... just maybe not in your lifespan, and that's okay too.
225 karma · joined January 14, 2011
Co-founder of Lighthouse Labs.
- Me 10 years ago.
Maybe it's better now.
We've graduated both Web and iOS students and, well, I'm just going to come out and say it: We have a 100% placement/hiring rate of our graduates. Most students secure dev roles within a month of graduating, a few even before they graduate.
That's right. 100% in a country where with 1/10 the population, fewer companies and jobs generally, and no real "valley" comparable to speak of, we are able to have ALL our grads find DEV roles, mostly WITHIN Canada. While I can't speak to whether or not we can maintain that 100% for years to come, I can speak to why and how it's like this now.
While it's easy to argue that 4 or 5 year CS degrees are too long and often not "current" enough, the idea of a 8, 9 or 12 week program that claims to give BETTER or even equal results still seems off.
Being a CS grad who doesn't have strong displeasure with College programs like some others do, I feel that our philosophy is a bit different.
If you ask most professionals where they picked up their skills and expertise, they don't refer to any of their schooling. Instead they'll likely say "on the job". So, you don't grow as much from lectures, exercises, homework readings and online video as much as you do from "DOING". And no form education will ever replace that.
Here's another thing, Instead of comparing a bootcamp grad to a college grad, we should be comparing an bootcamp grad that continues to work as a dev for about 3.9 years to a CS grad coming out of a 4 year program. Who do you think will generally come out ahead?
If you do compare a fresh college grad with a fresh bootcamp grad, I feel that the CS grad does have better and definitely deeper understanding of COMPUTER SCIENCE. Of course they do, you're comparing 0.1 years of CS to 4 or 5 years of study.
Anyway, coming back to our crazy 100% placement of Jr Devs... I think this comes back to our more "humble" take on what our grads are truly capable of and need after graduation. The 8 weeks at our bootcamp prepares most of our students for a 3 month paid internship, which usually translates into full-time Jr. Dev employment at that same company.
So while most bootcamps tout "entry-level ready" developers, we suggest that most bootcamp grads are almost junior ready. They need a few months of mentorship within a company before I would feel comfortable calling them a Junior dev. Owning/Running a dev shop that hires most of it's juniors (as interns) from bootcamps helps me be more realistic about this.
As for salary comparables, Canada (East and West coast alike) is noticably lower than US. Post-internship, our grads make between 40K and 60K. There are definitely a few outliers that will make more than 70K, but that has more to do with their prior experience and what else they bring to the table.
But would have even clicked the donation link prior, even if it were a prominent "Please donate. We need it!" button?
That's the real question folks.