Huge rollercoaster and quite frankly I'm pretty upset.
Turing had announced a graceful closure earlier this year and then 'upon reflection' and upon raising donations, decided to stay open at least through 2025.
And now they are ending on a bad note, abruptly shutting down And throwing current students into the wild mid program, which is far worse than the original shutdown plan.
I know from my conversations with Jeff that this must be really hard and not something done lightly and he'll do what he needs to do to help the students the best he can.
But really this is why bootcamps that are struggling need to strongly consider shutting down when things are still ok and end gracefully because stuff like this burns your legacy.
u/jcasimir wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
It's not really "throwing current students out in the wild" if they can transfer to another program, get a refund, or potentially even do a teach out with Turing if they want -- is it?
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Are you confident that bootcamps like Codesmith are in good shape to take students? If they staff are leaving left right and center you might just be pushing off your problem to someone else and I don't think that's a responsible solution unless you are doing your due diligence.
u/jcasimir wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I think all accelerated training programs continue to struggle, but all three of those agreed to take students on which we tremendously appreciate. There is a lot of goodwill in this industry, particularly those among those who've been at it for years and years. Everyone wants to
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yes but goodwill + delusion about the market doesn't help anyone even if it helps you sleep at night.
Why would other programs not face the abrupt and insurmountable problems that Turing faced?
u/Soft_Welcome_5621 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Also.
Everyone complaining is wildly off here, while I have my own criticisms of the school, it’s still a solid offering that surely helped a lot of people into a field otherwise inaccessible in albeit a short window of opportunity. That window is limited and that’s not their fa
u/michaelnovatireplied·
\+1 to they aren't actual scammers and they care and tried hard. I'm disappointed in how it's happening when they could have thrown in the towel two months ago on a more positive note. But I didn't realize that only 12 students are displaced by this and they are working with them to make sure they have a good exit.
I hope people stop giving me so much shit for generally being negative about bootcamps right now, I've been very persistent about trying to be realistic about things for a good year now and people keep attacking me about it.
u/Soft_Welcome_5621 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Eh disagree, there was warning - saw them post on reddit they may close around now. Lots of boot camps discourage people in the current climate.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
[https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1j3cc7n/the\_present\_and\_future\_of\_the\_turing\_school/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1j3cc7n/the_present_and_future_of_the_turing_school/)
After all of that, they said they wouldn't close and would run through 2025
u/FeeWonderful4502 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Feeling sorry for the current students. Wonder if they saw the Turing focused reddit posts before joining? Reddit is literally the only place with honest feedback and the existing feedback(on any bootcamp) should have reasonably deterred any potential applicant.
I hope the stude
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I'm going to keep trying to warn people about going to bootcamps for the wrong reasons, but apparently only 12 students are impacted so not that many went.
u/Secure-Ad-9050 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
feel bad for the people caught up in this, but, at the end of the day they chose to do a bootcamp- I don't fault them too much for this as bootcamps adds tend to be predatory.
As far as I am concerned, it was just another scamcamp, as all coding bootcamps are, folding. Yes,
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Codesmith is pumping out marketing about their most recent outcomes as exceptional outcomes, even though they tanked - and while they acknowledge the market they pat themselves on the back still. Internally almost all their lead instructors quit or were laid off except for one - who is now leading two entire tracks (as of two weeks ago) - and one person who has been teaching for a few months was promoted to be a lead instructor as well.
I'm exhausted with leaders, like Turing too, who want to pour their heart and soul into something with such good intentions but seeing all of that passion make people delusional - desperately trying to keep the thing alive without realizing the industry is burning down.
I admire Launch Academy for pausing gracefully, and a few others that explicitly opted to 'preserve their legacy' (their words) and shut down instead of taking the industry's credibility with them.
It's not bad intentioned at all but Turing's flip flopping is going to impact the remaining bootcamps. Who the hell would go to Codesmith or Hack Reactor when one of the best (and CIRR) schools Turing, 42 days ago was promising to finish out [2025 and had partnerships and a plan to do so](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1j3cc7n/the_present_and_future_of_the_turing_school/) and then abruptly shut down.
Ask yourself - if a school has to now proactively explain to you that they aren't shutting down soon and to trust them, it's like an MLM proactively explaining to you they are super legit and not a pyramid scheme. Something is not right and you need to be careful, and most people who are going are drinking the Kool Aid and it's a matter of time until they get sick and realize what they did.
u/jcasimir wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
It's true! And the field of play -- the economy -- has shifted more in the last 8 weeks than it has since the onset of COVID. Any projection or plan made before January 20th is now wildly wrong.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I think that's fair, and maybe you were going to post explain more, if you are planning on it, I'll back off a bit because I absolutely know you wouldn't be doing this lightly and there is surely another side to it.
u/jcasimir wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I appreciate the dialog.
It really boils down to a simple issue: Turing has always been "high risk, high reward" -- pay a significant tuition, commit super-full-time work for seven months, and get into a great job.
On January 15 if you said "I'm thinking about the February coh
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Thanks for sharing. Yeah I'll +1 that March was particularly strong for Formation in the mid-late career stages, FAANG offers of every logo color of the rainbow.
And I got really nervous that if bootcamps saw similar bumps in entry level, they would promote stronger March without any acknowledgment of what's going on in the market.
I'm absolutely shocked that CIRR can't even keep their website up while they transition it to a new page and comes back without even explaining what is going on.
When the economy changed in the other directly and was super hot, it wasn't "the economy's fault" that Codesmith and others had such amazing placements right? It was the school's pedagogy and curriculum and community and network. Times are shit, 'not my fault, can't do anything about it'.
