Historically, holistic education has been a privilege reserved for the ruling class, aristocracy, and the wealthy. For the vast majority of the masses, the only source of education was the traditional occupation practiced at their home. Even though this trend changed over the years with the introduction of public-funded education in most modern societies, high-quality education that is guaranteed to launch learners to great professional heights remained extremely limited in number and unreasonably costly. However, the past decade witnessed a learning revolution hitherto unheard of in human history. With the spread of the internet and communication technology, learning has become widespread, diverse, and, most importantly, affordable to the masses.
Online Bootcamps have played a major role in this learning revolution due to many advantages it has over traditional school and college education and even over Mass Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Moreover, bootcamps like the UMass online courses provide easy and affordable access to University courses, resources, certificates, and alumni benefits, which were previously difficult to obtain for more than a limited number of people. In this article, let us look at what online Bootcamps are, what benefits they offer over traditional education models, and why you should probably take an online bootcamp too.
What is an Online Bootcamp?
‘Bootcamp’ is the pet name for short intensive courses designed to give an immersive and practical learning experience to aspirants in a short duration. The term originated from a military context, as military training usually involved short intensive training courses. Today, however, bootcamps mostly refer to short to medium-term online courses aimed at imparting professional skills to students and working professionals. This is particularly true for modern technological concepts and technology enabled-jobs like data science, artificial intelligence, project management, quality management, and product management. Usually, bootcamps are highly focussed skill development programs that involve 12 to 48 weeks of blended learning with sufficient hands-on training. As of now, the most sought-after online bootcamp in the world is the full stack Java developer bootcamp. However, .Net, Ruby on Rails, Python, and PHP are close contenders.
History of Online Bootcamp
The first online bootcamps were rolled out in the US in the early 2010s. Until 2015, there were only a handful of online bootcamps available in a limited number of technology courses. Soon, however, realizing their potential benefits, several content creators started rolling out online bootcamps of various types, durations, and quality levels. The interest in online bootcamps among learners increased exponentially. The huge demand and the ease of delivery of such programs led to the online bootcamp business becoming a 1.1 trillion dollar business, as per the latest reports from Career Karma.
Emergence of Blended Learning
Blended learning, also known as ‘hybrid learning,’ refers to a flexible, customizable, and engaging form of learning that blends together preshot videos and live classes to give learners the best of both worlds. Most blended learning models allow learners to access pre-recorded videos whenever they want and even provide recordings of live sessions with experts. However, those who wish to talk to subject matter experts face-to-face and clarify their doubts in person must attend the live sessions at the scheduled time. This combines the freedom and flexibility of online courses and the rigor and seriousness of classroom-based training.
But that’s not all. Many blended learning programs combine games, apps, audio, videos, text, and many other tools to make learning as engaging as possible. Due to its many benefits, blended learning has gained prominence among the online learners’ community. Most of the popular and sought-after online bootcamps worldwide follow a blended training model precisely for this reason.
Who will benefit from Online Bootcamps?
Online learning bootcamps suit learners of all ages, geographic, and educational backgrounds. Most technology bootcamps are suitable for beginners and transform even absolute beginners from completely different backgrounds to job-ready professionals in a matter of a few months. Due to their flexibility of timings, bootcamps can be attended by learners from across the world.
Especially, bootcamps are a huge relief for working professionals looking to switch careers. Even for students who are enthusiastic about modern tools used in Data Science and AI, there are extremely limited, if any, choices for pursuing them at a college or university level. So, an online bootcamp is the only option for them to learn these skills with hands-on practice without disrupting their formal education.
Moreover, online bootcamps are for those lifelong learners and adventurers who wish to try out new things in life, gain new experiences, and push their boundaries. Due to the miracle of online learning, today, we can witness people learning highly sophisticated technology tools in their 70s and 80s. This is a milestone in the history of education itself.
Benefits of an Online Bootcamp for your Career
Online Bootcamps offer the following major benefits to learners over traditional classroom style learning:
- Career mobility: You will be able to climb ranks faster in your own domain and sometimes within your own organization to reach leadership roles if you possess the right skill set and credentials.
- Short duration: Online bootcamps only last weeks as against traditional classroom degree courses that often take years to complete. Moreover, there is a significant focus on hands-on practical-level training in online bootcamps, which is often missing in traditional learning methods.
- Salary hikes: Online bootcamps provide a huge return on investments as they often lead to substantial pay raises that are hard to obtain merely through work experience or formal education.
- Great mentorship: Online courses are often led by world-class mentors who are leaders in the industry and academic circles.
- Placement opportunities: Many online bootcamps come with placement assistance that enables learners to switch to a career of their liking in a short amount of time without spending substantial amounts of money.
- Global network: Popular bootcamps often have learners from across the globe. This will help you build a huge professional network that you can rely on for your professional growth.
Conclusion
All in all, online bootcamps are amazing ways for people to upskill themselves and follow their passions even in the middle of their professional life. Bootcamps have democratized learning and improved the overall quality of education. They are suitable for people from all professional spheres of life and even for students with zero work experience. Moreover, bootcamps provide opportunities for interested learners of all age groups to learn more about modern technology that fascinates them. Due to the myriad of benefits they offer, bootcamps are sure to become the default mode of learning in the near future.