She's a recent grad with an international relations major. Now wants to go to a local web dev boot camp, which looks to me just more-or-less legit. Any alternative ideas?
I HIGHLY suggest vetting the placement "statistics". For me, I just read 95% get a job, went to the open house, listened to a couple "rah rah" testimonials and did it. It was a big mistake.
A friend of mine from the class estimated that only 30-40% of us got actual dev jobs. The rest are either in customer service at a tech company, sales or testing (keep in mind this is people who dropped $15k+ to do the bootcamp), back in our old industry or in the case of one, working at Trader Joes.
I was under the impression that 95% get good jobs. If I had known only 30-40% did I would have never done the boot camp.
How did they manipulate the numbers? I never dug deep but here are my thoughts:
* to qualify as "actively looking" you can't have a job to support yourself. That's right you're supposed to not have an income while job searching, kinda hard when it can take more than six months. If you get a job, you get dropped from career support and your statistic gets placed in the "not actively looking" category
* "industry related jobs". If you go to a dev boot camp, you want to be a dev. You're paying $15k to do it. A customer service job at a tech startup is better than nothing but you don't have to pay $15k to do it. Likewise for sales.
As a positive point, all the females in our cohort got dev jobs, including the only one who actually failed the class. Startups are pretty aware of the gender discrepancy and actively looking to hire those with double x chromosomes. Not complaining about affirmative action, just wanted to give you as full picture as possible
As a dev in Denver who routinely interviews candidates from some of the nations top bootcamps, i can corroborate these claims. Many graduates from these programs are hired by the bootcamp itself, as tutors or web devs. Rarely are these hires profitable to the school, instead the are done strictly to maintain the placement statistics that are paramount to their continued enrollment.
Things have changed over the last few years and what was true in 2013 is no longer true.
In 2013, the few bootcamps that existed and the fewer cohorts they each had were much more selective and they were producing in total many fewer candidates. The result is that bootcamp grads were very high quality (albeit very junior) and they got snapped up quickly.
In 2017 there are bootcampers everywhere flooding the market.
So I'm not sure they are outright lying but maybe they are using data to market their programs that is out of date.
The % of people who get jobs doesn't matter. Those people are not you. Maybe the 70% decided they didn't like coding after all. Or maybe the course was crap. Who knows?
I'd tell her to do some work on her own before signing up. The internet is jam packed with courses, guides, tutorials and references for all the skills needed for web dev, for free. Pick a tutorial and work through it. Then dream up a really simple project—todo app, pet store, tick-tack-toe or whatever—and build it from scratch, using the same stack.
Then with that under her belt, sign up for the boot camp. The advantages of this approach are:
- she'll find out if this is something she really wants to do before plunking down thousands of dollars
- with a bit of background knowledge, she'll be better able to absorb what's being taught at the bootcamp
- she'll have a better idea of what she wants to specialize in and can select the right boot camp for her
Also, find the community she wants to join. There are a gazillion places where web devs hang out online and talk shop. While doing her prep work she should seek out the places appropriate to the stack she's chosen and lurk. Stay engaged through the bootcamp and during her job search afterward.
Finally, pay attention to open source. Not a lot of professions do their work out in the open like that, so take the opportunity to see how the sausage is made! Find the open source projects that these communities contribute to, and watch them do it. Follow the discussions on mailing lists, Github issues and pull requests. Look at the code and try to understand the criticism arguments. Ask questions. People are shockingly willing to help newbies who are trying to understand.
The bottom line is, there is real value in getting an expert to teach her how to code, but the more work she puts in herself, before, during and after the bootcamp the more she'll get out of it. If she's looking to pay $15K and get a high-paying job in exchange, she'll just waste the money.
