Technology boot camps — do they work?
Part one: the explosion in demand
The tech sector is one of the fastest-growing industries globally — and with this increasing market comes the need for more jobs. In the US, demand for computer specialists is expected to have increased by over three quarters of a million jobs in the decade up to the end of 2018, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor. ‘New computer specialist jobs will rise in almost every industry,’ says David Clinefelter, Chief Academic Officer at the Learning House in The Evolllution, and ‘roughly half will be located in the computer systems design industry, which is expected to employ more than one in four computer specialists in 2018.’
But where will all these highly trained computer specialists come from? And in such a fast-changing marketplace, how will computer science graduates stay up to speed for these new roles? A criticism sometimes made of traditional degrees is that students ‘don’t always get the hands-on experience they need to land their first jobs,’ writes Tara García Mathewson in Education Dive. That’s compounded by the fast-changing nature of tech jobs — what worked a year ago doesn’t work now, and what worked five years ago is ancient history. Because of the nature of the role is so quick to change — people always want the latest technology — there’s a perceived skills gap.
In response, ‘several coding boot camps have incorporated project experience into their programs,’ says Mathewson. These include Free Code Camp, which places students with not-for-profit organisations that have vacancies for programmers.
‘Traditional computer science programs have not been able to keep pace with the demand,’ agrees Clinefelter. ‘The combination of highly motivated students in an immersive environment with veteran practitioners as faculty, coupled with a competency-based curriculum focused on entry-level knowledge, in an industry with a shortage of talent results in an ideal learning environment.’
On the way up
Boot camps are a rapidly increasing market. In North America there are more than 300 camps across 51 cities in the US and Canada. According to Course Report, which compares different coding schools for prospective students, the market is expected to have grown by almost 250% in 2015, to an estimated 16,056 graduates — an increase from 6,740 the previous year. All this from a flat base just a few years ago.
What happens in these immersive programmes, which can involve studying up to 10 hours a day, or longer? ‘Generally… students spend six to 15 weeks with small groups of peers learning web development skills’ says Michelle R Weise, Executive Director of Sandbox ColLABorative, Southern New Hampshire University, in a separate article in The Evolllution. Costs vary, but will usually be ‘between $10k and $20k.’
Impressive figures
What about job placement rates? The Software Guild claims a 95% placement rate within 90 days of graduation. Most will present job attainment rates from somewhere between 63% and 99%, according to Weise. These are better odds, as she points out, ‘than the 57% placement rate of law-school graduates’ that the American Bar Association quotes. Alice Truong in Fast Company refers to Hack Reactor, which looks for candidates who have some coding experience, boot camps them in San Francisco and then promises a 98% job placement rate within three months of graduating, with an average subsequent salary of $110,000.
However, these figures are perhaps not quite as straightforward as they might first appear. Many boot camp graduates will already have completed a first degree, and some will have coding experience already, as the Hack Reactor example makes clear. In these cases it’s not a substitute for university; it’s a top-up experience that talented workers use to hone their skills and knowledge. Fast Company, quoting the founder of Course Report Adam Lovallo, points out that ‘the goal is to find whether these coding programs are just taking in people that are already employed and highly qualified and helping them change careers, or if they are taking in people and producing graduates that really substantially increase their earning potential.’
In other words, are the figures indicative of great success by the boot camps, or are they essentially highly-qualified people who would be likely to get jobs anyway? There’s no way of disentangling that from the stats, but it’s worth bearing in mind when reading figures of close to 100% placements.
What can’t be denied is that the major players in the tech industry like the look of boot camp grads. Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter are all known to hire straight out of boot camps. Politically, too, an awareness of their value is rapidly increasing, at least was until recently. As Michelle R Weise says, ‘the Obama Administration [was] particularly enthusiastic about boot camps. In fact, the federal government seems to be fully aware of the burgeoning of alternative learning pathways that lead to middle- and high-skills jobs in demand today.’ Examples of these programmes include Udacity, which offers ‘nanodegrees’, edX which runs ‘Xseries’, and Coursera’s ‘Specializations’.
Such partnership models are likely to increase, as businesses and universities try to close the gaps between what traditional education models offer, and what workplaces actively need.
In the second part of this article, published Friday, we’ll see how matching workplace needs with learning outcomes is key to the future development of bootcamps.
This article was first published at https://elu2016.wordpress.com/
Sources will be published at the end of Part Two.
