
California Orders Coding Bootcamps To Stop Enrollment And Issue Refunds - msolujic
http://m.fastcompany.com/3025896/california-orders-coding-bootcamps-to-stop-enrollment-and-issue-refunds
======
eekfuh
The experience we've had with hiring people from these bootcamps has been
about 50/50\. 50% of the people are completely unable to engineer and instead
just know a language. 50% of them are hard workers and eventually learn how to
be an engineer. 100% of them ask for outrageous salaries for not actually
having any professional experience. I think the bootcamps spend a decent
amount of their time setting high expectations and how to ask for a large
amount of money.

~~~
jonnathanson
It's the "get high-paying jobs on graduation" aspect of these programs that's
never quite gelled for me. I can think of very few jobs I'd be solidly
qualified for after a few months of training, no matter how intense the
training. Engineering seems no different, and maybe even harder than most.
People should be enrolling in bootcamps to learn the basics, not to get some
sort of shortcut to a theoretically sexy job -- the true sexiness of which is
entirely unknown unless and until they've actually tried it.

If these programs were/are feeding internships, awesome. That's a different
story. And on that note, I see no reason why big tech companies can't create
their own coding academies, or partner with bootcamps on more structured
working internships and externships. The bootcamp --> full-time job connection
doesn't make a ton of sense. But bootcamp --> internship --> job makes more
sense.

There are a _lot_ of smart, hard-working people out there who, for one reason
or another, just never got a deep exposure to computers in childhood, high
school, or college. (Reliable childhood access to a decent-quality computer,
much less programming resources, is not as common as we might expect.) Giving
them a shot at learning is a noble and justifiable endeavor. Not all of them
will enjoy it, and not all of them will make it through. But a lot of them
might. They need to be going into it with the right expectations, though.

~~~
busterarm
Legal internships require you to be in a degree program, so it's not a good
path for those of us who are older and looking for a career change.

I have the aptitude and experience to do well in an internship, if I could get
one. Having to go from bootcamp to internship would cut off the only
structured path available to land a programming job, short of going back into
a degree program which is both undesirable and financially not feasible.

I'm in a bootcamp right now that I don't entirely need, but I'm building up my
GitHub account and looking at following up with something like thoughtbot's
Apprentice.io or (if I'm crazy lucky) getting into ThoughtWorks' junior
developer program rather than trying to get a job with a large salary. I want
to learn the ropes in this industry by consulting.

Edit: Also, if anyone reading this is looking to hire someone junior (and
degreeless) and is committed to training, we should talk. Relocation is not a
problem and neither is making an extended commitment on my end (as far as time
and/or compensation). I do have a tech background, just not in dev. (Sorry, I
gotta hustle! :D)

~~~
jonnathanson
_" Legal internships require you to be in a degree program"_

Fair point, so let's take this a step further and make it something other than
an internship. A training program, perhaps. An apprenticeship program, wherein
you're paired up with a recognized master/mentor on a team, working on an
actual product that will actually ship.

Seems to me that the biggest hurdles are the regulations surrounding what an
"internship" requires. So let's hack internships.

~~~
busterarm
The two companies that I mentioned are doing a good job at that but they're
surely outliers. Also, only making $12/hr for 3 months in New York City is a
big hardship, but not as big as paying for a bootcamp.

I think the biggest problem is most selection processes will merely maintain
the demographic status quo for the industry. How do you rank older people
pivoting careers and folks with the aptitude but no degree or industry
experience where they'll be on a fair footing with all of the new CS grads who
will be applying who could otherwise land a job anyway?

~~~
jonnathanson
_" How do you rank older people pivoting careers and folks with the aptitude
but no degree or industry experience where they'll be on a fair footing with
all of the new CS grads who will be applying who could otherwise land a job
anyway?"_

I think that's why the internship structure is crucial. Or maybe it's an
externship. Or a part-time thing. Generally speaking, I would not put
undergrad CS students at top universities into the same internships as I'd put
recent grads of crash-course bootcamps. Bootcampers go into a different pool,
in different roles, unless and until they graduate to better positions of more
responsibility. If a bootcamper kicks serious ass and demonstrates him/herself
just as good as a CS-trained graduate, then awesome, he/she can get fast-
tracked into the regular job pool.

The goal of these programs should be to create runways for the career
switchers and experience-deprived folks who show a decent aptitude for the
profession. This would be a supplement to traditional recruiting pathways,
rather than a conflict with or cannibalization thereof.

------
hawkharris
The field of programming might evolve similarly to the the field of law as
time goes on.

A lawyer friend told me his field used to be more accessible to everyday
people. Anyone could study cases and even learn enough to represent themselves
and members of their communities.

Law schools and licensing boards were developed to protect the lawyers' wages
and prestige, and to insulate them from outside competition.

The regulatory hoops did increase lawyers' salaries, but they also made it
impossible for most people to afford legal services. Costly law school
requirements prohibited women and ethnic minorities (e.g. Irish people) from
entering the field.

Programming is a young field. If the history of similar industries is any
indication, it won't stay this open and loosely regulated forever. And
incidents like the one in California demonstrate that the tides are
changing...

