| | Sean Blanchard | First of all, I feel my situation is not typical. I have been working in the Maritime industry since 2012, and finally came to a point where I knew a change was needed. This whole coding thing kept popping up everywhere, such as research on high income skills and podcasts, so I started off with some free online resources to get my feet wet. After a while, I knew I had to seek out people already in this field, and pick their brains about the best ways to learn and ultimately land a job. I jumped on meetup, and came across a group open to anyone that gathered once a week. Once there, I noticed a pattern almost immediately, everyone I talked to that had the type of job that I was seeking out had attended a bootcamp. After some research on bootcamps, turns out there's only 2 in-person bootcamps in the New Orleans area. One was thousands of dollars, and required about 6 months or more of dedication, full time, and no guarantee of a job after all that. There's even a point where you go 6 days a week for 12 or so hours a day. Having a mortgage and other commitments, it just wasn't in the cards for me. Tech Talent South was other school and was much more reasonable. Instead of months on end, without the ability to work, they have different classes, so you can basically go in the direction of your choosing. The basic class is called Code Immersion, and they have others as well such as Javascript development, Rails development, UI/UX, etc. Best part for me, the Code Immersion had a part time option. So, my full time job in the Maritime industry requires me to work on call 6 days at a time, but I was able to negotiate with my boss and have a schedule that allowed me to take the part time class.
Having said all of that, the class was only 2 nights a week and 8 weeks long. For me, the benefit came from dedicating the time to learning the subject. Had I tried on my own via online, I would never get as much done as I wanted to. The curriculum is good for beginners. The class revolved around Ruby/Ruby on Rails. The instructor was very approachable and knowledgeable. Ultimately, we didn't finish the project we were working on during class because we ran out of time. I think the class needs to be a bit longer. The best part, however, was the community part of it all. They set us up with tours of some of the best Tech companies in town, and had guest speakers regularly. This is where the pay off was. I made it a point to attend anything and everything. And every time I went to an event or tour, I made sure to get a couple LinkedIn connections out of it. This alone led me to get several interviews. None of the interviews led to a job, but it got my foot in the door, and they now have a face to my name.
With my particular situation, the only class I could take was the part time Code Immersion. After 8 weeks, my boss at the full time job needed me back on the same schedule as everyone else, so I couldn't take anymore classes. However, I kept attending the tours and events that I could make. I also kept attending the weekly meetups from the beginning of my story. I kept meeting other alumni, past and present, and through these alumni connections, I landed a job as a QA tester.
My whole point is no bootcamp is going to be a magic bullet. As with anything in life, it comes down to what you put into it. Some people may just want to learn a little bit out of interest, but I was looking for a career change. As for Tech Talent South, I would absolutely take more classes, if my schedule had allowed, but after class I kept learning all that I could and had to rely on other online sources. The people were great, I really enjoyed class, and I love being plugged into the Tech scene now in New Orleans. If you're thinking about trying Tech Talent South, go for it. Compared to other schools, if its not for you, at least it didn't cost you $15K - $20K to figure that out, and if it is, you can build your own path. Stay connected, put in the work, and go to all the events! |