- you get out what you put in. attending a boot camp is not a guarantee you'll land well-paying job. you have to demonstrate to a new employer you've mastered the skills to help their company
- depending on the bootcamp, it will take 8-10 hours a day. your social life aside from the days off will be shot. and the days off are spent doing laundry and playing catch-up on life
- don't neglect your fitness. since you're inside 8-10 hours a day, go to a gym and sweat for balance. otherwise you might suffer from burnout
- save up for at least 3 months of joblessness after the bootcamp while you look for work
- ask the bootcamp if they do interview prep. while it's cheating the system in some ways, it's extremely helpful for people who haven't been through the interview process. if you don't think well on your feet, or suffer test anxiety, this may be an issue
- lastly, if she hasn't done any programming at all, it'd be prudent to sign up for a local junior college course, or udemy to see if she actually likes doing it. i have a friend who talks all day about joining a coding school, took a python course, and realized it's not for him. it's better than accumulating more educational debt
Best case it'll take less than a month (2 exercises per day, 52 exercises), is basically free, and if she's happy with everything at the end of it, she'll be FAR more prepared to jump feet-first into a dev bootcamp.
I compare learning to program to learning a language. 99hrs of having French slapped across your face won't make you a native French speaker, it's a long road to proficiency and mastery. Neither will 99hrs of Programming make you a native "Programmer".
However I'd pick someone who went through that 99hr drill over most people who hadn't even started.
but do you want to confuse her with python2 vs python3? When python2 should be out of the question, even if it's default on macOS. Though to be fair the difference should be learned, but it shouldn't be promoted to learn python2 for beginners. It will just confuse them. Even though many years have passed, but I think soon many libraries and frameworks will not support python2 at all (e.g. Django's next version will not), any new code I write - I write it in python3 and never think about python2.
The LPTHW is built for beginners in a sense, that it's easy to read and follow, though author is extremely __butthurt__[0] against python3 [1]. I guess it's the authors _shtick_ to be extremely opinionated, to a degree of incoherent blabber [1].
P.S. Though "Appendix A: Command Line Crash Course"[2] is probably one of the best promotions and intros into CLI .. and that is very useful to learn, instead of locking yourself as a beginner into some IDE.
We've hired a few people from bootcamps. I admit that I was a bit skeptical going in, but I am very happy with everyone we have hired from that direction.
There is nothing in CS that you can't learn on your own and/or on the job. You do not need a school to teach you. Having said that, you need to want to learn this stuff and it is a long road. Decades after I graduated, I'm still learning new things (especially math -- since I sucked at it in school). So my first piece of advice: Realise that after a boot camp you will not know enough, nor have enough experience to really be qualified to do the job. Anybody who picks you up is taking a chance that you will grow into the job. Attitude is by far your biggest selling point.
If you go in with a hunger for learning and infectious enthusiasm, you will be a benefit to your team, even while being under qualified. If you go in thinking, "I don't really know if I want to do this, but it seems like an easy job that pays well", just stop now. I really can't stress that enough. Don't pay thousands of dollars to go to a boot camp to see if you want to do this stuff. Like I said, you can boot your own camp trivially. Computer + Internet + passion for learning will get you there. A good boot camp can really help you focus and point you to efficient ways of learning, but it can't give you the drive you need to succeed. My second piece of advice is to experiment first.
Finally, all of the people we have hired from bootcamps have had experience in other industries. Let me put it bluntly: They know how to show up to work every day and put in a full day's work. They know how to show up to meetings on time and pay attention. They know how to deal with difficult political situations. They know how to avoid being hung over on a weekday. Finally, they have experience being in a job that they hate and they have spent considerable amount of time and effort understanding what they want from a career.
My final advice: Don't graduate from school and go straight to a boot camp, unless you know for sure that you missed the boat and are desperate to be a programmer. Get some experience in the job world. Save some money. Think critically about what you want from your career. Then if you still want to make the jump, go ahead. Like I said, computers and the internet are everywhere these days, so it's not going to stop you from learning on your own.
