Considering how much I tweet, bootcamps and degrees are something I haven't spent extensive energy on. Compared to the numbers of tweets about anim...
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Very well written. Very long, but you had a lot to tell us. Kudos on your journey, your success, and even your failures.
I am no longer old-er, just old. But, I love to code. I started self teaching my self code when BASIC was king and the IBM PC was the edge. 640K went a long ways then. Learned C and tried some others. But, my needs to take care of my family put those things on the back burner. Done a lot of programming over the years, just all in industrial situations.
Finally decided to make myself a goal of being able to sit down and write what I want to as a coder. Started when the pandemic hit. Now, I can say that I can code in JavaScript, React, C/C++ (my goto), and C#.
My motto is "Dave does not do pretty", which is why front end for me is likely a stretch. I can manipulate CSS, but have no idea how to choose the right things.
So, maybe some day I'll get to work in what I like. I did earn two degrees on the way to here, but I will agree with you. It's more about initiative, determination, and stick-to-it-iveness than anything that makes us good at what we do.
Really agree! And I am with you on CSS, which was a surprise to me. Definitely agree the mental model/determination and extended exposure and practice are the critical pieces for success in this field
Excellent article.
A main reason that this situation has come about is that companies will no longer bring employees "up the ladder" by OTJ training. There was a time - lo, these many years ago - when you could start out as a tech support guy, talking on the phones all day, and work your way up to a dev job. You just had to show your interest and some initiative to learn.
Today's managers don't look around for candidates in-house. They get approval for a new seat, the paperwork is processed by HR, the ad goes up on the job board, that's that. Imagine - I once worked at a company where all positions were advertised first internally, and only pushed out if no suitable candidates were found there. Wut? My wife worked over 25 years at the same company, making the machines that make silicon wafers for computer chips, for companies like Intel. She went from assembly line worker to QA manager. She had to get ISO certified to run a cleanroom.
The world o' work today is truly f'ed. Tech is ruled by young white guys pumped on their own innate superiority, claiming that it's a "meritocracy." Pfft. It's good to see stories told from the other side of the room.
My dad did this! He worked for Bell Atlantic then Verizon as a telecom technician and then later they sent him to "cable college" (name always makes me laugh for some reason but it was this, honestly pretty good internal training program they had) and eventually he crossed over from blue-collar, going up in bucket trucks, to being titled as an engineer and was very involved in the rollout of fiberoptic cable to residential areas that Verizon pushed in the 2000s. I would have more sympathy with companies not wanting to train if it weren't the case that all of them have special snowflake tech stacks for the most part, and while you CAN get transferrable knowledge some of the larger companies are honestly frankly very invested in massive legacy systems that you really aren't going to be 100% prepared for unless you are in that company receiving training (my first programming job was like that, they had entire made up programming languages running gigantic internal systems. Around the time I left they were training me to learn a proprietary language they used with no name, lol). Anyway now just rambling but thank you for your comments really appreciate it
Hello Madam Tanks for The valuable Information becuace iam Self Learn developer in india after In my Higher seconder education iam very confused becuace i am not Sattsfy in Our education System Becuce They sytem a re not iDea about the future
and i will started Self Education .To day iam happy becuace i will find in my passion
I know it can be very hard to take that route but I have a lot of respect for it and wish you all the best!
Tanks madam.
Madam I want To Talk Withe becuce I want to your Information Your Contact Number Or any Chat application
Such a great article and a unique perspective that's frankly not shared enough!
I wanted to make one more point in favor of bootcamp grads that I think should be expanded on, and it's the fact that most bootcamp grads I've met had full-on careers before starting a bootcamp, whereas CS graduates typically enter tech right after school, and that remains their only frame of reference. All of that initial, usually non-tech experience means that bootcamp grads are often more mature and empathetic coworkers, are more flexible in their thinking, and are great at putting themselves in users' or customers' shoes, having been non-tech customers of software themselves.
