Learning tech as a trade

As a citizen educator (a tech professional who teaches programming to kids on the side), and as a programmer with a couple of college degrees, but neither in Computer Science, who learned programming "on the job" over the past 15 years to get to where I am today, I'm pretty optimistic about the learning tech "boot camp" trend. Check out this great PBS Newshour story about it . I suspect it's a good match for non-traditional learners due to small class sizes, what looks to be nice one to one instructor attention, and it's narrow "immersive" curriculum focus. And the current admission selectivity (the PBS report cites 20% enrollment) winnows class communities to serious learners. Galvanize is the company highlighted, and a google search of "tech boot camp reviews" finds a good selection of reviews, good and bad, so there's a fair amount of research to dig into to decide if boot camps are a good alternative for you.

I'd like to see small town cottage industry centers with this same goal and federal support develop, curricula created together with local industry so we create pockets of tech workers to join local tech work forces. Count me in!