I wouldn't be discouraging here or 'looking for alternatives'. I'd be congratulating her on entering a field with a low supply and high demand for talent. This industry pays very well and we need more female developers. So why would this be a bad choice? (rhetorical question - actually this may be a horrible choice, but keep reading)
I completed an online coding bootcamp about 5 years ago and got a job almost immediately afterwards. I've since become a Lead Dev for a local SaaS company, a mentor at that same school I graduated from, and a part time curriculum contributor.
This level of skepticism towards coding bootcamps is fair. I've seen some horror stories. But here is the thing: All failures involving more than 2 parties are usually the fault of both parties. Here is what I mean:
I'm currently mentoring about 5 students. Out of those 5, 4 are doing incredibly well. They are picking up the concepts, putting them into practice, and showing true growth. 1 of them is struggling hard. What is the difference? Well, in my opinion the difference is motivation. The 1 that is struggling did well his first few months, but when it got hard, he just wanted to start applying for jobs with what little he had learned. He didn't want to put in the work to finish his education. He was solely focused on the $$$ and not the thrill of solving problems with code.
So how could she decide if she will actually enjoy learning to code vs become someone that is only excited b/c of the money? Easy - try the free/cheap stuff first:
The list goes on for a while. Tell her to sign up for one or two of the courses here and build something from start to finish. Nothing major. A todo list webapp, simple blog, or the like will do.
Then ask here: "Can you see yourself doing this 8 hours per day/5 days per week? If she can give you an honest 'yes', then offer her all the support you can give. If she hesitates, have her do more of the cheap/free stuff till it is clear. If it is a no, then it is a no.
If she wants to be a software engineer, tell her to teach herself. I think the reason why many of the graduates don't get jobs is because Tech is really hard, and almost all of it you have to figure out yourself to be a good engineer. A lot of the boot camp attendees are the type that need to be taught, it actually looks better if you teach yourself. It shows your independence and drive, which are very hirable qualities in Tech. That said a good mentor can go a long way too (there are plenty of those for free as well) :)
I've been developing for 12+ years in many different languages & frameworks. I don't code much anymore due to having to support myself financially, but I certainly didn't find that anyone was impressed with the fact that I taught myself. I never got an offer and likewise ended up choosing the boring but well paying supervisor position in an unrelated field.
I just want to point out that anyone giving advice on this issue, as with anything else, will have their own personal biases. For example HN has a high percentage of startups and "bleeding edge" tech companies which may value skillsets and credentials differently then say a midwest enterprise software company. If your cousin needs advice gaining entry to midwest enterprise companies, it may be more valuable to pose this question locally or else risk giving the wrong advice to your cousin.
Has she ever tried coding, and if so does she see herself enjoying it as something she'd be doing several hours a day?
What is her reason for an interest in programming? Is it an interest in tech, solving big problems with tech, money, something else?
Would she be OK knowing that the job search for a bootcamp grad with no prior coding experience may be rather challenging (many grads go to work for the bootcamp itself, which is mutually beneficial as it boost placement stats while also giving the grad a job)?
How is her financial situation? Can she absorb a hit?
Is she incredibly bright and dedicated to the point of potentially being able to enter the field based on n months of self-directed education for free (MOOCs, online tutorials, videos, books, etc)?
My company has hired several coding boot camp alumni; some directly from bootcamps, some after a coding bootcamp + some years of work as a dev. We've had good results and most of the grads I know have had positive experiences.
It's important to note that coding bootcamps are not created remotely equally -- some have stringent application requirements, whereas many are essentially scams / chop shops. I strongly caution against the latter.
In particular, at least one bootcamp that I know of only charges tuition after you get a job as a software engineer, and charges a % of your first year's salary. It's a really great way to align incentives between the bootcamp, students, and employers and I'm a particular fan of this program.
I'd be grateful for specific pointers on vetting the camps. The one in question is legally an LLC, with no industry sponsors, but some association with a local religious college.
Interested to see your positive view on the percent of salary tuition arrangement. There are at least two such camps: in SF, and in Seattle.
