A Coop Coding Bootcamp

My wife attended a Data Science Boot Camp in 2019-2020 and loved it, and did well.  This was associated with a University of North Carolina, our state university system.  The interesting result of the boot camp for her was that she was able to secure a very substantial raise from the employer she left to attend the boot camp to return to work with them, even though she works in a field quite unrelated to data science.

She did mention, however, that her instructor was not at all senior in the field, but was instead fairly limited to sometimes literally reading from a canned curriculum.   She learned a lot, together with her peers, and the result was good in her case.

I must admit, however, that I have a great deal of skepticism in general about for-profit boot camps, for the same reason I’m skeptical of for-profit universities.  Especially in a software field, which pays seasoned practitioners well, I suspect that the for-profit model encourages cost-cutting in all areas – curriculum development, teacher salaries, and job placement.  A quick read in Business Insider led me to several articles that validate these concerns.  Unfortunately, most of those articles are behind a paywall, but the Coding Bootcamp Handbook also details some of the same cautions around for profit bootcamps.

I sometimes wonder if a co-op model – where the students and community share the cost – might not be the better way to go.  In the best case, funding the school entirely in such a way

I’m a half-hearted socialist at best, and I enjoy a good Mac Mini and a $5 latte as much as the next person.  Capitalism is great when you’re buying a bag of tube socks, but Americans let it creep into too many areas, like health care and education, where the public interest means we should consider a less mercenary approach.