[ska]

I don't think I'm underestimating it at all. Immersive learning works best when you are almost ready to learn the material already; in this case you can achieve a lot in a few days if you are motivated, but there are limits. You can't compress years or months into days, and you can only get so far before you have to slow down and synthesize.

I wouldn't hire someone just because they'd graduated from a decent CS program either, it's just a reasonable proxy for some of the skills (but not others) they will need to become a developer over time.

[Pixelicious]

Great points. I often forget how many of my breakthroughs come from careful reflective synthesis, and I forget that, in general, it's a slow process.

It turns out, immersive learning is absolutely capable of compressing synthesis time as well as knowledge transfer. One of the best parts of Hack Reactor is the time after the 'solution lecture', during which everyone gets the chance to reflect on their code and solutions and discuss macro and micro optimizations that were possible.

For general reflection, Socratic seminars are a great way of condensing the synthesis time. Those who have had small epiphanies share them, and hopefully it avalanches.

But you're correct. The deepest learning is very personal and requires effort, solitude, and time. Immersive learning gives you the trunk and knowledge of a few select branches, but if you want to see the leaves you must find them yourself, or at most with one other person. In Hack Reactor's case, only half of the course is absorbing information. The second half is left to projects, during which synthesis must occur and individuals specialize and gain deep knowledge.

500+ hours of steady research and application is nothing to scoff at, especially since it happens while connected to a huge wealth of intellectual resources (I worked directly with Neo4j peoples for a project).