I can't speak for how bootcamps are now, or the state in which DBC exists in 2017, but I can say that my cohort(s) were made up of lots of men and women and people ranging from border-line genius level to those with no programming experience. Those who came out and landed careers were the same individuals who had the drive and the passion, plain & simple. A person looking to be handed knowledge on a silver platter, eventually leading to a golden key to land a job, will be sadly mistaken no matter what kind of school they go to.
As others have said, it would be good for her to start learning to program on her own so she can see if she actually has any interest. It will sound cruel for me to say this but, if she hasn't already taken the initiative herself, the chances are low that she's cut out for it. Note that what I said just now is strictly my opinion. It certainly doesn't mean it's too late for her to begin now, but the drive is super important. This is coming from someone who went into a field knowing very little about it but expecting that passing the courses was going to land them a high-paying job. I switched to programming because I was forced to look in my heart and decide whether or not I was going to struggle to bestow bad art on to the world(as if there isn't too much already) for some short-lived glory. Plus I was already programming and already had the drive; I just needed reality and some good people to give me a good kick in the right direction for me.
Determining the legitimacy of a boot camp is difficult. I don't know that you really can. But what I got out of my boot camp was not so much an education but the space and the resources to accelerate my process into taking a full dive into web development, Agile, etc. On a technical level, there's almost nothing that a boot camp does that you can't get out of an online course. Heck, you could form your own "boot camp" with a Meetup group and spend maybe 1/100 the amount you'd spend on a boot camp tuition. A person has to go into a boot camp expecting a space, resources, and some leadership, rather than a concrete curriculum. At the end of the day, you can work for a company and not even include your education on your resume so long as the work that you have done stands out.
Someone I know graduated from Hackbright, the bootcamp for women that has a decent reputation but also fairly expensive. It's been a couple of years and she hasn't gotten a programming job, I don't even mention it anymore.
So your mileage might vary. I'm deeply skeptical of anyone from a bootcamp, to be honest. I think if you can really learn something and get your foot int the door with a small startup, then it opens the doors, but it's also hard without signficant amount of dedication.
In defense of Hackbright, I have hired multiple grads from there and had we had the room, hired more great candidates we talked to and all were great. Consistently produced good candidates. Just like any class though, there's going to be a distribution in results.
Why do you feel the need to stop her from going? She's not going to become a master at computers, but maybe it will spark an interest in the field.
It seems like this is always the case with people either forcing coding onto people or trying to persuade people to not even touch a computer. Just let people do what they want.
For beginners, it's critical to learn concepts of software development instead of the syntax memorization and regurgitation that seems popular to collect like scout badges. The fewer syntaxes one has to learn in the beginning, to do the most, the better. To keep a list to the minimum, I'd probably start with HTML, a bit of CSS, and then go to Javascript to teach web and then mobile development.
I hear you on that -- I've been looking for a path that starts with the best-structured languages, as vehicles for learning the more powerful concepts: static vs dynamic typing et al. So, Golang, Python, or Typescript. School in question is a bit behind the curve -- "PHP/MySQL".
From the comments so far, I think there's some confusion about what you mean by this.
Are you trying to dissuade her? Motivate her? You're neutral, but asking for suggestions of things she might do to satiate coding desires other than a 'boot camp'?
A few months previous I suggested online self-instruction, but didn't hear back on the idea. Perhaps some people prefer the social structure of a classroom for learning.
Why do you need alternative ideas? You could just let her go to what she wants to. We technology people seem to have this built in need to get people to try other things than what they want to do. It's a form of controlling behaviour.
Would you say the same if she wanted to go to an expensive acting workshop that promises she will land a job with Hollywood in just 12 weeks? (And that might not even be a lie, since someone needs to be the extra that gets shot in the first 5 seconds.)
Not saying all or even most coding boot camps are like that, but based on my reading of HN submissions, some definitely do overpromise and underdeliver.
