Carpediem
Full time employment: Posting here.
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2016
- Messages
- 770
Hey fellow IT professionals.... What are your thoughts and opinions about coding boot camps?
Background info: My DS is 28, married, has a BS degree (anthropology!) but basically can't find his 'career path' and he's tried quite a few of them. When he started exploring careers during his Freshman year, I encouraged him to consider I.T. (my 40 year profession) because I knew he'd be set for life if he did. Plus, it fit his personality perfectly and Technology always showed up as a good option on Strengths and Interests tests he took. Unfortunately, he didn't think he could sit in a cubicle all day staring at a monitor. Today, he is struggling to find a satisfying, decent paying full-time job.
He recently became more interested again in Technology and began taking self-directed web design courses online. He's done well and the courses have really got him motivated to pursue a career in I.T. Unfortunately, he has a LOT of financial commitments so he can't just quit his current job and go back to school to get an I.T. degree. The online courses (Code Academy) are good but he and I agree that they probably won't properly/thoroughly prepare him for a new career.
This week he came across a "Full Stack Web Development Certificate (Coding Boot Camp)" offered by the local state university - a very respected academic institution. It's a combination of online and classroom - nights and weekend - and the duration is 24 weeks. But.....the cost is $10k! The University has a great reputation among local employers and a good social network to use for getting jobs for its graduates so hopefully someone would hire him.
This setup would be perfect for him but I sure worry about him investing another $10k into his education with no guarantee that he'd find a job when done.
Just thought I would pose the question/concern here and see if anyone had any experience or opinions about 'coding boot camps' and how successful they are in terms of producing graduates who actually found a job in the field.
Background info: My DS is 28, married, has a BS degree (anthropology!) but basically can't find his 'career path' and he's tried quite a few of them. When he started exploring careers during his Freshman year, I encouraged him to consider I.T. (my 40 year profession) because I knew he'd be set for life if he did. Plus, it fit his personality perfectly and Technology always showed up as a good option on Strengths and Interests tests he took. Unfortunately, he didn't think he could sit in a cubicle all day staring at a monitor. Today, he is struggling to find a satisfying, decent paying full-time job.
He recently became more interested again in Technology and began taking self-directed web design courses online. He's done well and the courses have really got him motivated to pursue a career in I.T. Unfortunately, he has a LOT of financial commitments so he can't just quit his current job and go back to school to get an I.T. degree. The online courses (Code Academy) are good but he and I agree that they probably won't properly/thoroughly prepare him for a new career.
This week he came across a "Full Stack Web Development Certificate (Coding Boot Camp)" offered by the local state university - a very respected academic institution. It's a combination of online and classroom - nights and weekend - and the duration is 24 weeks. But.....the cost is $10k! The University has a great reputation among local employers and a good social network to use for getting jobs for its graduates so hopefully someone would hire him.
This setup would be perfect for him but I sure worry about him investing another $10k into his education with no guarantee that he'd find a job when done.
Just thought I would pose the question/concern here and see if anyone had any experience or opinions about 'coding boot camps' and how successful they are in terms of producing graduates who actually found a job in the field.
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