I heard boot camps can get me into a job in just a couple of months.

They seem intense and expensive, though.

Are they worth it?

Signed,Could-be Coder

Dear Coder,Youre definitely not alone in your interest in coding as a career.

Coding boot camps promise to get you job-ready in a relatively short amount of time.

Theyre liketrade schools for the digital age.

Although they can be a great way to become a professional coder, boot camps arent for everyone.

Lets look at the pros and cons.

Self -study:Many successful and awesome programmers areentirely self-taught.

College degrees:On the other side of the spectrum are formal university degree programs and classes.

Boot campsfall in between both of these, both in terms of cost and time investment.

They offer a much more focused education in programming languages or tracks.

And because boot camps are so new

, the jury is out on whether they are producing successful programmers

.

We dont have the infrastructure to train new people without much experience.

But Mr. Cole said he does like boot camps for taking the mystique out of programming.

Compared to self-study, however, boot camps offer more support and additional motivation to learn and succeed.

After all, youre investing $10,000 and 10 sleepless weeks of your life to this one purpose.

Plus, youll become part of a community of coders, a very valuable resource in itself.

Most boot camps seem to have a similar structurea dedicated amount of time for lectures followed by hands-on experience.

Lifehacker reader NH tells me:

It was intense.

I rarely left the classroom before 10pm.

Weekdays were basically wake up, work in class, go home, go to bed.

Even weekends, though there was no class, rarely offered a reprieve.

By the end of the 8 weeks I couldnt imagine going any longer.

But I loved every moment of it.

Boot camp is incredible because you get to learn by doing.

There are a lot of great online resources out there, but things like Codecademy exist in a vacuum.

Makers taught me more than just syntax for programming languages.

You also get to learn with others, pair programming, working together.

Its better than learning alone.

We had really long days.

A lot of us were at the office from 9am to 9pm.

But we had lunch together, played a lot of ping pong, grabbed a few beers after hours.

It was hard, but fun and oh so educational.

Id definitely do it again.

HR had staff and former alumni dedicated to helping students with their job search.

They had frequent checkins with students and recently-graduated alums during the job search process.

The majority went into it with some programming experience already and were completely sure about their decision, however.

That surety seems to be critical.

They can afford the tuition.

They know they can thrive in intense environments.

(Skillcrush offers afree 10-day career-focused boot campas an introduction to boot camps, at least online.)

Like, REALLY want it.

You cant go in just hoping to scrape enough from it to get a new job.

You have to want to learn for the sake of learning or youll never make it.

If you dont have a passion for it, boot camps arent for you.

I saw it happen in my own cohort.

Will Boot Camps Get You a Job?

Graduates of boot camps surveyed byCourse Reporthad an average 44% boost in income after attending the boot camp.

(The survey included 432 graduates from 48 programming schools.)

The majority of boot camps surveyed offer career services such as resume assistance or internship/apprenticeship placement.

85-96% placement rates are pretty good!

Starting to get worried.

I wish I had work experience to show that Im a developer.

I just got denied from a job because I had no work experience in Rails.

Some code schools offerscholarshipsfor veterans/military personnel, women, minorities, and other select groups.

Its really really hard to break into the tech world as a coder from a non-coding job.

Usually coders are self-taught from a young age or went the computer science at uni route.

Makers really was one of the only options for them to make that career change.

Just know what youre getting into and be ready to dive in.

Love,Lifehacker

Title image by Tina Mailhot-Roberge.