Finding potentially more fitting ways of getting into the field could simply be helping out.
Having alternatives is always a good thing. Plus being a 'young' cousin, they have graduated so they are 18 or 22 and can judge alternatives for themselves.
Try pyschools.com or codeschool.com and see how much she gets it on her own. I truly believe being a programmer is a third logical intuition another third resourcefulness, and lastly discipline. She has to be able to demonstrate them all and the websites I pointed to (especially the former) will certainly test her.
She should not go in cold. She should work through "Learn Python the Hard Way" or Chris Pine's Learn to Program first, at least, before committing to something like this. I did a bootcamp some time ago. Everyone who came in completely cold failed the program. Standards now might be such that she survives the program, but she will be unhirable. If it's a finishing school after putting in much work on her own, then maybe it makes sense. Assume every number you see related to job placement to be fraudulent at some level. Getting a job coming out is likely to be difficult - the market is saturated with bootcamp grads. All that being said, if she finds out she really, really likes programming before starting the bootcamp, puts in months of work beforehand, and is willing to put in thousands of hours outside of work in the years that follow, then go for it.
No familiarity with bootcamps specifically but, even with more traditional CS degree programs, this seems to be good advice. I don't program professionally but have done some on the side for a long time.
Even checking out some of the "Intro to Programming" MOOCs from better institutions, it was pretty obvious to me that I'd have been utterly overwhelmed going into any of these cold as a student. If even a text editor or a command line is a new experience, there's just too much foundational knowledge/experience that has to be gained to move forward with what you're actually supposed to be learning.
(I know there have been efforts at places like CMU to teach intro courses that are actually real intro courses.)
(Foreword: I went through a bootcamp, had a positive experience).
The only reason not to go through a bootcamp, presuming it is reputable, is price sensitivity. They offer better value than a college degree (salary offer wise, both for technical and non-technical roles in tech industry), accelerate the pace of early-stage learning, and create healthy habits that are distinct to programming (e.g. tests, debugging, pseudo-code).
Long list of positive reasons here, as long as mindset going in isn't "I'm going to be a developer in 9 weeks" (true only on the loosest definition of the word).
[+] [-] biznerd|9 years ago|reply
I HIGHLY suggest vetting the placement "statistics". For me, I just read 95% get a job, went to the open house, listened to a couple "rah rah" testimonials and did it. It was a big mistake.
A friend of mine from the class estimated that only 30-40% of us got actual dev jobs. The rest are either in customer service at a tech company, sales or testing (keep in mind this is people who dropped $15k+ to do the bootcamp), back in our old industry or in the case of one, working at Trader Joes.
I was under the impression that 95% get good jobs. If I had known only 30-40% did I would have never done the boot camp.
How did they manipulate the numbers? I never dug deep but here are my thoughts:
* to qualify as "actively looking" you can't have a job to support yourself. That's right you're supposed to not have an income while job searching, kinda hard when it can take more than six months. If you get a job, you get dropped from career support and your statistic gets placed in the "not actively looking" category
* "industry related jobs". If you go to a dev boot camp, you want to be a dev. You're paying $15k to do it. A customer service job at a tech startup is better than nothing but you don't have to pay $15k to do it. Likewise for sales.
As a positive point, all the females in our cohort got dev jobs, including the only one who actually failed the class. Startups are pretty aware of the gender discrepancy and actively looking to hire those with double x chromosomes. Not complaining about affirmative action, just wanted to give you as full picture as possible
[+] [-] liquidise|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eagsalazar2|9 years ago|reply
In 2013, the few bootcamps that existed and the fewer cohorts they each had were much more selective and they were producing in total many fewer candidates. The result is that bootcamp grads were very high quality (albeit very junior) and they got snapped up quickly.
In 2017 there are bootcampers everywhere flooding the market.
So I'm not sure they are outright lying but maybe they are using data to market their programs that is out of date.
