The last twelve months have been an exciting time for the coding bootcamp industry. From DevCamp’s surprising closure to Flatiron’s surprising acquisition by the shared workspace company WeWork, 2017 has seen the bootcamp industry stumble, expand, and restructure on myriad levels. Here are eLearningInside News‘ top 2017 coding bootcamp stories.
Coding Bootcamp: 2017 Top Stories
Several Early Coding Bootcamps Close as the Industry Continues to Grow
Among other notable developments, this year both Dev Bootcamp, which started in San Francisco, and Iron Yard, shut down. As Course Report emphasized in its 2017 market survey released in July, growth in the bootcamp market is still strong but there have been a few bumps along the road.
Coding Bootcamps Move to Self-Regulate
In 2017, after years of unprecedented growth and a lot of bragging about job placement rates, the coding bootcamp industry started to take its first steps toward regulation. As reported in TechCrunch earlier this year, “A group of coding boot camps and white-collar training programs from around the country are banding together to create a single standard for reporting graduation and job placement data. The move comes as these ‘accelerated learning programs’ across the country push for greater validation among educational institutions — and a share of the massive state and federal dollars that come with accreditation. Called the Council on Integrity in Results Reporting…the organization will create truth in advertising standards, and common definitions, documentation and validation requirements for all participating organizations.” To date, it is still unclear how this new organization will operate and not all coding bootcamps have agreed to sign on to the Council on Integrity in Results Reporting mandate, but there is little doubt that the industry will continue to debate the regulation question in 2018.
Coding Schools Tackle the Gender and Tech Problem
As the gender and tech problem appeared to only get bigger throughout 2017, coding bootcamps continued to take on the challenge of doing something that colleges and universities haven’t been able to do: Get more women into tech. Women-only bootcamps, like the successful Grace Hopper Academy in New York City, continued to flourish, but gains were also made at some co-ed coding bootcamps. In October 2017, after rolling out a new scholarship fund for women, online coding bootcamp, Bloc, announced that it was now enrolling more women than men in its programs for the first time and had high hopes that this trend would continue in the future.
Western Governors University is amazing!!! I am impressed with all this School has to offer. Everything is at your finger tips. The mentors they have for each student are amazing. They are very helpful and very assessable. The course mentors are also amazing!!! I just completed my BSN/ Nursing this past November 2017, I started the Masters Program/Nursing Leadership and Management In December 2017. I would highly recommend this school to anyone who wants to get their degree in higher education. One thing you have to know is that you need to be disciplined. You set the pace you want to go at, but need to finish the classes you signed up for by the end of the semester.
I have been at WGU studying Accounting for the last 6 months. I have really enjoyed it. WGU is NOT a correspondance course. There are live lectures, direct teacher and mentor interaction, dozens of additional resources. The Department of Ed is trying to protect its brick and motar cronies who provide students with more debt than they can handle to sit in classrooms and not learn a damn thing.
I’m a WGU graduate and now work for Microsoft. WGU prepared me for my future opportunity and I recommend WGU to all my friends and family. I have two family members that have sense graduated and have more then doubled their income. My income has seen a 4X growth since graduating. WGU is a fantastic option for working professionals seeking higher education.
I am currently finishing up my first year at WGU using my Post 911 GI BIll. I cannot stress enough how awesome this school is. I work full time and have 2 small children, the flexibility WGU provides is instrumental in my ability to finish my degree. I would not be able to complete my degree otherwise. I see a lot of Universities are now attempting to copy the WGU model by providing 4 year degrees fully online, but WGU is light years ahead of most of them. I know several people who have graduated from WGU who are extremely successful in their careers. WGU isnt some sham for profit University like UOP or ITT Tech, its a legit school where you get challenging courses. I highly recommend WGU to anyone looking to complete their degree.