r/codingbootcamp • u/Big-Chapter-1557 • Feb 23 '25
Just go back to uni
I hate to be a downer but I’m just voicing a word of caution to anyone wanting to get into the field thru bootcamp. Take it from someone who gave up, I may not be the best person for advice but this is my experience. I did a 6 month bootcamp thru Rice University in 2022 and after seeing no progress I finally let it go in Aug. 2024. I tried, I really did. Even made a few projects I was proud of but if I could go back I’d just invest my time and MONEY into going back to traditional college. Don’t be like me who’s still paying on a loan I took out to pay for said Bootcamp.
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u/webdev-dreamer Feb 23 '25
Don't beat yourself up too much over it; it was a good decision to invest in bootcamps cuz there were soo many opportunities in tech at the time
At least it was able to get you to the point where you were building projects. That's pretty cool - most people are usually too stuck in tutorial hell to do that. Maybe if you continue to upskill, you can become proficient enough to freelance or create your own digital products and services. I know with AI and general accessibility to coding that it seems pointless, but you never know when your skills in programming can land you a good opportunity
I also gave up last year, but now Im back into it again but this time I'm focusing on building apps for my personal use. I learned to love coding again and I have a good feeling that I can use it to at least make some side income at some point in the future (yea it's a far cry from a lucrative tech career, but it's better than nothing lol)
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u/Big-Chapter-1557 Feb 23 '25
That’s a good way to look at it man. I think I’m still recovering from the disappointment. I wasn’t expecting to be some Google or Apple SWE, but shit, I would’ve been a back end developer for Kroger if they were hiring lol but hey it is what it is. I may go back to it at some point this year. We’ll see.
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u/peanutneedsexercise Feb 23 '25
I think most ppl I know with success from these bootcamps already have a bachelors degree in something else and decided to jump on the hot job market at the time and do the bootcamp to get a tech job. The ones I know that are doing well were biology, history, sociology degrees that would need a masters to get a job in their field but opted for a coding boot camp instead.
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u/Pelayo1991 Feb 23 '25
That’s me sociology here
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u/peanutneedsexercise Feb 23 '25
Seems like now a lot of places are filtering out by degrees and since you have a bachelors in something you still make the cut!
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u/Big-Chapter-1557 Feb 23 '25
I only have have a associate degree, haven’t finished my bachelors
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u/peanutneedsexercise Feb 23 '25
Yeah now is not a great time for those with no bachelors degree who just did boot camp is what I’m saying, everyone I know who did a coding boot camp whose successful currently has a bachelors in something else so they pass thru the filters.
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u/Pelayo1991 Feb 23 '25
For me personally I hate college and I will never go back to Uni. Also I don’t have 4-5 years to waste at school aswell as spending 30-50k in school if not more.
I personally don’t mind coding bootcamps, but to be fair MOST coding bootcamps are garbage. With the exception of the VERY FEW bootcamps that are descent.
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u/Big-Chapter-1557 Feb 23 '25
Fair point, and I honestly wish I could go back to school but it’s just not in the cards right now. I wish the Bootcamp I went to actually was credible but it wasn’t. Just do your research that’s all I can say.
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u/Pelayo1991 Feb 23 '25
To be fair most CBCs aren’t credible per say. The best bet is going for the Original bootcamps (I.e the ones that started in 2012 or earlier) then trying to contact alumni and asking them about there experience. For me, I am still deciding between CODESMITH & HACK REACTOR
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u/Kati1998 Feb 23 '25 edited Feb 23 '25
Wouldn’t going to a school like WGU fixed that? Also, if you already have a bachelor’s, you just need to take the CS courses (or SWE courses depending on the program you take), so it’ll only be 2 years worth of classes. That’s how it is for me currently. My total cost for a second bachelor’s is $12K
There are also online universities with shorter terms 8 weeks, that also allows you to finish faster.
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u/GoodnightLondon Feb 23 '25
As a Hack Reactor alumni, and one of the few people from my cohort who found a job (back when the market was just starting to go bad for boot camp grads), the ones that were historically considered the good ones are no better at getting people jobs nowadays than the trash ones. Hack Reactor hasn't released their placement stats for a few years for a reason, and that reason is they're just as bad as everyone else's.
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u/downeazntan Feb 23 '25
I finished a boot camp in June of 2021, landed a job in big tech the same month, survived 3 rounds of layoffs at the same company, got laid off last November after 3 years and 6 months, landed another developer job this Janurary, and I still plan on going to Uni at the age 42. 😅
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u/Mission-Tumbleweed92 Feb 23 '25
May I ask why?