[+] [-] bbcbasic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cwp|9 years ago|reply
Then with that under her belt, sign up for the boot camp. The advantages of this approach are:
Also, find the community she wants to join. There are a gazillion places where web devs hang out online and talk shop. While doing her prep work she should seek out the places appropriate to the stack she's chosen and lurk. Stay engaged through the bootcamp and during her job search afterward.Finally, pay attention to open source. Not a lot of professions do their work out in the open like that, so take the opportunity to see how the sausage is made! Find the open source projects that these communities contribute to, and watch them do it. Follow the discussions on mailing lists, Github issues and pull requests. Look at the code and try to understand the criticism arguments. Ask questions. People are shockingly willing to help newbies who are trying to understand.
The bottom line is, there is real value in getting an expert to teach her how to code, but the more work she puts in herself, before, during and after the bootcamp the more she'll get out of it. If she's looking to pay $15K and get a high-paying job in exchange, she'll just waste the money.
[+] [-] et-al|9 years ago|reply
Key things are:
- you get out what you put in. attending a boot camp is not a guarantee you'll land well-paying job. you have to demonstrate to a new employer you've mastered the skills to help their company
- depending on the bootcamp, it will take 8-10 hours a day. your social life aside from the days off will be shot. and the days off are spent doing laundry and playing catch-up on life
- don't neglect your fitness. since you're inside 8-10 hours a day, go to a gym and sweat for balance. otherwise you might suffer from burnout
- save up for at least 3 months of joblessness after the bootcamp while you look for work
- ask the bootcamp if they do interview prep. while it's cheating the system in some ways, it's extremely helpful for people who haven't been through the interview process. if you don't think well on your feet, or suffer test anxiety, this may be an issue
- lastly, if she hasn't done any programming at all, it'd be prudent to sign up for a local junior college course, or udemy to see if she actually likes doing it. i have a friend who talks all day about joining a coding school, took a python course, and realized it's not for him. it's better than accumulating more educational debt
[+] [-] ramses0|9 years ago|reply
https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/
Best case it'll take less than a month (2 exercises per day, 52 exercises), is basically free, and if she's happy with everything at the end of it, she'll be FAR more prepared to jump feet-first into a dev bootcamp.
I compare learning to program to learning a language. 99hrs of having French slapped across your face won't make you a native French speaker, it's a long road to proficiency and mastery. Neither will 99hrs of Programming make you a native "Programmer".
However I'd pick someone who went through that 99hr drill over most people who hadn't even started.
[+] [-] trymas|9 years ago|reply
but do you want to confuse her with python2 vs python3? When python2 should be out of the question, even if it's default on macOS. Though to be fair the difference should be learned, but it shouldn't be promoted to learn python2 for beginners. It will just confuse them. Even though many years have passed, but I think soon many libraries and frameworks will not support python2 at all (e.g. Django's next version will not), any new code I write - I write it in python3 and never think about python2.
The LPTHW is built for beginners in a sense, that it's easy to read and follow, though author is extremely __butthurt__[0] against python3 [1]. I guess it's the authors _shtick_ to be extremely opinionated, to a degree of incoherent blabber [1].
[0] sorry for my language
[1] https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/nopython3.html
P.S. Though "Appendix A: Command Line Crash Course"[2] is probably one of the best promotions and intros into CLI .. and that is very useful to learn, instead of locking yourself as a beginner into some IDE.
[2] https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/appendixa.html
[+] [-] mikekchar|9 years ago|reply
There is nothing in CS that you can't learn on your own and/or on the job. You do not need a school to teach you. Having said that, you need to want to learn this stuff and it is a long road. Decades after I graduated, I'm still learning new things (especially math -- since I sucked at it in school). So my first piece of advice: Realise that after a boot camp you will not know enough, nor have enough experience to really be qualified to do the job. Anybody who picks you up is taking a chance that you will grow into the job. Attitude is by far your biggest selling point.
