Can Learning To Write Code Really Change your life?

Code School Myths Busted

After our experience at The Iron Yard “code school” in Durham, North Carolina we feel compelled to bust a few myths. Are the handful of most talented, committed and young students in my class of more than twenty potential “front end engineers” working for a web development team like the one I used to manage?

The answer to that question is probably “yes”, but we bet more than half spent more than $100,000 to learn what Good Will Hunting could have taught them with $1.50 in late fees from the library.

Being a self-starter and learning to code from the many free sources online would impress a potential employer more as I noted in our Curagami Code Schools — Will They Change Your Life and Career post today. The short answer to that question is “not likely”.

Code schools sell the “better life” dream hard, but aren’t we all smarter than that now? Do we really continue to believe in free lunches, truth, justice, and the American Way at this late date? Apparently we remain less skeptical than we should since my class and many other Iron Yard classes were full to over flowing.

Our Curagami.com post points out five code school problems including:

  • Code Schools teach “academic” not business coding
  • No Student Vetting or Placement
  • Cost/Value Proposition is Off
  • Great Teachers Are Hard To Find, Keep and Challenge
  • Web Moves Too Fast to Overcome a 10+ Year Deficit

Hope springs eternal. We understand our human aspiration for a better life. If you try to code, create an online-store, love and can’t wait to code some more then you’ll do so and someone like me when I was a Director of E-Commerce will see that passion and hire you.

If you think an external source such as learning to write HTML and CSS can change your life you are mistaken. You are the only one who can change your life as trite and cliche as that sounds. Don’t pay a “code school” to do what you can do with $1.50 in late fees (or online equivalent) from the library.

Martin (Marty) Smith

Written by

Internet marketer, cancer survivor, startups entrepreneur

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