I've previously talked about bootcamps in the general sense.
That doesn't exactly provide a great point of reference to how a specific bootcamp fares. So this post will be exactly that and talk to my experience at Hack Reactor.
3 Things I Liked about Hack Reactor
1) No Hand Holding
Hack reactor is notoriously self-driven.
There's a 45 minute introduction to each sprint, then 2-days of work against requirement guidelines that you and a peer have to figure out together. Sometimes there's a supplemental lecture towards the end of day 1 or at the beginning of day 2.
But that's it.
Some people see this as a downside of Hack Reactor. Numerous course reviews mention that they thought Hack Reactor could have done a better job helping their students work through the materials. This complaint is understandable as being stuck on a problem with no way of getting meaningful help can be demoralizing.
And while I think this is a fair criticism and by no means an invalid claim because there is some truth to it, I have two main objections:
1) Hack Reactor has technical mentors and teaching assistants that walk around and help out with the course materials, and students can ask for help on an as-needed basis. However, assistants are specifically instructed by staff to not give out answers but lead students through the problem solving process (Ask the students what question they should be asking next. Talk about general problem solving strategy, tips, and pointers, not the actual code.) "Not helping" is actually by design at Hack Reactor.
2) While there's a fine line between not helping out enough to make the student experience be productive and helping too much, students learn best by doing, not being told what to do. This is the overarching philosophy behind Hack Reactor's teaching pedagogy.
I got value out of this "less-help" experience because I got to maximize the amount of participation and effort I had to put into the problem solving process, but I can understand that not everyone will feel strongly in favor of this.
2) I made lifelong friendships.
There aren't that many opportunities in adult life where you connect with other individuals at a very personal level and spend 66 hours a week for 12 weeks straight. Speaking in terms of time, that's more than what you can expect with coworkers at a job as well as a spouse, given that you work and are away from the spouse for most of the day.
The sheer number of hours means you form deeper relationships. Humans have this tendency to develop bonds with people they spend time with.
Why does this matter?
Because deeper relationships means a more fulfilling life.
Life is quite literally defined by the way we spend our time, not by our accomplishments or social status. If we spend it with people whom we deeply know and appreciate, life is more fulfilling.
3) Curriculum lecturers were top-quality.
Difficult concepts were distilled down to understandable nuggets of information which were thoughtfully given out over a 20 to 45 minute lecture.
These lecturers were the best lectures that I've personally sat through in my educational career. They aren't the most inspiring or the most motivating as that's a different class of presentation, but when it comes to explaining technical concepts, the video lectures given out at Hack Reactor were unparalleled to anything I had seen up to this point in the JavaScript space.
3 Things I Disliked About Hack Reactor
1) Outcome statistics aren't exactly fully transparent.
Hack Reactor, and most other bootcamps, have a need to make their numbers look better on paper than what they actually are. To be fair, Hack Reactor was one of the pioneers of transparent, standardized-based reporting by pledging to report by CIRR outcome statistics reporting, which they and several other bootcamps joined forces to create.
However, it seems they've fallen off this for a while.
2) Admissions process isn't as rigorous as they make it seem.
While Hack Reactor is definitely one of the better coding bootcamp programs out there, there were still plenty of students that made it through without a great understanding of a lot of the topics being taught.
I left feeling like I could have had better peers, but this is a challenge in three competing qualities:
- marketing – attracting the right students
- business operations – attracting enough students and ensuring they are operating at a reasonable profit with a predictable stream of students
- teaching execution – actually bringing the right talent up to speed with quality materials
Having been on the inside as a bootcamp instructor as a teacher and an operator of the campus, I know exactly how challenging balancing these qualities as a bootcamp can be.
All of these factors are multi-dimensional problems on their own and so I don't blame them for not executing perfectly across every dimension. It's impossible to achieve an ideal, but I do give them credit for trying hard.
3) Cohort size is a little bigger than I hoped.
At least for my cohort, it was a bit bigger than what I hoped. I probably would have made slightly deeper friendships with a smaller number of peers that were more qualified as opposed to the large student body (about 30 in my cohort.)
That said, during my time as an operator, I did lead some cohorts that were in the ~15 people range so it fluctuates.
To be fair, I saw first hand that a cohort that small also causes its own set of problems – friendships formed are deeper amongst some people, and cliques are formed within small groups and one person or some people get cast out from the rest of the group.
This could have just been this one particular cohort during my time there though, so take this insight with a grain of salt.
Conclusion
I hope you found this helpful.
Despite having listed an equal number of good and bad things about Hack Reactor, I do think it was one of the top bootcamps at the time that I attended it.
It's my hope that things haven't changed on that front.
Do you have experience at another bootcamp? I'd love to hear about your experience.
As always, feel free to DM me on twitter or email me with comments or any questions.