introduction on where to look, they you can try writting tiny apps for your own use / tinker with stuff on github. Maybe works as an apprentice for your friend working on their own thing for some beers. Do this for a year or two and you should be good to use your new skills for fun and profit.
Come on /. ..... this was here just a week and a have ago....
https://news.slashdot.org/stor...
And no they don't.
Programming is not a task. It is a way of viewing the world. It’s a way of thinking that mingles creativity and logic. Almost like physical poetry. Many of us (yes, I’m a coder and have been a long time) have a burning curiosity and always ask “what if, how did that happen, where did that come from..” and a myriad of other questions indicating a need for constant learning. My wife is very successful in medicine. She’s much more “feeling” driven in her decisions whereas mine are logical. At times call me “cold”, and says “who thinks like that?” We balance, in a good way – most of the time – anyway, I digress As for programmers, not everyone is built that way, and a “boot camp” won’t change you if you don’t. This mantra “Everyone can and should learn to code” is one of those tag lines that need to finally die.
If however, the output expected is of folks who can do heavy serious coding (read coding closer to the metal), then such camps are a pipe dream.
As you point out, it is all about expectations. However, I think that in general there is a wrong assumption about the skill level of a new graduate. Take surgery as a comparison, for instance. A new medical doctor just graduated from school will not be put into an operating room unsupervised. In fact, every medical specialty requires that new graduates complete a residency. It very similar to what new plumbers and electricians go through, though a doctor will spend a great deal more money to get there.
To me, a new graduate with a computer engineering, computer science, or perhaps even a management information systems (depending on the school) degree has achieved the level of "now I am ready to apprentice under an experienced senior developer." I find it humorous how start ups will load up their staffs with all new graduates for developers and later wonder why their apps and infrastructure have problems. It would be like hiring all apprentice bricklayers, plumbers, and electricians to build you a building. You are likely to encounter problems down the road.
I know that some folks think of coding as an art more than as a trade or skill. However, coding has enough of the skilled trade flavor to it, in particular developing the understanding for how decisions you make in one place will have long lasting effects throughout an application and the things that interact with it (which a new graduate or junior developer is not likely to understand), that the only really sensible way to look at it is as something that requires a pseudo-apprenticeship.
Granted, some people have a natural talent, but even then they benefit from being under the guidance of good experienced developers.
The truth is that businesses have been lying for over 20 years about shortages of workers.
And then policy makers believe it or are paid off to believe it and they then start to push STEM education when the fact is that there is a glut of STEM workers. Our stagnant pay is proof.
Everything else; women in tech, lack of education or what the excuse du jour is, is just PR horseshit to cover their asses in getting more cheap H1-b workers.
During my MGT days, we budgeted 45 cents on the dollar for Indians compared to Americans. And no, we didn't have a lot of rework or anything. We really saved 55% - and I got a really nice bonus.
It's a dog eat dog world out there and you gotta get fed first or not at all.
I don't live in the US
The fact that I'm less likely to have to interact with you in real life is the best news I've gotten all month.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
It's a mix a both, really. When you have companies in California offering salaries of $60,000 per year it's a lot different than that same salary being offered in somewhere like Nebraska where the cost of living is going to be a lot lower. There are a lot of Americans that aren't willing to work for that pay in California because it won't allow them to afford the type of lifestyle that they expect. Meanwhile, there are many H1-B workers who are more than happy to take those wages, because from their perspective its a great opportunity for them to live in a nice place and having the kind of freedoms that living in a western democracy affords that may not be possible in their native country.
There are a lot of skilled workers, but there aren't a lot of companies that want to pay the rates those workers feel that they're worth when they can get some wet behind the ears college graduate for perhaps half the salary. I don't know if that's always the best economic decision for the company, and some of that may come from companies not having a good way to measure productivity differences which is difficult to do in software engineering without creating some kind of metrics based hell that the smart employees will figure out how to game quite easily.
The truth isn't something that's always easy to completely understand and something like the global economy has so many moving parts that even if you understand some of the fundamental causes (e.g. higher demand for software engineers will increase wages, which ultimately leads to more people majoring in CS and increasing the available labor pool which reduces wages until an equilibrium is reached where the number of people capable and interested in being developers matches the demand) it's really hard to factor everything in. Think of it another way. If you could easily answer that question, centrally planned economies would be easy to pull off and the Soviet Union probably would have won the cold war instead of collapsing like it did.
Are wages so low that people would rather be unemployed, allowing employers to go the H1B route?
You have the causality backwards.
Companies fraudulently get H1B visas to drive wages down. To keep up the charade, they have to claim it is impossible to find US workers for their jobs.
To keep the fraud going, companies deliberately sabotage their recruiting process. I get 2-3 emails a day from recruiters offering me jobs in cities I do not live in. The jobs require 1/4 the experience I have, with appropriate pay for that level of experience. Since I do not live there and do not want to take a massive pay cut, I do not apply to those positions. The company uses my lack of response, as well as the other people they spam, to pretend there are no US people for that job.
If I did apply for the position, first they would demand I travel at my own expense to multiple in-person interviews, scheduled at the last minute in order to maximize the expense to me. And if I did pay for that travel and show up for the interviews, I would be rejected as unqualified or "not a good fit for their team" or any other reason they could come up with.
Since the job is a massive pay cut, it would be difficult for me to show I was harmed and thus it is harder to sue them for rejecting me. Plus suing an employer, prospective or not, ends your career. Your lawsuit is a public record, so any future employers will see it and refuse to hire you.
Why would the company bother with all this fraud effort? Because they aren't actually looking for someone with 4 years experience. They will "miraculously" find an H1B employee with 10 years experience who will just happen to take the job at the pay rate for 4 years experience. Then proceed to have them to work commiserate with 10 years experience.
Basically, everything you hear that blames this problem on the worker side of this situation is a lie designed to perpetuate H1B visas.
I just want to know the truth. I don't live in the US so it's hard to know based on Slashdot and crappy "news" articles.
All evidence points towards you not being interested in knowing the truth, and far more interested in shitting on workers. But that's OK, we'll drag down your wages too.