Reblogged: Mugging the Boot Camps

[Gus Van Horn blog]

Suppose you developed an interest in a lucrative field and suspected you could do well in it with a small amount of additional training. Suppose further that, for whatever reason, you didn't have the time or money to attend college classes. Or maybe, already being educated and having work experience, you simply didn't see the need to go back to school just to pick up a few new skills.

In such a situation, you might, say, arrange to work intensively on the skills with an expert for a time. Common sense says you'd vet the expert beforehand and pay for his services in the meantime. Of course, there is the risk that what you'll "learn by doing" isn't the marketable skill set you originally sought: Instead, you may learn the hard lesson that you just aren't cut out for the new field -- or even that you simply don't want to spend much of your time doing it or try to build a career on it. You might even learn one of these other things quickly enough that you decide to cut your losses by ending your proposed immersion program before finishing it.

Oops! According to the state of California, you aren't able to make an intelligent decision like this on your own and need the government's help every step of the way -- at least if your way of going about this is to attend a "hacker boot camp":

They aren't your traditional vocational schools. There are no grades, no degrees, and no diplomas. They're usually staffed by professional coders, not licensed teachers. Many of the teachers are volunteers -- even though the schools are usually private companies, not non-profit organizations. And many schools are backed by investments from big-name Silicon Valley venture capital firms.

The article goes on to note that, "the state would rather get the schools into [regulatory] compliance and licensed", rather than closing them down.

Of course, since the state could have butted out, but it didn't, this brings another, similar situation to my mind... I'm sure that your average mugger would rather get you "into compliance" with his request for your wallet rather than have to actually carry out his implied threat, too. But he didn't just let the person he didn't want to "shut down" walk by, did he?

The article raises the legitimate issue of fraudulent outfits purporting to offer training, but fraud is already illegal. This is all about extorting loot and control from a new set of victims.

-- CAV

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