The job market right now is putting "the best" to the test.
Many bootcamps have long been pretty poor education experiences that use a high entrance bar to let in people that would succeed without the program but need a little more guidance. In a good job market where you get a six figure job, that "little more guidance" was easily worth any amount of money. In a tough job market people are pulling out the magnifying glass to see exactly what they are paying for, because they aren't getting jobs anymore.
I've seen Hack Reactor and Codesmith's curriculum, and I don't see how people can learn React in a day (literally at Codesmith, it's 1-2 days as of Jan 2023). I worked at Facebook for 8 years, and after leaving it took me months to get really good at React and I'm still not amazing.
I don't think it's fair to entirely blame the programs though because they largely haven't changed in this market. So they were getting too much credit in the good time, and they are going to get too much criticism in the bad times, and as usually, things usually land somewhere in between.
u/EffectiveTeacher4 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
>Many bootcamps have long been pretty poor education experiences that use a high entrance bar to let in people that would succeed without the program but need a little more guidance.
Hi Mike! Anyone with money can enroll in the HR 19-week program. This program has no entry re
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited
Interesting, like no bar at all!? Yeah people should consider that almost like a different program/school then and not think they are getting the traditional Hack Reactor program.
If there's no bar at all, it's actually proving my point even more about the entry bar mattering. There are going to be a lot of unhappy people about this program who won't get jobs but expected them because of the 12 week program's reputation.
My other common argument on this is that people should be paying for the education experience and not the job and judging by that. The two can get mixed up in reviews as "not getting a job" can make people look cynically at the educational experience. A CS degree isn't cheap either and isn't perfect, so the expectation shouldn't be perfection, but people should have some idea of the day to day education they expected and if the program met that or not, regardless of getting a job.
u/Possible_Employ1257 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I know the founder of the original Galvanize and my startup actually officed in the original space. About a decade ago, when Jim first came up with this concept, it was revolutionary. There was a huge developer deficit in the market and these schools solved a major problem for em
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
From my perspective there are a lot ton of jobs available all over the spectrum. There are certainly fewer jobs that last year, specifically at large, brand-name companies. But there are some great opportunities are mid/late stage startups.
The problem we have right now is that bootcamps generally don't teach you much or support you as an individual with unique experience and passions. Instead many teach you how to play the resume game and all of the graduates look the same on paper as a result, very little individual passion comes out in resumes that I've seen and you end up with 500 people applying for a job. I've been on the other side and when that many similar resumes come in, you just ignore them because you don't have time to process them.
I've said this several times , but this year will be the end of a bunch of bootcamps. The ones that survive will have to adapt. Codesmith for example created a whole independent charity that students can "work" at to get more credible experience. While this sounds like they are trying to help, it's just exasperating the problem by aiming to legitimize small 4 week projects instead of actually supporting people demonstrate uniqueness and passion to make them standout. We'll see what happens, I have no idea, but I'll be watching!
u/nicholaschubbb wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
To be fair you don't 'learn' react in 1-2 days at Codesmith. The unit specifically introducing react is 1-2 days + 2 extra days on Redux, but then from that point on for the rest of the program you're using React as the frontend library for all the other units that require it, an
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
A lot of the people I've worked with didn't use React on the OSP, and have filled in React gaps because of their debugging skills and overall work ethic. Codesmith selects for people that are strong in those areas already and I don't think you can credit Codesmith's React training for preparing people for React roles.
u/nicholaschubbb wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
That's their own choice though right? I don't think Codesmith markets themself as a React SWE factory. They teach you the basics of frontend / backend in React / Node and then you decide where you want to go with that knowledge in OSP where you have 4ish weeks to practice what yo
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
I 100% agree their goal isn't to teach you to become a React expert in a day and I don't think people are mislead into thinking that. So everyone is on the same page expectations-wise.
My whole point above is that most bootcamps are like this and you don't actually learn enough in a given topic to be good at that topic on the job. You do well on the job if you learn quickly, pattern match, communicate well, and I think bootcamps with a very high entry bar selected for these types of people and teach them how to present themselves as engineers to they can get jobs. The actually day to day teaching is not really a factor in my opinion - for the top programs with broad curriculums with these high expectations. For programs that specialize in teaching you a narrow skill for a narrow certification for a set of jobs, that's a different ballgame.
I have absolutely no problems with this either, just that people know what they are expecting and I think most people going to Codesmith expect this. But someone dreaming of getting into Codesmith because it has great on-paper outcomes without knowing how it works that barely gets in after trying over and over and not passing the technicals, might want to reconsider.