Is programming training worth it?

Question

Is programming training worth it?

In my job search I have come across a company called SetFocus.com. They charge about $19000 to train you and help place you in .NET positions. They claim to have a hundred percent placement rate.

They gave me an online test, and I was told I tested in the top 7% of the programming portion, so I kinda wonder why I even would desire to be trained? I could probably get a real masters degree for $20,000 somewhere.

So, in conclusion do you think this kind of programming training is valuable? Or if I keep at it on my own I will be better off?

Conclusion: It is probably somewhere between a full-blown scam, and a waste of money.

Thanks for all of your input.

Answer 1

No. Avoid. Sometimes training is worth it, a 'real' masters would be helpful. Charging you such a high price is suspicious, and sounds like a scam. Especially with the 7% claim which I am sure is rigged to motivate people into signing up as well as the '100%' placement rate. Does that really sound right?

This is not a recognised qualification, I doubt companies will pay much attention to it, You would be better off either doing a more official course and training program or just coding some things yourself and sending demo apps and code to employers who will value experience and an ability to actually code over a non-academic qualification.

You also have the Microsoft certifications, cheaper and more respected.

Answer 2

most of the times these training agencies are not to be trusted. In my opinion you should not go through this, you are better off sending CVs and doing interviews on your own, and as for training, the Sky is the limit, find the topics and skills you need to have and get better at it.

Answer 3

Holy crap! 19K? You can give that to me and I'll train you... And for a company that gets paid for test, I would imagine that more than "7%" end up in the top "7%"...

Sounds like a rip off to me. Buy yourself a couple of books and do some self-study.

Answer 4

My advice is to use that money for post-secondary education at an institution that teaches computer science and/or computer engineering. That is far too much money for something so specific.

In the future, compsci and engineering principles will still be used. .NET will not.

Answer 5

You may read a record of the phone conversation with them here.

Long story short: you better keep your $19,000.

Answer 6

At best I expect it will be equivalent to you paying to get a year (or less) of experience. You may be able to find a job where you are overqualified that would pay you to get the same level of experience. I suspect that if you're good enough to get a lot out of the training experience, you'd get the same from job experience.

Getting a real master's degree has value, but don't expect to be a .NET (or any other kind of) wizard when you're done. At best, college education teaches you fundamental concepts and how to systematically learn new things. A lot of what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. Getting a master's degree might qualify you for some jobs that your level of experience or training wouldn't qualify you for.

Answer 7

You say that you could go for a Master's Degree instead - do you already have an undergraduate degree in CS? If so, I cannot imagine a worse way to throw away your money.

Many employers will take a college graduate with some self-study and a demonstrated interest in a given area (e.g. ASP.NET) and help them come up to full speed. Hell, I hire an intern every summer with very little CS experience just to help "give back" to my field. They don't contribute a whole lot but they do learn quite a bit.

Answer 8

Since you are already a skillfull programmer I dont think the training is for you. And 19K is just a joke! I went through the same thought process and decided on opting for a MS in Computer Science. Few of the biggest advantages of going for a MS is that, you will brush up on the basics, you will think outside the frameworks i.e with years of programming we think in terms of Java or .Net (atleast I did), but here you will think more at a conceptual level and maybe stumble on something new like I did. Ended up writing a paper for IEEE based on my Master's Thesis.

Answer 9

Cute name. SetFocus.

I have to say, I'm fairly open-minded about these kinds of things, since it's certainly possible you could enroll, get hold of a good mentor who's there to teach and who knows his stuff, have a great experience and come out of the program with a job and some training that serve, together, as a foundation on which to build your career. Who knows -- it could happen, and there are plenty of universities out there handing out, essentially, undergraduate degrees in Java that end up costing well over $20,000.

That said, there are a few built-in problems with vocational, for-profit programs like this one, though. First, they're engineered to earn money, primarily, for their owners. If you come out with a job, great, but you can bet they'll do whatever they can to make sure it costs them as little as possible. They're most likely making money on both ends, too -- from you, by your tuition, but also by placing you. Great for them, but for you? Maybe, maybe not.

Second, and this might sound a bit harsh, but they're vocational schools, so you can't exactly wear their completion as a badge of CS honor like you can a degree from an accredited university -- and quite honestly, listing some unknown vocational school on your resume could actually end up doing you more harm than good. Again, as a hiring manager myself, I'm an open-minded fellow, but to be completely honest, there are plenty of other hiring managers out there who'd look at a vocational-school diploma and immediately pass.

The best advice I can give you is to keep doing what you're doing -- keep reading, pay attention to what you're reading (don't just read .NET books, by God -- there's way more to programming than C# language syntax and proprietary-framework knowledge), and build something. You'll learn more by reading well-regarded texts written by insightful people, and writing code yourself, than you ever will from some schmo in some classroom in an office park somewhere. Especially when that schmo's teaching you right out of a book you could've picked up on Amazon for thirty bucks.

If you really want to go back to school, though, go back to real school. Finding a good graduate CS program is no easy task anymore, but they're out there. If you're going to spend money, spend it on a CS education that'll last, not a shortcut to a job you probably wouldn't want anyway.

Good luck!

Answer 10

Way back in 1993, I took a 10 month, full time, "programmer analyst" course from one of those business colleges. It cost me about $12k Canadian.

It was definitely a good investment for me.

However, I went into it knowing the score. I knew I could probably learn just as much, just as fast, if I just studied on my own. But, I had a blue collar background at that point, and knew that I needed a piece of paper to make the leap. I went into the arrangement knowing I only bought the piece of paper, which would open doors. Actually getting and keeping a job, would require knowledge, which was up to me to get ... other than providing me the most rudimentary framework, they provided almost no help, and I very quickly knew more than every teacher there ... this isn't self aggrandizement .. unfortunately it's true.