I am a bootcamp grad myself, and worked as a writer for over a decade before switching careers. I got my first engineering job primarily based on the fact that the startup sorely needed documentation and had no one to do it, and my writing background was a huge asset in that regard. Now when I've mentored bootcamp students, I've stressed that they should regard their previous experience as an asset and find ways to make themselves stand out because of it. Worked as a nurse before going to bootcamp? Awesome! You will be far more valuable to a medical startup than a CS graduate without any context of that world and its customers' pain points. And so on.
This post also made me feel very good about my bootcamp (PDX Code Guild in Portland), which I actually found gave me a solid understanding of CS principles and some of the processes involved in working on a software team (git, deploying software, etc.), but I still learned probably 80% of the skills I use every day at that first job. On the job training would be incredibly valuable, and I wish more companies that can afford to do that (cough, FAANG, cough) would.
This is an incredibly well written and insightful article! As someone self-taught, who struggled hard to learn what I needed to get my first programming job, I struggled a long time with the idea of feeling like I was missing something.
This article should be the gold standard on this topic, and I'm certain it'll be helping people for years to come. Thanks so much for taking the time to write such an in-depth, honest, and balanced article.
ahaha this made me laugh out loud, so so nice of you! Thank you
Very thoughtful and well-reasoned
read that as 'Seasoned' <3
I've come from a vastly different background, and don't feel qualified to comment on your experiences, but some of your essay rings true for me nonetheless.
I did a Computer Engineering degree nearly 30 years, in Australia, where there was very little financial burden, so it was "easy" for me. During that degree, I had the option to enroll in a lot of CS subjects, but most of the course was about circuit design. Several years later, I did a physics degree, and picked up a few "easy" credit points by doing simple programming subjects. A few years later, I ended up in the USA, where I've worked ever since.
While I did learn a few useful things (like data modeling, SQL, and what recursion was), after graduating and getting into software development, I discovered that almost every useful thing I learned had come to me after university, learned in my own time. Languages? My own time. How to use bash properly? My own time. Hashtables, balanced trees, operating system memory management, how linkers worked, scripting languages, source code control (VSS, CVS, SVN, Mercurial, Git)? All learned in my own time.
Luckily, I often had colleagues who were able to instruct me, or point me at appropriate materials, so I could use my time valuably. I suppose that having a degree got me the job that then got me those colleagues. Also, there are some things that I learned that I doubt I could have learned without my degrees (e.g. Fourier Transforms)... but I don't use those things in my job. Almost everything I learned that makes me a software engineer came from my own time since leaving university.
I realize that I have immense privilege in having these degrees (especially since my son is about to start on his, and I'm horrified at the cost). I find it very odd that several companies in the USA have required me to have my qualifications before they would hire me, when the only things I've used in their employ was learned outside of a university. The same appears to be the case for many people I know, for people with and people without a degree.
So my experience has taught me that a degree confers the benefits of privilege. It also tells me that for any given person who is a software engineer, they could well have a far better education and skillset than I do, despite not having any formal education at all.
Thanks for sharing. It was a long read, quite opinionated yet well-referenced and providing serious food for thought for anyone looking to become a software developer. I agree with your conclusion: if I had to do it over again (went from a bachelor degree in another field to a developer role), I would also opt for an 'open-source degree' such as CS50 or FreeCodeCamp. Then top that off with 2 or 3 small side projects in a field of (personal) interest or something related to a previous (non-development) role. A full degree seems too time and resource-consuming, bootcamp dives in too much without focussing on the basics and self-learning requires high levels of preparation and discipline while lacking guidance.
Great article. I fully agree that neither path tells you enough to know if a person is a good candidate or not.
I and many of my friends all maneuvered in to engineering jobs through coding bootcamps and our careers have been wildly successful. I would actually say that given the same individual, a strong bootcamp can do a better job preparing students for the real world than a university. I didn't pursue a degree when I was younger because there were no role models and CS represents itself as being only for egghead types. I also have ADHD and have never been a great student so the intensity of the bootcamp format worked way better for me. I was immediately productive when I started my first real job.
