
California regulator seeks to shut down 'learn to code' bootcamps - coloneltcb
http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/29/california-regulator-seeks-to-shut-down-learn-to-code-bootcamps/
======
pmorici
Reading the headline I was like WTF that sounds like government run a muck.
Then I got to this part...

"The programs typically last 10 to 12 weeks. Potential recruits are often told
that they have a shot at a job or internship at a competitive tech company
like Facebook or Google. Tuition costs vary widely. At Hackbright Academy,
it’s $15,000 for a 10 week program. Full scholarships are available, and
students who land a job at a company in the Hackbright network can request a
partial refund. At Hack Reactor, where tuition costs over $17,000, 99 percent
of students are offered a job at companies like Adobe and Google. The average
salary is over six figures, Phillips told me."

To sum up these companies are charging a lot of money (more than college
tuition) while at the same time advertising extraordinary results "99% job
placement" with the likes of Google and Adobe. I'm guessing that some of them
are making false advertising claims with respect to the chances of landing a
job and that is why there is scrutiny here. There was a similar case with
cooking schools not long ago also in CA[0] After reading that paragraph I'm a
lot more skeptical of these companies.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/06/culinary-school-
gra...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/06/culinary-school-grads-ripped-
off_n_950107.html)

~~~
ryguytilidie
Man, I have to say that as someone who has interviewed students from these
classes, I would bet a lot of money that 99% of these students aren't being
hired. It made me really uncomfortable thinking about how many people in the
room had just spent 15k to hack around with some people in an almost
"engineering fantasy camp" type environment. I'm all for this law honestly.

~~~
coderbot
I participated in App Academy. The program had strengths and weaknesses, but
to their credit, they culled the class at the halfway point, and gave folks
who had no chance of getting hired within a reasonable timeframe a full refund
of their deposit.

There was some bait-and-switch with regard to their "free unless/until you get
a job" pitch. I think the competition for students in the space is increasing
pressure, and oversight is probably a necessary thing.

In my opinion, students who went on to A-list companies probably could have
gotten a job without the bootcamp. But the offer is still compelling if you
get a couple months of intense introduction to an in-demand framework, and
don't pay anything out-of-pocket (App Academy collects when you get hired).

~~~
srunni
I also participated in App Academy, and there was no culling. The students
went on to successfully find well-paying jobs in the tech industry.

~~~
ryguytilidie
I find the second sentence to be as ambiguous as possible.

~~~
srunni
> 95% of our graduates have offers or are working in tech jobs now at an
> average salary of $91,000.

[http://www.appacademy.io/](http://www.appacademy.io/)

~~~
wpietri
that could even be true, but some for-profit schools are notorious for
manipulating statistics like that in a variety of ways. Hiring people
themselves, paying other outfits to hire them temporarily, offers of terrible
jobs nobody would take, and flat-out lying.

That's not to say it's happening here, of course. I'm sure some of these
programs are great. But it's something people should consider when looking at
any program like this, especially unregulated ones.

~~~
srunni
> that could even be true, but some for-profit schools are notorious for
> manipulating statistics like that in a variety of ways.

The people from my cohort are not just statistics to me. I know them
personally, and all I can say is that they are very satisfied with how things
have turned out.

Also note that with App Academy, the tuition is a percentage of your first
year's salary. So the company is incentivized to ensure that students get a
job (and the highest paying one they can), because otherwise they don't get
paid.

~~~
wpietri
No offense intended; I'm glad you and your friends had a good experience. My
concern is about the market in general.

