A new trend in education.(to me)

Mr Ichi wrote:As some of you know. my daughter works for a  aggressive and successful(so far) computer software company in Austin Texas. There seems to be a growing demand for developers.  To fill the demand,Programming Bootcamps are becoming very popular. for a person looking to improve or even find a career, it maybe something folks should look into.  
In her case the company, she works for ,  is going to play for the course and continue to pay her regular salary in exchange for a 2 year commitment to work for them when she completes the course.  
Might be worth a Goggle Search "Programming Bootcamps/courses"

Labs have been doing this for a while. It has become less popular as our society decided commitment didn't mean anything. In other words, in the last 10 years or so people would get their education paid for with the expectation they would work for that company or they would have to pay back the fees. People would get their degree and then find a higher paying job and say seeya. Then its a huge process to go through litigation to have those fees put on the persons credit. some do, some don't.

I personally think its a great idea to help people. but people mostly are assholes these days and once they get what they want, that's all that matters.

I would love to learn to program. That is still on my bucket list.

Last year, I tried to take what was termed a "beginner's course" through Coursera online. I washed out the first week. Who knew the ability to solve algebraic equations is part of programming?   The instructor took it for granted that students were proficient in advanced mathematics, I suppose.

PBulldog2 wrote:I would love to learn to program. That is still on my bucket list.

Last year, I tried to take what was termed a "beginner's course" through Coursera online. I washed out the first week. Who knew the ability to solve  algebraic equations is part of programming?   The instructor took it for granted that students were proficient in advanced mathematics, I suppose.

That instructor should be replaced by somebody who is competent.  The idea that we program using languages like basic, and having an instructor bog down on elementary procedures denies the reality that most programs which are being used in business are at a much higher level in the coding which allows sophisticated editors which would never have anybody fooling around with that basic code.  Most are teaching the editor software.  Nobody writes a web site anymore with hand written code.  They use an editor and certainly learning HTML and other programing language is important down the road, the idea of fooling around with an algebra was more about an instructor making something more complex than it had to be..........no employer is going to hire a programer who is writing code without editors, and sadly most of these instructors are five years behind in the skills needed for people to fill the jobs.

Yeah that's how the Japanese trained their Kamikaze pilots. They sat on the ground with a stick in their hands....

I understand your post entirely. This is a great thread and dead cinch on target. Our schools are not doing the job required to teach skills for the technical jobs which keep our economy productive. I have gone to Junior colleges and screamed because of the total inadequacy of vocational skills being taught by taxpayer supported schools.

I was building databases and ecommerce sites for real estate transactions working with major title companies in 2000. I became so frustrated with the utter lack of skills of graduates from the junior college, I made a stink and showed which tech books were on the shelf to board members. In some cases they had books which dealt with punchcards, and they were teaching classes like BD said was being bogged down by algebra calculations. I guess I would compare this to an instructor teaching students how to use a sliderule in 2014.

I was self taught. I was able to get into a school where I paid a reasonable fee which gave me one year to do current online courses with all the major editing software and coding. I never took a computer course in college, yet I could build ecommerce sites from online current editors, and I would job out tough code requirements in international job markets where I had bids to complete my coding from across the world where my skills had not caught up. We built an amazing concept plan and changed the way title services were provide.

Currently the Japanese are buiding two new plants where I have a business association with the president of the board of education. They have gone to the local community college and created your boot camp concept, not only on programing, but have brought in state of the art welding equipment and starting as Sophomore in high school these kids are getting specialized and advance training which gives them the skills to fill positions in both new plants, and the word on the street is more is coming because of what you are talking about. A group twenty years ago started buying farmland and created an economic development partnership with the business community, and the input from the business community was training and intensive boot camp training getting kids before they developed bad habits. This concept is great for America, but how to we get these tenured professors and teachers who think teaching sliderule or algebra is what american manufacturing needs. good thread.

Well when you wake up, you can read this, but you are correct again on how we share information online. Most tracked skid loaders have issues with bearing failure in the drive train which runs inside the rubber track. Over the years working in the clay and sand of Florida the bearing failures where accelerated and I was constantly losing machine time and paying expensive repairs. I finally started watching when I needed a field repair and began looking at utubes. Over the years I quit buying original bobcat parts and began installing everything which became increasingly more difficult when they took the lung in 2008. However, we learned tricks and sequences which used to take years for an experienced mechanics who I worked with for three years in high school and college at auto dealers. In those days they would have the part book and a ringed notebook with drawings, but today you can literally ask a question of a bobcat mechanic online which you bid your question and they will give you a list of three or four repairs which should address the issue and utubes showing the repair. It is fricking amazing, yet our schools have for the most part abandoned vocational students and educates folks in liberal arts which is fine, but those kids are not able to fill the four million technical jobs which will drive our modern economy and allow a rebirth in American industry.

I do not think you can let the teachers try to reform this mess. I think community partnerships with business and this boot camp concept is the only answer. I see all these private colleges which have popped up in the last 30 years who rip students off and make it easy to get loans and then graduate with 50k of debt and minimal job skills to fill our job openings. I am so proud of what this friend has done as president of the school board, and he is a farmer with an excavating business on the side.....we need to get this common sense back into the system, and frankly boot the folks to the curb who are a decade behind.

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2seaoat wrote:

PBulldog2 wrote:I would love to learn to program. That is still on my bucket list.

Last year, I tried to take what was termed a "beginner's course" through Coursera online. I washed out the first week. Who knew the ability to solve  algebraic equations is part of programming?   The instructor took it for granted that students were proficient in advanced mathematics, I suppose.

That instructor should be replaced by somebody who is competent.  The idea that we program using languages like basic, and having an instructor bog down on elementary procedures denies the reality that most programs which are being used in business are at a much higher level in the coding which allows sophisticated editors which would never have anybody fooling around with that basic code.  Most are teaching the editor software.  Nobody writes a web site anymore with hand written code.  They use an editor and certainly learning HTML and other programing language is important down the road, the idea of fooling around with an algebra was more about an instructor making something more complex than it had to be..........no employer is going to hire a programer who is writing code without editors, and sadly most of these instructors are five years behind in the skills needed for people to fill the jobs.

I started developing sites using HTML back in the mid-to-late 90's before WYSIWIG existed.   Taught myself how to do that using the "Nutshell" series by Musciano and Kennedy, which I still recommend to anyone who wants to learn the language behind what appears on a web site.

What I want to learn is how to do simple programming rather than editing or website development. You know, the "if" I design a program to tell the computer itself do "that", it will do it. App development, that sort of thing.

We're talking about two different languages that do two very different things.

But I agree - the course I took should never have been billed as a "basic" course if otherwise intelligent but algebraic memory-deficient souls such as myself were going to take it.

EDIT: And I'm not doing this with any notion of getting hired. I'm doing it just because darn it, I want to know how it works!

Here is another place to pursue online courses. I call it my "bucket list" site, because I still have so much to learn!

https://www.coursera.org/