No. 15: Breaking down coding bootcamps, leaning into career paths, skills vs degrees
There's no guarantee to "learn to code" bootcamps. Plus, employers start to focus on career paths.
First, some numbers….
$14,142 - is the average cost of a coding bootcamp 1
$125,000 - Dartmouth College eliminates loans from financial aid packages for family incomes under $125,000 2
$19.2 billion - is the estimated annual revenue of the youth sports industry 3
Are coding bootcamps worth your time and money
On its face, the idea of a tech boot camp sounds pretty nice. You take a few months to learn coding or web development or user experience design or whatever, and voila, welcome to your “future-proof” career. Some boot camps only make you pay once you land that shiny new six-figure tech job, which, they say, you definitely will. They’ve got all sorts of facts and figures about placement rates and success stories of graduates who landed at Google or Apple or Facebook. Maybe don’t look too hard at the fine print, though.
Boot camps are intensive, immersive, programs meant to get students the skills they need to land a job in a tech field like software design or data analytics in a short period of time. If much of that promise sounds a bit too good to be true, that’s in part because it is. “Learn to code” is not as easy as it’s made out to be, nor is it a guaranteed path to a lucrative career.
Read further on Vox
Wanted: A career path, not a dead-end job
In recent months, companies have struggled to fill jobs for tasks like waiting on tables, stocking shelves or flipping burgers. Nearly 40 percent of former workers in the nation’s hospitality industry say they do not plan to go back to jobs in hotels, restaurants or bars, according to a survey by Joblist, an employment search engine.
For many workers, the issue is less about bargaining for more money in a tight labor market than about finding a job with a brighter future.
“People in lower-wage work are saying, ‘I’m going to pivot to something better,’” said Stuart Andreason, director of the Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity.
Their demands are already reshaping corporate policies.
Read more at NY Times
What skills-based hiring means for higher education
The degree has long been the centerpiece of higher education. The bachelor’s degree has built up such a reputation for excellence that many employers have used it as a proxy for skills in hiring. It has been assumed that if a person holds a bachelor’s degree, they’re competent in the technical and social skills that employers seek.
However, with the current shortage of workers, employers are rethinking the essential criteria for hiring. And increasingly, they’re relaxing rigid degree requirements to broaden their talent pools. Indeed, even in the 2022 State of the Union address, President Biden touched on the importance of hiring on skills.
Now that “skills-based hiring” is on the rise, what does that mean for the degree?
Read further at EMSI
Till next time…
Education isn’t something you can finish. School will end at some point.
But learning should never stop. - @tracytangtt