[Kaveren]

> "I learned more real-world skills in 12 weeks than my Stanford degree taught me."

I'd hope the author of that quote was paying very little attention, because I find this hard to swallow.

My problem with these programming bootcamps is that they seem almost more focused on a shallow but fun dive than teaching people thoroughly. That's not problematic in it of itself if it gets people interested, but I'd hunch a guess that most of the graduates of these bootcamps are not going on to self-study more intensely after.

In my opinion, these bootcamps generally teach you to be a barely average web developer. If you are sufficiently self-motivating, self-study is a great idea, but you don't need a bootcamp for this.

I'm not one to judge people on whether or not they have a degree, but I think there is real value in an equivalent curriculum for self-studying.

If I have the choice to hire someone fresh out of a web development bootcamp and someone who was self-studying compiler design, I'm hiring the compiler design person every time, even if it's a web development job.

I don't know why this is teaching jQuery anymore. But why do you need this course for JavaScript when you have the excellent MDN guides for beginners to use? I think people are afraid of reading and prefer to be spoonfed.

If you want mentorship, there's usually a good subreddit, Discord or Slack server that doesn't cost you $30 / month.

I'm just extremely skeptical of the value that any of these bootcamps bring. AppAcademy appears to bring good results for hiring, but I don't believe that it's the most effective method of learning.

[soneca]

As a self-taught web dev, I don't think I could find any "mentorship" in reddit, discord or Slack. This is like saying HN substitute for YC office hours with experienced mentors.

Knowing a few people from bootcamps, it is clear to me that it is not "fun", it is work.

Your impression that bootcamps are for people who do not want to read anymore is plain wrong.

And self-teaching and bootcamps are not excludent. Actually, I was told that this is exactly what make a difference between bootcampers. The ones who think that all you need from bootcamp is the certificate, usually fail to have a career in software development. The ones that understand that the bootcamp is only the beginning, an accelerator and guidance for your learning, and you have to self-teach you a lot of things, those succeed.

[Kaveren]

If you want to learn frontend web development for instance, bootcamp curriculum is inferior to simply reading Mozilla Developer Network.

Paying for mentorship itself in programming is over-rated:

Question about career advice? Programming Discussions Discord server, /r/cscareerquestions, Discord servers with #career-advice channels.

Stuck on a topic you're trying to learn and need help? /r/learnprogramming, one of the numerous Discord or Slack servers available.

Code not working? StackOverflow, Reddit, Discord, Slack.

Advice on improving code, best practices for software development? Code review StackExchange, software engineering StackExchange, Discord severs, et cetera.

Practice problems? Leetcode, HackerRank, other challenge sites.

A web development bootcamp is not going to teach you anything there is not a better resource already available for.

When many people (I'm speaking very generally here, not talking about you) talk about mentors in programming, they want someone to hold their hand and spoonfeed them information. If one wants to be pointed into the right direction, there are ample places for that.

[soneca]

Well, I think we just disagree in how effective are these substitutes.

[thebooglebooski]

There are a lot of comments in here saying instructors spoon-feed content.

I attended a bootcamp, and maybe other bootcamp grads can back up my claim here but...

Instructors don't spoon-feed material.

Curriculums are set up to be project or goal-based, kind of like being given specs or requirements in the working world.

What instructors do is teach you HOW to effectively learn. They also explain some of the more complicated nuances of a language...spots where a learners mental model typically struggle, that aren't well explained in Stack Overflow or MDN. And that's probably where learning gets expedited.

I don't refute self-learning as an effective means of finding an engineering job, but if you're starting with zero programming background, your only feedback loop is the compiler or interpreter giving you a result you didn't expect.

Sure, there's definitely some curated content. But it's not the job of an instructor to diffuse every API or system design needed to stand up an app into a students brain.

There's a difference between being told what to do, versus being coached how to do something effectively. And I think the two are conflated because of the perception or marketing bootcamps offer.

Any other bootcamp grads with the same experience? Or am I alone here?

[jeffnv]

I think one of the main values and unique components is that this is a curated and cohesive program. A new learner never knows what they need to know to learn the next topic and any random resource is likely to be a mix of confusing and tediously boring because the author has their own opinions on what the student should and should not yet know. This entire course is put together by the same group of people, so if you are following it linearly, you are being taught exactly what you need to know to move forward. You don't have to explore the graph of knowledge hoping to learn enough on your own.