Shape Up Your Skills in Penn State’s New Bootcamp Community

As we return to blogging, I’d quickly like to recap what I’ve discussed with my readers in the past. My first few posts included an introduction to my blog and centralized around the ides of continuous learning throughout one’s life. Within my posts about this topic, I wrote about how I am passionate to keep learning about the vast world around me and those cultures and objects that encompass it. I’ve always loved the concept of a formal higher education after high school, so college was always the next step for me. However, as we are wrapping up our first semester, I have realized all of the other opportunities for me to learn besides sitting in the classroom.
Over the semester, I have engaged myself in a number of extracurricular activities in which I can practice the skills I am learning in the classroom. However, not everyone has the ability to practice real life skills through their classes or clubs offered here at Penn State. This is most prominent within the engineering and computer science majors, of which I myself are not a part of, however, I am learning about. My goal throughout my time at such a diverse space as Penn State is to begin to understand the lifestyles and programs for other students, especially those so opposite of me. In this case, as a liberal arts student, computer science and engineering are not my forte and I use my friends within these programs to enlighten me on their choice of study. What they describe is a long, grueling program in which their major specific classes do not being until their third year as a student; at this point, they have spent almost three years working on basic classes, electives, and general education classes to keep them well rounded. However, what this also means is that many are behind in learning about their actual major and what it entails. This leads to feelings of unpreparedness by the time of graduation and emergence into the work force.
To resolve this, an alternative teaching method was created that include topic-intensive bootcamp programs that quickly teach you the fundamentals of a topic in a much shorter amount of time. These specific classes are short, 12 week, classes that are hosted by a vendor within the field, such as Cisco or Microsoft, in which the sponsor’s platform and skills are taught to those students within the bootcamp. The result is a much higher turn over rate for people wanting to learn marketable skills.
When comparing the results of the bootcamp classes to the normal higher education track, very few differences can be made to distinguish bootcamp students from traditional students. They generally have the same starting salaries and skills, yet those who engage themselves in bootcamps tend to have less debt and more time due to the nature of shorter and cheaper classes to learn the same skills. This does’t seem fair and clearly display the bootcamps as a better option for students who want to prepare the most and spend the least amount of time and money. So why do students continue on the traditional higher education track of spending four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to achieve the same outcome?
It all comes down to the product of a well-rounded education that includes those basic and elective classes. The Penn State community is proud of its diversity and open-mindedness, which is generally taught, fostered, and born from these classes that many students would not traditionally think to take for their major. For example, a student majoring computer science engineering may take classes about the psychology of communication behind computer screes. By thinking in this unorthodox fashion, students become more knowledgeable about the different aspects and ways of thinking about the world around them.
To achieve this well-roundedness, one does not have to take classes that will lead them to nowhere; instead, the different clubs, organizations, and extra curricular activities offered through Penn State can foster the thirst for knowledge one may have outside of their intended major. In conclusion, I’d like to reiterate as I did within my blog post about studying abroad, to take advantage of the numerous opportunities at Penn State to learn about the world around you and round out your skills to become a more marketable and knowledgeable person of the world.