Heh. There are data science camps as well. I've also heard of them for product management and design too

college is massively inefficient for preparing people for jobs so bootcamps should continue to have a nice niche.

Hi,

Does anyone have any experience with the General Assembly Data Science Immersive (NYC if it matters) application process with regards to how strict they are with acceptance? I am very seriously thinking about taking it (in real estate right now), but I have nearly no background in either tech or stats. I've done the pre-app work for Full Stack and the like thinking about back end developing, but I think data science interests me. My undergrad was in Econ/Finance and I played poker for a number of years successfully so numbers aren't foreign to me, but I don't think that counts for much.

It's not a spur of the moment decision, I've been thinking about it for a while and will dedicate all my time to it, but if the acceptance is very rigorous I may take the time to learn more math/programming on my own and wait the half year/year until the next season. That would not be the scenario I want though, as I have ample savings and enough dislike for where I am at currently that I would love to plunge into it full time right now.

Plus I'm getting old, hitting 30 this year. Thanks for any help.

Not quite the same, but Larry Legend did General Assembly Immersive (web dev) in Boston. I recall him mentioning several others in his class seemed woefully underprepared / not capable, so I cannot imagine entry requirements were super-strict.

Is there anything to lose by attempting to get in to this earlier cohort, and only if that fails wait / study for 6 months?

I have currently been tasked with reviewing resumes at my job. I can tell you that there are quite a few bootcamp grads that have either not yet found jobs or who have not yet found full time employment (brief contracting/interning) with periods of not working or who have gone back to other jobs.

I will also say that there are also a lot of "online boot campers" and lots of people talking about freecodecamp and such and such nano-degree/online certificate.

Resumes mostly look the same. If you have interesting projects with websites that people click on, that looks really good. As does having lots of projects with different technologies.

Getting out and meeting people is going to go much further than just sending a resume. People are hiring because they are BUSY. Make it easy for them. If you hear about a job opening, show up at their office and see what happens. The worst thing is they turn you away. Track them down in the parking lot if you have to. Get in a room with someone and express interest in wanting to work there.

Do you hire them / seriously consider them? I really don't know how bootcamps are viewed hiring wise, because we almost only hire senior devs.

Don't do this

I was thinking in terms of when to submit my application also. From what I've read if it is (mostly) a non technical interview I'd like to apply earlier so I have an idea of the future better, but if it is more technical, I would take a few weeks to seriously prep up a bit more before trying as the program does not begin until 7/30 and I *think* applications should not be too late in a month.

But of course I'd like to decide sooner rather than later so I have more info to work with.

Yes

As _dave_ mentioned, the web development immersive that I attended did not have selective applications.

However, the data immersive seemed like a much smaller class size and potentially more selective, but I kinda doubt it. It did skew way more toward senior professionals who had clear next steps in line after finishing the data immersive. But there were a few who genuinely hit interviews after to try and find something. They seemed to have a relatively easy time finding jobs from what I saw. More so than the web development attendees.

omg this. I went to a security conference about a year ago and after chatting with a random dude at my table was already keyed into some rails work locally.

Do ALL the tech conferences imo

Thanks for the info. I'll probably redo some python and and free stats courses in the next few weeks before applying.

Yea when I was applying I went to any meetup/talk/free conference/fair that I could. The eventual full-time job did not come from those, but in many instances it got me much further in the process than I otherwise would have been. I did get contract work from a random bar JS meetup which wound up being vital for giving me something juicy to talk about in my full-time interviews.

I saw tons of boot camp resumes. (Prop trading) The filter I used was pretty simple to give a real interview: write something, anything, to sort through the hundreds of gmails (generated with a form that the applicant himself had used) and get all the resumes printed. I gave them as much time as they wanted.

Less than 5% produced. A few already knew how to use gmail's script. A few produced AHK macros (like sub 10 out of hundreds). Most that passed took a few hours to look up gmail api and wrote some kind of script to get it done in 3 or 4 hours.

If you put SQL on resume, I will just give you an output from an earlier project then tell you to duplicate the result. Its mind boggling how few people could get this done.

It's absolutely crucial you think of boot camps as a way to learn a skill. Graduation alone is insufficient. I rather give someone who never coded but has shown a high level of intelligence (high GPA at a strong philosophy program for example) a chance than someone who went through a boot camp but still cant do pretty basic coding tasks on his/her own.

hmm, that seems like it should be pretty easy.

You would think. But at least half the people I went through a boot camp with left with basically no new skills because they didn’t apply themselves or study. Doesn’t take much effort, but the percent of people willing to put forth even minimal effort seems pretty low.

not the case at my boot camp. even the worst student tried very hard to understand it and make the code work.

ofc, my boot camp was fairly selective or at least claimed to be. I knew (of) a few people who were rejected.

Selectivity probably matters a lot. My biggest critique of the place I went was that we had a lot of people who had no business being there in the first place.

Personally, if I ran a boot camp I’d be damn selective to make sure my students were representing my curriculum to the best of their ability.

my boot camp emphasized 2 things during the selections process. 1, they wanted ppl who had "stick-to-it-ness" and 2, harvard didnt pump out amazing grads bc of their great curriculum or education but rather bc they took the best.

the first thing doesnt really apply to this conversation other than to emphasize that they did actually consider some certain criteria for choosing.

regardless, I have nothing but great things to say about my bootcamp in terms of finding us jobs. I did think the material was a bit too easy and would have preferred to be challenged more.

Physical Classroom