u/Thinkinaboutu wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
All the lectures are presentations hosted by an instructor or fellow with everyone in a zoom call.
It's very similar to CSX in that you're gonna be given a very surface level introduction to a concept, and then expected to come up with a relatively complex implementation of that
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Surprisingly for all I know about Codesmith, I don't know much about the actual lecture contents... but this sounds really bad. It sounds like it relies on the raw abilities of the people both technically and communication wise with peers to learn.
If someone was really far behind, even with 1-1 peer time via a fellow, how could they possibly catch up with this model?
u/witheredartery wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
The way they admit students, I honestly believe they will end up in great places regardless of whether they attend a bootcamp Or not
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I think there is a lot of value in this model for people that are already strong to make them better, so it's not a waste for these people but it might limit the ultimate breadth of skill levels of people Codesmith can support long term, which might be totally fine. They are expanding to machine learning so if they can just cherry pick the best people in more and more disciplines that can scale too... it just changes the goal from "I want to get into Codemith so they can develop my skills to be successful" to "I want to get into Codemith because it validates I have the traits needed to be successful based on similar people". Both can work.
u/witheredartery wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Do u think machine learning can be learnt in bootcamp format
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I don't know. So the underlying math and practice data sets can be for the right people, but it's hard to simulate the sheer amounts of data people have at top companies. But the way Codemsith students exaggerate a 6 week OSP project into legit work experience, if they are banking on doing the same thing and turning a 6 week project using a public data set into a work like experience well see how it works. I think it's easier to fake it with full stack engineering where there are ten of thousands of stacks people work on. You can't fake PHD level math.
u/Thinkinaboutu wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I would definitely say my current impression of the approach is that it leaves people who are super prepped feeling adequately pushed, whilst leaving people who under prepped in the dust tracks.
The problem with that for me is the level of preparedness you need to be in that fo
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I can give you the Formation analogy now haha. We put you in the shallow end without floaties (we don't lecture) and stand behind you and continuously push you towards the deep end. How hard we push you keeps changing depending on how much you push back each step of the way and then eventually you are in the deep end all alone. Each person has a completely unique pushing needs/pattern.
u/dalvincooked wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
If you can’t do all of the necessary topics on csx with little to no difficulty you need to practice more before the interview.
If you aren’t used to technical communication I would recommend taking cs prep once you are comfortable with the csx material as well since you do get
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
There are a group of people saying that recursion and OOP are.now always tested to get in. We work with Codesmith alumni who still need recursion practice after graduating so that seems like a high bar to me.
If anyone has info on the consistency of the bar, please comment. Does everyone get the same questions/topics?
u/dalvincooked wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I only took one interview, but the hardest question I felt we were expected to solve was to find the length of an array using recursion with no built in js methods ( keep track of index we were at with a parameter ). That is a question that’s either in csx or was covered in cs pr
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Why do you think people fail to get in?
Also for that question, if they expect you to pass in an index to an array recursively that doesn't show a strong understanding of recursion and how it would be used to solve complex problems in the future, like DP. So I would barely call that testing recursion. That is just "can you write a for loop recursively".
I hope they properly teach recursion in Codesmith afterwards and hwo to use it to solve complex problems. At Formation, recursion alone is something most people spend two to four or more weeks of intense practice to truly understanding and weild as a powerful tool to solve problems with.