| Hello fellow New Englander, Regarding $11,500 - for six months of training, that seems to be a reasonable rate given the region and competitors costing anywhere from 0-25k$. If the school offers any sort of guaranteed job/interview after completing the program/has good graduation/hired rates i think that makes the 11.5k a bit more digestable. Before you commit to purchasing a spot in class there i think you should be aware that there are free programs through schools like Platform By Per Scholas/freecodecamp in NYC/online. Whatever educational institution you end up going with, here are some questions I think you should ask before jumping in: -get a copy of the curriculum. Start asking IT people you know what they think about the curriculum in regards to your goal of becoming a FILL IN THE BLANK. Even if you don't care what these people have to say, you will get more comfortable with this kind of technical jargon stuff talking to people/awkward IT people who know more about this stuff than you. How does the curriculm stack up to free resources like Freecodecamp and others like that? -how many people drop out of the program? what happens if you need to drop out (health reasons, money reasons, unexpected blah blah)/or you arent keeping up with the curriculum? Is there a way to prepare for the curriculum with pre-school starting work? Do they take your money and tell you to piss off if you have to drop out? Or do they offer money back/work with you if you have to drop out? -Can they provide recent graduation/hired/how much money are people making rates out of the program with time since graduation info? You can compare this to other schools. -What is your timeline? If you do a 6 month bootcamp for 11.5k, would you be happy if you had to continue to learn on your own/interview after the bootcamp ended for another 6 months? Would you only be happy with your purchase if you were hired within a month of the bootcamp? What really is your timeline? I think this timeline and salary expectations really determined whether my peers and I were happy after our bootcamp experiences. If you are an average learner like I was, I found the bootcamp experience overall positive, but its no magic bullet, as some people, like i did, really needed 2 years to learn stuff it didn't matter that i worked my ass off for 6 months studying night and day longterm. Bootcamp for me 3 months -> studied/interviewed 2 months -> took a job for 8 months in the right direction -> did another school for 3 months -> got a job in the right direction for 1.5 years -> ultimately got a job i am happy with. |