Prospective students reach out to us in many ways – by email, phone, real-time chat, and virtual consultations. Usually, the interactions that follow are full of useful tips, tricks, nuggets of inspiration, general guidance, and prudent direction from our staff that really benefits the prospective student when it comes to making a decision about changing their careers. After all, it's a huge decision, and everyone's situation is completely different. We don't advise any student to take that decision lightly, and we try to really take our time and consider each person's situation carefully when we help them.
The Covalence Correspondence series ("CC", for short) features anonymized pieces of content taken from those interactions (with permission) so that, hopefully, they can be as useful to anyone as they were to the person we were originally helping.
There may be slight edits to preserve the anonymity of parties mentioned or included in the email or to improve general grammar mistakes; otherwise, the content of the email is largely preserved from the original correspondence.
Today's correspondence comes to us in the form of an email dialogue between me (Jackson) and someone who reached out to us with concerns about making the transition from a practicing attorney to a software developer and how his or her age might affect that transition.
Subject: Realistic Outcome Expectations
Hello,
I have been looking at coding bootcamps for some time, and I have some doubts and questions. I guess what draws me to Covalence is both the cost and that there is no "job promise". I know that second part sounds weird, but let me explain. I feel like with just some career counseling, resume reviews, and interview practice, I am not being pressured both by myself and the coding bootcamp to land a job right after.
Part of my situation is that most coding jobs in the midwest are going to be a pay decrease for me. I am a practicing attorney that earns about $90,000/year. However, I am pretty unhappy with it and would love to move into a different career path. I have been doing some level of coding on my own for the past six months and I do love the logical aspect of it. I just feel that to take it to a level to have a chance to succeed at a professional level, I would need to either do a coding bootcamp or pursue another degree.
I guess, my biggest question is whether or not people in their 40's have gone through the program and if so, what sort of success have they had in the program? Also, are you aware of what sort of career paths they may have taken after the program?
Thank you,
John/Jane Doe
Re: Realistic Outcome Expectations
Hey John,
Thanks for reaching out!
We totally understand where you're coming from. We've had several people go through our course over the past 3 years that made a career change in their 30s, 40s, and 50s for the same reasons you stated. Some good friends of mine went through the bootcamp with me, and they were in similar situations. One was in his late 40s making the transition into software development from HVAC work. Another around the same age went from IT help desk-type jobs to software development. They're both still gainfully employed as developers over three years later, and they're not the only ones.
Some of our alumni simply want the technical experience to apply it in their current profession, or they may branch off into something slightly different (but still related) with this new expertise. So it's really what you want to make of it! Your past life and work experience should be an asset, not a liability – and we teach you the skills you need to be a successful software developer, no matter how you want to apply them.
I'd love to discuss this with you in more detail. You can schedule a consult with me if you'd like. We can talk about your particular situation, what you'd like to do with this skillset professionally, and how we can help set you on the path to do just that.
Cheers,
Jackson
Re: Re: Realistic Outcome Expectations
Jackson,
Thanks for the response. I have a phone call scheduled for tomorrow to discuss this more.
John Doe
At this point, this person did schedule a consult, but they canceled it shortly before it was supposed to happen, so I reached out just to see what was going on.
Re: Re: Re: Realistic Outcome Expectations
Thanks for your interest, John!
I noticed you cancelled your consult for today, so I wanted to follow up with you and let you know that you can always reach out by email or schedule another consult if you have any questions or concerns about our program. We're eager to help!
Re: Re: Re: Re: Realistic Outcome Expectations
Thanks for the response. I did cancel the call because I think I just have a lot of reservation about making what is essentially a nice car payment for a training program (Covalence or any boot camp) when I am a ~40 year old attorney, and other than a few stints as technical support between undergrad and law school and a year as a freelance developer in 2010, the law has been it for me as a professional career. I just feel like no employer is really going to take me seriously as a "coder" when my background is in something entirely different. I also worry about the issue of ageism in the industry and feel that I am probably just wasting my time on coding and if I want to focus on a career change, perhaps pursue a less change intense industry.
This could simply be insecurities or valid positions, I'm not 100% either way, but nonetheless they are the concerns I have that keep me from being fully committed to joining a boot camp.
Thanks,
John (or Jane) Doe
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Realistic Outcome Expectations
John,
I think you have some valid points and doubts, but speaking from personal and anecdotal experience, I think you would find that this industry (software development) is much more forgiving than others when it comes to accepting people for what they can do now instead of what they've done in the past. As I mentioned before, I think your previous life experience could only be an asset, not a liability, and it's simply a matter of telling your story to employers that are willing to listen. The good employers that you'd want to work for will understand and appreciate your work experience. If someone is willing to discriminate based on your age or your past professional experience as a lawyer, is that someone you really would want to work for (or with)?