Unfortunately there are quite a few scammy programs that more about the money than whether the candidate would actually succeed in their program. I did a bootcamp in Spain where half my peers should not have been accepted in the program because they could barely use a computer. They were set up to fail (although some of those who really struggled still have managed to build a career for themselves as competent programmers). Meanwhile I've mentored CS grads who really struggle with problem solving skills and constantly need hand holding. Others are completely inflexible about the way they work and struggle to stay current. I guess what I would say is IME the people who succeed through the bootcamp path tend to make fantastic programmers. Unfortunately the cost is great for those that don't don't do well.
Some of the programs out there truly are infuriating, but yeah that's hardly unique to bootcamps: in the US we are still grappling with fraudulent for-profit colleges that were complete scams and ruined countless lives. I'm really glad for people like you and the peers you talk about that made it through these kind of programs and made it work and got to enjoy so much success! I currently work somewhere with people with all kinds of backgrounds (a lot of other STEM grads who then did bootcamps, educators who did, along with (naturally) CS grads and the whole group is awesome).
I can definitely relate to your article as someone who is in the process to complete the full circle of certificate, bootcamp and lastly start college during fall.
This discussion always left me with a sour taste, because people should do what works for them, without needing to invalidate anyone in the process. In the end of the day, the hours you put in will always be the best teacher.
Thank you for sharing your path!
I read it all, and I'm glad I did. Thank you for sharing.
Fire article! Hope we work together some day. Best ~
Is the bootcamp worth it if I do not have a degree in anything else ? separation candle spell
I think what most people fail to understanding is the value of time. Bootcamps may expose you to a lot of things but they are rushed and much of what you learn is lost if you do not use it. A degree is in many ways similar but investing in your education over 4, 5, or more years gives you a depth you cannot gain any other way. The breadth of knowledge and experiance from a degree has signicant value over bootcamps. Work experiance is similar but your breath of experiance tends to be much narrower. My point is that your width and depth of knowledge gained with each is much different. Each has value, but neither will make you a great programmer.
What will make you a great programmer is being smart, having solid problem-solving skills, and having a passion to learn and a desire to excel. Add to that years of experience working with great programmers that can mentor you.
I’ve been writing code since I was in the 6th grade and got my first job when I was 18 writing LISP in 1991 (Google says my $35K job in ‘91 equates to $78K today… not bad for an 18 year old). That was 30-years ago. During that time, I’ve earned a handful of degrees and invested over 350 semester hours in college, about 12-years if you do the math. I have completed dozens of non-credit training classes, bootcamps, and recently a post-grad program in AI. And even at 49, I am considering doing an MS degree in AI as well. Why do I waste all this time? Well, I think I have a passion for learning but fundamentally it is because I want to be the best I can at what I am doing, and of course the jobs I've had drove much of it.
Respectfully, I see you missed the part where I'm not interested in talking to you about this unless you can explain to me why you have more perspective on it than I do. I see no CS degree and no traditional bootcamp on your LI
While the degree path will help the candidate expose more to knowledge related to computer science. The boot camp may help the candidate to be laser focused on specific tech or frameworks. That itself is still 50% there as far as qualification to be able to work with colleagues (the one-off side gig mini website/app for extra cash would be another story).
Communication/soft skills can play huge factors for the team to be success. The candidate while required certain level of knowledge competency to perform the task, they also need to be able to discuss things with their peers to ensure everyone (or at least relevant people for the specific tasks) are on the same page.
Those who survive college may gain learning skills and indirect experience that could help them get up to speed to perform the tasks compare to those go straight to bootcamp without getting a degree. However, the soft skills are something that they would have to pick up along the way in their lives since neither paths tend to explicitly teach people on these skills.