Coding Bootcamps have been springing up across the country and the globe, and for good reason. They can cost 90% less than a typical computer science degree at a college or university. Additionally, complete, in-depth bootcamps can take as little as four-to-six months to complete, quite a bit lower than the average six years it’s currently taking students to complete a bachelor’s degree.
With the growth in bootcamp popularity, a new type of coding bootcamp has developed to allow coding education to be much for flexible, accessible and affordable. Called the community coding bootcamp, or the hybrid bootcamps that blends online and offline education, this new model is democratizing coding education and making it truly available to anyone.
1. Learn Practical Programming Languages
Community coding bootcamps are committed to giving you the skills you need to build websites, mobile apps, and back-end architecture on the day you graduate. This means that they focus exclusively on the languages and tools you’ll need to be successful on day one of a new job.
For individuals focused on web development, this will likely focus on HTML, CSS and JavaScript, the building blocks needed to create functioning, well-formatted websites. Students that are interested in building truly engaging, mobile-friendly web experiences will take front-end bootcamps that include React and React Native, as well as Bootstrap, one of the most-used libraries of open-source HTML, CSS and JavaScript code. Meanwhile, students who want to work on behind-the-scenes technology that makes apps and websites work will likely also learn NodeJS and MongoDB for data architecting and GitHub to allow them to work collaboratively with other coders.
2. Troubleshoot With Fellow Students & Instructors
Unlike online coding bootcamps that leave you to figure everything out on your own, community coding bootcamps assign you a small, dedicated group of students that are part of one single cohort. This means that as you have questions or need to troubleshoot, you’ll actually have people you can turn to.
Additionally, each cohort gets a dedicated instructor. Often a full-time web developer themselves who enjoy teaching on the side, these instructors are available throughout the entire bootcamp experience to support students on their coding journey. Additionally, as full-time practitioners, they see first-hand what employers want and need from future coders and share that experience with boot camps so the programs continually improve and stay current.
3. Work At Your Convenience
Offline bootcamps follow a traditional classroom model, meaning students are required to attend classes full-time, five days a week. This is a major commitment, and often impossible for individuals with full-time jobs, kids or other factors that prevent them from dropping everything for a bootcamp.
In contrast, community coding bootcamps offer a hybrid online, offline model that makes coding education actually flexible. During the week, students work online on homework assignments so they can fit education around any other must-do tasks. On the weekend, they meet offline in a workshop setting with their dedicated instructor and student cohort. It’s here that they can further work collaboratively and enjoy the experience that comes with having real world peers.
4. Experience Accountability To Push Your Forward
As flexible as online bootcamps might first appear, they come with one major downside: zero accountability. While being able to work at your own pace might seem ideal, too much flexibility often leads students to never complete the coursework.
Community coding bootcamps take care of this problem by ensuring that each boot camp comes with unique learning modules, and each module includes assignments with fixed deadlines. These deadlines, coupled with a dedicated instructor and student cohort, gives students the motivation they need to actually complete their work and get much-needed skills under their belt.
5. Earn The Skills Needed To Get Your Foot Into A Tech Career
Community coding bootcamps are incredibly practical in their design. They are intended to let students experience coding firsthand and understand if it’s a subject area they’re interested in pursuing for years to come. Further, their practical focus means students learn the skills needed to enter into a career in web development.
Students just out of a bootcamp who pursue coding full time usually enter into quality assurance and software testing roles. These are ground-level roles that let students further hone their skills while getting paid to learn. They are also fantastic starting points to help build your resume and enjoy a robust, successful career in the tech field.
