
Confessions of a bootcamp graduate - makinori
https://hackernoon.com/confessions-of-a-bootcamp-graduate-hack-reactor-f921c441fb23#.b1xv4vp7e
======
ivank
Previously
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11873537](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11873537)

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chasing
Drop me an e-mail if you're considering one of these, I'll happily mentor
people for significantly less than that, and I'm a full-time, active,
multidisciplinary coder with 20+ years experience and background in both UX
and visual design. And with enough industry contacts to almost certainly find
you somewhere interesting to land afterwards.

I've taught classes at New York University and the School of Visual Arts and
I'm almost certain I can get people spun up on the fundamentals of programming
as well as any of these bootcamps. I also just enjoy that kind of one-on-one
mentoring relationship.

(Sounds like a shill, but maybe my bigger point is that students might be
better served by finding personal mentors to help learn this stuff rather than
go through these expensive mills. Many accomplished coders would probably love
to help out a protege.)

~~~
iaw
This idea is so much better than a bootcamp. Paying ~$100/hr a few times a
week to chat about projects and direction with someone in industry is going to
be way more effective.

~~~
cpursley
Agreed. Combining the self-paced freecodecamp.com with codementor.io seems
like the cheaper and more effective path.

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rkho
I'm confused. You posted this exact same post, with a different Medium link to
the exact same story, a month ago. You've also been answering your own
questions about negative reviews of Hack Reactor on Quora.

I can't help but feel you're holding some insane grudge against the program
that you can't let go. Why is that? We're both alums from the same program, I
got so much more out of it than what you're claiming was actually delivered in
your post.

~~~
aeb0
This. I am in hack reactor now and am a satisfied customer. They were upfront
about what you get for the money and to this point have delivered in full.

~~~
lowglow
You should add your review to Techendo
([http://schools.techendo.com/](http://schools.techendo.com/)) and give others
looking for dev bootcamps your experience/advice.

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iandanforth
As someone actively trying to hire front-end developers I've come to see Hack
Reactor as a red flag. Unless the candidate was selected as a tutor for the
next batch I rarely let them past the resume screen.

~~~
foota
Was this due to poor experience with people from the program in the past?

~~~
iandanforth
At the phone screen level, yes. Took about 10 calls for a disappointing
pattern to immerge.

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Bahamut
I work with a co-worker who went through Hack Reactor, and the current job
being her first in tech - she ended up alright, and learns at a pretty solid
clip. On the flip side, at a previous employer, apparently there was an
employee who went through Hack Reactor and was laid off just before I joined
due to being an outright bad developer who had trouble getting basic work
done.

I suspect that the quality of skills from people going through it is hit or
miss. I personally think it probably is a raw deal for many, but some people
need structure in their learning. I also think that it at least signals that
the people care enough to invest that chunk of $ for a shot at a lucrative &
well-rewarding career.

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Smushman
My first thought on $20k Bootcamp - anyone out there want to start a
bootcamp??

Seriously, looking through the syllabus it is a lot to cover; and if you learn
it well through their method (and if employers also believe in it) I can see
it might be worth it. But I doubt it. It is a pretty big promise.

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asimuvPR
How do customers finance a twenty thousand dollars course?

 _Edit:_

This [1] blog post loosely explains it. Pave, which is one of the "lenders"
has the following terms:

$3,000 - $25,000 6.97% to 27.10% APR 2 - 3 Year Terms No Prepayment Penalty

[1] [http://www.hackreactor.com/blog/partnerships-with-lenders-
pa...](http://www.hackreactor.com/blog/partnerships-with-lenders-pave-affirm-
make-financing-hack-reactor-more-accessible-to-students)

~~~
ctvo
I can't imagine the people in these bootcamps are coming from a low income
background (mostly university graduates).

20k from parents, family and friends before even turning to loans isn't
terribly difficult to get if they're all convinced with you that this is your
shot at a 100k+ salary and becoming self-sufficient.

