What Inspires Someone to Pay $20,000 to Enter a 12-week Coding Bootcamp?

Turn away from the onslaught of the 40-hour work week; sell everything you own, and uproot. Now triple your rent, quarter your living-space, and take out loans so you can invest $20,000 in an unaccredited 12–week software development bootcamp. In exchange for these sacrifices, you receive a vague promise and hopeful flashbacks of price equilibrium learned in early economics courses from college.

The promise — you’ll leave the program in true competition with credentialed software engineers exiting 4-year degrees from prestigious universities.

Conventional wisdom tells us: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” This is the reaction you grow to expect in the conversations that ensue as you toy with the idea. This is the reaction you have yourself as you ponder investing your literal life-savings in a 12-week crash course on the promise of creative freedom and a six figure salary.

This is the first stage of what I like to call the “Hack Reaction” — derived from the Hack Reactor coding bootcamp. Like all good multi-step programs, it starts with denial, has an acceptance stage somewhere in the middle, and proceeds to reflection and, ultimately, life-altering decisions.

As I consider comma placement in the paragraph above, the Hack Reaction unfolds not fifteen feet in-front of me. A future Hack Reactor student explains his endeavor to an older-looking CSE tutor giving a lesson across the table. The tutor dismisses the student’s investment in the program as a waste and suggests that, as a graduate of such a program, his abilities would be derelict.

What, then, truly inspires folks to leave the comfort of the life they have built for such uncertainty?

The impetus behind the final stage of the Hack Reaction is different for everyone. For me, there are a number of factors that led to my eventual leap of faith.

1. Lifestyle — I have chosen to define my future by the feelings I want to experience. This new definition has led me to understand a desire for expressive freedom. My mind teems with ideas. I yearn to join the proverbial conversation, and the only thing standing in my way is a knowledge of software development.
2. Community — The tech community exists on a foundation of inclusion and diversity. There is universe of free assistance, mentorship, and encouragement.
3. Speed — Software engineering has me sold, but I don’t want to wait until 2020 to receive a B.S. — I can see my dream, and I have decided to start living it today.
4. Focus — I’m interested in robust web-hosted applications, and I realize the value of focusing my efforts.
5. Employment — Gaining employment in a new field is daunting and difficult. — Hack Reactor will train me on the methods they have found empirically effective.
6. Rigor — In order to embrace my dream, I must devote all my time to it. Hack Reactor delivers structured curriculum requiring 11–14 hours per day, six days per week.
7. Relativity — Time is relative — The feeling of a distant morning is a thing of beauty.