In This Chapter

Learning about the coding boot camp experience

Seeing the daily and weekly boot camp curriculum

Deciding which boot camp is right for you

What we face may look insurmountable. But I learned something from all those years of training … we are always stronger than we know.

—Arnold Schwarzenegger

The words boot camp historically referred to the intense three to four months of training given to new recruits in the armed forces. These programs are famous for their grueling physical tests, direct instruction, and intense motivation. Coding boot camps are not nearly as intense as the military version, but the goal is similar — to train a person with little or no technical skills in a short period of time to be a professional.

This chapter describes coding boot camps, helps you decide whether the boot camp experience is for you, and fills you in on what to do before attending and after graduating.

Discovering Coding Boot Camps

Coding boot camps are classes designed to turn students with little to no programming experience into employable junior-level developers in about three months. Students come from different backgrounds, including grocery store clerks, coffee baristas, IT support engineers, marketers, and financial research analysts.

The experience ranges from 8 to 13 weeks. In-person coding boot camps usually take place in a dedicated facility. Each week, students spend 70 to 80 hours learning, with instructors teaching classes from 9 to 6 during the weekdays. Students complete homework assignments and projects in the evenings and on weekends. The instruction is usually interactive: A concept or method is explained, and then students work together to complete an example to implement the concept or method. Working in groups of two, as shown in Figure 10-1, is often referred to as pair programming.

Coding boot camps were founded in early 2012 in San Francisco, and the concept has since exploded, with over 40 coding boot camps appearing in New York, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles, Omaha, and other cities both big and small. Coding boot camps collectively trained almost 6,000 graduates in 2014, which is significant considering that US colleges grant approximately 50,000 computer science degrees per year.

Unlike US colleges, coding boot camps are not accredited and do not have a standardized curriculum. As such, boot camps differ in quality, outcomes, instructors, and attendees. Later sections describe how to filter and choose the right boot camp for you.

Compared to traditional online learning, the retention and graduation rates for coding boot camps are high. Some online courses have seen hundreds of thousands of student enrollees, but on average across online classes of different sizes only 5 to 10 percent of enrolled students complete a course. By contrast, approximately 80 to 90 percent of enrolled students finish an in-person coding boot camp, and of those, 85 to 95 percent find employment that uses their newly learned programming skills. A few major factors help contribute to these outcomes, including personalized attention from an instructor and support from your peers when you get stuck.

These graduation and employment results, dedicated classroom spaces, and high-quality teachers come at a cost. The average cost to attend a coding boot camp is $10,000, and the price can go as high as $15,000. (A few camps are free.) In addition to tuition, you also need to pay for living in the city where the boot camp is located. Limited financing options exist, such as loans from alternative lenders, discounts for underrepresented groups in the tech industry, and grants from federal, state, and city agencies. Still, most participants pay for coding boot camps out of pocket.

In popular locations such as San Francisco or New York, rent, utilities, food, and transportation can add another $6,500 to the cost of a 10-week boot camp. This figure assumes monthly costs of $1,500 for rent, $700 for food, $200 for utilities, and $200 for transportation.

One item you’ll need is a laptop. A laptop will make it easy for you to work in class and continue your work at home. MacBook Pro and Air laptops are popular among boot camp attendees and in startup professional environments because they are easy to set up, render graphics in high detail, and run a version of Unix, for which many coding utilities are written. However, Apple laptops are expensive, with retail prices of $2,000 or more. Alternatively, you can use any laptop running Linux, with prices starting as low as $200. Finally, you can use a laptop running Microsoft Windows, but you will need to spend more time setting up your computer. For details on the various options, see the section in Chapter 9 on spending money to learn coding.

Some boot camps earn a referral fee when they introduce you to an employer and the employer hires you. The demand for people who can code exceeds the supply of qualified coders, so companies are willing to pay others to find talented candidates. Traditional recruiters earn approximately 15 percent of the full-time annual salary for a successfully hired candidate, so the referral fee earned by the boot camp can range from $7,000 to $15,000. In some cases, the boot camp will pass a portion of the referral fee on to you as a hiring bonus.