~~~
snitko
And this is why regulation is always harmful for the consumer.

~~~
choult
Why is our drinking water so dirty?

Oh yeah. It isn't.

Regulation can solve many more ills than it can cause.

~~~
snitko
I wonder what is so magical about government that only it can determine
whether something is safe or not. I'm pretty sure private consumer protection
companies would do a much better job for less money.

~~~
nav1
How would a private consumer protection company enforce anything?

~~~
snitko
Ahh, and that's the point. It wouldn't need to. Because no one should enforce
anything. It would only inform. Consumers must have a choice. When you start
banning businesses from operating, you have countless possibilities for
corruption and you remove choice from consumers, treating them as mindless
idiots incapable of making an informed choice. And if you think they are, then
they also shouldn't be allowed to vote.

~~~
nav1
"Sorry none of the water suppliers in your area provide water safe for human
consumption. Good luck!"

Now that would be helpful. But sure, you can just move elsewhere. It's going
to be easy selling your old house given that there is no clean water
available.

Edit: As a bonus, health insurance companies should deny you coverage because
you live in a high risk area.

~~~
snitko
If there is a demand for clean water at the price level where it is
economically feasible to supply one, it will be supplied. If people prefer to
spend less money and have dirty water, they made their choice too. Your case
is completely hypothetical.

~~~
scott_s
There are probably areas in this country that it would be more profitable for
the water companies to stop serving. I think that it is a good thing that they
cannot do that.

~~~
snitko
If you are right, then these areas would remain without water supply at all.
Last time I checked, government cannot force private companies to do business.

~~~
scott_s
Government can set the conditions under which a private company can do
business. Companies that provide fundamental services - like water, power, and
sanitation - often have government granted monopolies over an area. In
exchange for existing without market competition, such companies are subject
to more regulation, and often _have_ to service particular areas.

~~~
snitko
Then in this case it turns out that taxpayers from developed regions subsidize
those in the remote ones. I'm not saying helping people out is a bad idea, but
forcing people to help out other people certainly is. It is absolutely no ones
fault that some people live in remote regions.

------
austenallred
It looks like this is the registration form the bootcamps would need to fill
out (plus a $3500 fee):
[http://www.bppe.ca.gov/forms_pubs/renewal_nonaccredited.pdf](http://www.bppe.ca.gov/forms_pubs/renewal_nonaccredited.pdf)

It seems like it's basically a whole lot of bureaucracy the schools would need
to go through to ensure that they're not selling snake oil, haven't been
involved in felonies, etc. Nothing too absurd, but an unnecessary hassle.

Perhaps I'm too much of a free-market loving, meritocratic startup junkie, but
all of this seems completely unnecessary. If "colleges" like University of
Phoenix et. al can make it through this process, it isn't really going to rule
anything out. It introduces a lot of record keeping, forces some self-
regulatory procedures, and implements other things that will only slow down
the classes.

Are coding bootcamps perfect? By no means. Trying to pack a basic
understanding of programming into a three-month course is by no means an easy
task (and debatably an impossible one). That having been said, it gets the
fundamentals in place so that someone can start to learn on the job, and the
demand so highly outweighs the supply that I've seen recruiters and startup
founders literally lining up to talk to people who have been coding for three
months. It says something when the people that annoy programmers the most are
recruiters - people trying to give them a job. You don't see recruiters being
hated by people with English degrees.

Sure, a coding bootcamp is no CS degree from Stanford; I don't think anyone
would pretend like it is. But it gets you into the coding world as quickly as
you can, and the more programmers the better. The people I've seen go through
bootcamps would not claim to be the best programmers in the world, but they
get their foot in the door and start getting paid to learn. The companies
hopefully realize that's who they're hiring, and make their hiring decisions
accordingly. I can't see any need for this type of regulation whatsoever.

