There are many opportunities for those seeking a career change and investing in themselves. Thousands of office professionals across the country want to get less out of the time they spend traveling. But unlike previous generations, the modern career changer is not eager to plunge back into massive amounts of debt. Instead of taking out six-figure loans in the hope that aexpensive mastery will be worth it, more and more people are looking for coding boot camps. The Numbers Are Impressive: Course ReportProjectsthat coding bootcamp enrollment increased by a remarkable 39% in 2020.
There are many reasons why this is an attractive proposition. Over the next ten years, software developer jobs are expected to grow to meet high demand driven primarily by tech companies, legacy corporations that have fallen behind on digital (or fear they will), and startups that are building the next big unicorn. Salaries reflect this level of demand and the difficulty HR teams have in finding a good software engineer. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)projects that software developersthey are expected to be in demand at 22%, while the median salary for a software developer continues to rise to $116,000.
You're probably looking into bootcamps because you want to change careers by learning, practicing, and applying an ageless skill. Not alone. Although perhaps the most important question at the beginning stage of a coding bootcamp quest needs to be answered first: "What do I need to know about an immersive bootcamp and where can I find it?"
What to Know Before Enrolling in a Coding Bootcamp
It's important to understand the risks and rewards of attending an intensive coding school in general. Before reading this section, take a mental inventory of your personal goals and events (including your partner's and family's goals), your money's worthand your time, and what success looks like after you become a coding bootcamp graduate.
Calculate the total investment and reward of a coding bootcamp.It bears repeating again: the cost of a coding bootcamp is more than money. ANDtempo. Before signing up, think about what you want the next 6-12 months to look like and some of the plans you might consider:
- Strategizing and planning your career move
- Determine which path you want to take (most training fields offer data science, software development, cybersecurity, or UI/UX course options)
- Earn quality minutes to yourself while enrolling in a rigorous and exciting full-time coding boot camp
- Allocate space in your schedule for homework and networking with your group
- Apply for jobs after graduating from bootcamp
In our conversations with software engineers, web developers, and data science professionals in the field, people underestimate the time it takes to succeed. If you only consider the cost of attending a bootcamp without knowing the number of hours you spend in and out of the classroom, you won't be anywhere close to making a decision.
Structured learning environments with other students.Taking responsibility is difficult for many students in a world of distraction. Not only are you building your own programming curriculum, you don't have other programming students to motivate you when faced with a difficult set of problems, or to hold you accountable.
Costs are less than a four-year degree program.Many aspiring software engineers consider cost and testimonials (word of mouth referrals from boot camp graduates) to be one of the main reasons they choose a coding boot camp. There is no surprise here. On average, a six-month coding bootcamp can be completed eight times faster and costs significantly less than a four-year computer science degree. However, this makes choosing a reputable online coding bootcamp mission critical, as your fellow graduates are "assessed and accredited" every year.
Programming bootcamp alumni network.Alumni networks are always great resources to take advantage of, but as you advance in your career, fewer and fewer people take advantage of them. We see the strengths and weaknesses of alumni networks at coding bootcamps similar to any other alumni network: your individual networking ability will be key to making it work for you. Many coding bootcamps advertise large numbers of alumni to attract applicants, but their ability to develop relationships with other students in aonline coding trainingit is fundamental
Learning flexibility in a full-time and part-time bootcamp curriculum.Coding bootcamps offer learning flexibility for two reasons. First,everyone learns differently. This is true regardless of whether the subject is liberal arts or logic-based topics like coding, data science, or database administration. Second, your individual circumstance plays a big part in deciding whether to choose a full-time coding bootcamp or to hold a full-time job while completing a part-time coding bootcamp at a reduced rate.
Prerequisites for participating in a Coding Bootcamp
Most reputable coding bootcamps ensure that their students can handle the course before enrolling. But beyond studying the basics of HTML, CSS and Javascript, there are some prerequisites we recommend for the aspiring web developer.
Commitment.Coding bootcamps require a level of commitment that goes hand in hand with your journey to becoming a developer. It's helpful to have training that requires a self-paced or slightly more structured prep course to get the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and back-end scripting languages ​​like PHP. Self-directed learning can be challenging if you're someone who works best in an environment with a little more structure. This is a great first test of your commitment to yourself and the apps and fundamentals of programming training. Fortunately, many coding bootcamps offer free prep modules to ensure their students are well-equipped to tackle the problems, datasets, and coding languages ​​coming out over the next 13 weeks.
