Comment by gothrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gothrowaway | Hacker News Reader

See the above? This is what codecamps do to innocent people. They prey on the weak, act authoritative, and take advantage of their hopes of getting jobs.

You should demand your money back, every penny.

> I can only look to my choice of bootcamp

Bootcamps are not gatekeepers. They portray themselves as such to take your money.

There's no such thing as an elite bootcamp. It's a lie to pray on your naïveté of the industry. It's just ruby and javascript. It's web development. Nothing magic. Nothing elite here. You could teach it in a community college setting for 2k a semester.

But every town needs electricians, plumbers, doctors, etc. It's just frankly, we're pouring out more junior programmers desperate for jobs than there are positions to fill. Every time a cohort finishes, it's 30 more people on top of the thousands of others seeking a handful of positions.

They end up creating junior level programmers, and cherrypicking success stories from people who have already coded before.

> that crushed my dream of working in tech.

Nothing's stopping you from:

- installing Linux (https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop)

- downloading Atom (https://atom.io)

Using these resources:

- https://github.com/prakhar1989/awesome-courses

- https://github.com/EbookFoundation/free-programming-books/bl...

- https://github.com/ripienaar/free-for-dev

Maybe you would be a good programmer if you continued studying, maybe it's not your path.

I don't know you, but don't be fooled into thinking that any institution or person is a gatekeeper from you coding and getting a job in it. These code camps want you to believe that so they can justify their existence.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14523374 and marked it off-topic.

Why?

To add to it, did you hell-ban me? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14525098

That had 3 points.

We banned you quite explicitly (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14529059), because you violated the HN guidelines repeatedly. That's not allowed here. Personal attacks are particularly unwelcome.

I think you've misunderstood me. I'm not of the opinion that I do not have the ability or the skill set. I have been a finalist for various positions (full-stack developer, web developer, project manager, product manager, front-end dev) for 16 companies over the last year - all have which have rejected me on my inexperience in technology. That's not to mention the many many more that I interviewed with that I did not become a finalist. I know I can work in tech. I know I can make things become a great technical professional. I'm constantly learning and adding to my skill set, my problem is I need an income. What you're giving is resources for learning above, but that is not where my choke point is.

I was never under the impression that I needed to go to a coding bootcamp to learn how to code. I wanted to go to one to immerse myself in an industry that I did not have previous exposure to.

OK, so you're sincere. You have a genuine intellectual interest. Good heart. And an honest worker.

But the brutal world of supply and demand, no one cares about your feelings, honesty, or character. Which is why you are, in my opinion, a victim of code camps.

Did you ever read there was a skill gap for programmers? A shortage of programmers? You were lied to. Completely and totally.

> my problem is I need an income. What you're giving is resources for learning above, but that is not where my choke point is.

And here's the problem with that. Codecamps are also destroying the job market on a macro level too.

We're placing, what, 1000 new junior javascript/ruby grads into the job seeking pool every 16 weeks?

That's stacked on top of what, thousand of other code camp grads who didn't land a job?

And how many positions do you think there is to fill? Maybe in USA, 500 or 800, and most of those want prior work experience.

Not to mention that employers are using H1B's as a way to get cheap labor. There's no end in sight.

You should demand your money back, contact the FCC and a lawyer.

Very interesting take on the matter. I try not to take a victim's mentality on the matter, but you do have very true points. Thank you for your comments.

> I have been a finalist for various positions (full-stack developer, web developer, project manager, product manager, front-end dev) for 16 companies over the last year

That might part of the problem - project manager and product manager are not nearly the same skill set, and I would argue that they might even be incompatible skill sets in one given individual.

You might better served by focusing on one area, say front end (if that's your thing) or data processing, etc.

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