This is a really touchy subject for both people who have attended a boot camp and those who are considering a boot camp. Some coding boot camps are absolute crap while others are amazing.

I'm just going to give you a few pros and cons about committing to a boot camp and then a little snippet of a few things I've seen from boot camp grads.

Pros

It's completely immersive. You'll live, breathe, and eat code for a few months.

Employers aren't as averse as it might seem. 72% of employers
think boot camp graduates are just as good as college graduates.

You learn fast. They push you through all of the concepts and some big projects very quickly. That way you can start a new career a lot sooner.

They can keep you motivated. Since you're in a class with other people and you've paid thousands of dollars, it's easier to keep going.

You have the potential to build a strong network. Some coding boot camps have industry connections that make your job search less stressful.

Cons

It's expensive. The average cost of a boot camp is $12,000. To put that in perspective, that’s almost a full year of college at an in-state, public university!

They can move too fast. Sorry if this hurts some feelings, but there is no way you will learn and be proficient in 3 - 5 programming languages and a framework or two in 12 - 14 weeks.

The quality varies wildly. You could end up spending thousands of dollars just to get in a class with a poor curriculum, low class participation, and a teacher that just doesn't care. But you might not! It's hard to say.

You might have to quit your job and live off of loans. If your boot camp requires you to be there 40+ hours a week, you have to make a big decision.

There's no guarantee you'll get a job. While most boot camps boast incredibly high job placement rates, it's not because they give you a job. You still have to get out there and apply and interview.

You already know there are pros and cons to everything, but these are a few I've seen with coding boot camps. Typically grads aren't ready for junior positions. Most of the time they haven't been trained for those real world problems that come up in legacy code or in debugging in general. On the other hand coding boot camp grads can spin up a new project with the latest frameworks relatively fast.

Either way, companies have to decide whether or not they want to spend the time and resources getting you up to speed. So really it comes down to whether you want to spend the money or not.

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