I did Hack Reactor in SF two years ago and had a great experience.
To be fair, I had already had two jobs as a developer and had been coding for about 4 years. I was self taught so I really wasn't sure at what level I was at the moment and felt I didn't know a lot of things. I decided to do a bootcamp in order to move away from living in Virginia and doing mostly WordPress + CSS web dev to living in SF and doing mostly Node work. I think doing HR helped a lot in doing this and it would have taken me a lot more to do this without it. For me, the experience was incredibly helpful since I was able to:
1. Learn new technologies like Angular, MongoDB
2. Improve/perfect my JavaScript knowledge
3. Learn about CS: data structures, algos
4. Learn Interviewing skills
5. Have a network in a completely new city and see a bit of SF tech culture
Of all of these, I feel #3 was probably the most useful one, since I already knew a lot about coding, but all of these were important. I was able to get a job fairly quickly and now have a lot of confidence for tech interviews. It also really expanded my universe in terms of things I knew about and how my career could go. I'd say my imposter syndrome is completely gone because of being able to see how well many of my other classmates are doing.
That being said, my experience was a lot easier because I already knew how to code and already had job experience.
For my classmates, a lot of them that were relatively new to coding. Most of them were able to find jobs, although the process certainly was not easy (I've also heard it's getting harder every year), but many of them were able to pull it off. It does take a lot of work and dedication. In my experience, the two things I saw that differentiate the good ones from the mehs is 1. If they had previous coding experience (even if it was just a bit) and 2. If they were really passionate about it and continued learning after they graduated. If they had this, they did fine!
My suggestions for anyone considering a bootcamp are:
1. Have some months of coding experience before going to a bootcamp. This will ensure you actually like coding and are decently good at it.
2. Only go to a selective, high-quality bootcamp. There are a lot of scams out there. Asking graduates about their experience and outcomes is a good way to measure this.
3. Before going ask yourself: Is this something I'd be willing to pursue for the next 10 years, even for next to no money? If you like it enough and are passionate enough about it, the answer will probably be yes and the short term barriers won't seem that bad. If you're doing it for $$$ or to just get a job, the answer to this question will probably be no.
To be fair, I had already had two jobs as a developer and had been coding for about 4 years. I was self taught so I really wasn't sure at what level I was at the moment and felt I didn't know a lot of things. I decided to do a bootcamp in order to move away from living in Virginia and doing mostly WordPress + CSS web dev to living in SF and doing mostly Node work. I think doing HR helped a lot in doing this and it would have taken me a lot more to do this without it. For me, the experience was incredibly helpful since I was able to:
1. Learn new technologies like Angular, MongoDB
2. Improve/perfect my JavaScript knowledge
3. Learn about CS: data structures, algos
4. Learn Interviewing skills
5. Have a network in a completely new city and see a bit of SF tech culture
Of all of these, I feel #3 was probably the most useful one, since I already knew a lot about coding, but all of these were important. I was able to get a job fairly quickly and now have a lot of confidence for tech interviews. It also really expanded my universe in terms of things I knew about and how my career could go. I'd say my imposter syndrome is completely gone because of being able to see how well many of my other classmates are doing.
That being said, my experience was a lot easier because I already knew how to code and already had job experience.
For my classmates, a lot of them that were relatively new to coding. Most of them were able to find jobs, although the process certainly was not easy (I've also heard it's getting harder every year), but many of them were able to pull it off. It does take a lot of work and dedication. In my experience, the two things I saw that differentiate the good ones from the mehs is 1. If they had previous coding experience (even if it was just a bit) and 2. If they were really passionate about it and continued learning after they graduated. If they had this, they did fine!
My suggestions for anyone considering a bootcamp are:
1. Have some months of coding experience before going to a bootcamp. This will ensure you actually like coding and are decently good at it.
2. Only go to a selective, high-quality bootcamp. There are a lot of scams out there. Asking graduates about their experience and outcomes is a good way to measure this.
3. Before going ask yourself: Is this something I'd be willing to pursue for the next 10 years, even for next to no money? If you like it enough and are passionate enough about it, the answer will probably be yes and the short term barriers won't seem that bad. If you're doing it for $$$ or to just get a job, the answer to this question will probably be no.