I like App Academy's percentage-based approach. That's definitely putting
their money where their mouth is. I think the only thing undemonstrated for me
is how much difference their program makes. It'd be interesting to take their
pre App-Academy resumes and put them in the hands of a good recruiter.

~~~
srunni
> I think the only thing undemonstrated for me is how much difference their
> program makes.

It can be difficult for people who have not experienced it to understand the
sort of progress you can make in such a short period of time. I obviously
can't speak as to the other hiring bootcamps, but the guided pair programming
approach taken by App Academy is very effective for rapid hands-on learning. I
had taken a CS class or two prior to App Academy, and the difference is night
and day.

Also, there is more to the program than just technical learning. There is a 3
week hiring bootcamp, where everyone works together on the job search process,
under the guidance of an App Academy hiring instructor. For people new to the
tech industry, this is very effective at bringing them up to speed on how
hiring works in tech.

At this point, there are many companies that employ App Academy alumni
(including thoughtbot, Facebook, Vimeo, Hipmunk, Twilio, and Zendesk), and
many have realized the quality of its graduates, and so whenever a new cohort
is getting close to graduation, managers from those companies come to a "demo
day," where students can show their capstone projects and get interviews.

~~~
wpietri
I've been pair programming for more than a decade, so I definitely know how
much it can help newbies. My point is more that one way they can skew the
stats in their favor is by hiring people who would have been hired by those
companies with or without the program. E.g., people whose issue is self
esteem, or people who aren't good at self-evaluation, or people who lack the
sort of personal connections that let other hard-to-evaluate candidates get
their first break.

I'm not saying that's what they're doing, of course I'm just saying that in
this market a strong hiring rate alone doesn't prove anything about the
program.

------
callmeed
I'm not really pro-regulation but this might be a good thing. I feel like
we're in a _" bootcamp bubble"_ at the moment. As much as I'd like for every
bootcamp to have altruistic motives, some seem like a money-grab to me. This
is especially evidenced by the smaller and smaller program lengths ("Learn to
code in 12 weeks" is now "Learn to code in 8 weeks" or "Learn to do a startup
in 4 weeks")[1][2].

Personally, I wish California's community college system would learn to move a
little faster, spend $ to hire some talented instructors, and add modern
certificate programs in programming/iOS/Rails/Android/UX/DevOps/etc. It's a
big system (100+) schools, extremely affordable ($46/unit + lots of financial
aid), and a decent length (most certificate programs are 12-20 units or 1-2
semesters).

[1] [http://www.codefellows.org/](http://www.codefellows.org/)

[2] [http://fitzroygsd.com/](http://fitzroygsd.com/)

~~~
Finster
It's interesting that you wish California would move faster and be more
innovative regarding various tech-related occupations, but also support
regulation of a sector that IS moving faster and being innovative.

Mind-numbing, soul-destroying, California-style bureaucracy is not the answer
here.

Instead, I support self-regulation. Other industries have done it. I'd rather
see prominent tech academies come together and form their own standards body.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
What's the difference between self regulation and collusion?

~~~
drak0n1c
Higher education in the US is largely self-regulated via the accreditation
process. The government has minimal oversight of that self-regulation, mostly
through the GI bill. Self-regulation doesn't mean they collude in a bad way
(though there are suspicions that the rising cost of tuition is a collusion
problem). Self-regulation is a form of collusion that, when done right, is
good for producers and consumers - LEED or certain organic food certifications
or academic accreditation are easy ways for consumers to know what they are
getting and for producers to limit the negative price and quality pressure of
"lemons" (bad products) on the marketplace. And it achieves this effect
without heavy handed bans that limit consumer choice.

------
mikeryan
Jeez the article itself contradicts the linkbait headline.

 _“Our primary goal is not to collect a fine. It is to drive them to comply
with the law,” said Russ Heimerich, a spokesperson for BPPE. Heimerich is
confident that these companies would lose in court if they attempt to fight
BPPE.

Heimerich stressed that these bootcamps merely need to show that they are
making steps toward compliance: “As long as they are making a good effort to
come into compliance with the law, they fall down low on our triage of problem
children. We will work with them to get them licensed and focus on more urgent
matters,” Heimerich said._

------
hncommenter13
This is kind of a bugaboo for me. I am continually surprised by the attitude
that seems common in the tech industry that laws governing all other
industries are misapplied or useless when it comes to tech. I get that the
hacker culture is to beg forgiveness rather than ask permission, but sometimes
this causes real hardships.

Imagine they were teaching an older generation of technology: automobile
maintenance, say? Or TV repair? And I implied to graduates that they'd get
jobs at GM or GE?

It is extremely difficult to check out a new, for-profit school's reputation
thoroughly in terms of the success of its graduates and the quality of its
instruction. There are thousands of stories of students taking on
unsustainable levels of debt to go to culinary school, for example, only to
work for peanuts in non-elite kitchens.

What makes software engineering exempt? Alternatively, why should bootcamps be
allowed to avoid the law--which applies to all other for-profit post-secondary
schools--because they teach Rails and Javascript instead of refrigerator
maintenance?

------
dylandrop
_At Hack Reactor, where tuition costs over $17,000, 99 percent of students are
offered a job at companies like Adobe and Google._

Am I the only one who is skeptical of this? I'd really like to see the
breakdown on this one..

~~~
ychung
I am currently a student at Hack Reactor and I can assure you that the average
salary students are offered coming out of the program are a lot higher than
60-80k, and the statistics are real.

I've been very impressed with the program and highly recommend it.

If you're inclined, please refer to this Quora post for additional details:

[http://www.quora.com/Hack-Reactor/What-are-some-suspected-
re...](http://www.quora.com/Hack-Reactor/What-are-some-suspected-reasons-why-
some-Hack-Reactor-graduates-the-2-are-unable-to-find-software-engineering-
jobs-upon-graduation)

~~~
dylandrop
Thanks for the information -- but this still doesn't spell out any breakdowns
of who gets jobs where. This specifies that ~98% get jobs -- but at companies
like Adobe and Google? I know plenty of grads from top tier bachelor CS
programs at some of the highest ranked schools, and I'd still say that roughly
less than half get a job offer at Google. I don't want to sound snobbish...
but no doubt these guys would have a better shot than someone who began coding
less than 3 months before? Until I see a breakdown it's really hard to say the
quote isn't blown out of proportion.

~~~
fancyketchup
From that GP's quora link:

 _We have an internal metric for measuring performance, defined as follows:
"Of all those able to legally work in the United States who graduate our class
with an intention of seeking software engineering work, how many are able to
find such work within three months of graduating?"_

I don't suppose that _finding a job_ could be a requirement for graduation,
could it? Or maybe Hack Reactor just has very rigorous graduation
requirements, and most students wash out of the program after paying $15k? The
link also implies that anyone who is enrolled in college or, more importantly,
doesn't take part in HackReactor's job search program isn't "intending to seek
software engineering work."

In short, I think they have plenty of ways to fudge a 9x% placement rate.

------
lowglow
The current talent crunch has brought a TON of shady bootcamps to the valley
that are preying on innocent hopefuls.

I even built [http://schools.techendo.co/](http://schools.techendo.co/) to
help people under-equipped to evaluate these schools. It's a true problem.

[edit]

Related post:

[http://www.techendo.co/posts/are-dev-bootcamps-a-scam-a-
hack...](http://www.techendo.co/posts/are-dev-bootcamps-a-scam-a-hacker-s-
perspective)

~~~
my_username_is_
it may be helpful to people who are trying to evaluate different bootcamps to
attend for you to include some sort of ranking of the top-rated 'schools'

that being said, it's awesome that you made that. I'm not aware of anywhere
that lets people evaluate their bootcamp experience and it'll be great if/when
more people review what they went through

------
sologoub
"At Hack Reactor, where tuition costs over $17,000, 99 percent of students are
offered a job at companies like Adobe and Google."