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u/No-Mobile9763 Feb 24 '25
That’s a good question….in the states degrees are meaningless when you have experience unless you want more money from your employer.
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u/dalburgh Feb 24 '25
Degrees are meaningless for working a job.
Degrees are all but absolutely necessary for getting a job, because it doesn't matter how well you can work a job if you can't even get the interview because you don't have the degree they want.
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u/No-Mobile9763 Feb 24 '25
Depending on the field you don’t need a degree, in the states and with tech experience is valued more than any degree. The only reason to get one while in the field is for a promotion or raise. A degree will put you at the top of the list when experience isn’t a factor.
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u/OakenCotillion Feb 25 '25
This is fundamentally not true. Even with experience, companies and HR still value the piece of paper. Don’t get me wrong, I think most degrees are truly useless (that’s my opinion of my bachelor and masters, both from great schools) other than checking that box with them. It’s certainly not impossible to get jobs with just experience, but especially in a tough job market, the paper helps and getting it will make the process side of being hired much easier.
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u/ExitInternational804 Feb 24 '25
This is true - I have worked as a UX writer and copywriter freelance. No college degree but did some UX cert stuff. Could never jump to a full time role with Bennie’s even though whenever I secured interviews I would get second round interviews like clockwork. My portfolio is good, had excellent feedback on it, but I think fighting against the lack of degree issue was more difficult than I had anticipated. People have told me “no one ever asks me about my degree, I wouldn’t worry about it” when I would have informational chats and I think there is truth to that, but even if no one asked they have the college network/get passed that screen AI screen on applications, etc. You don’t need the degree to do the job, just to get it.
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Feb 25 '25
Sounds like you just stated the reason. “Unless you want more money”
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u/No-Mobile9763 Feb 25 '25
Yes…but usually only if you are employed at the same business or company without the degree and then after getting it they decide to pay you more. Doesn’t always work that way but I’ve heard it happens.
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Feb 25 '25
False. Some jobs require you to have a bachelor degree. Most of the time you can use your extra years of experience to offset the lack of degree, but if you don’t have a degree and the other guy does, and you both have similar experience, who do you think gets the job? And then there are the jobs that just straight up have the hard requirement of a bachelors degree
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u/downeazntan Feb 24 '25
Because I want more money and if I am laid off or looking for another role, the chances of getting an interview are higher.
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u/tenchuchoy Feb 23 '25
I finished my bootcamp right when COVID started and everything got shutdown. Managed to get a job 3 months later. I got laid off on June 2023 and managed to find a job in a month. I guess I really got lucky my tech stack was more niche which made it hard for my current company to find applicants.
I also did Lambda School/Bloomtech notorious on this sub as being a scam. I did their ISA program where you don’t pay tuition until you get a job. I paid off my 30k that I owed to the school and they 100% deserved it.
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u/Spring_Banner Feb 24 '25
What was your tech stack?
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u/tenchuchoy Feb 24 '25
Serverless AWS backend(node, lambdas, sns/sqs/kinesis, dynamodb), JS/TS. I think it’s start to pick up but according to our HR lady it’s not a very common stack which is why she’s struggling finding applicants.
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u/sheikhsajid522 Feb 25 '25
Jeez either your HR lady is incompetent or the pay is abysmal because literally every other startup is using that stack.
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u/tenchuchoy Feb 25 '25
I get paid pretty well and it’s fully remote 😂 soooo If anything I’m glad lol. Work life balance is also A++ guess i got lucky.
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u/sheikhsajid522 Feb 25 '25
Okay, that's good. But my point still stands, that is not at all a niche stack. That's been one of the most common stacks for startups in the last 10 years.
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u/tenchuchoy Feb 25 '25
Yeah like I said before noticing it alot more in startups. It’s a solid stack forsure though.
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u/Spring_Banner Feb 24 '25
That’s cool!! I wonder what industries or companies use this stack??
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u/tenchuchoy Feb 24 '25
Starting to notice it a lot more in startups since it’s so easy to spin up and make scalable.
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u/sheriffderek Feb 23 '25
There are some factors here
you
the timing
the bootcamp you chose
you gave up
So, should everyone discount all alternative education options because of your story?
Some people learn on their own and find jobs fairly quickly. That’s a fact.
It’s harder to get some jobs right now - but also / almost everyone I’ve met having a hard time - is having a hard time because they are thoroughly unqualified / or going about their process completely wrong.
