Business as Usual
Ever wonder why some coding Bootcamps have such a high placement rate of their students into jobs and careers after they’ve completed the program? I think it’s because not 100% of the students who start the Bootcamp finish the Bootcamp; I could be wrong. And the distilled remainder are the cream of the crop of their cohort. Or maybe all the coding Bootcamp students are forged and hardened to such a fashion that most make it through at a high percentage, and the majority start careers landing dream jobs. I wonder what the statistics are on the completion percentage of everyone who goes through a coding Bootcamp? There are rules to this Bootcamp life; there are requirements to adhere to. You need to be in good standing to move on and advance in completing each section to stay the course and in sync with your cohort. So who knows, maybe all students are completing the Bootcamp, but not in the cohort they started in. Because lately, there has been a lot of familiar faces MIA.
Programed in my mind the many faces I’ve grown accustomed to seeing over two months, three to five days a week. During our class time, the faces, bedrooms, living rooms, nondescript walls, kitchens, floors, back yards, green screen with a classroom image, initials of names, lounging on couches, relaxed in the garage, or nothing but a blocked head; we all occupy a square. Remotely a square, within a square within a square squared, piece of silicon recursion, within this thing I will call the Zoom cohort disappearance box. Here one day and gone the next, I’ve started wondering if it will be my time to vanish soon. It can happen if standards are not met, but all would not be lost. If I disappeared, I could reenlist, start where I left off. We started with around forty in my cohort, and now two months in, we are at approximately 30. I’ve buckled down and doubled back to strengthing my knowledge on the earlier lessons, lessening my time on my current studies, but all are necessary. It’s a daily grind learning new computing concepts having to put them to use immediately, not easy but also not impossible. It may come easier to some, but given enough time and the right motivation, I believe anyone can learn to program. To my fallen comrades who have disappeared, I hope your programming desires have not been extinguished. Crurntenly we all have a better idea of what it’s going to take to become what we intended to technologically become, whether with a Bootcamp, traditional educational system, or on our own. At this point, we all should be more in tune with our aptitudes.
Many of us have taken this time during the covid pandemic when people are stuck home indefinitely and have more time than previously ever have had in adulthood to gamble on an unknown future. Coding Bootcamps aren’t free, and some of us have fronted the money to pay for a Bootcamp when we should be holding on to those savings. But many people also would not have had the opportunity and time to dedicate six months solely to education; this is happening partly due to some jobs and business sectors shutting down. So, many people’s relationships with Bootcamps are complicated. And though it’s called a Bootcamp, my fellow cohort members have been disappearing like we are at war. Everyone in the Bootcamp chose to be here, but without full knowledge of what level of fight to bring. But the most disheartening puzzle of the situation is nothing can prepare you fully for the fight but fighting in a battle, and I think many were ill-equipped in preparing for the Bootcamp’s difficulty. I never imagined or could anticipate how challenging this Bootcamp would be, but I love every day of it, and I am striving to conquer its daily challenges. And I am strengthening my knowledge and skills daily. Nothing can prepare you more for something challenging than actually doing the challenging thing full force. Full force day one vs. full force day sixty, you’ll strive and show significant improvement. But will you reach an immeasurable stride by the time you are judged? Finally, at what cost do you suffer if you aren’t successful in getting a well-paying job you thought the Bootcamp would help you obtain?
Do not forget Bootcamps are a business at the end of the day. And we students, some of us unemployed, are keeping the coding Bootcamp and their employees’ livelihood afloat during a pandemic. I hope they recognize that, and it’s not unappreciated. I hope Bootcamps aren’t lowering their entry standards and grinding students through to stay financially afloat. Either way, I’m gonna keep grindin’ on this code!