Boot camps that earn a referral fee can have different incentives than you. In theory, a boot camp might be influenced to steer you toward a lower-quality employer paying a referral fee instead of a higher-quality employer that is not paying a referral fee. To manage this conflict, always make sure you know whether the boot camp will receive an incentive fee if you accept an offer, and make sure you apply to a broad range of companies so you can consider multiple options before making a decision.

Filtering Boot Camps by Topic and Quality

Boot camps come in different sizes and also vary in the following dimensions:

• Topic: Boot camps teach specific topics and usually teach one main programming language. The major topics are web development, mobile app development, and data science, and for each topic a different programming language is emphasized.
• Quality: Generally the instructor’s previous experience, the quality of the facility, and the graduate job placement rate contribute to the quality of the experience you will have during and after attending a boot camp.
• Type: Most boot camps charge an upfront fee, but some are sponsored by companies or government agencies as part of workforce development grants. A few coding camps are free.
• Delivery: Most boot camps are organized around in-person classes, which make it easy for instructors to provide setup and debugging help when you get stuck. A few online options, such as thinkful.com and bloc.io , provide support through screen sharing and live video chats. You can read more about these online options in Chapter 9 in the section on adding mentor support.

Coding boot camps usually teach web development, data science, and mobile app development. Of the three topics, web development is the easiest and most commonly taught.

Web development can be accomplished with Ruby, Python, PHP, and many other languages, but almost 60 percent of boot camps that teach web development teach Ruby and the Rails framework, in addition to HTML and CSS. Ruby is popular, in part, because it is a simple language to teach, well documented, and common among startups, which hire many boot camp graduates.

By contrast, data science boot camps primarily teach Python because it has more supporting libraries and applications designed for data analysis.

Finally, boot camps that teach mobile app development, which is the hardest of the three topics, are primarily geared toward iOS development and teach Objective-C.

Given the price tag of boot camps, make sure you are signing up for a high-quality experience, which you can assess in a few ways. First, boot camp instructors are either good engineers, with years of coding experience in the language being taught, or good teachers, with previous experience teaching beginners. If you’re lucky, your instructor will be strong in both engineering and teaching. Second, see how long the boot camp you are considering has been open. Boot camps are popping up at a fast pace, and newer boot camps may still be working out the kinks with logistics, curriculum, and attracting employers to hire graduates. Finally, ask the boot camp what the job placement rate is for students who graduate the program; the rate should be 80 percent or higher.

You can verify a boot camp’s job placement rate by using LinkedIn to find recent graduates and seeing the roles and companies where they’re working. Top boot camps place graduates in junior developer or quality assurance testing roles at well-funded startups and Fortune 500 companies such as Yahoo! and PayPal. Additionally, many boot camp graduates write reviews on Quora, blog about their experiences, and have extensive online profiles with links to their email address and Twitter username, so feel free to reach out and ask for a candid review of the program.

The high price of coding boot camps might scare you off, but their recent success has created some opportunities to attend for free. Federal agencies, encouraged by technology education initiatives promoted by President Obama, have released grants to coding boot camps to lower the cost of attending for underrepresented and rural populations.

Similarly, some cities, such as New York, have used workforce development grants to sponsor boot camp classes for citizens who have not attended college and earn less than $50,000. Additionally, boot camps themselves lower the cost of attendance. Some boot camps have an initial highly selective application process but are free to attend; employee referral fees and corporate sponsorships fund these boot camps. Other boot camps offer $500 to $2,000 tuition discounts for women and minorities.

The boot camps in Table 10-1, which are sorted by topic, are some of the more established and well regarded in the United States. If one of these is not available in your city, use this data as a benchmark to evaluate other boot camps you may be considering.

