Should I go to a coding bootcamp?
Everyone has a different experience when it comes to coding bootcamps, making deciding whether to go to one a daunting choice. This was mine.
The bootcamp I attended in 2020 was LeWagon. Though I can’t know for sure without attending others, I believe them to be an excellent bootcamp. I work as a software engineer now, and going to that bootcamp helped me to get there. But that’s not the full story.
A 94% Job Success Rate
You see, most of the people I attended the bootcamp with did not end up as software developers. But they did get jobs. How fast and loose can we play things with this “job placement rate” of 94%? What types of jobs can be included when they talk about their “success rate”? The graduates seem generally very happy in their new jobs, many of which are tech-adjacent. And the ones who succeeded the most were the ones who had strong skills and experience in their previous careers—they simply made a leap to a higher-skilled position.
I always get the impression from those who have an opinion on bootcamps that they paint everybody with the same brushstroke. A 15-year old who worked at Arby’s before the bootcamp does not have the same job prospects as a physics PhD who was coding Python scripts all day — just nine weeks later. Some bootcamp grads find the footing to up-skill massively and learn the basics of software development. But if you thought a browser was “the button for the internet” on day one, nine weeks probably won’t cut it for you.
So is it worth it or not?
Yep, you guessed it — it depends. What I would have you take away from this post, if anything, is that there are times when a bootcamp ends up being well worth the money. Is it possible to learn everything the bootcamp teaches through free tutorials online? Absolutely, zero doubt. The question is, can you do it? Some people require the structure that a bootcamp offers, and I was one of them. One of the hardest things about learning to code is finding a roadmap of what you must learn to get to where you want to be.
My own experience was very positive. I had coded before, writing Python scripts as a meteorologist for some time, but never any web development. The year before the bootcamp, I took an interest in making websites, and I was learning a little html and Javascript. I sucked at it, but by the time I enrolled, I had enough background to be able to absorb the material, and that allowed me to understand things I had never considered, such as databases, ORMs, the MVC pattern, and tons of other concepts.
However, I had classmates who just didn’t absorb the material. Some were CS students in their final year, some came from a background of zero coding, and everything in between. Some who had never coded excelled, while there were CS students who were clueless.
But towards the end of the course I came to realise; there’s no assessment.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are bootcamps who have final exams. But then again, are there? Wouldn’t that just hurt their business model? Could 94% of the grads still have been listed as having secured “jobs” post-graduation if half of them had failed the bootcamp? My fellow students were great people and I thought they were awesome, but I’m pretty certain that a lot of them would’ve failed if we’d had a final exam.
Life after the bootcamp
Employers aren’t lining up waiting for you to graduate so that they can snap you up, despite what you’ve been promised by every bootcamp marketing campaign ever.
Even though I had a lot of skill and background by the time I graduated LeWagon, I still had to prove I could code. LeWagon did teach me to code, and now it was time to show that to hiring managers. Fortunately, if you really can write code, which is all that matters in an industry where formal qualifications matter less with every passing year, then just do it.
I wrote personal projects after the bootcamp; it took many months of non-stop coding without being paid. I figured out what technologies were marketable but also what interested me and I just built things. After a while, I found a junior job I wanted to apply for, and rewrote their landing page from scratch with Django, just to apply for the job. They told me straight up, my CV probably would’ve been buried in the “average” pile had I not taken that initiative and made that extra effort. I’ve done the same thing since for other companies — with zero results — but you’ll face a lot of rejection as a junior dev, no matter your background. Point is, you’re writing code, and no time spent coding is time wasted.
If you love to code, that first job will come. If you feel a bootcamp is the right choice, go for it, it was for me. But if you don’t happen to have $7,000–$12,000 handy, then always remember — there’s only one true barrier to entry in coding — your mindset!
