Should I drop out of college for a coding bootcamp?

Career Advice
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Hello, everyone. I (19M) am currently pursuing an associate’s degree at a community college with the plan of majoring in computer science or computer engineering. I am, however, contemplating the idea of just dropping out and going to a coding bootcamp to find a job fast and leave home as fast as possible. I honestly feel like a inferior loser for still living at home and seeing my HS classmates already getting married. I am unsure of this idea. If it goes well I would be employed and finally leave the boring comfort of my parents house. I am somewhat hesitant of doing this because I would feel somewhat dumb for throwing away my opportunity to get a free/ very cheap Tech related degree without worrying about the costs (it is covered by Pell grants and scholarships (and I also pocket 60% left after costs) )and having my parents provide me housing as long as I keep doing well in school and help around the house.

What is your opinion of my idea?

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If college is a reasonable option for you, stay in school. It is easier to get a dev job with a BS.

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I have the option to get it for almost free and I would like to work in technology (ideally: video games, embedded systems, or web apps), but after hearing many influencers like Joshua Fluke and many commenters hyping up bootcamps and putting down CS degrees, I feel a bit discouraged and am questioning it. Am I just taking this too literally?

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Influencers make money by being hyperbolic. A BS is still the best way to impove your odds of getting a job. If it is a reasonable option, do it.

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Thanks for your input, @JeremyLT, I appreciate it. I feel like I would be best served with getting a tech related degree
Would you mind if I ask what made you want to go into software development and how was the journey?

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Welcome @P1cklenos3! I’ll try my best to help you…

I am currently 18 (and from the Philippines), taking a Computer Science degree from a prestigious university far from my hometown. I entered with no costs at all, thanks to a law passed granting college students free tuition depending on the university chosen.

I had the idea of not entering university, because I thought learning web development on my own with resources such as freeCodeCamp and The Odin Project would be enough for me to get a job.

But then I looked through job posts in my country regarding web development through LinkedIn or JobStreet (a job posting website like the former). Almost all of them require you to have this degree or that degree and… it made me think that if I don’t get one… I might have a hard time getting accepted to an interview as well as a position in this field.

This left me with no choice but to pursue a degree in CS and… even though I don’t like the way my professors teach me things (giving you things to read and answer, but then forgetting most of them days later), I am actually grateful that I would be spending my 4 years here.

Why? Well other than leveraging the universities programs (like internships), I would have the time to learn what I needed for Full Stack Development (while also balancing out my subjects).

Because really, if you think about it… once you graduate out of university… employers would welcome you with open arms thanks to the skills you have learned outside (and inside) through being industrious and having persistence.

That is what most employers want. Someone who is passionately curious to learn things by him/herself and accepting that hey… mistakes happen… what’s important is that we realize those mistakes and try to correct them through any means.

And if you can’t correct them, we could try to settle back and think what we did wrong… or press the reset button for you to refresh yourself and start again.

To summarize: I think its best if you stick to your degree as long as you can cover the costs (whether it is cheap or free). Leverage the universities programs like internships, continue to learn outside and if you think some of the concepts being taught to you on the inside are beneficial… learn them.

After that, you will graduate out of university with the skills needed for you to find the job you wanted or needed…

I don’t know which country you are living in, but don’t be. The opposite is true here, almost all students (probably) studying at the university I am entering are not married.

Yes, maybe some of them have boy/girlfriends… but because of my culture, most of them probably don’t want to (or are afraid to) get married as they are still studying at university.

I also still live with my mom currently… and she still likes (or loves) my company (since I am the one who cooks for our food).

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Thanks, @NyeverGator. I appreciate the insight. In case you were curious about which country I am from, I am from the United States. Yeah, I know the United States is the place with a loan crisis and a horribly managed education system and I wish it were like your country tbh. However, I receive grants (gov. subsidized awards) and scholarships that cover more than cover my schooling costs. I calculated my total degree costs to be around 30k. In community college , I receive 9k in scholarships and grants while an entire year in community college costs around 4k in total. I hope to do well and transfer to my local university soon. What do you think of my plan?

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I took a somewhat different path. I originally got a math degree and worked as a statistician. Then I went back to school to get my masters so I could teach. Then I got my PhD in math and switched over to programming halfway through the degree. I started doing more programming because I was the part of my degree program I liked the most. Totally not a path I recommend, but it worked out for me.

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@JeremyLT I won’t lie, that is quite an interesting path. Is it true that most statisticians work as data scientists nowadays?

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@P1cklenos3 I don’t really know every detail about your plan (and I hope you planned it well), but if you think that it could benefit you in the long term, then stick to it. What matters is that the path you are taking will guide you towards the destination you are trying to go to.

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The two fields often overlap, yeah

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@NyeverGator I planned it to the best of my ability. I just want to take the most effective and best path. Thank you for your kind words.

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Everyone has their own path in life, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that getting married young is a good thing, especially if you’re male - as a guy, it’s best to focus as much as you can on optimizing your chances of being successful in the future, and a college degree can help with that quite a bit. Also you’re at an age where it’s totally fine and normal to still live with your parents. I’ve actually heard there’s an increasing trend of a lot of people now aged up to 30 who still live with their parents. There’s really no practical reason to focus on marriage at your age - study hard, work hard, and travel if you can. You won’t get the time back when you’re older.

There are also intangible benefits of going to college: How beneficial would going to college be? - #7 by astv99

In addition for your particular case, I’d further add that while living with your parents might not feel like an ideal situation now, you won’t have your parents around forever either. Take advantage of the time that you have now to spend with them, because you never know what might happen in the future.

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Brilliant advice you just put out there and i was contemplating of dropping out of college too but this your advice makes me think otherwise. Thanks mate

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Hi @astv99, sorry I took too long to respond.
I mainly wrote this post because I was wondering about people who hype up coding bootcamps and say that they will make tech-related college degrees obsolete, are (discouragingly) right. This made me think about whether I was spending my time inefficiently towards the same destination I would like to go. I wanted hear some opinions.

This is honestly what my parents tell me all the time. “You should spend more time with us, instead of being reclusive in your own room.” They also bring up their age (my dad is 53 and my mom is 64).

Not to mention, there aren’t really coding bootcamps where I’m from tbh. I only know that my community college has one (ironic, I know.) for around 4k (an entire school year there) and it’s powered by Prominent Tech
My local university has one too and it is powered by thriveDX/HackerU.
Third, there is this non profit one that is local to Las Vegas only called Punchcode (I can’t put anymore links) I just wonder since I have also heard that coding bootcamp are kind of a crapshoot. What are your opinions on the ones I’ve mentioned?

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I would like to get a computer science degree in college but I feel that I am not good enough at programming to be a developer. I would like to know which degree is best

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I don’t know anything about those coding bootcamps. Bootcamps can be highly regional, so you have to do your own research.

But if the money towards college isn’t an issue for you, I’d still recommend doing that. Like I said before, there are tons of intangible benefits for going to college, and it’s not just about learning things either. That said, you’re going to learn more about theory and concepts at college, and other things that will be useful across the board. If you want a long-lasting career as a developer, it’ll ultimately be more useful to get a college degree. A lot of bootcamps don’t seem to teach data structures & algorithms, and even if they do, it won’t be in-depth - and that type of knowledge is something most CS programs cover, and a lot of companies will expect you to know them in more senior-level roles.

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