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Comment by syx | Hacker News Reader

I think most of this comes down to the fact that these bootcamps are there to freshly bake people to work on the latest shiny tech completely ignoring the basics of computer science. I, like yourself, was very lucky to attend a university course that gave me exactly those fundamentals.

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Not always. The bootcamp I worked for did 2 months of pure HTML/CSS/JS and then did a personal project for another month of which students almost exclusively used HTML/CSS/JS, some did React. Only in the final week did I teach React.

This was around 2017, most students didn't become React devs. Most students did end up in the JS ecosystem, but 30% did something else [1].

[1] When I say 30%, that's not an official statistics. It's just on my impression what I've personally seen from students who connected to me on LinkedIn. It's a guestimate at best.

Which part of that curriculum was core CS?

None of it, as those skills were not asked for by the labor market. And I tend to agree with it (as a CS bachelor and master graduate). What you need to learn is programming in a specific way. CS teaches a broad scope of things that are all helpful but they are not strictly necessary to know, especially not as a junior. I think doing a CS degree after having done web dev for 3 years in the field is a much wiser decision.

For example, I never really had to know how a compiler works or assembly, but I know it. I only needed my data structures and algorithms knowledge once. My knowledge of UML? Meh

And so on

You are describing the distinction between a scientist/engineer and a technician. Technicians only need thin slices of knowledge about the underlying abstractions.

The problem with _aiming_ only high enough to create technicians, though, is that you create a good chunk of _operators_, instead, who make do with both thin _and shallow_ slices of knowledge, making them poorly suited to any kind of generalization.

I worked at a boot camp that started off CS-"heavy" (relative to other boot camps). Unfortunately, they gradually just turned into a React shop to try to maximize profits. There were students who had been in the program for 4 months and couldn't write FizzBuzz. The placement rate was poor because students couldn't do technical interviews. I understand this particular company has made improvements since then (I've left), but it was fucking grim at the time. I now teach at a state university.

But yes, to anyone in a boot camp, get yourself some Khan Academy or whatever you need to get the fundamentals. This is an art, a science, and a craft, and you need to study to show your pride in that craft.

I think there's a place for what are essentially factory workers: taught specific skills for specific jobs. The problem is I think most don't understand the trade-offs and have unbalanced expectations.

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