HackReactor, for example, offers software engineering prep programs before the start of the software engineering immersion they run. They typically offer two tracks: one free and self-paced and one premium - they structure you so that you spend dedicated hours honing the fundamentals of coding. Basic fundamentals are tested. If you fail to complete it successfully, they will recommend you to keep practicing before applying.
Curiosity.The most successful professionals (whether web developers or not) are those who demonstrate curiosity and the ability to solve problems that are very challenging for them from the beginning. They feel like solving challenging coding problems in conventional and unconventional ways and are not satisfied with completing a set.
If you've already prepared for and passed the preliminary HTML, CSS, and JavaScript exam, great! The most curious (and serious) bootcamp students are not satisfied there. They want to learn the basics of jQuery so they can learn faster when the course starts.
Being curious about coding should lead you to places on the web where you can practice and brush up on your basic and advanced fundamentals before training even starts. Subscribe to YouTube channels likeLearnCode.academiayAdán Khouryit can help answer some questions that coding bootcamp prep courses didn't cover either.
How to Find a Coding Bootcamp Near You
In most areas of the country, finding a coding bootcamp is not difficult. As demand for software engineer positions increases and companies place less emphasis on recruiting students with formal computer science training, bootcamps are popping up in nearly every major city across the United States.
After thoroughly researching the skill you want to develop, the reputation of the coding school closest to your home, what kind of software developer you want to be, and what programming language will help you achieve it, you may find that the your dream schedule is not in your city or town.
If you think you've found the perfect boot camp in this scenario, there are a few variables to weigh before moving to a new city for a ground boot camp.
Living and learning in a new city can be an ideal decision if your coding camp is not within walking distance of your home. Let's say you want to study web development at Coding Dojo, but you live in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. The Coding Dojo has onsite campuses in Washington State, Idaho, Chicago and select locations in California. If you live on the coast, it's probably weird packing up the moving truck to go to a place like Boise, Idaho, but attending a coding school with the intention of increasing your long-term value is a great excuse to (temporarily or permanently) ) ) to move. Another great excuse? Boise Idaho was named the number one place to live in 2019 by the city ranking website,habitability. (Ella, Boise.)
But depending on your personality, sometimes it's hard to pick yourself up and move to a new city without a real network beyond current and future bootcamp graduates. Some people would naturally be apprehensive about being temporarily or permanently uprooted and moving to an unfamiliar location while spending most of their day studying to become a software engineer. (Even a seemingly awesome place like Boise.) That might be a harder sell to you and your family, and that's only natural. It can be lonely without a network of friends all in one place, even if you're building relationships with your group of future software developers.
Staying in the same city is also an option. If you're lucky enough to be in or near top US cities, these major US cities offer plenty of options for an immersive, face-to-face bootcamp. Cities like New York have at least ten programs where you can hone your skills and gain experience in a programming language.
Fortunately, there's also a third option that's becoming more and more available with most programs: full online coding training. If you decide an online coding bootcamp is the best move, we're seeing these programs thrive while offices, schools, and coworking spaces remain closed. Here are some of the advantages of an online coding bootcamp:
The answer to personal blocks was online learning.In-person coding courses were more affected by social interruptions than remote learning. Minimizing exposure to the pandemic by completing, for example, a full programming curriculum was a key benefit for those who enrolled last year. Regardless of how quickly we made it back, it has brought online training firmly into the mainstream, which is set to continue for the next ten years.
Flexibility.Once the world returns to pre-pandemic normal, our new ways of living and working will not go away. Online bootcamps allow the flexibility of learning comprehensive web development, cybersecurity and data science in a coffee shop. As the world finally reopens, an online coding boot camp offers students flexible learning options and easy retrieval from reviewing curriculum and course material.
Ending
Finding a coding bootcamp near you and your family isn't difficult, but choosing the right one for your future takes some research. If you're going to invest the time and money to enroll in an immersive bootcamp, spend nine hours a day learning the coding language, and then choose the right network of coding bootcamp graduates, it makes sense to spend time making the decision.Click to complete our questionnaireand enjoy the right coding school for you.