Your heart is set on changing your career and diving into tech, but you’re facing one big question: whether to attend a full-time or part-time bootcamp. On one hand, you're eager to learn and to change careers as soon as possible and start your new tech job, but you do have a job and responsibilities and studying full-time is a serious undertaking.
Both options have their advantages and drawbacks and in this article, we’ll dive into both, helping you make an informed decision that works for you.
Part-Time Bootcamps
Let’s first chat about the benefits of choosing a part-time bootcamp:
Part-time bootcamps are more flexible
If you choose to attend a part-time course, you’ll be able to continue working, be it in a company or freelancing. Some are lucky enough to have an employer to sponsor them, but if you don’t have this, you may need to rely on a steady income during the bootcamp; a part-time bootcamp will therefore allow you to combine your studies and work in a fairly flexible way.
Generally speaking, the practical work of a bootcamp can easily be done asynchronously and in the case of group work, you can agree with the other participants to work online or schedule face-to-face meetings for evenings or weekends. With just a little organization, you're all set!
Part-time bootcamps can be easier to follow
There are as many ways of learning as there are learners; it's all a question of sensitivity and wiring: some learn by listening, others are more visual, and the last ones have to see everything written for it to stick. And still there are those who need to let the knowledge settle in over time. Sound familiar?
If this is the case, then the part-time bootcamp will be the ideal choice for you. Less dense than its full-time counterpart, you’ll have time to reflect on what you discovered and plenty of room between classes to do additional research, reread your notes, dive deeper by listening to a podcast, or reading articles.
Part-time bootcamps reduce the mental load
In the same vein, bootcamps help to reduce the information load received in a short period of time. Just think about it for a moment: if you’re weighing the pros and cons before choosing, your life is probably quite full. Your job, whether salaried or self-employed, demands brain juice. Add to that your personal life, with family and friends who want to spend time with you. Sprinkle in your hobbies and add your 7 or 8 hours of sleep. Food shopping. Housework. The list goes on and on.
Studying part-time can relieve some of your stress.
Part-time bootcamps are still effective
You’ll end up with the skills you were looking for at the beginning and some recruiters may even be impressed that you managed to hold down a job while taking a bootcamp, even if it was part-time. This will project the image of a dynamic professional, eager to learn and commit to continuous learning.
Full-Time Bootcamps
Full-time bootcamps dive right in
If you're reading this article, you must be interested in a bootcamp and maybe a career change. So you’re probably eager to learn and to improve your skills; a full-time bootcamp will allow you to jump into a new field of study with both feet. It's a chance to get right to it: start that new job as soon as possible, plain and simple.
Full-time bootcamps are incredibly fast
If your goal is to quickly gain competence in specific hard skills to perform better in your job, full-time is the way to go. And if your aim is to reskill and start working as quickly as possible in a job that you really like, even better! Life is much too short to spend your days earning a living doing a job that doesn't feed you intellectually or make you grow and full-time bootcamps help get you ready for a new role in a matter of weeks or months.
Full-time bootcamps help you focus
Scientists tell us that the human brain is not designed to switch from one subject to another all the time, going so far as to say that multitasking is harmful to our neurons and our careers. Full-time bootcamps, designed to be incredibly intensive, allow us to focus on just one thing at a time, devoting ourselves to our subject of study for the duration of the bootcamp, allowing your mind to center itself.
Full-time bootcamps hello you create strong personal connections
Networking is an underrated yet central topic in career management and full-time bootcamps are more conducive to creating strong bonds with your fellow classmates, as you are all focused on the same thing at the same time, spending hours and hours together over the length of the course. For example, going out for drinks is easier after class sessions because you don't have work to do in the evening. And if your bootcamp is remote, this is still an option: you can use video calls for chatting or working on projects.
However, it’s up to you to make the effort to reach out to other participants and make as many connections as possible.
Full-Time or Part-Time: Questions to Ask Yourself
We’d like to be able to tell you what to do, but this decision depends entirely on your individual circumstances and is something you have to decide on your own. But luckily for you, we’ve listed some crucial questions to ask yourself and help you make that decision once and for all.
About your professional situation
Will I continue to work while I study?
Is it realistic to combine my job with a part-time bootcamp or will I have too much to do?
Can my employer grant me a career break? If I'm self-employed, can I take a break for a few weeks or even months?
About your personal circumstance
Do I have any personal commitments that might be too much to handle alongside a full-time bootcamp?
Am I surrounded by supportive people? Can they take on more organizational elements at home so that I can concentrate on my training?
How will I organize my work/life/training balance? Is it better for me to have only two things to manage and therefore to do the training full-time?
About your goals
How soon do I want to graduate?
Do I want to study continuously, without breaks?
Am I looking to change jobs quickly?
About your way of learning
Do I love to switch from one subject to another and therefore won't have any problems with multitasking? Or is that challenging for me?
Do I want something intensive or do I want to be able to take the time to rest and deepen my knowledge between sessions?
In short, you have to find the option that suits you and your personal circumstances.
As you can see, there are no good or bad choices, but there are trade-offs to be made. In relation to your career, your objectives, your personal constraints, and more, there’s lots to consider. We wish we could wave a magic wand to make your doubts disappear and help you decide, but we don’t have that power (yet!). The decision is yours but we hope to have given you something to make it with a clear conscience.
Our awesome Admissions team will make sure you enroll in the bootcamp that'll work best for you–whether that's part-time, on campus, full-time, remote, or any of the options in between!