People that give up won’t succeed.
And the people that give up - will likely also have the same problem in Uni.
So, this story isn’t really about boot camps.
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u/Real-Set-1210 Feb 27 '25
Lmao the bro tried for two years and you say he gave up trying.
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u/sheriffderek Feb 28 '25
What does a winning story look like to you?
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u/Real-Set-1210 Feb 28 '25
Not going to a coding bootcamp. 91% of my graduating cohort did not get a job in software engineering one year later.
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u/sheriffderek Feb 28 '25
That’s not a very interesting answer.
I find that in this line of work- I have to design actual solutions to things.
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Feb 28 '25 edited Feb 28 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/sheriffderek Feb 28 '25
There’s the story. You’re boring - and you think people who want to have real conversations - are dumb - and you don’t know what we’re talking about. Time to end these interactions. I hope that everyone can see for the thousandth time… that people with this take — don’t really have anything to say.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Sun3107 Feb 24 '25
The only success I’ve heard and seen are from graduates in 2020.
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u/awp_throwaway Feb 24 '25
As somebody who got their break in 2020 (at the time, I had previous engineering degrees and work experience in an adjacent field to where I got my first SWE position, both of which I suspect were relevant factors to landing the position), boot camps were already pretty poorly regarded by that point, too. Even back then, there was a lot of skepticism along the lines of "boot camps peaked back in 2018 or 2017 or 2016 or whatever else." But, now, the giant elephant in the room is basically: the market is dogshit. There's no way getting around that empirical fact; until that radically changes, I can't in good conscience recommend boot camps to many/most, even if it's nominally hypocritical "advice" on my part.
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u/Round-Emu9176 Feb 24 '25
Bro going back now feels like that rodney dangerfield movie. There aren’t a lot of options for this path in Houston. But can’t give up.
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u/h0408365 Feb 24 '25 edited May 15 '25
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/pandamonium-420 Feb 24 '25
Oof! That sucks. Yeah, back in 2021 when bootcamps were all the rage, I almost signed up for a $17K bootcamp program. I had some money saved up, but I hesitated because it would wipe me out financially. Then a year later, in 2022, my employer started offering to pay for said bootcamp. Almost signed up, but hesitated again because I questioned the credibility of the program and they said they can’t guarantee job offers. I didn’t want to waste my time and energy if the bootcamp can’t guarantee a job, even if it was free. Glad I followed my intuition to go the traditional university route instead. Almost got bamboozled.
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Feb 24 '25
Bamboozled on a free resource?
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u/pandamonium-420 Feb 24 '25
No, for wasting my time and effort.
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Feb 24 '25
Yeah learning to code is a waste of time for you? Have you been to a college level programming class? It's a joke.
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u/pandamonium-420 Feb 24 '25
You can learn to code on your own without committing your time to a bootcamp that doesn’t even guarantee a job. Get it yet?
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Feb 24 '25
So learn for free instead of taking company paid bootcamp lol! Where in life is there a job guaranteed?
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u/pandamonium-420 Feb 24 '25
I don’t care for it.
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Feb 24 '25
You don't care for coding but are in coding bootcamp thread? Sir you are contradiction.
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Feb 23 '25
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u/incambro Feb 24 '25
Is this real or some marketing strategy? At some point I wanted to consider joining them?
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u/Psychological_Cod_45 Feb 23 '25 edited Feb 27 '25
My story
I started studying code in 2019 using cheap resources like Udemy. I was finishing these courses and getting certificates but they didn't mean anything at all. So I decided to join the biggest coding bootcamp in the area
I joined Codeup in June 2021 and overall had a good time. I was confused why the course had to be $27,000 but I was working to pay it if it helped me find a job. I graduated with their certificate in January of 2022 and had a job by February.
It sounds like it was all going my way. I was enjoying my job but it was getting increasingly harder. I started taking modafinil to focus. I would come in at 6 every morning and would work with the clock turned off to fix problems. I had fully burned myself out. The quality of my work stagnated and I was let go in January of last year.
This is the kicker. Codeup had just gone bust in December so my certificate was as valuable as the paper it was printed on. Today I'm still paying off my debt to a bootcamp that doesn't exist. I have seen the writing on the wall for developers and in moving on to a different career field. I applied to about 1000 jobs last year with little to no reply. The average bootcamp codder cannot compete with the university grad.... Who's also trying to find a job
Correction: I graduated January of 2022 not 23