[40four]

It makes me sad that many of the prominent boot-camps now have such a bad reputation, and seem to be run so poorly, or recklessly.

I feel lucky to have enrolled at, now defunct, The Iron Yard at it’s peak in the end of 2016. I owe them everything for teaching me and coaching me into how to break into my new career as a web developer. It was life changing.

I can only speak for my particular campus, but I imagine it was similar at every other location. Never once, starting from my first interview, did they mislead me or make empty promises. They never guaranteed us anything.

They basically said, “You’re going to pay us $15K for 3 months, and it’s going to be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. We can’t guarantee you a job but we will do our damndest to teach you & help you navigate the application process.”

And I still respect them for that. The people there were super smart and amazing mentors. The onus was always put on us to work our asses of and make our dream of being a coder come true on our own accord. RIP The Iron Yard.

I hate reading stories about Lambda and others, and reports from students who got chewed up and spit out by the system. They give ‘boot camps’ a bad name, and I’m hopeful soon there will be a school who rises to the top and will be as upstanding as the people I worked with. Someone needs to give coding bootcamps a good name again.

[dehrmann]

I wonder if there was a gold rush when bootcamps started because there was a pool of motivated people with potential who needed training and help getting into the industry. Once that pool was gone, the only new people entering it are basically high school graduates, so in order to keep operating, bootcamps had to get scammier and lower their standards.

I have no evidence of this, but it seems plausible.

[40four]

Well, my intuition tells me that the ‘pool’ will always be there. I’m not sure it’s dried up, I think it will always be there for one reason or an other.

And it doesn’t seem like the job pool is drying up either. From what I can’t tell there are just as many job opportunities as when I started, and plenty of companies still complaining about not being able to find qualified candidates.

PS: there was a reply I read and was quickly deleted, but made a good point. These sensational companies like Lambda tend to dominate headlines now, but I’m sure there are plenty of smaller more local bootcamps fighting ‘the good fight’ in their areas. If whoever said that deleted comment wants to email me, I’d be interested in learning more about the program you mentioned.

It’s unfortunate these bad headlines taint the overall picture of bootcamps, because I’m sure there are plenty of smaller players around that are doing just as good of a job as The Iron Yard like I described.

And to be fair, there is a perfect example in my area, of a small bootcamp that popped up after TIY went out of business, and they are doing a great job of supplying the same mission and service to our local area.

[908B64B197]

> and plenty of companies still complaining about not being able to find qualified candidates.

This is completely missing the point: it's free to whine about a "labor shortage" (at the price you are willing to pay). Best case you'll get subsidies (direct or indirect) from the government. Worst case? Nothing happens.

[40four]

I’m not sure I get your point? Best case you get government subsidies? What are you referring to? Worst case? I think I can think of a lot worse than ‘nothing’.

[908B64B197]

> What are you referring to?

Immigration quotas/special visas, programs to get more people into the field you are trying to hire from (all the X group in STEM programs for instance).

> I think I can think of a lot worse than ‘nothing’.

Like what?

[commander_woof]

There absolutely was a gold rush at the beginning! I believe it started with Dev boot camp in SF. Many of the students in the first cohort split off after graduation and made their own schools. If I recall correctly the person who started App Academy was a DBC grad. Anyways, imagine that, some one who just learned to code, now running their own unaccredited program. Scam is too strong of a word for these programs. They were just amateurs really. Add in a little silicon valley hustle and now you have a nice little pressure cooker where they need to start hitting enrollment and graduation numbers. It also didnt help they were in one of the most expensive real estate locations in the world.

[ballenf]

Similar experience here. The problem I witnessed during my year or so involvement was a race to the bottom in terms of selectiveness of admitting students.

The deception was that the screening test was marketed as informing prospective students whether they had the prerequisite skills to succeed in the school.

I saw so many students struggling for easy to predict reasons: some didn't even have the basic computer equipment to participate. A few more seemed to struggle with just basic concepts.

None of those people were inherently incapable, but they were mislead to believe that they were ready for the program.

The bootcamp I went to was pretty good when I started, but even a year later I was starting to get uneasy about my association with it. I've now completely removed it from LinkedIn and resume. I will mention it if it comes up, but I actively discourage prospective students now and don't want to do anything to lend them legitimacy. It's not worth mentioning its name here because my points apply to almost every bootcamp out there, based on discussions at meetups with prospective bootcamp students.

[MivLives]

I had the same experience and I think many of the more successful people from the same program did as well. There's also a bit of a bias, the only people I still talk to from the program were also successful. We haven't seen anyone from it in awhile and have all mostly cut off contact.

With Lambda in particular I've wanted to do the math on the gamble per student. IE it costs x per student to put them through the program, what percentage need to make what to make this enterprise worth it for whoever is buying their ISAs.