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Joined a boot camp, and after one week I don't think I learn at this pace

2 of Michael's comments in this thread · View thread on Reddit ↗

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Coraline gave an amazing answer above/below as well. People learn differently and at different paces. Bootcamps give you a fixed curriculum "firehose"-style on their accelerated schedule. So it's really not reasonable to expect yourself to absorb everything. I also agree with Coraline that you (and anyone reading this) should expect to take some time after graduating to fill in gaps, continue projects, find your areas of passion to double down on, etc... Launch School is one program that calls themselves the "slow way" to learn. The completely opposite of bootcamps is "mastery based learning", where you do the same topic over and over until you "master" it, and then move on, and then you finish the curriculum at your own pace. BloomTech is also moving in this direction of mastery based learning at your pace. Formation (disclosure: co-founder) isn't a bootcamp but we have a hybrid of this as well, "mastery-based" but with a dynamic curriculum that constantly changes to you. There are pros and cons, and these approaches are shown to be more effective at learning, but take longer. If the intensity of this program is negatively impacting your life, it might be worth considering leaving and finding one that does work better. It's good to be uncomfortable, but you shouldn't be putting your health at stake. There are also bootcamps in between, like Rithm School, which is a 9 to 6 program. While I tell a ton of people to go to Codesmith and Hack Reactor, you also shouldn't only want to go to a place with high outcomes on paper if it's not a good fit. Those programs have high outcomes because they select for people for whom they feel confident they can generate those outcomes and don't have that many that don't. There are people with incredible outcomes who go to all kinds of bootcamps, and finding the right program for you will make you long term more successful.

u/ZealousidealAct9665 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

Hi! Thanks for this! What are your thoughts about Tech Elevator?

u/michaelnovati replied ·
I don't know their day to day enough to comment. From a company-level, they are owned by Stride now (which also owns Hack Reactor via K12 via Galvanize - but I don't think the operations are affiliated in any way). They focus on markets that traditionally have fewer engineers historically but more diverse demographics than the traditional big tech hubs. So I think they specialize in helping people from areas where software engineering isn't as common a path, get into it and get a decent job, which is why their salary data is a lot lower than other places that focus on getting people into traditional big tech jobs.