Coding boot camps vs college degrees?

Question

I am looking into full stack programming/web development as a new career. After some research of the educational requirements, I have come across many of these coding boot camps (Flatiron, General Assembly, Thinkful etc.) and I am wondering what people’s thoughts are about going through one of these vs spending 2-4 years on a computer science degree. Do companies care which way you went through as long as you have the skills?

Answer 1

I’m new to the field myself but I have dear friend in Google who claims it’s more about your production in an interview rather than pointing to your resume. While the bootcamps are a great kickstarter and they do show a display of willingness to learn, it’s another gold star sticker (like these certificates we get here). I’ve always been recommended to produce actual code rather than go to a class. Best advice I got was to produce projects for fun. I’ve built a crappy website and i’m working on a sudoku game to learn iOS app development. All this said im considering a bootcamp as well, but i do think i have more direction & motivation after self-started projects.
Best of luck to you!

Answer 2

Thank you for the insight Charlie! I am taking an HTML clas and CSS class through edX.org for free and they have you create some projects as well. I like your suggestion of just producing whatever I want for fun and then making a portfolio of my work. That would be a good way of showing proof of my skill set. Good luck to you!