If you go in with a hunger for learning and infectious enthusiasm, you will be a benefit to your team, even while being under qualified. If you go in thinking, "I don't really know if I want to do this, but it seems like an easy job that pays well", just stop now. I really can't stress that enough. Don't pay thousands of dollars to go to a boot camp to see if you want to do this stuff. Like I said, you can boot your own camp trivially. Computer + Internet + passion for learning will get you there. A good boot camp can really help you focus and point you to efficient ways of learning, but it can't give you the drive you need to succeed. My second piece of advice is to experiment first.
Finally, all of the people we have hired from bootcamps have had experience in other industries. Let me put it bluntly: They know how to show up to work every day and put in a full day's work. They know how to show up to meetings on time and pay attention. They know how to deal with difficult political situations. They know how to avoid being hung over on a weekday. Finally, they have experience being in a job that they hate and they have spent considerable amount of time and effort understanding what they want from a career.
My final advice: Don't graduate from school and go straight to a boot camp, unless you know for sure that you missed the boat and are desperate to be a programmer. Get some experience in the job world. Save some money. Think critically about what you want from your career. Then if you still want to make the jump, go ahead. Like I said, computers and the internet are everywhere these days, so it's not going to stop you from learning on your own.
[+] [-] aspencer8111|9 years ago|reply
I completed an online coding bootcamp about 5 years ago and got a job almost immediately afterwards. I've since become a Lead Dev for a local SaaS company, a mentor at that same school I graduated from, and a part time curriculum contributor.
This level of skepticism towards coding bootcamps is fair. I've seen some horror stories. But here is the thing: All failures involving more than 2 parties are usually the fault of both parties. Here is what I mean:
I'm currently mentoring about 5 students. Out of those 5, 4 are doing incredibly well. They are picking up the concepts, putting them into practice, and showing true growth. 1 of them is struggling hard. What is the difference? Well, in my opinion the difference is motivation. The 1 that is struggling did well his first few months, but when it got hard, he just wanted to start applying for jobs with what little he had learned. He didn't want to put in the work to finish his education. He was solely focused on the $$$ and not the thrill of solving problems with code.
So how could she decide if she will actually enjoy learning to code vs become someone that is only excited b/c of the money? Easy - try the free/cheap stuff first:
1. Codecademy.com 2. Codeschool.com 3. Lynda.com 4. Learn_____TheHardWay.com
The list goes on for a while. Tell her to sign up for one or two of the courses here and build something from start to finish. Nothing major. A todo list webapp, simple blog, or the like will do.
Then ask here: "Can you see yourself doing this 8 hours per day/5 days per week? If she can give you an honest 'yes', then offer her all the support you can give. If she hesitates, have her do more of the cheap/free stuff till it is clear. If it is a no, then it is a no.
Hope this helps. Sorry for the wall of text.
[+] [-] yahyaheee|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scrapcode|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ben_jones|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fecak|9 years ago|reply
Has she ever tried coding, and if so does she see herself enjoying it as something she'd be doing several hours a day?
What is her reason for an interest in programming? Is it an interest in tech, solving big problems with tech, money, something else?
Would she be OK knowing that the job search for a bootcamp grad with no prior coding experience may be rather challenging (many grads go to work for the bootcamp itself, which is mutually beneficial as it boost placement stats while also giving the grad a job)?
How is her financial situation? Can she absorb a hit?
Is she incredibly bright and dedicated to the point of potentially being able to enter the field based on n months of self-directed education for free (MOOCs, online tutorials, videos, books, etc)?
The question is a bit more complex than it seems.
[+] [-] kwang88|9 years ago|reply
It's important to note that coding bootcamps are not created remotely equally -- some have stringent application requirements, whereas many are essentially scams / chop shops. I strongly caution against the latter.
In particular, at least one bootcamp that I know of only charges tuition after you get a job as a software engineer, and charges a % of your first year's salary. It's a really great way to align incentives between the bootcamp, students, and employers and I'm a particular fan of this program.