Of the companies listed in Table 10-1, General Assembly has the most locations and graduates the most students. The only full-time coding course the company offers is web development, but there are part-time courses for both data and mobile development. The most expensive web development program is Hack Reactor, which justifies its higher cost because it offers 50 percent more formal instruction than other programs, with classes six days a week for 11 hours a day.

The dominant boot camp in the south is Iron Yard, with locations in North and South Carolina, Texas, Arkansas, Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee, and Florida. The company, along with Flatiron School, also offers courses in mobile app development for Apple devices. Although mobile device use is rising quickly, boot camps have yet to embrace teaching mobile app development, in part because of the increased difficulty of learning mobile programming languages.

Two companies, Zipfian and Metis, each teach a data science boot camp. Metis is a subsidiary of Kaplan, an established education company known for its test preparation products. In addition to learning to code, these programs also emphasize data science theory by teaching topics such as big data processing, machine learning algorithms, and natural language analysis.

The Recurse Center, formerly known as Hacker School, has a different model than the other boot camps listed. There is no fee to attend, nor is there a set curriculum. Students apply to attend and are screened for their interest in learning; those who are accepted form their own self-directed learning plan. You might pursue learning web development, creating a programming language, or coding a game. Fellow students and resident mentors help support you and answer questions throughout the program, which culminates with a project. Companies sponsor the program and pay a referral fee if they hire a graduate, though there is no obligation for any graduate to accept a job. Similar programs in data science that charge no tuition include Insight Data Science, available at insightdatascience.com and the Data Incubator, available at www.thedataincubator.com.

The acceptance rate for programs with no attendance fee is less than 5 percent — many students apply, and the programs select students most likely to succeed after completing the curriculum. Give yourself an edge in your application by highlighting the reasons why you want to learn to code and why you will be a successful graduate.

Understanding the Coding Boot Camp Curriculum

Boot camp courses run every week day for ten to twelve weeks. Boot camps vary in the structure of their curriculum, so find out the specifics for the boot camps you’re considering. A daily boot camp schedule should include time for the following:

• Live instruction: An instructor should explain basic concepts and highlight areas where students typically get stuck, helping save you time when troubleshooting.
• Application: Learning by doing is often the best way to make concepts stick. In-class time to complete exercises and challenges cements concepts so you can keep practicing on your own after class is over.
• Pair programming: Learning with someone else will help you resolve problems more quickly and see how others approach the same problem. Additionally, as you work together, and see how someone else solves problems you’ll create and add to a mental checklist of things to check when problems arise.
• Office hours: Sometimes you and your pair programming partner will not be able to solve an issue on your own, or maybe you don’t understand a particular concept. Office hours give you the personalized one-on-one help to get up to speed and keep pace with the rest of the group.
• Industry speakers: As a career switcher, you should soak up as much as possible from others in the industry. Look for talks from industry veterans and successful boot camp graduates on challenges and rewards of the job, cultures at various companies, and the latest technology developments. See Figure 10-2.

Following is a sample web development boot camp daily schedule. When coding boot camps say you will eat, breathe, and sleep code you’ll see that they aren’t kidding!

You’ll repeat a rough version of this daily schedule for 10 to 12 weeks. Toward the end of program, less time will be spent on instruction, and more of your day will be allocated to completing your final project.

From the start to finish of the course, you should learn these core skills:

• Languages and frameworks: A variety of programming languages are used to make a professional looking websites, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, and Ruby. In addition, frameworks and libraries such as Bootstrap for HTML and CSS, Rails for Ruby, and Backbone.js for JavaScript make programming faster and easier for you.
• Databases: Permanently storing, retrieving, and updating data is necessary for almost every web application. As a bonus, look for courses that cover both relational SQL databases and nonrelational NoSQL databases.
• Version control: You’ll almost always write code in teams when you work at a company. Version control software such as Git allows multiple people to write code on the same program at the same time without problems.
• Specialization: In a class of 20 to 40 students, getting time to learn on your own will help differentiate you from everyone else. Learning a popular API or framework, with support from your peers and instructors, can help you stand out.
• Capstone project: Employers screen candidates by assessing the final project a student builds toward the end of the boot camp. Choose a project that you find meaningful, and make sure there is enough time in the schedule, usually two to four weeks, to code something technically challenging so other developers will be interested in how you put it together. See Figure 10-3.

The following is a sample week-by-week web development boot camp schedule focused on Ruby and Rails. Many boot camps assign pre-work, and assume that when you arrive you’ll already be familiar with basic HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Ruby on Rails.

A lot of material is covered in these ten weeks. You will get stuck at some point — avoid getting discouraged and keep your motivation high by asking for help when needed from your peers and instructors.

Choosing the Right Boot Camp for You

With so many available boot camp options even after you’ve filtered by topic and quality, and the significant expense to attend most of them, take the time to think about which boot camp is the right choice for you. Keep the following in mind at as you weigh your options:

• Your personality: Boot camps provide many opportunities for you to work with others and learn from an instructor. Still, the bulk of time spent learning in a boot camp will be on your own. Honestly assess whether you have a self-driven, problem-solving personality, which will help you keep learning when the material becomes tough.
• Your obligations: Attending a boot camp will leave you with little free time. Before you start, you should be free from as many personal obligations as possible. For example, avoid working a full- or part-time job, cancel vacations that conflict with the boot camp, and let your friends and loved ones know that for three months your availability will less than normal.
• Boot camp’s location: Boot camps are located in multiple cities. Ideally, choose a city where you feel comfortable and where you will want to work after graduation. You don’t have to attend a boot camp in your current city, especially if the city is small, has limited opportunities for work at technology companies, or you are ready to leave and try another city. In addition, while graduates do pursue jobs nationally, boot camps have the strongest relationship with local employers.
• People at boot camp: You’ll spend a lot of time with boot camp instructors, staff, and fellow students. Different instructors have different teaching styles, which you may or may not like. Similarly, boot camps attract different types of students, and you should confirm that you feel comfortable with the general student mix.

If possible, attend an event at the boot camp or take a tour of the facility. There is no substitute for seeing the facility and meeting the instructors in-person.

Applying to a Coding Boot Camp

Boot camps require that prospective students complete an application, and accept anywhere from 5 to 20 percent of applicants. The application helps the boot camp identify those most likely to succeed. Additionally, boot camps are evaluated on their job placement rate, and select candidates with profiles that will be interesting to potential employers. Here is a sampling of the questions asked on the application, and advice on how best to answer:

• Why are you applying to this boot camp?

  Whether you’re applying to one or multiple boot camps, show in your applications that you’ve done your homework and have a reason for applying to each specific program. Perhaps you’ve spoken to an alumnus, read reviews online, or attended a sample class and enjoyed learning from the teacher.

  Almost every boot camp has in-person or live video info sessions covering the boot camp curriculum, alumni, and application. Attend at least a few to get a sense of the boot camp and what your expectations should be.

• What is your previous coding experience?

  Don’t fret if you don’t have formal coding experience. The real question here is if you previously tried to learn to code, especially because many free resources are available online. It’s worth trying to code before applying because boot camps assign prework — online courses you must complete before you join. If you’ve completed some online coding courses or, better yet, built a website (no matter how simple), include the course name or website address in your application.

  Codecademy.com is one of several free resources with online courses that many boot camps assign as prework. For additional resources, see the section in Chapter 9 on learning from online websites.

• Why do you want to become a programmer?

  You might want to become a programmer for many different reasons. Perhaps you want to advance your career, build an app that solves a problem you’re experiencing, or become a maker instead of a manager. Whatever your reason, it should be meaningful and serve as motivation during the highs and lows of your boot camp experience. Poor reasons to learn to code include “wanting to become rich” (the average coder’s salary is $70,000), or “because coding is easy” (becoming job ready can take at least 700 hours).