There's a need (or at least a market), people are willing to pay, they seem to
be able to find jobs, and employers are becoming smart with regard to how to
properly find/hire/train programmers coming out of bootcamps. Regulation like
this, while possibly well-meaning, will only slow things down.

~~~
Crito
Yeah, I have two basic takeaways from all of this:

1) These bootcamps are complaining about basically nothing. As you said, even
the 'University of Phoenix' is able to operate...

2) The people making points about how these programs are predatory and need to
be regulated are really not going to get what they want from this regulation.
As you said, even the 'University of Phoenix' is able to operate...

------
snitko
Ah, yes, teaching coding without a licence can lead to some unprecedented
consequences. Like what if some crypto-anarchist after learning how to code
invents a decentralized currency and undermines the banking system. This shall
not happen, we must regulate things, or innocent people will get hurt.

Speaking seriously, here's how regulation works in a nutshell. A company that
wants to prevent/eliminate competition approaches a legislator (through
lobbyist, of course) and offers a bribe, say $100k. That legislator then
passes a regulatory law that requires around $1m of taxpayers money to be
spent on regulation. The company then makes $10m thanks to that new law. The
legislator made money, the company made money, the public thinks it is
protected. A perfect crime.

~~~
_delirium
I don't think the actual anarchists, crypto- or otherwise, have been hassled
(at least, not for this reason). There are free coding clinics at a number of
anarchist infoshops and anarchist-inflected hackerspaces, and afaik none has
received a complaint.

~~~
snitko
I wasn't being completely serious, but whenever I hear government trying to
get its dirty hands to something not yet regulated, it disgusts me. Regulation
robs consumers and prevents innovation and competition, while making
politicians rich. That's all there is to it. The side-effect of protecting
consumers is unreliable and questionable in 99% of cases.

~~~
_delirium
I guess I have a more in-between view, in that I'm sympathetic to the
anarchists (with reservations), but less sympathetic to the profiteers, many
of whom are simply hucksters. I think the trick with government is directing
more of its energies against the hucksters than the good guys. Tricky to do,
but then also tricky to the do with market forces, which often reward fraud
and parasitism. Not always, of course! But I also can't really buy into
"government is always oppressing the innovators", since the innovators are
often innovating more in the realm of how to separate people from their
money...

------
seanhandley
Ridiculous.

Any tech company worth its salt will do technical evaluations of candidates,
regardless of their education.

So what advantage does state regulation give, besides putting money in
officials' pockets?

~~~
sethish
Stopping people from being ripped off. I am waiting to see if there were
registered complains about these schools.

~~~
derwiki
I realize you're not saying anything about the effectiveness, but regulation
hasn't seemed to stop diploma mills.

~~~
saraid216
You realize that there's an ongoing crusade against diploma mills, right?

~~~
derwiki
I do. I'd rather fix that before we try to "fix" dev bootcamps.

~~~
saraid216
Is it your contention that we should never try to solve one crime if another
one is ongoing?

------
nullc
How dare you teach someone and get paid for your time without asking
permission from the state of California first!

0_o

Why doesn't civil law provide adequate protection for people against sham
schools? Has anyone complained about these organizations?

~~~
pmorici
There was another article about this posted a couple days ago. Essentially the
reasons the law exists in CA is because there were recent high profile civil
judgments in the state against similar schools targeting other fields. Suing
someone is a major PITA and takes a year or more really not practical in a lot
of situations.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7147664](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7147664)

~~~
jdreaver
So then let's fix the legal system, not ban a perfectly reasonable enterprise.

~~~
dragonwriter
No one is talking about banning a perfectly reasonable enterprise.

Talk about strawmen.

~~~
jdreaver
What? That's the whole point of the article.

~~~
dragonwriter
No, its not. No one is talking about banning "hacker schools".

Schools that have chosen to operate without state-mandated licenses are being
told they need to get the license to continue operating. The enterprise isn't
being banned.

------
incision
What's old is new again.

Bootcamps remind me an awful lot of the certification mills of 15 years ago.
It's the same 2 months or so and $10K or so with the suggestion that a well-
paying job is waiting on the other side, just swap out MCSE / CCNA for Ruby /
CSS.

I'm sure the cert mills launched some great admins, but I know from experience
that they shoveled through plenty of people who had no real aptitude or
enthusiasm diluting the field and completely devaluing those skills.

It took years and surely a number of painful interviews for those people to
filter back out.

It's hard not to expect that bootcamps will play out the same way.

------
pmorici
There was some prior discussion about this on HN a couple days ago, fills in a
couple more of the details.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7147664](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7147664)

------
jfarmer
For the diligent, these are the requirements these bootcamps are being asked
to comply with (warning, legalese ahead):
[http://www.bppe.ca.gov/enforcement/institution_minreq.shtml](http://www.bppe.ca.gov/enforcement/institution_minreq.shtml)

------
rholdy
This is too bad. As a graduate of a similar bootcamp program who is currently
working as a Jr. Developer it makes me really sad to see this kind of
interference from the Government. As with everything else in life, situations
that sound "too good to be true" usually are, and consumers need to exercise
due diligence before giving people money they aren't comfortable losing.

I hope the schools are able to work this out because my Bootcamp absolutely
changed my life.