It's indeed a good lesson for all these leaders. The bootcamps are not going to make it but whatever they do next I'm sure they will be more humble during the good times.
u/FeeWonderful4502 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Omg dude. THANK YOU. It's exactly this. Either Turing staff were Delusional or predatory.
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
I don't think predatory, but on the "delusional" aspect, it's probably too mean of a word.
Like I think Turing had arguments for believing they could finish out 2025, and the changes in the economy made that not possible.
Should they have known that a President who has said the word "tariffs" over and over for about 40 years might introduce tariffs? Yes.
Do they have a crystal ball to tell the future? No.
My centrist stance on this is that bootcamps have to be absurdly transparent right now into what is going on.
I'm absurdly hard on Codesmith more than Turing because they live in an alternate reality on this stuff and don't acknowledge anything publicly. Like if all your instructors turned over except for 1 in less than a year, something is absolutely, fundamentally, stop the presses wrong and you need to pause immediately and just rebuild or reset and come back in the future. But no.... 'exceptional outcomes'. Do you know how insulting it is to alumni to continue to promise them 'lifelong support', and then to pull out almost all your mock interview slots so that someone who was counting on that couldn't get a mock interview they expected.
u/jcasimir wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I had an interesting conversation last week where it was highlighted that 2016-2020, bootcamps really didn't work that well overall. Across the industry there was downsizing, consolidation, many programs pulling out of data reporting like CIRR, etc.
I think programs that were s
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
My stance is in those days was that bootcamps worked for extremely ambitious young professionals with lots of savings. People that were successful in life already in various ways (ivy league, other career, naturally brilliant and doing well but had tough circumstances holding them back) and wanted to transition to SWE.
This is not a perfect analogy but I visited slums in Mumbai expecting the people there to be really struggling to get by without any jobs and such.
Instead I found out that the slums are like mini factories and people in the 'top tier slums' are actually extremely ambitious people - generally the 'breadwinner' of the family coming from all over India and staying there temporarily to make money. The work they did was like melting plastic and toxic stuff that is definitely bad for people's health, but they were there hopefully as a stepping stone to better jobs by saving enough money.
There's a certain type of person that bootcamps always worked for and will still work for.
I get very concerned with bootcamps market those people as the typical case and saying things like Codesmith does 'you could be next'
u/JockedUp303 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
At one point, Executive Director Jeff was making upwards of $300k, and boy, did he love to pontificate from his virtual ivory tower. He posted in December about "ending things right" only to abandon students mid-program a few months later.
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited
My 2 cents - if Jeff could have ended this right he would have, so whatever is happening is so disruptive and so insane that it warranted this action. Which puts many other "top bootcamps" on notice for having similar problems.
u/Zestyclose-Level1871 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Whatever happened to this particular bit of P2W BloomTech cyber voodoo?
[**https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1hdmyxh/uhhhhh\_bloomtech\_launched\_gauntlet\_ai\_free\_12/**](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1hdmyxh/uhhhhh_bloomtech_launched_gauntlet
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited
I think it worked pretty well. The key was have an IQ test at the beginning to only allow extremely smart people. Then run them through a 12 week insane hours program to see who also has the work ethic.
It's an interesting idea but it doesn't work by definition because it's selecting for a small group of high IQ people that is limited by definition.
u/sheriffderek wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I think if you anyone expects anything (A school, a contact, a boot camp, a book, a course) -- to "*get them a job*" - then they don't really understand how life - and education, and experience - and "Getting jobs" works. This isn't HVAC training. I've never told anyone to "go to
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
If that's not the case then maybe bootcamps shouldn't put hiring stats in their prime hero spots.
I just just checked and Codesmith, Hack Reactor, Tripe Ten, Tech Elevator, General Assembly, all have placement or salary info in the hero banner on the homepage.
Fullstack doesn't.
I was in the camp of people need to think about this as paying for school and not paying for a job. When the market crashed and many programs had layoffs and staff reduction it became absolutely absurd to pay $20K for this stuff.
Like at Codesmith now after their cut backs, you pay $22.5K and your cohort has 1 lead instructor with no/little experience, 1-3 mentors who are former graduates of Codesmith with no experience who were TAs that stayed full time as mentors, and then a bunch of fellows/TAs etc... who are part time recent graduates who haven't placed yet or recent graduates who mentor here and there.
If a cohort has 20 people = $450K X 7 cohorts a year = $3.15M and what, like 4 full time staff 100% dedicated to the cohort + corporate overhead.
Like these things are still rolling in money if they can just get people to show up. Once you show up they get paid and outcomes don't matter.
They die if outcomes die and no one believes it works anymore. And outcomes just died.
This is why places like Triple Ten and Codesmith have to market the hell out of their outcomes and present this facade that outcomes are incredible, that you can be next, etc....
If people don't believe the outcome is possible the program is completely toast.
It's sad but the way it is :(
u/outdoorgal423 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
a scam how? I don’t think it’s fair to discredit all bootcamps, because some (including Turing) have had a great run and have changed thousands of people’s lives.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
If a bootcamp wants to maintain that reputation for it's great run, has to shut down on a positive note, like places like Code Fellows did.
Otherwise thousands of lives changed loses a huge amount of that credit overnight.
I'm in the camp where bootcamps aren't scams, and we should acknowledge the lives changed.
But it's also really sad to see some of the remaining ones just grasping on a little too long.
u/Awkward_Sun_8106 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Really you guy, how do you go 'talk' to people and then come on here on Reddit to say nasty things about them? You will get a taste of your own medicine soon.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
This isn't nasty, and I've talked to Jeff after this.
u/Virtual_Session_1671 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):