• Describe a time when you solved a complex problem in a structured, step-by-step way.

  Many problems you’ll face when coding will seem impossible to solve. If you try solutions at random or haphazardly, reaching a resolution will take much longer. The key to solving any complex problem is to list every step that might be at fault, and then methodically test each step. For example, if you turn on a light switch and the light bulb doesn’t turn on, you know the problem must either be the light switch, the wiring to the light socket, the light socket itself, or the light bulb. You can find the problem by testing or replacing each part, usually starting with the light bulb. Debugging a program follows a similar process. If you haven’t debugged a program, describe any complex process or problem and the systematic approach you used to find the answer.

• Describe your previous educational and professional experiences.

  Neither a college degree nor a current job is necessary to join a coding boot camp, though both show the ability to follow through with a commitment. For education, list anything that might show your aptitude and ability to learn. If you did not receive a college degree, include completed courses. For professional experiences, a history of consistent employment and increasing responsibility are positive signals of your future ability to be a good employee.

• Write a program that counts the numbers from 3 to 117. But for multiples of 3, add 3 instead of 1, and for multiples of 5, add 5 instead of 1. For numbers that are multiples of both 3 and 5, add 15 instead of 1.

  Boot camp applications can include a programming challenge, like the preceding question from the Zipfian Academy application, which requires you to write code. You can usually write the answer in any programming language — understanding your logic is the most important part of the question. This specific question is a variation of a popular programming challenge called Fizzbuzz and can be solved by using a programming loop and testing each number for its divisibility by 3, 5, and 15.

• List your LinkedIn profile.

  After you start looking for a coding job, your LinkedIn profile is a critical piece of your application. Get your profile in shape now and update your profile to include an accurate employment history, descriptions of each employer and role, and the leadership positions or effect you had. See Figure 10-4.

Some boot camps will ask if you’re an international applicant in need of a visa. The overwhelming majority of boot camps are not officially recognized educational institutions. Although previous students may have successfully applied for visas, it is unlikely that the boot camp will be able to give you a great deal of assistance with the visa process.

Preparing to Attend a Coding Boot Camp

Congratulations — you’ve been accepted to a coding boot camp. Before you officially join, you’ll need to complete the prework, which is work the boot camp assigns you to complete before you arrive, and pay for your education.

Completing the prework

When learning a foreign language, much of the initial work is learning the syntax and vocabulary. Learning to code is no different, except mistakes in syntax or commands can result in your code not running at all. Coding boot camps assign you prework to expose you to programming languages and tools so you become more comfortable with how they operate. Depending on how quickly you progress, the prework can take 50 to 100 hours to complete.

You can view the complete prework for the Flatiron School’s web development and iOS development courses by visiting prework.flatironschool.com .

The following topics are typically included in prework. I’ve included resources for you to learn more:

• HTML and CSS: These markup languages display and style content on web pages. Practice for free without installing any software by using the Codecademy web course (shown in Figure 10-5), which is available at www.codecademy.com/tracks/web .
• JavaScript and jQuery: Both add interactivity and allow you to take user input, store variables, and change elements on web pages. Learn more by using Codecademy’s JavaScript course, at www.codecademy.com/tracks/javascript , and jQuery course, at www.codecademy.com/tracks/jquery .
• Command line: Operate your computer and run programs without using your mouse. Many programs are written only for the command line, also called bash, so learning how to use the command line is not optional. Try your hand at the command line with an interactive shell tutorial available at learnshell.org. You might also want to read Zed Shaw’s Learn the Command Line the Hard Way, available atcli.learncodethehardway.org/book .
• Git: Git allows you to save multiple versions of your code and work with others. Code School has an online Git tutorial at www.codeschool.com/courses/try-git .
• SQL databases: Every web application uses a database to store, modify, and retrieve data. Learn SQL, the language used to access databases, with an interactive SQL course at sqlzoo.net/wiki/SQL_Tutorial .
• Ruby and Rails: Ruby is a programming language, and Rails is a framework to make coding Ruby web applications easier. You can learn Ruby with Codecademy’s Ruby course, at www.codecademy.com/tracks/ruby , and Rails with Code School’s Rails for Zombies course, at railsforzombies.org .
• Design: Much of a developer’s work is translating a designer’s vision into code. Understand the visual principles that guide how websites are designed by signing up for email lessons curated by design professionals and available on Hack Design at hackdesign.org .

