Online Web Development Bootcamp: Detail Reviews 2020
Are you wondering how online web development bootcamps in 2020 are?
You are looking for a transition to a new job as a software developer, yet you do not want the restart of university life and tuition fees go beyond your budget. So coding bootcamp is a solution.
The term “bootcamp” refers to military training with strict discipline for newbies. Accordingly, many tech experts use this word to develop a new concept: coding bootcamp. It includes short-term training programs for new learners to become a software developer with essential coding skills. However, as it covers many sub-fields of information technology (IT), this blog post today mostly focuses on web development bootcamp.
1. What is Web Development Bootcamp?
a. Definition
As a part of coding bootcamp, web development bootcamp is also regarded as a technical training program that teaches the web-based programming skills that companies look for.
b. Difference between bootcamp and traditional education
In general, the bootcamp curriculum is still dissimilar from its traditional counterpart in some aspects:
Purpose
Coding bootcamp, or web development bootcamp in particular, only teaches practical and job-ready tech skills, whereas universities or colleges provide their IT students fundamental knowledge before they go into details.
Time
The higher education often takes you around at least 5 years to complete a computer science degree. Meanwhile, an intensive bootcamp program can last 10 to 12 weeks if you opt for an in-person option. Time for bootcamp can vary, but definitely be shorter than that of universities.
Tuition fees
Money is always a major obstacle for those wishing to go on campus. In the United States, for instance, the average amount that international students have to pay annually is nearly USD$11,000 if they choose Computer Science, versus only USD$3,403 for state students. Consequently, the whole four-year program can cost USD$44,000 and USD$13,612 respectively. Those expenses of bootcamp are actually much lower, ranging from $10,000 to $24,000, let alone some bootcamp programs which guarantee you a job after graduation and charge nothing apart but a deposit if you fail to get a position in companies. Also, some courses are offered for free, including free full-stack web development bootcamp of Flatiron School or Free Code Camp.
c. Types of bootcamp
If you decide to participate in the program, there are three options: in-person, online and self-paced.
In-person
Like traditional schools, in-person bootcamps require your full-time physical participation in class with at least 40 hours per week and additional hours for assignments. The size of the class can be kept small to ensure students will be sufficiently instructed with new subjects.
However, due to its requirement of attending the course full time, those who already have a full-time job will be not a suitable candidate for this type of program.
Online
Online bootcamp is more popular for workers who want to generate incomes and continue their study. Participants will be provided with self-learning guides and work with instructors in case they struggle with the lecture. The only drawback of this bootcamp is you have to be disciplined or you will throw money out the window.
Self-paced
If you have a disciplined learning style and relish a flexibly designed curriculum, self-paced programs are the best choice. They allow you to work completely on your schedules and decide how to start your study. Free Code Camp is seen as a highly recommended platform providing free web development bootcamp now.
2. Some caveats on bootcamp
This section does not talk about the disadvantages of only web development bootcamp, but also for a whole coding one. No matter which developer you want to become, it is better to learn about unexpected problems you can encounter.
😅 Bootcamp is not for everyone
“Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere,” Peter O’Toole, a British stage and film actor, said so. Indeed, Jennifer Dewalt, the founder at Zube became a successful developer by self-teaching her to code 180 websites within 180 days. Or Colby Williams, a Youtube gaming celebrity, decided to switch his career as a web developer and achieved success after self-learning and joining The Odin Project, a free online bootcamp to learn Ruby and Rails.
Those stories can inspire you to go on a new path of a software developer, yet have you ever considered hurdles? Even Mike Hadlow, a C# freelancer with over 20 years of software building experience admitted that this job was harder than people thought. Meanwhile, strict disciplines of a bootcamp, coupled with vast knowledge, can demotivate inexperienced newcomers.
😅 Bootcamp placement numbers can be misleading
Ted Whang, a developer at Pike13 said on Medium that many schools now impress new students with appealing advertisements such as “95% of our graduates get a job within 3 months.” However, the statistics are not almost verified by the third party. So any promises from bootcamps can be misleading and even a trap.
😅 Bootcamp cannot make everyone become a good developer
University life of a computer science student lasts 5 years and there is always a reason for that: a software developer is a promising, yet demanding job. So only a few weeks at bootcamp cannot truly turn you to an engineer if you do not spend more time self-learning.
Ken Mazaika, co-founder and CTO at Firehose Project cited that various courses now mainly teach how to use tools. To illustrate, in web development bootcamps, students will learn about web frameworks (e.g. Ruby on Rails), without fundamental knowledge about how websites work on different tools and technologies. As a result, bootcamp graduates do not even impress recruiters and fail to land a job.
😅 There are too many bootcamp graduates in the market
The 2019 Coding Bootcamp Market Size Study recorded 23,043 graduates from 110 full-time coding bootcamps, mostly majoring in full-stack JavaScript (44%). According to the research of TECNA, Apollo Education Group and the University of Phoenix, employers now confront the shortage of software developers; nevertheless, it does not mean some low-skilled bootcamp candidates can certainly get a good job after graduation. In other words, they have to compete with other self-taught developers or those holding computer science degrees.
3. Top schools for online web development bootcamp
Online learning is a common trend for all fields and information technology is no exception. Despite a variety of schools that run courses on data science, cybersecurity or web design, this post today only lists top online web development bootcamps.
👏 Ironhack
You can choose online or in-person bootcamp in Ironhack on two majors as web development during 26 weeks and UI/UX design within 9 weeks. It also grants scholarships to under-represented individuals or veterans.
👏 General Assembly
General Assembly provides front end web development bootcamp which lasts 10 weeks at a price of nearly USD$4,000. Moreover, they also run other programs on software engineering immersive or data analytics.
👏 Springboard
Courses in Springboard often last from 6 to 24 weeks and vary in different fields as AI, blockchain development or cloud dev ops. Of which, front-end and full-stack web development bootcamps are also designed in online or self-paced forms and within 16 weeks.
👏 Udacity
Like Springboard, Udacity also develops such 16-week programs for those who want to build webs and allows them to study online. Also, participants can enroll for other IT-related courses on computer vision, data visualization or deep learning.
👏 Bloc
As an ideal school for beginners, Bloc builds suitable programs on web design and development for students. Bloc commits themselves to refund tuition fees if their students cannot secure a job after 6 months.
👏 The Tech Academy
Front-end web development bootcamp in Tech Academy lasts 14 weeks and covers three most common languages as JavaScript, HTML and CSS. The program is self-paced and suitable for those who want to work a part-time job as a web developer. So if you wish to have a permanent job afterward, what you acquire from the program is not enough.
👏 BrainStation
In BrainStation, there are two options on web development: one for a 10-week certificate course and the other for a 12-week diploma program. The former only teaches you basic skills with HTML, CSS and JQuery framework. Meanwhile, the latter prepares students with detailed knowledge of building webs by using JavaScript with NodeJS or ReactJS.
Changing jobs is not easy. Short courses such as web development bootcamp today are available online and provide you lots of benefits, yet hardly make you become a good coder unless you spare much time, money and persistence to pursue your dream. This post only raises the main questions about short training on web creation to help you decide whether or not to take this route.
Other articles you might like:
