Why I Joined an Online Bootcamp
I am currently enrolled in an online data science program. I have only had two weeks of instruction so far, but I would like to write about my impressions so far. While I was researching the different coding bootcamps, I did not find many reviews on the experience and I hope that this can help others choose a program that’s right for them.
Before deciding on a bootcamp, I first looked to see what kinds of free and low-cost resources were available online. It turns out, there is an overwhelming amount of tutorials, courses, books and practice problems that can keep any student occupied for probably years.
In addition to these invaluable resources, I also found numerous blog posts and articles about how so-and-so was able to become a successful self taught programmer/coder/data scientist. Teaching myself everything I needed to know seemed like an attainable goal.
And so my journey began. Following the advice of different bloggers, I set up an outline of what I needed to learn and in what order I needed to learn it. It was a little mock syllabus with links to the corresponding subjects’ books and websites and practice problems that I would treat as homework assignments.
I diligently worked my way through the basics of Python and also brushed up on probability and statistics in the first couple of weeks, fueled by a new sense of purpose. However, this motivation faded when I hit a plateau and I started to spend less and less time on my lessons.
My plateau was caused by my inability to identify what I didn’t know. Aside from the content in the books and videos, much of my learning occurred through googling specific problems that arose while doing practice problems. If I didn’t encounter a specific problem, I would never know to look for it and learn about it. The practice problems I was doing were mostly the same, and I didn’t have a passion project that could help me dive deeper into more advanced programming or data science methods and techniques.
This was when I started looking into going back to school. I decided that I needed more structure than I could give myself. I looked at classes at my nearby community college, extension courses offered by my alma mater, as well as various masters programs in computer science. None of these appealed to me because of one thing — time. Getting an associates, certificate, or master’s degree would all take years, and I wanted to jump into the field as soon as possible.
Social media websites had started showing me ads for different bootcamp programs and I had largely ignored them, thinking that they would be too expensive. But after deciding that going the traditional education route wasn’t for me, I decided to give bootcamps a shot.
I was drawn to the program in which I am currently enrolled because of their syllabus, impressive student success rate after graduation, and income share payment plan. My mock syllabus actually lined up pretty well with the program’s syllabus.
The pacing of the classes has been extremely fast in these past two weeks. I am really glad that I had learned a little bit of Python on my own prior to starting the class because some of the basic concepts that took me a week to fully understand were taught in a couple hours.
The instructors are very helpful and knowledgeable and included lots of little details in their classes that I wouldn’t have known to look up on my own.
I also really enjoy the labs and practice problems that they provide, as they are all very challenging and really different from what I had found online. Despite the instruction, there is still a lot of learning I needed to do on my own. I still need to be very proactive and make sure I really understand what I am doing. The bootcamp provides the structure to help me advance my knowledge by giving me more experience with different problem solving techniques as well as giving me opportunities to run into errors that I probably wouldn’t have run into myself.
