[elviejo79]

It's not are "either or" question. You can and probably should do both. Formal education will give you the insights to understand the mathematical principles on which the profession is based.

And a couple of bootcamps will give the currently in demand techniques and tools.

It's the difference between being an "<X> programer" where X is your flavor of the month technology. And a "Software Engineer"

[tastroder]

I realized that I have a weird antipathy towards bootcamps in my mind a while back, so genuine question: what's in modern bootcamps as they are usually run that you couldn't pick up yourself more efficiently (either by doing a few toy projects before starting a job or in the first few weeks if it's a new-to-me stack)?

I see ads for bootcamps that want people to pay them for a course on some popular language or web stack all the time and I'm never quite sure why anybody would go for these / why you'd even want a course on how to be an "<X> programmer" in your resume.

[inpooling]

Interesting! If I have a master degree in Finance and want to be a developer, should I just do the bootcamp? If the formal education is for math principles and other science fundamentals... Thanks.