Opinion: A Warning About Development Bootcamps
By: Sean Mcclain
Tags: Opinion, Pandemic, Bootcamp, Development, Coding

— From a Graduate Who Aced One

If you’ve found yourself reading this article after frantically searching for more information on the efficacy of development bootcamp programs, then you and I have already found common ground, my friend. I was once like you: scouring the internet for proof that the sickly-sweet promise of BOOTCAMP was true. The promise these for-profit education programs make is a relatively simple and straightforward one: pay the fee, go to class, work hard, and be prepared to begin a new career. After enrolling in a Full Stack Web Development program produced by a for-profit educator in partnership with a certain University of California campus in late 2019, I was able to secure a development position with no prior development experience. So, it worked! But, it didn’t work because of anything bootcamp did for me.

In recent years these programs have proliferated across the country and while the curriculum at each campus may vary, most bootcamps claim to prepare students for the web development field within three to six months. All of them claim to offer courses that will prepare students to gain entry-level positions in the field of web development and can typically be completed within one year. Prior to enrolling, students are often asked to complete a simple entrance exam to ensure they have the aptitude to succeed in the program.

Coding is hard! Not any goober can do it professionally. After applying I was told I would need to pass the entrance exam and complete an interview with an official of the program prior to being admitted. I felt relieved knowing that both the for-profit educator and the partnered UC campus wanted to ensure I, and others, had the potential for success before entering the program and taking my money. Imagine my surprise when the entrance exam was little more than basic arithmetic and reasoning, while the interview with an official happened without me needing to be present. Yes, we all see the red flags in hindsight, calm down.

I told myself that I had finished the qualifying test so easily because I already had a BA and patted myself on the back. I wanted a career change and I trusted that the UC campus wasn’t trying to swindle me (ha!), so even though I wasn’t particularly enthused about the fourth-grade entrance exam I was forced to take, I plodded forward in my enrollment. Both the UC campus and the for-profit educator were quick to put me in touch with forces that could help me secure the loan I would need to pay the enrollment fee. At the time, the 3-month intensive course was being offered for a mere $10,000. I signed the loan documents and awaited my start date.

When I showed up to my first day of class, I was pleased with the professionalism of the staff and the syllabus seemed robust enough to warrant an eventual career change. We were warned the next twelve weeks of enrollment would present a significant challenge and students would only get out of the program what they put into it. I was relieved to learn that many students lacked prior experience, like me, but there was a fair mix of students who had made use of online resources prior to enrolling and a few who had IT backgrounds. So far, I was happy with the deal I had made with the for-profit educator, however this would quickly change.

I first became concerned about the efficacy of the program when I noticed during the first two weeks that a majority of the class was beginning to fall behind and struggling to complete class exercises. In an attempt to maintain the grueling pace set by the course syllabus, there was little time for clarifying questions or backtracking to help students. To his credit, the instructor did everything he could to lead students through each section of material, but even he was not up to the formidable task. After the conclusion of our program, he left to take a position with one of the most powerful technology companies in the world; he knew his stuff!

Students were in class for around five hours every weekday, but to fully grasp the material I was beginning to spend just as much time outside of class reviewing exercises and practicing my new skills. At this point, I was reaching into different online resources to understand the course material; instruction alone was not enough to gain competency. Working part-time as a cook in a local restaurant afforded me flexibility; I could get a shift covered and take time off when I needed to catch up or review. Whatever it took to keep up, I did it.

In the coming weeks, class instruction on new topics became all too brief in an effort to continue at our breakneck speed and finish the syllabus on time. Homework stopped being checked for correctness and viability, while due dates were extended to a laughable degree to allow for students who were lost to at least complete the homework assignments and graduate. When students were required to present group projects to the class, most submitted applications did not function as intended and sometimes not at all. This was especially true of the final two out of three required group projects.

Group projects were granted significantly more weight than homework assignments, as the for-profit educator claimed these projects would showcase our ability to work together in the real world and would be an item students could showcase in their portfolios. It became increasingly clear in the final weeks that while I had scraped together a meager toolbox of development skills, many students were still struggling to understand basic concepts. If my fellow students passed the same entrance exam I had, why were they struggling so much more? And if success came down to work ethic and personal discipline, what was I paying for?

Although I was growing more concerned that I would not be prepared for any development or engineering jobs, I trusted that the for-profit educator would shepherd me along in the career services portion of the program and that this is where I would really begin to see a return on my investment (I know, it sounds dumb to me, too). My humble skills and knowledge were largely self-made, but surely the real benefit of the program would be the for-profit educator’s employer network, within which a shiny new job awaited me. I had done everything I was supposed to: attended every class, stayed late, held study groups, completed extra exercises, gained access to outside resources, and worked really stinkin’ hard. I was ready to get my stamp as an “Employer Competitive” candidate, not to be confused with the lowly “Employer Ready” candidate.

This is the for-profit educator’s way to pawn your success, or lack thereof, on you — the student. If a student worked hard and got a job, he was “Employer Competitive”. Those that didn’t get a job or didn’t complete some arbitrary component of the career services process, were classified as “Employer Ready”. As I continued my quest to gain employment in partnership with career services, I was further dismayed to learn that a major component of being “Employer Competitive” was formatting my resume in a particular way. There was no coaching or mentoring. There was only document structure. I was frustrated that I was forced to spend several weeks rewriting my resume based on brief feedback from…I think they called it a “Resume Coach”. But that’s dumb and can’t possibly be right. My resume dude did not have a development background, but was working off of guidelines from the for-profit educator. I’ll have you know that my resume buddy was so impressed with the portfolio I had crafted, he asked if he could show it to his other clients (I’m a high achiever!). I submitted my resume five times before I could be passed on to a career couch who would help me find job leads. I will admit that this portion of the program was good and I gained a much better understanding of how companies evaluate resumes. Best money I ever spent.