Most people in my school never found programming jobs, because they were under the erroneous assumption that the piece of paper was all they would need. However, the school maintained a 100% placement rate due to the way in which they 'counted'. The school I was at counted Job Search as part of the program, and you could not graduate until you completed it. You could not complete Job Search until you found a job. Therefore, people are either; in job search, placed, or quit. And if you quit the program, or are still in the program, you can't really be called a graduate ... now can you? ... Hence the 100% placement rate in a school where almost nobody got a job! It’s actually hilarious to think about now! But I knew a couple people who were officially in Job Search for over a year! ... Eventually they were encouraged to just quit.

Mind you; most people didn't deserve jobs, because they couldn't program their way out of a wet paper bag ... they just never figured out, they needed to get that knowledge, or it was a waste of time.

When I went into the initial sales visit, I also did the test, also scored in the top 5%, and also chalked this up to sales speak. About 3 months later I was talking to a bunch of other students ... none of which were in the top 5, 10, or even 20%. Two guys actually failed the test, and they 'let' them in anyway, one of which had brain surgery a few years before and can't hold 3 things in his head at once! Great guy, he's one of the only people I kept in touch with, but he never should have been allowed in!

My advice to you ... if you don't need the piece of paper, and it sounds like you don't, I wouldn't recommend it! If you do need some type of credentials, it might be worth it, as long as you realize you can probably learn just as much with $200 worth of books and 2 months of study time.

Almost 2 years after getting my first job, I was programming in VB 3.0 on Windows 3.1 and hating every minute of it. It was so unstable and stressful; I just quit. I decided to get back into C++ ... and I didn't go to any school, I just went to the bookstore, bought about $400 in books on VC++, and sat in my apartment and read for the next 6 weeks!

Good luck.

EDIT : I would also like to add, that counter to everybody elses comment $19k could be considered a low price if you see it as an investment. These are ussually crash courses ... so you'll be working faster and $19k is pretty low in comparison to what you will make as a programmer. If that course is 6 months, and you can get a $50k job immediately ... how much will you have made in the time it would have taken you to finish a CS degree? Mind you 10 years from now, the CS degree may yeild more. But then again, if you are only interested in doing consulting or business apps, it could be even longer. But then again; a CS degree will open doors a crapy college never will .. I could never get a job at Oracle programming their DB engine .. no matter how good I was.

Anyway, I would still stick with just reading a pile of books on your own!

Answer 11

Remember those ads for the Famous Artist School Talent Test in old comic books, "Can you draw this?". I must say, that's what this brought to mind for me :)

Classes and training and continuous learning are a great thing, but this sounds questionable to me. How can they promise 100% placement? My guess is you may not want the job they can place you into...

Answer 12

My company hires developer interns (not right now with the economic situation) usually about once a year or so for a 3 month stint. There is no promise of being moved into a full time position with this; it is exactly what it is: an internship.

Ok, so I'll get to my point. Even though this seems at face value to be something for junior and senior level computer-type majors, it is open to anyone. There is ample opportunity to learn everything that a 19k class will most likely teach you.

Most of the time our internships fill up with people that are simply trying to fill some coop or intern requirement for their degree, individuals that don’t see the potential in this position; however, there are once in a while those that come into the position and really shine. They try to learn as much as possible, and they really take a lot home with them at the end of their 3 months.

I would look for computer intern positions in your area (again you might have to wait until the economy pulls itself back up by the bootstraps) and submit to all you find. This way instead of paying 19k, you can do it for free or even get paid a few grand over a few months.

The only advice I would offer in doing this is to see what the internship entails. If you’re going to be stuck fielding incident tickets most of the time, I would make sure they are using newer versions of software. (1 version behind at most). This way you can familiarize yourself with the techniques. Then press them for side projects when you get on top of things.

Basically, if you have some basic programming skills don’t bankrupt yourself, get paid to learn more!

Answer 13

I'm a former SetFocus student for the Spring 2004 class. I was a recent college graduate and finding a job was difficult for me, so I chose to take this training as an extra edge over other people of my background.

I would say it all comes down to the effort you put into it. You may be able to learn and apply your skills effectively in a classroom environment because of the lack of discipline and motivation of doing it yourself. The training itself is pretty thorough and I wouldn't be worried about the quality. The instructors I had are beyond qualified in teaching the material. With a little further effort on your own, you should be capable to pass a few of the Microsoft Certified Professional exams. Those who have hired students from SetFocus overall have provided positive testimonials.

The company's strong suit is probably the lifetime career services. They train you, from beginning to end, the process of getting hired. This includes resume building, job hunting, interviewing, and negotiating.

I'm not sure about the 100% placement, but the rate was definitely very high during the time I was looking for a job.

In summary, they offer a solid training program, but at a justifiable premium price.

Answer 14

It's a scam, you can learn all this stuff yourself and not lose so much money.

Answer 15

As a principal with a national IT training firm, I'm of course biased toward training vendors solutions however even I will tell anyone that you must be careful out there there are many unscrupulous IT training organizations.

Our company actually trains more for incumbent workers doing onsite or dedicated classes for programmers at client sites. These are typically short-term workshops 1-5 days in length and designed to teach a particular language or new technology.

I'm always leery of these firms that do these long-term programs for job placements or vocational career changers however there are several reputable ones. PTI-Pittsburgh Technical Institute for example is an excellment organization and your tuition investment there has real value. ITT Technical Institute is a national organization with a good reputation however I don't believe they teach developers.

I will warn you that this end of the IT training industry is the most fraught with scam artists and crooks. Be careful. Check out the organizatio well with the Better Busienss Bureau and more importantly with the organization within your state that licenses private schools.

Best of luck,

Scott smcfall(at)protechtraining(dot)com