[+] [-] everybodyknows|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ravenstine|9 years ago|reply
I can't speak for how bootcamps are now, or the state in which DBC exists in 2017, but I can say that my cohort(s) were made up of lots of men and women and people ranging from border-line genius level to those with no programming experience. Those who came out and landed careers were the same individuals who had the drive and the passion, plain & simple. A person looking to be handed knowledge on a silver platter, eventually leading to a golden key to land a job, will be sadly mistaken no matter what kind of school they go to.
As others have said, it would be good for her to start learning to program on her own so she can see if she actually has any interest. It will sound cruel for me to say this but, if she hasn't already taken the initiative herself, the chances are low that she's cut out for it. Note that what I said just now is strictly my opinion. It certainly doesn't mean it's too late for her to begin now, but the drive is super important. This is coming from someone who went into a field knowing very little about it but expecting that passing the courses was going to land them a high-paying job. I switched to programming because I was forced to look in my heart and decide whether or not I was going to struggle to bestow bad art on to the world(as if there isn't too much already) for some short-lived glory. Plus I was already programming and already had the drive; I just needed reality and some good people to give me a good kick in the right direction for me.
Determining the legitimacy of a boot camp is difficult. I don't know that you really can. But what I got out of my boot camp was not so much an education but the space and the resources to accelerate my process into taking a full dive into web development, Agile, etc. On a technical level, there's almost nothing that a boot camp does that you can't get out of an online course. Heck, you could form your own "boot camp" with a Meetup group and spend maybe 1/100 the amount you'd spend on a boot camp tuition. A person has to go into a boot camp expecting a space, resources, and some leadership, rather than a concrete curriculum. At the end of the day, you can work for a company and not even include your education on your resume so long as the work that you have done stands out.
[+] [-] pfarnsworth|9 years ago|reply
So your mileage might vary. I'm deeply skeptical of anyone from a bootcamp, to be honest. I think if you can really learn something and get your foot int the door with a small startup, then it opens the doors, but it's also hard without signficant amount of dedication.
[+] [-] johns|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] t4blox|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j45|9 years ago|reply
I am not a day to day js framework/backend guy.
[+] [-] everybodyknows|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OJFord|9 years ago|reply
From the comments so far, I think there's some confusion about what you mean by this.
Are you trying to dissuade her? Motivate her? You're neutral, but asking for suggestions of things she might do to satiate coding desires other than a 'boot camp'?
[+] [-] everybodyknows|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoodoof|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yorwba|9 years ago|reply
Not saying all or even most coding boot camps are like that, but based on my reading of HN submissions, some definitely do overpromise and underdeliver.
Finding potentially more fitting ways of getting into the field could simply be helping out.
[+] [-] everybodyknows|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] true_religion|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whytaka|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] StClaire|9 years ago|reply
The ones who got good jobs were good applicants. They would have gotten the Dev job anyway. The ones who weren't strong got swept under the rug.
Your cousin might do better taking a year of CS classes and working on outside projects
[+] [-] campythrowaway|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghaff|9 years ago|reply
Even checking out some of the "Intro to Programming" MOOCs from better institutions, it was pretty obvious to me that I'd have been utterly overwhelmed going into any of these cold as a student. If even a text editor or a command line is a new experience, there's just too much foundational knowledge/experience that has to be gained to move forward with what you're actually supposed to be learning.
(I know there have been efforts at places like CMU to teach intro courses that are actually real intro courses.)
[+] [-] mceoin|9 years ago|reply
The only reason not to go through a bootcamp, presuming it is reputable, is price sensitivity. They offer better value than a college degree (salary offer wise, both for technical and non-technical roles in tech industry), accelerate the pace of early-stage learning, and create healthy habits that are distinct to programming (e.g. tests, debugging, pseudo-code).
Long list of positive reasons here, as long as mindset going in isn't "I'm going to be a developer in 9 weeks" (true only on the loosest definition of the word).