My spouse started a bootcamp last year and I've helped her with many algorithm assignments. Even though I have a CS bachelor degree I still struggled with a lot of the algorithms exercises out there. It requires practice and there are actually a lot of subtleties that you don't experience while working on software projects.
A lot has to to with mathematics as well. You can work on projects with hundreds of thousands of dollars and face zero mathematical problems.
I spend a lot of time, dozens and dozens of hours, helping her with these algorithms on paper, whiteboard and writing them in code. I also struggled along with her through online algorithm and coding interview platforms like Hackerrank. Solving these algorithm is difficult and often ridiculously theoretical and out of touch with the daily routine of a software/web developer.
My spouse was very worried about not being able to solve these problems. She was scared that she will have to solve these things during the internship, but of course there are no mathematical algorithms to solve when you are working as a frontend developer.
I think the trend of mathematics during development courses and theoretical algorithm exercises during interviews are not doing us any good. Most companies are not Google and you can be a very valuable developer for 99% of the companies out there without being a whiteboard algorithm expert.
I'm curious, is it the norm for people who do online courses or bootcamps to get help from their spouses? Is it not unfair for those students that are unpaired? I was in university (and thus not really in the pairing off mindset) last time I seriously studied a brand new field but I never got a romantic partner or even a friend to help me directly with my assignments, it would have felt like cheating in a way... but since online courses are targeted to adults maybe it's expected and they see it less academically?
No, definitely not (at least on the latter two; my school did say take home assignments had to be done independently, if graded. People did get help on the ungraded assignments, though I didn't).
I wondered if bootcamps/online were more like in the adult world (where it's basically always OK to get help) or like traditional degrees (where everything graded has to be done on your own unless a team project). You are saying it is more the former, I suppose.
I just wanted to know if everyone did it. Like are most people in bootcamps friends or spouses or children of working programmers? or are there also people doing this "out of nowhere" like at community college?
A lot has to to with mathematics as well. You can work on projects with hundreds of thousands of dollars and face zero mathematical problems.
I spend a lot of time, dozens and dozens of hours, helping her with these algorithms on paper, whiteboard and writing them in code. I also struggled along with her through online algorithm and coding interview platforms like Hackerrank. Solving these algorithm is difficult and often ridiculously theoretical and out of touch with the daily routine of a software/web developer.
My spouse was very worried about not being able to solve these problems. She was scared that she will have to solve these things during the internship, but of course there are no mathematical algorithms to solve when you are working as a frontend developer.
I think the trend of mathematics during development courses and theoretical algorithm exercises during interviews are not doing us any good. Most companies are not Google and you can be a very valuable developer for 99% of the companies out there without being a whiteboard algorithm expert.