As you complete these coding exercises, start brainstorming on what coding project you would want to build as your capstone project to show employers. As your coding ability increases, so too will the ideas you have for your project.

Financing your education

The cost of a coding boot camp averages $10,000 and can be as high as $18,000. Paying the fee up-front is the cheapest option, but you may not have the savings on hand to afford the entire sum at once. Several options exist that allow students to pay the fees in installments:

• Boot camp financing plans: Boot camps offer various financing plans, including installment plans, which spread the cost evenly over 12 to 24 months, and deferment plans, which delay up to 50 percent of the payment up to six months after the boot camp has finished. The additional cost for installment and deferment plans can range from zero to an additional 15 percent of the total cost.
• Traditional bank lenders: Apply for a personal loan from a traditional bank. Interest rates will vary based on your credit history. You can view quotes across a variety of lenders by using LendingTree, at www.lendingtree.com/quotes/personal-loans.html .
• Alternative lenders: In addition to your credit score, alternative online lenders use factors such as educational history, income, savings, and job history to reduce the cost of loans underwritten by traditional banks and to pass the savings to consumers through lower interest rates. See Figure 10-6. You can receive a quote by visiting lenders such as affirm.com and meetearnest.com .
• Investor-backed loans: These platforms allow lenders to invest in specific people and educational or business goals. You receive a loan at a fixed interest rate based on multiple factors, similar to alternative lenders. Receive a quote by visiting platforms such as upstart.com and pave.com .
• Crowdfunding: Solicit pledges from your friends, family, and social networks to fund your tuition with a crowdfunding campaign. Backers are charged only if the sum of all pledges exceeds your goal, in this case your tuition. Websites such as crowdtilt.com enable you to promote your campaign and collect payments for a 5 percent fee of total funds raised.
• Government grants: Workforce training, economic development, and education grants are given directly to coding boot camps to reduce the cost for certain groups. However, individuals cannot directly apply for Pell or Stafford loans because coding boot camps are currently not considered a qualified education institution.

Finding a Job after a Coding Boot Camp

At the end of your boot camp experience, you should have greater confidence, increased abilities, and a larger portfolio than when you started. You will have completed a difficult journey and may be tempted to take a break. However, your work is not over yet! You’ll need to network with employers, convince them of your newly learned skills, and go through the interview process to secure a job offer.

Hiring managers are turning to coding boot camps in increasing numbers. Startups are especially receptive to hiring boot camp graduates because the existing team is small, the need for talent is great, the formal procedures are few, and hiring an additional coder would have a great effect. The recruiting process becomes more challenging as the size of the company increases. Bigger companies have more established hiring processes, and some recruiters still use traditional screens, which shortlist applicants based on college, major, and GPA.

Whether you’re recruiting for a position in a large or small company, the basic recruiting strategies remain the same: Network to build as many personal relationships as possible, and put enough time into your final portfolio project to show off what you can do after a few months of intense preparation. The goal is to convince just one recruiter or hiring manager that you have the aptitude and the attitude to continue learning on the job at a fast pace. Your boot camp will help you by reviewing your resumes, helping you practice interview skills, and organizing events with employers, but you’ll need to do most of the work involved in setting up interviews and winning the job offer.