UCLA and UCI Extension Coding Bootcamps Aren’t Really Bootcamps
By Kelsey Austin
Education about software engineering has never been so accessible for aspiring coders. For some, the journey begins through computer science courses at universities.
At the current rates, an estimated total tuition, fees and living expense price for a four-year bachelor’s degree at UCLA, a public institution of higher education, is $133,564, and growing each year, for students graduating within a normal time-frame.
UCLA Extension, via a partnership with Trilogy, run by people that left GA, offers a programs that cost close to twenty thousand dollars, and takes a quarter, or longer to complete.
However, neither of the UCLA options guarantee that those newly obtained college skills will enable a recent graduate to find a livable-wage position in the tech field that will permit her or him to pay off those student loan balances.
For those who do not attend a formal computer science program in college, the pathway is accelerated through intensive coding boot camps like Sabio that provide coders with the exact skill-set they need to excel, and hopefully, to be hired.
Many of the best accelerated programs are certified through CIRR — the Council on Integrity in Results Reporting. This organization standardizes the definitions and curriculum objectives while providing a level of authenticity that is often hard to identity when researching online. For the bootcamps CIRR has standardized the coding education system and pushes its boot camps to be truthful in their advertising.
Above everything, CIRR’s most game-changing requirement for bootcamps is the requirement to turn over information about program graduate career successes — or failures. There are 28 CIRR-accredited boot camps, all of which semi-annually report “outcomes.” CIRR member school further commit to having their outcome claims audited by an independent CPA firm.
Outcomes are the raw data that explains the time and pace in which students completed the courses, graduation rates, job placement rates, types of jobs, titles, salaries and promotions. The employment data is confirmed by a third party and forces CIRR-certified boot camps to deliver on their promises to students.
According to the PR firm for UCLA Extension/Trilogy, the UCLA Extension program is measuring outcomes by the hiring/placement of graduates from the bootcamp.
By abstaining from CIRR certification, UCLA Extension/Trilogy is unregulated with its curriculum and is held less accountable for the guarantees that they make to potential students.
Where some coding boot camps require a foundation of computer science knowledge, the UC programs provide education for computer science rookies. Representatives from UCLA Extension said that the program attracts three types of students: 1.) Employed people looking to make themselves more valuable within their current company, 2.) People looking to learn a new skill and 3.) students hoping for a new career. The third type of student is most comparable to those registered in CIRR-accredited programs, but the UC Extension programs do not track outcomes with CIRR. The post-graduate career outcomes and data is unrepresentative of the success of these bootcamps, since only a fraction of participants hope to pursue careers in technology.
Unfortunately, this means that the promises made in advertising and the curriculum are unregulated. It is unclear if the Triology / UCLA Extension program is regulated by the State of CA Bureau for Private Post Secondary Education. Triology’s connection to UCLA Extension may be gaming some loopholes of BPPE.
Booming alongside the tech industry is the industry of coding and software engineering education. Students will continue to spend thousands to qualify for the high-paying jobs.
Regulation of coding bootcamps and other post-secondary schools became a topic of discussion during the Obama administration. Coding bootcamps have sky-high job placement rates and starting salaries comparable to doctors, lawyers and other professions that often require graduate-level degrees. Sabio, the Los Angeles-based boot camp, mentors graduates and helps them with job placements until their salary reaches six-figures.
Minty Kamal is CEO of Accelon Inc., a company that recruits software engineers and coders for large technology companies. Many employees that get hired by large organizations go through the Accelon filter, which provides mock-interviews, career support and introductions for the aspiring professionals.
Many of these recruits come from other companies or universities, but he said that in addition to technical expertise, candidates proving that they are articulate, friendly and collaborative is a crucial part of being hirable.
“Bootcamps can provide great training, and the quality of a boot camp speaks for itself,” Kamal said. “If they actually create a team that mimics how the real world works — a team that learns how to work hand-in-hand and learns to collaborate; if it goes beyond academic knowledge — I think they will excel. It’s still not the same as the crunch of a corporate environment, but the boot camp will definitely produce grads with a winning edge.”
The concept of evaluating education by its career outcomes is gaining traction, and the Obama administration had begun streamlining these extension programs because of the near-promises for employment that it offered.
“Our hope is that the whole system will rotate to being more outcome-based,” said Jamienne Studley, deputy under secretary of education, in a Wall Street Journal article.
While the Trump administration has shown that they have different priorities than regulating postsecondary education systems, eventual government regulation of postsecondary education is expected. In the meantime, CIRR fills the role by holding boot camps accountable for quality education and advocating for student interests.
The some of the CIRR accredited bootcamps include: Epicodus, Fullstack Academy, Hack Reactor, Sabio, The Software Guild, Thinkful, Turing School of Software & Design, Course Report, SwitchUp, and Skills Fund, and the nonprofit Operation Code.
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