Coding Boot Camps should they go or be used ?

Coding Boot Camps should they go or be used ?

Within the past week, two well-known and well-established coding bootcamps have announced they’ll be closing their doors: Dev Bootcamp, owned by Kaplan Inc., and The Iron Yard, owned by the Apollo Education Group (parent company of the University of Phoenix).  Not the most strongest places to learn how to code but some industry observers have suggested that the market may be merging in the coming months.

It appears that there are simply more coding bootcamps – almost 100 across the US and Canada – than there are students looking to learn to code.   Remember these courses are geared for a quick turnaround in studying and learning how to program.  I never mentioned that these were gifted academic schools since on average they are charging $11,000 for a 12 weeks of intensive training in a programming language or framework.

College or Bust ?

Does a person who goes thru this actually know the basics, sure but can they develop software that could possibly be used by millions, most likely not.  They stand a chance of getting a low entry level position at a software house.  They could have simply saved the money, learn the piece they needed from the vast amount of knowledge on the internet, or webinars.  Writing software is an art form as well as a love fest.  There are times a software developer will stay up long hours going over code to make it better.

In December of last year, Bloomberg published a warning to prospective students: “Want a Job in Silicon Valley? Keep Away From Coding Schools.”

The article contended that many companies have found coding bootcamp grads unprepared for technical work.   A tech recruiter told the publication. “My clients are looking for a solid CS degree from a reputable university or relevant work experience.” Google’s director of education echoed this sentiment: “Our experience has found that most graduates from these programs are not quite prepared for software engineering roles at Google without additional training or previous programming roles in the industry.”