There are many ways to learn programming. We already talked at the beginning of this school year about the differences between learning to code following the Codelearn method and do it through self-taught learning. Today we will talk about another totally different type of training and we will compare it with our programming and robotics extracurricular activity. We are referring to coding bootcamps, which are becoming increasingly popular courses due to the current needs of the labour market.
What is a coding bootcamp?
Coding bootcamps are intensive courses that last a few weeks and get their students ready to enter the working world and the programming field by acquiring specific knowledge. Each bootcamp has a different duration, some of them are part time and some others are full time studies, there are some courses that are designed to learn programming from scratch and some others require a certain level of knowledge to access the course. Thus, every programming bootcamp is dedicated to a specific subject and requires a different time of dedication, but they all are characterized by being intensive courses following a highly concentrated agenda.
The lack of professionals with strong digital skills who can cover the current job offer has grown this type of intensive coding courses. Depending on the content, these programs are suitable to start learning to code – in the case of people who work on other fields but need to acquire programming knowledge or are considering a professional change– or for people who already have previous coding skills but want to keep training and specialize to get a specific job.
It should be noted that the increasingly technological world in which we live changes faster and faster and forces us to keep learning and constantly renew ourselves. And one of the characteristics of coding bootcamps is precisely that they usually offer very up-to-date content adapted to the needs of the labour market, since they are totally oriented towards the business world. That is why they are also very practical and intense, they last relatively little time and are taught in small groups.
Codelearn, a long-term learning method
Codelearn is characterized by following a completely opposite methodology compared to the one used by coding bootcamps. Codelearn is a learning method based on long-term goals which follows a very detailed curriculum that requires years of study. Our students don’t learn a single program or technology but they have the possibility to learn many programming languages and different technologies to acquire a broad base of competences and technological skills.
Obviously, students need to dedicate time and effort to acquire all this knowledge. That is why Codelearn’s programming extracurricular is based on blended learning, which means that although students attend the centres one hour a week they can continue practicing from home and we recommend them to regularly access the platform to do exercises.
Also, the fact of not having a certain duration makes it easier to respect the times and needs of each student while learning to code, as opposed to the high intensity of coding bootcamps. At Codelearn, every student has a unique user to access the online platform and progresses at his own pace depending on his motivation, the time spent on the platform and how easily he can understand new knowledge.
There are no master classes: the face-to-face lessons look more like an individualized follow-up with the mentor. Each student can ask for doubts and the mentor answers his specific questions while the rest of students continue working on different adventures.
The same happens with the online modality, in which this physical meeting space does not exist and personalized follow-up with the mentor is done entirely through the platform.
Different goals and targets
To summarize the different purposes of these two options for learning to program, coding bootcamps are useful to meet an urgent and short-term need, allowing their students to immediately enter the world of work (and therefore, they are designed for an adult target), while Codelearn is a long-term and progressive learning method that enables its students to acquire skills that last (and it is designed, although there is no maximum age limit, to teach kids and teens).