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by andrewzah 1906 days ago
I don't disagree that some of these bootcamps teach some knowledge and lead to jobs afterwards. But what you're really paying for is networking. Even junior development work requires a fairly robust set of knowledge, that isn't going to be grokked within 6 weeks or even 3 months (unless they were already familiar with computing/unix etc). That model only works for companies that are willing to onboard -very- green junior developers and mentor them long-term.

You can accomplish the same thing by following courses/books online, making a handful of projects on github to show interviewers, and networking at conferences/meetups. That's how I landed my first part-time job with programming, and then my first full-time job.
2 comments
greenie_beans 1906 days ago
People learn differently. Not everybody can learn on their own, especially not when encountering something like programming.

I went to a bootcamp and the network isn't what I paid for. The network hasn't given me much at all. I had a mix of previous self-learning experience, and decided to do a bootcamp to get more serious about it. It was definitely beneficial and the investment paid of 5x within two years.

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AlchemistCamp 1906 days ago
> But what you're really paying for is networking.

When I went, there was no network. Nobody had ever graduated from the school yet.

Nearly 100% of what I got from the school was hard skills.

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