A recent bootcamp graduate is as likely to land a job at a top U.S. tech company as a college alumnus, a study by Switchup revealed in July. There are two key takeaways here. First, the pathways into the coveted high-tech industry are many and diverse. Second—implicitly—the researchers viewed colleges and bootcamps as antithesis to one another, so much so as to warrant a study pitting one against the other.
While such estimates of graduate outcomes are helpful and informative, both for prospective students and the industry, the idea that bootcamps and universities are two polar opposites does not tread far enough. Opposites attract, they say, and this is exactly what has been happening with bootcamps and universities since the start of the pandemic.
While such estimates of graduate outcomes are helpful and informative, both for prospective students and the industry, the idea that bootcamps and universities are two polar opposites does not tread far enough. Opposites attract, they say, and this is exactly what has been happening with bootcamps and universities since the start of the pandemic.
While such estimates of graduate outcomes are helpful and informative, both for prospective students and the industry, the idea that bootcamps and universities are two polar opposites does not tread far enough. Opposites attract, they say, and this is exactly what has been happening with bootcamps and universities since the start of the pandemic.
As the virus forced universities and colleges to reshuffle their schedules and curriculums, and even review their entire learning models, they found unlikely partners in bootcamps, intense, short programs inspired by military training. With their turnkey programs working as an additional offering by the schools for alternative career training or education, bootcamps offer universities and students distinct values that can improve graduate outcomes. Furthermore, the campus crowd is actually positioned the best to gain from the bootcamp experience.
Putting Theory into Practice
Bootcamps are popularly associated with coding, since coding bootcamps have been expanding so dramatically in recent years. Their true offering is significantly broader, however, ranging from courses in cybersecurity or DevOps to digital marketing or sales. Regardless of the subject matter, however, bootcamps tend to focus on practical skills and hands-on training, often at the expense of advanced theory—something Triplebyte showcased in a study. Bootcamps also tend to be open to people with no background in the field, and thus incorporate introductory sections into their programs.
- Bootcamps’ ties with their respective industries, as well as their focus on
- hands-on training, could also make them a promising alternative to internships.
- The former means that the bootcamp’s schedule will be updated to cover all the latest developments in the field, while the latter speaks for itself.
- Student internships have long been criticized as toxic not just for interns, forced to work for free and often failing to get any actually useful skills, but for the entire labor market as such.
- Swapping them for bootcamps could be a great way to not just help the students get the practical skills they need
- but also to strike down the false equivalency between an internship and an entry-level job that we sometimes see in the market.
- The overall economic inclusion is part of the calculus as well. “Our motivation is to ensure all adults can be active participants in the knowledge economy