That seems at odds with my general perception of who Google recruits and of
the tough nature of their interviews... Anyone have first hand experience of
going through one of these without prior tech experience and then landing a
job at Google or other name-brand employers?

~~~
ychung
I am currently a senior at Hack Reactor, and I can vouch for the high quality
of education and job prep that HR gives its students. The figures that HR
mention are real, and we have students who are now working at places like
Google.

For more information, refer to this quora post: [http://www.quora.com/Hack-
Reactor/What-are-some-suspected-re...](http://www.quora.com/Hack-Reactor/What-
are-some-suspected-reasons-why-some-Hack-Reactor-graduates-the-2-are-unable-
to-find-software-engineering-jobs-upon-graduation)

~~~
aaronem
"We have students who are now working at places like Google" is nothing like
the same as "99% of our graduates receive job offers from companies like Adobe
and Google."

~~~
SnacksOnAPlane
I love the line "companies like Adobe and Google".

McDonald's is a company like Adobe and Google, in the sense that it has a name
and sells things.

------
mgirdley
The regulator wants them to follow the law, as written, by the CA Assembly.
Terrible title considering the regulator simply wants them to follow the law
-- and says so in the article. Don't blame the regulator here.

Most state's laws for career schools are intended to protect people against
scams. So, yeah, a few truck driving schools ripped some GED holding people
off. We all suffer including these guys in CA.

------
wallawe
"If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving,
subsidize it."

------
zenbowman
Regulators thinking they know what is best for us and cracking down on those
who are vulnerable is nothing new.

Such is life in California.

------
kyleblarson
"Steve Eisman, the outspoken investor whose huge wager against the subprime
mortgage market was chronicled by author Michael Lewis in his bestselling book
The Big Short, has set sights on a new target: for-profit colleges"

[http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2010/05/steve-eisman-big-
sho...](http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2010/05/steve-eisman-big-short-
michael-lewis)

------
dtrizzle
I strongly consider attending one of these boot camps, but pulled out at the
last minute because I became suspicious of their claims. I’m not saying the
claims were untrue, but they were grand enough to make me nervous about
dropping over $10,000.

I basically did it the long way. I took as many classes as I could at my local
community college (intro to cs, intro to programming, advanced programming,
oop, data structures, assembly language and web development). I feel like I
got a great education at the CS basics. I think I can code. I know pointers,
hash tables, abstract data structures and other things that the boot camps
don’t even seem to cover, but haven’t even been able to get a single
interview.

Perhaps the real value in these programs is the career placement.

~~~
minddog111
I have been trying learn to code for 20 years went community colleges ect went
to tech skills .com ect bottom line the best way to learn is you tube and a
hacker,s hear if you want to learn you don,t need to spend 20 k unless you
think you need to it is a cult but they have a track and and a method. I have
a need codeing system and it is the best because i show folks how to get the
basics js frame works and .

------
acangiano
Whether you like her or not, agree or disagree with her, Ayn Rand has two
great relevant quotes:

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where
the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act
only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human
history, the stage of rule by brute force."

and

"Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government
persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national
prosperity is by keeping its hands off."

~~~
jamra
Ayn Rand's opinions don't fit into a hybrid social system like ours. It can
only be rationalized in a communist or other totalitarian society.

Can you imagine a corporation with unlimited power that is free to do anything
it pleases?

We need government to regulate predatory practices. It would be great if
government would step up and regulate healthcare costs and credit card
providers a bit more harshly.

~~~
aaronem
> Can you imagine a corporation with unlimited power that is free to do
> anything it pleases?

Quite easily! It is called a "government".

~~~
jamra
The government has elected representatives. It's not totalitarian.

In a state with zero government regulation, you have just as terrible
atrocities.

~~~
aaronem
_Some_ governments have elected representatives; while lately very much in
fashion, this is by no means a requirement.

------
aric
Regulation for this exists.

It's called free speech and the internet. Reputation online is practically
_everything_ to the credibility of workshops or services like this. It's a
real wonder that people can still use their own minds without a gauntlet for
approval. There will come day for that given the technology. It'll be done
under the _best of intentions_ , of course. A fool and his money are soon
parted. But so too is a fool from his freedom and choice.

~~~
wpietri
That depends on what audience they target. For the high end of the market,
sure, people will do a lot of research. But if you are a scam artist running a
school like this, it will be relatively easy to dupe the less clueful end of
the market. For example, you can set up new school every 12 weeks. Or you can
fake a good on-line reputation.

Read up on the many scams that for-profit schools are running. Even some of
the regulated ones are up to dubious stuff. The unregulated ones, like the
"life experience degree" people, are much worse.

~~~
aric
I share deep concerns about anything seemingly scammy.

Modeling ways in which societies can prevent more people from being exploited
is one of my 'hobbies.' There are many paths that can help. The path that's
most wise and ethical, I'd argue, is a route that respects more free choice
and builds more groundwork for cultural conditions that are _more_ conducive
to skepticism and information-based awareness. Many of the current methods of
interference, licensing, and monopolistic-fueling procedures -- often under a
sheep's clothing of a supposed collective trust -- have countless damaging
effects in the long run. It will overwhelm society in other negative ways to
gain temporary positives in protection. It erodes progress. It often shifts
access _to_ the powerful. I won't get into it here but it's all part and
parcel of fueling corporatism in general.

Distrust is critical.

Distrust _should_ pervade consciousness. The opposite happens as a result of
many current policies. People start to mindlessly believe in claims more than
they already do. I believe there's a large vacuum that waits to be filled
where third-party cooperatives fill the thirst that people would otherwise
have for vetting trust (e.g. NGO regulatory bodies, quality/certification
programs, voluntary submissions to transparency) -- given a remarkably
underutilized internet -- except a great push won't happen until a tipping
point occurs. The public will have to say enough is enough and reject the
double-edged sword of policy. Deferring more solutions to an entity comprised
of people willing and eager to wage violence and torture as a method of order:
this ultimately grows insidious laws and insidious forms of reasoning as a
whole.

There's a good argument that a state can have greater legitimacy when it's
relegated to a role as a more supportive backbone of arbitrating claims and
disputes, while vastly decreasing corporate control/protection. This would
render most executives more vulnerable to loss of assets. This would naturally
decrease a person's willingness to be deceptive. A bridge to this model could
be as simple as first requiring disclaimers by any independent service that
wishes to oppose a status quo. It would allow choice/consent. "This [entity]
has not been regulated or verified by [authority]."

Grandmas, grandpas, and the like are naturally more vulnerable. No one wants
people to lose their life savings due to natural mental circumstances that
beget trust. I'm all for any effort that perpetuates _exposure and awareness_
of scams and lends power to grievances.

------
navyrain
These "bootcamps" delude students into believing they can be placed in a good
job if they pay up. I've worked with graduates of these programs, and found
them to be eager and optimistic, but woefully ill-prepared for professional
software development.

I'd love to see more programmers, but this cash-grab bootcamp practice makes
our entire industry look bad.

~~~
namocat
> eager and optimistic, but woefully ill-prepared for professional software
> development.

Mind elaborating on this? I'm currently going through one of these and am
curious for when I am applying for my first post-bootcamp job.

~~~
navyrain
Coming from the webapp world: How do you work with a team of people committing
to the same repository? How do you review code? How do you find solutions to
problems when they're not being spoon-fed to you in a bootcamp? What makes an
application reliable? Well-designed? Scalable? When should something be
improved upon, and when should it be chucked and rewritten? How can an
application be hacked? How do you design DB schemas, and query them
efficiently?

These are the sorts of things you implicitly trust a developer to know. The
bootcamp students I've seen fail to realize that these are even issues, and
get a big wake-up call to when they come up short in their first job. As a
result, they struggle at the lowest rung in the ladder, as their coworkers
cannot trust them to do any reliable work.

~~~
namocat
Any advice on how to develop these skills? Would it just be experience?

If so, it seems to me to be a chicken-egg scenario where it sounds like you'd
need several years of experience to even get an entry-level or "lowest rung"
position in the industry.

I view my "accelerator" experience as just that: an acceleration of my
learning, so that I can transition (even if it is at the lowest rung) into an
industry that I feel is exciting and fascinating. I view these bootcamps as
being the beginning of one's education, not the end.

------
null_ptr
Speak of selling shovels during a gold rush!

------
brosco45
These bootcamp are nothing but scams.

------
benihana
What happened to California? It used to be the center of counter culture, now
it's biggest symbol of The Man around. It's a big terrified nanny state where
everyone in charge seems to be too scared to let anyone do anything cause it
might hurt them emotionally or physically.

I've never lived in California, so I may be way off, but it seems like the
decline of a once defiant state is a great metaphor for the baby boomers who
made it the center of the counter culture. They started off young and angry,
fighting against injustice, and as they got older, the turned into the system
they were fighting. They became The Man, scared of things they didn't
understand and absolutely terrified of not being in control. It's like
watching Citizen Kane if Charles Foster Kane was a state.

The quote "the most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day
after the revolution," seems applicable here. Are we all doomed to repeat this
fate, to fight the system, accomplish our goals, then become the system as we
try to hold on to what we've made?

~~~
nostromo
Come to Seattle. It's a tech... nirvana. ;)

Liberal social policies (pot, marriage, choice) but fiscal conservatism (no
income tax). Seattle has NIMBYism, but much less so than the bay. Get this:
when rents went up, _they built more apartments, and lots of them_ \- what a
concept!

South Lake Union has turned into this amazing place with incubators and Amazon
and Vulcan and Bio Tech all around. Amazon, a major US tech company, has a
downtown campus surrounded by apartments and places to eat! Wow! Why is that
rare? No need to get mad at Google's busses that shuttle workers off to the
sticks -- just put the jobs next to the people and existing transit. There are
also local VCs and angels too -- but if you need to raise in SF/SV, it's just
an hour away.

~~~
joehillen
Except no gigabit internet. Good luck trying to fuel a tech boom with slow-ass
comcast internet.

~~~
Nacraile
Not strictly true. I have 100Mbps CondoInternet for $60/mo, and could have
1Gbps for $120/mo if my home usage justified it. Availability is somewhat
limited - basically, bigger upscale buildings around downtown.

------
marincounty
I became a little suspicious of the "learn to code" boot camps when the first
of I looked at was female only. Why female only in this point in history? My
conclusion; at the end of the course--the average Hacker Dude would question
the cost if the education, the versaity of "I'm a Koder now, and it only took
a few weeks!".

I'm not for a lot of regulation, but in this case I think these schools need a
through vetting. They are not cheap, and promise a lot.

Off subject, but I'm still angry that Gov. Brown made it more difficult to
become a Realestate Broker. He did away with the 4 year degree requirement, as
a fast track to getting a broker's license. It's ironic that Governor
Terminator saw right through the B.S., and vetoed the bill. From that point
on; I never vote strictly Democratic. And yes--I'm off topic. sorry.

~~~
nmodu
> Why female only in this point in history?

Of all the reasons to be suspicious of "learn to code" bootcamps, your
aversion to women-only programs has me confused.

"Why female only...?": Probably because the founders of those programs would
like to see more women coding. Same reason organizations like "Girls Who Code"
exist. The fact that those programs are geared towards an underrepresented
demographic shouldn't raise any red flags.

------
Crito
Honest question: Do they similarly attempt to regulate "learn to camp"
[literal] camps? Do they go after/regulate GSUSA or BSA camps?

Since they are asserting that these are "post-secondary education" things,
does that mean that organizations targeted at children are safe? Are
organizations like Hacker Scouts in the clear?