~~~
chii
I seriously doubt a boot camp will get you a 100k job if you aren't already
qualified

~~~
asimuvPR
Maybe. I think they should stop calling it a bootcamp and simply refer to it
as a technical degree in software. People might take it more seriously.

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obstacle1
>refer to it as a technical degree in software

So, you think they should just blatantly lie about what their program is?

It isn't a degree of any kind, or anything even approaching a degree.

It is a bootcamp, and people should take it exactly as seriously as the name
implies.

~~~
asimuvPR
>So, you think they should just blatantly lie about what their program is?

Obviously not. My point is that the term used is too trendy. Calling it
something more serious might prove more useful in the long term. Maybe even
turning into something that is an actual technical degree with proper
accreditation.

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bonuspig
Now that tech hiring has slowed, it may be true that its moment has passed.
But that doesn’t excuse many of the misleading points in this review.

“Hack Reactor was created in late 2012 by DevBootcamp grads.” This makes them
sound like recent bootcamp grads. Shawn Drost studied CS at USC and was a
technical team lead at OKCupid. Marcus Philips was an engineer at Twitter.

It describes (unfairly) the skeleton of the average day as if that’s all there
is. There are frequently other lectures and guest speakers, and daily
presentations and other discussions. There are also resources, assignments,
and support before you even start the program, and support after.

“The students assigned to help during the sprints have graduated just before
you started… Unfortunately they are not experts.” Their role is not to “give”
anybody answers, but to get you unstuck. If you’re truly hopelessly stuck on
something, then there are experts who step in.

“The third month you’ll work on your thesis project with a team chosen for
you.” You have a lot of input over who you work with, and they accommodate
switches when possible.

“The second half is cruise control.” That’s like saying a thesis semester is
cruise control. You meet daily with an expert who functions as a PM. It was
very comparable to real world programming.

The criticisms of the condensed nature of the program miss the point. They’re
designed to make you autonomous and accustomed to agile practices, and not be
someone who becomes easily lost with unfamiliar problems.

“Another observation, most people who get in, are already qualified people,
with top university degrees.” This was certainly not true of the cohorts I saw
or the people I interviewed when I did admissions for them. Roughly half had
CS backgrounds, and the rest were changing careers.

A few candidates I interviewed attended previous bootcamps, and I saw no
improvement over regular candidates. Most did not get in. With one exception,
the alumni I know of (graduating 3-9 months ago) ended up in good jobs in line
with their outcomes statistics. I don’t know if Hack Reactor is still worth it
in today’s market, but painting the program as some kind of scam or bait-and-
switch is not the sentiment of anyone I know, and this article makes a lot of
dishonest points to get there.

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sirkong
If I'm a recent graduate (non CS major) and I have been learning JavaScript
since last September.. should I join a bootcamp to become a frontend developer
or is there a better path? I taught myself everything and now I use AngularJS
and NodeJS. Half way trough a web app and will deploy it on Heroku to get some
feedback. But I don't think I'm job ready yet since I don't know the best
practices or how to write cleaner code. I thought about bootcamps, but people
have very different views on them. I graduated from a top 10 business schools
with latin honor. Took a few programming classes and really liked them. So I
want to become a frontend developer even though I don't have a CS degree.

