Anyone have experience with a coding bootcamp?

[Savage]

I'm considering committing to a coding bootcamp, specifically for web development. I've had an interest in web dev for about 15 years but I never acted on it other than some small hobby websites using basic HTML and CSS. I'd love to have my own small business for front-end web dev stuff, mostly building static websites with HTML, CSS, and some JS. I don't want to do it for the money because it wouldn't be my primary source of income anyway, I just want to do it for me.

If anyone has done a bootcamp or is working as a freelance web dev, how was/is it? There are so many bootcamp options -- how did you pick one?

Is it weird that I'm really only interested in HTML, CSS, and JS, and not any of the more powerful languages?

Do you suggest I commit to a bootcamp or should I just continue being self-taught by building projects and using YouTube and Google when I get stuck?

Any other input would be appreciated. If you want to share your portfolio website, that'd be cool too.

 

[anjinha]

Hey!

So I got my first job as a front-end engineer in October after attending a bootcamp. The bootcamp I chose was Lambda School and the reasons I chose it was 1. it was a longer program than other bootcamps 2. you only pay it when you get a job. It was absolutely the right decision for me although right now I don't know if I would recommend it, they've been doing a lot of changes to the program and things seem to be kind of hectic, so I would at least wait for things to stabilize to look into it.

Picking a bootcamp is really hard though, I don't think any of them are 100% honest about their success rates and all of them tend to go try to grow too quickly and often their quality suffers. During my job search though I met a several people that did the App Academy bootcamp and they seemed very knowledgeable, so I would definitely look into that one too.

One thing to keep in mind as well, in addition to the quality of the instructions/material, is what career services they have. Lambda School actually had really good career resources, so they have people yo help you practice technical interviews, review your resume, cover letters, help negotiate offers, etc. although that might be less relevant if you want to do freelance work.

I think it's totally fine if are mainly interested in HTML, CSS, and JS but a bootcamp might be overkill in that situation, since most of them will also teach you one big front-end framework plus some backend as well., although maybe there are some front-end focused ones.