Finally, after jumping through all the hoops, some of them violently aflame, I was declared “Employer Competitive” and given permission to address my mighty and powerful career coach. Let’s call her Jan. Because that was her name. I was ready to begin my new career. Unfortunately, it became painfully clear that I was going to have to generate my own job leads because Jan never delivered anything, but she was very nice! Jan and I checked in once a week, at my request, and she was always very excited to learn of my progress. Jan would give me sage tips like, “dress well for a job interview,” and “when you’re looking for a job, tell everyone”. She was a wonderful cheerleader and I appreciated her support. I would’ve preferred if she had helped get me a job.

After hundreds of job applications and countless hours of additional tutorials and personal projects, I managed to create a robust profile that showed I was learning and advancing my ability at a steady rate. I combed through internet job boards, applying to any listing tagged “entry-level” or “beginner” and was always impressed when an employer had the guts to post an “entry-level” job that required at least four years of experience; gotta respect the detachment.

Within three months of graduating I secured a position as an entry-level engineer with a market research company in Irvine, California. The starting salary was double what I had earned previously. I had gotten exactly what I wanted from the program, but little to none of it had come as a direct result of being enrolled as a student in a Full Stack Web Development Bootcamp. In fact, the senior engineer who interviewed me expressed his own distaste for bootcamp certifications. As he continued to read through my resume in front of me, he realized his error and tried to reverse his earlier position. I still took the job.

When my start date at my new job rolled around, the state’s stay-at-home order was issued and the offer was eventually rescinded, as a result of the pandemic. I continued to apply to other jobs, but it felt like I’d just been winded from a punch to the gut. So while you may have qualms with me saying I rocked the shit out of my bootcamp course, I contend that I got everything I wanted out of it. The problem is, I didn’t have to give $10,000 to a for-profit education company to get it and neither do you.

If you listen to one thing, hear this: those of you that will be successful in this field, already have it in you to do so. You likely don’t need someone to coax it out of you or shepherd you through the beginner material. By all means, say “fuck you” to traditional education and go it alone. It’ll be hard and you’ll have to do so much of it on your own, but that’s often true of success in any field. What I’m saying is, if you can’t gain the skills you need to succeed on your own, a for-profit school isn’t going to give them to you and they definitely don’t care about your success after they take your money.

Recently, I reached out to my former classmates to learn how they viewed the program a year after graduating and what advice they would give to students looking to begin a career in development. Fortunately, the students I spoke with were employed, but not as a result of anything their career services coach had done and most were doing very little coding in their roles. One former classmate who currently works in digital advertising said, “I think that a lot of people can actually get all the information online,” and if students absolutely want to enroll in bootcamp, “I would recommend the six month…[the three month intensive camp] was a mind fuck”.

Another classmate went so far as to claim, “the job that I did end up getting had nothing to do with the bootcamp…the bootcamp didn’t influence [my eventual employer] hiring me at all, I had worked with their software before”.

However, others looked back on the experience more positively, such as one student who found development bootcamp to be, “a place to get your feet wet”. He contended that the in-class mentorship he received from instructors was beneficial. Although even he suggested, “if the person is very, very passionate and self-disciplined and dedicated, they don’t need bootcamps,” and recommended that students with zero experience take advantage of free online resources prior to enrolling to ensure they’re interested in the subject matter.

I’ve contacted the for-profit educator and the UC campus that operated the bootcamp I attended and it probably won’t surprise you that they’re a little cagey about student outcome data. The company that runs the program claims that post-graduation employment data isn’t disclosed, or even maintained, because people might get the wrong idea about the numbers and not every student completes the career services portion of the program. This is true! But if they’re not keeping track of students after they graduate, how do they know the program works? And isn’t it possible that students aren’t completing a portion of the program because they’ve recognized it’s ineffective? I imagine it’s difficult to judge the success of your program if you don’t stay in touch with your graduates, but that’s kind of the point, I guess.

For-profit educators have billed bootcamps as the technological trade school alternative to traditional four-year universities, but at least trade schools have to disclose student outcome data. You know, so students know what they’re getting into and can judge programs accordingly. I probably wouldn’t attend a school that has low employment numbers and I think the for-profit educator knows that. Ultimately, I’m left to reason that the for-profit educator believes I’m intelligent enough to parse through twelve weeks of intensive courses, but too dim to infer any meaningful conclusion from the employment rate of their graduates.

If you truly want to enter the web development field, or any field, there are numerous free or low-cost options out there online with which to educate yourself. You’ll have to do it mostly alone and won’t have classmates and staff around you, but if you don’t have the discipline to take these early steps on your own, I would contend you may not be a great candidate for a development job. But that’s okay! There is a wonderful community of people out there that want to see you succeed and they’re gonna charge you a lot less than $10k.

Some of the resource I used to get a web dev job:

https://udemy.com

https://www.traversymedia.com

https://www.taniarascia.com/

https://stackoverflow.com

https://github.com

Published December 2020