What should be my next steps? Or which bootcamp should I go for?

~~~
taternuts
I'd recommend continuing what you're doing and getting your web app deployed
and up on github. Then re-work your resume to include your github, and
highlight the programming courses you took in college and start interviewing
for junior developer positions.

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rdtsc
> Hack Reactor only teaches javascript. And a lot of veteran programmers,
> however wrong they might be, regard it as a lesser language

That's right, it's because they are "veterans" therefore old and don't know
what's good so they still belive other languages might be needed to solve
problems.

> These very people will now take up to 6 month to find a full stack job with
> this pseudo degree.

Is the "full stack" the new cool. Welp I guess I am a hopeless half-stack
veteran.

Of maybe if they focused on half or third stack, they could manager a more in
depth curriculum and provide more instructor-student one-on-one time.

Are there any good stories? It sounds to me like this is a scam to get money
out of people, a step above Phoenix University and other such places.

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hellogoodbyeeee
Has anyone had any experience with coursera's nanodegree programs? I am
thinking about their machine learning course. I'm worried it won't be super
useful to me because I already have a master's in economics.

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rdl
if there were a good way to keep people engaged, you could probably accomplish
a lot through an apprenticeship/development program at a company. It isn't
possible for the earliest stages of a startup (unless someone's doing one job
well, while learning another), but for a more stable stage of the company,
hiring someone smart/willing to learn and teaching him or her what's needed to
do a job well would seem like a good return.

If you were in a place other than SFBA where people 1) wanted to live but 2)
wouldn't easily go to other jobs locally, this could work really well.

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driverdan
There are good bootcamps and bad bootcamps. The best I've seen so far are Dev
Bootcamp and Flatiron. They both have a ton of class time and teach both Ruby
and JS.

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cpursley
I don't understand why someone would pay for one of these when there's free
options like www.freecodecamp.com and www.theodinproject.com.

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dominotw
Wow that curriculum looks humongous for a 6 wk program.

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lowglow
Always check out the dev bootcamp reviews on Techendo first.
[http://schools.techendo.com/](http://schools.techendo.com/)

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therobot24
sounds like those Udemy courses...which are really hit and miss

~~~
sjnair96
I've never really used udemy -- care to elaborate?

~~~
KLVTZ
udemy has had a bad reputation in the past for members stealing content and
presenting it as their own. Take Jeffrey Way as an example:

[https://twitter.com/jeffrey_way/status/649933605305774081](https://twitter.com/jeffrey_way/status/649933605305774081)

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lpcrealmadrid
former hack reactor student here. glad the author wrote this. i do think hack
reactor is an incredible learning experience if you can avoid the sweet sugary
kool-aid that the entire bootcamp industry feeds people (probably out of the
necessity for a crazy idea to be social-proofed).

but many people who go into these bootcamps, a bit naive about what it takes
to gain deep technical expertise, either learn to gulp down the kool-aid
(cultish) or bitterly reject it (jaded).

the third way (indifference towards the marketing) will probably lead to a
stronger view of the industry itself, and will yield better programs + better
mental model for those attending these programs.

hack reactor does an incredible job all things considered -- it takes
BEGINNERS (which is different from entirely clueless "ive never coded before"
types) and puts them on a path where, if they realize the depth of their
ignorance, now have the tools to whittle away at it. they do this job much
better than i think almost every bootcamp out there (based on extensive
personal research)

bootcamps make these people employable, and considering many of these people
are career switchers, that's pretty awesome for a 12-wk program. but we can't
mistake "employable" with "good". the companies hiring bootcamp grads need to
have the resources available to guide/mentor them. there are certain things
bootcamp grads are great at, and others they are absolutely miserable at (see
TripleByte's post: [http://blog.triplebyte.com/bootcamps-vs-
college](http://blog.triplebyte.com/bootcamps-vs-college))

my prediction is that the bootcamp industry is going to end up looking a lot
like coursera writ large. you'll have "bootcamp prep" courses which, with
another name, is just Intro to Web Programming. The next step up is the "web
development bootcamp", which is Web Development 101. The next step up above
that would maybe be different sets of intensives like "Python and Machine
Learning" or a guided SICP/NandTetris course or Blockchain 101 or Functional
Data Structures or something.

The idea being that in the grand scheme, if you are interested in programming
and need structure, you can start with Codecademy, then attend a $1k bootcamp
prep course, then attend a $5-20k online web dev course (depending on your
goals), then a $5-20k deeper dive course (again, depending on your goals).

this path possibly lowers risk for people interested in programming -- at any
stage of the path, you can drop out, and your time + $$ expenditure is
lowered. the alternative is to pursue a CS degree and then realize halfway
through you don't want it (at which point your stuck). or maybe it inspires
you to go get a CS degree. or maybe inspires you to be ballsier and more self-
directed and learn all this stuff yourself (which is tough but doable)

