| | Anonymous | Great points:
-Great atmosphere, you get to meet people, make friends etc. For someone like me, this is great.
-Course content is actually interesting AND effective! you will forget about doing udemy or udacity (both of which are low quality, although udemy is slightly better). The reason is that the course makes you... 'think', unlike these courses mentioned above where you are blindly following tutorial after tutorial, and you learn the technologies for a long time in order to get it 'handled' where you are confident for an interview. So in this aspect the course is great, as let you develop that thinking skill so you are adaptable when a situation changes. This point is by far the most overlooked when comparing bootcamps and online courses, especially when you start out.
- Great teachers in general, however you do need to be proactive in asking questions- especially for your assignments.
- High caliber of students - you have people who went to Oxford and Cambridge, and working alongside them was great.
Things to note:
- For those people who have already decided on getting a front end position, this might not be a 'direct' solution as the front end part is quite small. So you might have to take some time (1-2 months) coming out of the course to learn the front end in order to apply for front end positions. I did not pass some React technical tests because I was not fully prepared. The majority of students got back end jobs I would say.
- Which brings me to the second subject: when coming out of the course you need to have a 'strategy', and this point had not been stressed as much as I would like, mainly because everyone's strategy, interests, and goals are different. But I still think there should be some talk about what the 'market' wants. There are a couple of strategies, such as learning a new language that you like, learning front end, etc. When you see openings on the web, there are about 50% front end positions and 50% back end positions, but there are less back end positions that fit if you are just coming out of the course. This is due to the fact that:
1) There are lot of 'old' back end jobs (PHP for example), which require a bit more study time
2) Some companies in the UK (and around the world) are a bit reluctant to hire juniors for back end positions (you might be dealing with important databases, etc), and many are not aware of what bootcamps do and the quality they provide.
3) People are more willing to let people do the front end and it can be regarded as an 'easy route in'.
A couple of strategies (depending on what your interests are):
- learn React (for 1 month) and get it 'sorted', apply for React positions at startups. Pro: there are a lot of demand, and you will get a job.
- learn another back end language which you like
- 'red sea' strategy: learn python and compete with every other guy and his dog who are learning python these days. Why? because you love it.
- if not under too much time pressure, take a step back, and do some interviews, see what sort of stuff you like, and learn that technology well. Generally if its early stage startups, there is more demand for front end. |
