Slashdot Mirror
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.
You have to be bright and highly motivated to find success at a boot camp. When the camps first opened there were far more people interested in attending the boot camps than there were available seats. This meant that they could be very selective in admissions leading to better results.
When the boot camps decided to scale up to be very large, they could not find the same caliber of students to fill the classrooms. This lead to a lowering of standards to keep the business viable. The result was that many students coming out of the boot camps were ill-prepared to work as developers.
The concept can work but not to the scale that the large for-profit training companies want it to. It would be tragic if the good boot camps were put out of business by the bad ones.
What is the truth here?
Are wages so low that people would rather be unemployed, allowing employers to go the H1B route? I also hear that there is a lot of H1B fraud, in which case higher wages won't help.
People say there are lots of skilled workers, but also that all the young workers are idiots with no clue and low ability levels.
Women are apparently clever for avoiding tech jobs, but for some reason men are desperate for them and unable to do the jobs women are doing instead.
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC