Why Are Bootcamps So Expensive?

There is a perennial instinct in our minds every time a financial transaction is presented before us - to evaluate the worth of it from every possible angle before spending or investing on it. Suffice to say, this instinct in us is there to make us better decision makers, and rightly so.

Investing money on something as expensive as a bootcamp is definitely something you should not take lightly. So what do you get out of bootcamps? What is the reason behind their pricing? Are they worth it? Does tech-stack play a role in it?

Let’s evaluate all these points.

What you are investing in -

The general idea behind coding bootcamps is to educate aspiring developers with any background and train them in a specific set of skills and help them become job ready in a relatively short span of time.

These skills are definitely not hard to gain but the way to approach learning them has changed in the recent decade. This article details the demand for MERN stack developers in India in 2021. Evidently, the role of a full-stack developer is demanding to say the least. This means that developers today get to work on and build exciting and impactful applications, but only if they have the right skills.

The average salary for a skilled full-stack web developer in India is ~9 LPA. The ROI is indeed huge but should you spend on learning?

The answer is - Yes. But you are not just spending on getting yet another certificate. Rather, you are investing on a set of skills that, in all probability, can jump your career by leaps. The structured roadmap, the constant mentorship, and feedback loop all help in shaping the journey into a very successful outcome.

The pricing game -

Here’s the caveat - invest in bootcamps even if they are priced here, but only on the right bootcamp. A bootcamp that offers you holistic improvement along with quality education, is one that is worth choosing. What makes them expensive in the first place?

• Curriculum

  It is no small feat to design a curriculum that keeps pace with the current technology trends. Every other week, a new technology comes out or gains visibility, and there are enough startups and businesses that are willing to jump on this bandwagon of change. This means that no one language or framework can guarantee you a lifetime of jobs. A true developer is always learning and upgrading themselves as necessity demands it.

  But to begin a career as a full-stack web developer, you can start out with JavaScript and its ecosystem. Learning the MERN stack is a very valuable asset that you can have. At bootcamps like AltCampus, the curriculum is precisely designed to provide just that, while solidifying your fundamentals in programming and problem-solving.

  There is a lot of time and effort invested in coming up with a curriculum that not only provides immense value but is also relevant as per industry requirements. This needs to be valued enough, and is one factor that influences pricing.

• Mentorship

  The most important factor in pricing is mentorship and its associated value. Students can learn topics from anywhere today but there is one major thing that is lacking - the luxury to make mistakes and correct these mistakes by getting proper feedback and code reviews.

  As we discussed in one of our previous articles, feedback loops and practice are crucial to elevate your understanding of concepts. Mentorship is a personal approach to learning that instills confidence in you with every step. Mentoring in this manner requires years of experience and management skills, which mentors have worked very hard at achieving, which is why investing in this factor is a huge advantage for learners.

• Community

  As the old African proverb says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

  This holds true in every sense in a bootcamp. Building a community around aspiring developers takes a tremendous amount of building trust, faith, engagement, and commitment to a vision. This is a very valuable asset for students who come from diverse backgrounds since engaging with each other and sharing the learning journey will abundantly ease the hurdles everyone faces along the way. There are both online and offline bootcamps, and at AltCampus, we have an active community of students from multiple batches who engage in discussions, mock interviews, hackathons (check out our recent hackathon event’s results), blogging, and much more.

  So, you not only get a platform to learn but also get a community that supports, helps, and shares the journey with you along the way. This network can open unexpected doors and opportunities too in terms of career!

Conclusion - Is it worth it?

Let’s do the math!

The average salary-goal of a full-stack web developer who has graduated from a bootcamp, would be a minimum of 6 LPA in India. Considering the price of a bootcamp like AltCampus , you would be investing about 15% of 6 LPA in order to gain valuable skills for life along with a well-paying job. The only bigger investment would be your time and effort.

There are a range of bootcamps that charge exorbitant prices, or those that take away more than 60% of your annual income through plans like ISAs (Income Sharing Agreements). Objectively looking at this pain point, investing 15% of your first annual income beforehand is practically a no-brainer, especially at AltCampus, where students’ interests and concerns are always kept in mind.

If you are a student from a high-income country, this pricing is practically a steal since you would end up earning upwards of $50k as a developer on an investment of $1200. Talk about reaping benefits!

And the math? Checks out! ☑️

So is it fair to say that investing in a bootcamp that actually understands your journey, and provides support in learning, mentoring, portfolio development, interview preparation, and more, is a wise decision? Yes it is. AltCampus is an alternative to the regular college education that you can bank on, to become a full-stack web developer.