
Denver's gSchool: 6 months and 60 hours per week turns you into a web developer - lorangb
http://www.fullcontact.com/2012/12/01/denvers-gschool-6-months-60-hours-a-week-60k-per-year-career-as-a-web-developer/
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intellegacy
I've been looking into these schools as of late (including the one in SF -
forgot the name)

And I've been trying to calculate how good of an investment these programs
are. They help with job placement, which is valuable. Then again, the market
is so hot for developers now that anyone who self-studies for 6 months could
find a job fairly easily on his own.

As for the instruction itself, there are so many resources online (free, I
might add) that it seems almost wasteful to drop 20k to learn when you could
learn for free, assuming one possesses sufficient self-motivation and knows
where to look.

Finally, there is the possibility of a potential huge opportunity cost one
can't overlook:

the option of finding a paying jr developer job where one learns on-site.
Instead of -20k you get 30k (based on 60k/year working for 1/2 year) and I
assume end up roughly even in coding ability. That's $50,000 extra in your
pocket, with demonstrable real-world experience rather than "school"
experience.

~~~
dbecker
All of this just begs the question of how good these guys are.

Yes, you can find a job on your own. But not all jobs are the same. Maybe
they'll find you a better job.

Yes, you can learn on your own. But I don't think there's any question that a
good teacher can help you learn faster.

gSchool is new. So it's too early to find hard evidence either way about the
quality of jobs you'll get, etc. But if they give you the right teacher,
education can be a good investment.

~~~
steveklabnik
gSchool is run by Jumpstart Lab (my employer), who also did Hungry Academy for
LivingSocial a while back. I wasn't directly involved in teaching HA, but I
did do evaluations of the students from time to time, and they were all
competent developers.

What they weren't was super quick to resolve errors. That can only really come
from experience. They'd be able to figure out if something went wrong, but
whereas I (#50 on the Rails contributors list) would know instantly what was
wrong, it'd take them some time. That's to be expected from new devs, though,
no way around that but time.

~~~
thisiswei
steve,will you be teaching this time?

~~~
steveklabnik
We're figuring it out. At the very least, I will be swinging by from time to
time to teach periodically, but I will probably not be there full-time.

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shawndrost
If you're interested in gSchool, you should take a look at the following:

<http://catalystclass.com/>

<http://devbootcamp.com/> (mentioned elsewhere in this thread)

<http://appacademy.io/>

<http://hackbrightacademy.com/>

<http://flatironschool.com/>

All are based in SF, except Flatiron, which is in NYC.

(I'm a cofounder at Catalyst. Ask me anything!)

~~~
xiaoma
I fully buy into the value of apprenticing and have been trying to get into a
program since moving to SF this summer. You'll be seeing my application
shortly. Any suggestions on the video that would maximize my chances of
acceptance?

~~~
shawndrost
Don't read from a script. Be yourself. Talk about something you think is
really interesting. Looking forward to reading your application!

~~~
xiaoma
It's sent!

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cjoh
I know Jeff. Jeff taught me rails. If my kid was of the age where it was
productive for me to spend this level of money on Jeff teaching him, there's
no question in my mind I'd do it. Fwiw, I've been trying to get Jeff to teach
me a "How to Teach" class for 5 years.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
Interesting! My view is that "how to teach" is way more difficult, and
therefore important, than simple subject knowledge. I can find dozens of very
expert Developers, willing to teach for a good salary. However, rarely these
people have the skills to teach effectively. Can you tell us more about why
Jeff is great at teaching? Examples?

~~~
jthree
Agreed 100%. There's a big difference between a developer with a big heart and
a developer who actually knows how to teach.

Teaching, just like programming, takes a ton of practice. I spend four years
in the classroom, another two coaching teachers, and have been running
training classes for Jumpstart Lab since 2009. I don't think I'm a gifted
teacher, I've just practiced more than most.

Frank Webber, who's joining me, spent a significant amount of time teaching a
year-long course at the University of Washington as well as spending time
1-on-1 mentoring other developers in Seattle.

Steve Klabnik has spent a lot of time with me co-teaching private training
sessions and spends a tremendous amount of time "teaching" online through open
source work.

It's just a matter of understanding the methodologies of teaching and a bunch
of practice. We've practiced more than anyone else.

------
barry-cotter
I'm planning to write an overview article about the various bootcamps and
online courses teaching programming. If you know of any I'd appreciate
pointers so I can have as broad a survey as possible.

~~~
CesareBorgia
Hi Barry!

I help run App Academy (appacademy.io), a hacker academy based in SF.

Feel free to reach out to us (contact@appacademy.io) if you have any questions
about our program!

Here's a list of hacker academies to get you started: <http://qr.ae/1pZOh>

~~~
barry-cotter
Thanks so much. I will be reaching out.

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ph0rcyas
It is nice to see these more expensive variants of colleges spring up. At
least they're more honest than most universities - but then as [intellegacy]
already noted, the opportunity cost is well hidden under this startup craze.
Indeed, one does make more money by selling axes to gold miners than to mine
gold.

~~~
FireBeyond
And a fairly sweet deal for the instructors involved. 24 spots at $20,000 a
pop = $480,000 split 3 ways for 6 months work, an annualized income of over
$300,000.

~~~
steveklabnik
As one of those three instructors, I can assure you that you're leaving out
quite a bit there. I will not be making that much money.

~~~
FireBeyond
True, includes the Mac, and facility usage. And not actually a knock, hey,
more power - just a back of the envelope.

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charlesju
$20k seems pretty steep for 6 months of education, or am I completely out of
the loop?

~~~
loceng
It depends on what your starting salary would be, I suppose.

~~~
lorangb
It's guaranteed to be at least $60K, but lots of people will likely end up at
around $80K. Plus, you can defer a big chunk of the $20K into $199/mo
payments.

~~~
loceng
I suppose that really depends on the screening process to determine how well
and prepared, ready for learning, a person is entering the program. There's no
guarantee a person will learn how to program as a language, where they may not
be able to become fluent in it. This is where the risk is. And sometimes
people take longer to learn than others. A program like this would be best
IMHO to split into a condensed version and a longer variation.

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nu2ycombinator
"More often than not, graduates receiving Computer Science degrees are not
very good software engineers." Lot of people make these statements, but are
there any statistical data to back this up. In opinion CS Degree person is
always better bet to invest in long term (even if they wont be productive in
webapp development right away) than one who finished 6 month webapp
development crash course.

~~~
jthree
Having a CS degree is going to be a tremendous advantage in a program like
this, for sure.

But I'm guessing Bart, like me, has interviewed kids coming out with CS
degrees who just can't program. To be honest, it breaks my heart. If you
complete a four year program and can't program FizzBuzz in a language of your
choice then you have been completely bamboozled. I would not have believed
this possible until I saw it myself.

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codeonfire
For $8-10k you can get an associates degree in web development from any of the
Denver area community colleges. Buyer beware.

~~~
heimidal
You certainly would not walk away from those classes with a strong
understanding of Ruby, Javascript, HTML, and CSS, plus a primer on agile
project management. An associate degree in web development will probably teach
you the basics, but there's no way it would be equivalent to six months of
intensive training.

------
mewmoo
"You don’t need to be an expert to apply. If you’re a novice that’s totally
fine."

If I were an expert why would I apply? :\