Now, if you're uncertain whether this particular skillset and industry is the one for you, that's a totally different question you have to answer for yourself. However, you should know this industry — and employers within it — are typically only concerned about whether or not you can deliver on what you're promising from a technical perspective. As someone going through a career change, you'd also have to be willing to accept the going rates for salaries at the positions you'd be eligible for in this new career. As a practicing attorney now, you'd probably take a pay cut at first for more entry/junior level development positions. I think some people making this type of transition set unrealistic expectations for what they can expect to earn as an entry level developer, so you need to weigh that as well. There's no reason why you couldn't be right back at $90k (or more) as a seasoned developer after a few years, though.
At Covalence, we teach you the technologies and provide you with the tools, techniques, and resources to make sure you have the technical "chops" — and we can help provide you with as many resources and as much help as we can to make sure you're putting your best foot forward in the career search — but ultimately it's up to each individual student to make the most of that skillset. Based on our correspondence to date, you seem like the kind of person that would do that, and if you decide that you want to try your hand with our bootcamp, just let me know. You can start with Atomic, which is only $200/mo and you can cancel it at any time, and if you decide to upgrade to Molecular later then we can discount your tuition by the amount you've paid to date.
I've given you access to a 7-day free trial of our Full Stack bootcamp; you should receive a magic link to login shortly after this email is sent. You'll have seven days to look through our course and try your hand at our introductory content (start at the top) to see if it's something that will work for you — no strings (or pressure) attached.
I sincerely wish you the best, John. It seems like you've got some decisions to make, and if there's anything we can do at Covalence to help guide you in the right direction, that's why we're here! The door's always open for a consultation as well.
Warm regards,
Jackson
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Realistic Outcome Expectations
Jackson,
First of all, thank you for taking the time to write a very thoughtful response to my concerns that I raised in the last email. I will say this, in my search for a coding bootcamp, I have come across a lot of form email responses and a few brief phone calls; but your response was definitely different.
I will say that if I were to move to forward, I feel that Covalence has just moved up the list. It was pretty high based on price alone, but with your last email, I just didn't feel like I was being sold a product as much as I was being provided guidance on whether this is a good choice for me or not.
I have had a chance to check out the platform. I do want to ask a question regarding the part-time program. I saw two different prices/monthly payment plans. When I clicked on one link it stated it was a $1,000 a month. When I was on a different page, it stated it was $400, for 12 months.
Thanks,
John (or Jane) Doe
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Realistic Outcome Expectations
You are very welcome, John — it really wasn't a problem at all. I'm glad that it helped! We may be a bunch of nerdy developers running a coding bootcamp, but, first and foremost, we're in the people business. If we don't take care of our people, there's no way we (or they) can be successful; that starts the moment you reach out to us and lasts until you get to where you want to be.
It sounds like you're looking at the plans within Gravity (what we call our learning management system), so you're going to see a few different options there. For now, I wouldn't worry about that – go by what's on our website.
The $1,000/mo option was intended for Molecular students that want to enroll on a month-to-month basis without committing to pay the full tuition price when they start their program. It was a concept we never really publicized or rolled out officially. The $400 for 12 months (for a total of $4,800) plan is the option for when you do commit to finishing and paying the full tuition amount. I didn't even realize the month-to-month Molecular option was visible. 😂
We should probably remove that so it doesn't cause any more confusion, so thanks for bringing it to my attention!
If you have any more questions or concerns, feel free to send 'em my way!
Sincerely,
Jackson
It was at this point that John/Jane Doe responded with a brief "thanks, but no thanks (for now)", and I asked for permission to share this conversation publicly because I thought it truly contained quite a bit of useful information within it. This was their response after I asked:
Jackson,
I cannot imagine that I am the only person that has had mixed feelings about a career change and has wondered whether or not a coding school could be of use. Given that I would be more than happy for you to use our conversation. Again, I truly think you took more time than any other coding bootcamp or coding school took with me to help me work through whether or not pursuing this path was for me.
I also feel that Covalence takes a great approach in what it presents to the world in that there aren't inflated job statistics or outlandish job guarantees that essentially require someone to jump through a series of hoops in order to qualify. One of the reasons I was interested before having this email exchange was that 1) the school was priced appropriately, 2) the school is aimed at being just that, a coding school, and 3) while you help in the job search, like any university or college would, you don't make people believe that this is going to land them a $100,000 a year position at Google without any effort!
Again, while I have decided based on my current skill set, age, location, and current position to take a different path to a possible change, I believe the approach Covalence takes towards its students would be extremely beneficial to a person looking to move into the software development or web development industry.
Thank you again for your time and thoughtful responses to my concerns and questions!
Sincerely,
John (or Jane) Doe
Interested in how Covalence can help you learn a new skill or change your career? Schedule a consult with us.