
“If Higher Ed Doesn’t Adapt, It Will Be Ripe for Disruption” by Tom Goldenberg - tgoldenberg
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/higher-ed-doesnt-adapt-ripe-disruption-tom-goldenberg
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jasonallen127
My experience with attending a coding bootcamp was this: I'd been working as a
video producer/editor and photojournalist since the mid-2000's, and slugged it
out in a tough-to-advance-in industry. Got to the top of the field, seeing my
work on network television and on the front page of newspapers you'd know by
name, and picked up two Emmy awards... but I was still freelancing, paying for
my own gear, my own health insurance, and spending 80% of my time looking for
clients vs 20% of my time doing creative work for them.

I wanted a career change, and I enjoyed/had an aptitude for programming - so I
decided to attend Dev Bootcamp (DBC) in NYC. I looked at it as "Well, it's the
same price as a semester of college, and the same time commitment - and if I
want to invest in another bachelor's degree afterwards, I'll have a solid idea
on if I'll enjoy/do well with the curriculum."

DBC was a rigorous academic program and covered a lot of ground, provided that
you covered the optional reading materials, and tried to build ambitious
projects along the way... there were definitely those among my peers who did
the bare minimum, and others who pushed themselves.

Not all 'bootcamp' programs are created equal - I've met developers from other
accelerated coding courses who could barely create a user-authenticated blog
using gems for all of the functionality... and I've met others who - like
myself - jumped into stacks way outside of what we knew, taught ourselves what
we needed to know, and can generally find high level and standards-based
solutions in the docs on our own.

It was a tough hunt for my first job afterwards. I found that a lot of
companies don't understand the difference between what a bootcamper should
know vs. what a CS student should know: intermediate execution without knowing
the 'why' vs. CS theory without knowing above an entry level of the 'how'.
After about 5 months of job hunting, I got hired in the industry.

Presently I'm at a startup, building a client/server application using
Elixir/Phoenix for the API, and C++/11 and Qt for a cross platform client. I'm
making 33% more than I did at the top of my prior field - and enjoying the
heck out of coding... and it just took 8 weeks of my own coding self-teaching,
19 weeks at a bootcamp, and about the same in job
hunting/interviewing/reviewing offers afterwards.

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hourislate
I have had a hell of a time convincing my son to attend Uni. He just turn 17
and is finishing up High School. When he looks at the first 2 years of what he
has to do (mandatory course work) and then the next 2 years of course work
that is somewhat related to what he would like to do (Cyber Security Field),
it seems like a waste of time and money.

He would much rather work on his SANS Certs and work toward OSCP
Certification. Growing up with Linux/Networking and teaching himself to code
has created a situation where he feels there is little they can offer him. He
looks at the curriculum and wants to cry.

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tgoldenberg
That's really interesting. When I interviewed senior software engineers for
this piece, they told me that much of the coursework was not practical or
useful. Operating Systems 101, Compilers...

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tgoldenberg
Would love to hear thoughts regarding the boot camp vs. higher ed question. In
many cases it's not one or the other, but I'm curious where people think
education is headed.

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mathattack
So far I haven't been impressed with Boot Camp graduates, but people said the
same thing about early mobile phones, GUIs and other technologies.

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chessmaster1998
People say that boot camp graduates are not impressive, but you could say the
same thing about new college grads, as well, IMHO. Many of them have little /
no real experience, except for a few unambitious projects. This is not the
case at all schools, but I've definitely seen some expensive CS programs like
this.

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mathattack
This is my subjective opinion...

Generally you can trust decent grades in a CS program no matter what the
reputation of the school is. If someone can write a compiler, or operating
system, or whatever else they specialize in, they can be free-standing with
their learning. I haven't found this to be the case with "Non-technical degree
plus bootcamp." Maybe the hit rate for boot camp grads is 1/3 that of CS?
Perhaps it's not a fair comparison, but it's been my experience.