------
rubiquity
Oh, no! Not a $50,000 fine! It's not like they are raking in $400k every 3-4
months. If they want to really hurt them they should fine the school $50k
every time they use the word "cohort."

~~~
omgitstom
Yea, I thought the same when seeing the fine.

------
sirmarksalot
I'm conflicted. On the one hand, it seems like a Randian dystopia, with the
government stepping in to prevent you from telling somebody else how to do
something. Want to tutor your cousin? Fill out 80 pages of paperwork, register
as a school, submit to time-consuming performance reviews and curriculum
evaluations.

On the other hand, the law is addressing a real problem, and as the article
points out, these schools are charging top dollar, and making some very big
promises. If nobody is calling them on it, or if somebody is, but they wield
no authority, then we have a problem. I'm not a libertarian, and I have no
problem addressing these things on a case-by-case basis.

The problem I see is that the law seems to be very broad, and could be applied
arbitrarily to private study sessions just as well as the diploma-mill-minus-
the-diploma situation we're seeing here. I think the law needs to be more
targeted towards the problematic aspects of these schools, like grandiose
claims in their advertising.

If the standard truth-in-advertising laws are too toothless to apply here,
then inspections are in order. But they should only apply to schools that make
the kinds of claims that triggered the crackdown in the first place.

------
dmunoz
How much of the short duration of these bootcamps is teaching to the test that
is the modern software developer interview? I have a really hard time
imagining that somebody coming out of a 8-12 week program, even with some
prior experience, properly understands the depth and breadth of material that
should be necessary to get through a technical interview. It seems like most
of them are focused on hacking applications, and not necessarily the
fundamentals of data structures, algorithms, software architecture and design,
working in a team, etc.

I think it's great that these bootcamps are options, but have long been
suspicious that the statistics they like to share are only indicative of
either who they decide to admit, or who they decide to let graduate. For
instance, how many people who make it through these bootcamps have a strong
technical background, perhaps even a computer science degree, and only need
the short time to dive deeply into modern web application design and
implementation?

------
tarr11
Does anyone know what the qualifying criteria is here? I'm teaching coding to
kids after school in California, no idea if this applies to me.

~~~
ssully
I don't know what your business is, but I doubt you are charging as much as
these hack camps or claiming that your students will get huge salaries after
they are done with your service. You should be fine.

------
crazy1van
Once we get some union teachers in there, I'm sure these schools will be tip
top!

------
elgabogringo
The Goverment hates competition.

------
msoad
My wife applied to one of those "Coding Academies" to learn basic web
development. They had a phone screening interview and they asked my wife to
write HTML and CSS code! Then later they replied that she is no qualified for
the course. While their website had no indication that you need to know any
programming language or specific computer related background, they rejected my
wife. I was suspicious that this might be a racist discrimination so I look
around to see who regulates them. Guess who? No one!

I'm glad that they are facing mandatory regulation. Also I think the way they
try to teach computer science is wrong. You can't be a good Rails developer in
6 months if you don't know basic computer science.

My wife no is going to San Jose state university and leaning boring Operation
System basics and Assembly. But that's the right way of starting you career in
computer science world.

~~~
Crito
> _" They had a phone screening interview and they asked my wife to write HTML
> and CSS code! Then later they replied that she is no qualified for the
> course. While their website had no indication that you need to know any
> programming language or specific computer related background, they rejected
> my wife. I was suspicious that this might be a racist discrimination so I
> look around to see who regulates them. Guess who? No one!"_

 _Barely_ more charitable explanation: rejecting people who are not already
familiar with the subject matter might be how they 'manage' such high success
rates.

~~~
doktrin
I think that's a given. I don't think any school has ever claimed to take
someone from 0 to developer in 3 months. That's unrealistic.

There's obviously a baseline below which any short, high intensity training
course isn't viable.

A similar analogue would be baseline fitness levels expected out of candidates
at, well, _real_ bootcamps. If you can't jog more than a block or do 1 pushup,
chances of making it through are relatively slim.

~~~
Crito
Yeah, on second thought the _" barely"_ in _" barely more charitable"_ is
going to far. Universities definitely do the same thing (though to the credit
of universities, they are up front (or even brag) about having stringent
admission standards).

Your standard university CS department has no problem accepting freshman who
have never even heard of HTML, but they are also operating on a different
timescale. In universities it is reasonable to spend a few months getting
freshman up onto their feet. When the _entire program_ is a few months, you
have to operate differently.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Your standard university CS department has no problem accepting freshman who
> have never even heard of HTML, but they are also operating on a different
> timescale.

Moreover, HTML has very little to do with CS. You can probably graduate with a
CS degree and know virtually nothing about HTML (and that's not a bad thing.)

