 I just wanted to thank all of you for coming. Thank you for being here. I'd like to thank the RubyConf program community for allowing me to speak here today to y'all. I'd also really like to thank all the RubyConf organizers and all the hard work they've put in to putting on such an awesome event for all of us. So please take a moment and give them a hand. Awesome. So, hey. Hi. Hello. My name is Megan Tew. I'm a software engineer at CallRail. I am also the communications coordinator for Rails Girls Atlanta, and you can find me at Megan Tew on Twitter and GitHub. I'm also a proud bootcamp grad, but I haven't always been proud enough to talk about it on a stage like this. It's been a pretty big journey getting here because I, like many bootcamp grads, have faced the bootcamp stigma. So I'm here to tell you today that we have a problem on our hands. On your hands, on my hands, on the problem, on the hands of everyone that's surprised to find that an intelligent skill developer went through bootcamp. This is the bootcamp stigma. So in general, we can define this as the negative feelings towards bootcamp students and grads, or bootcampers, as I like to call them, as a group because we are or were involved with a bootcamp, and it's the preconceived notions about what bootcamps are and what the people involved with them are like. And this manifests in a variety of ways for very different reasons, but we'll get more of that later. But for now, I'm here to tell you a story. Not my story, but this is the story of countless bootcamp students I've met in my time attending and organizing meetups, acting as a teaching assistant for bootcamps, starting and running a women's group within my bootcamp and mentoring bootcamp students. So I'm going to tell you the story of Kaya. Kaya is a pharmaceutical sales rep, but she's not really happy. She's unfulfilled in her current job, and she wants more of her professional life. But Kaya has a cousin that's a developer. They make a good living, and they genuinely seem to like what they do. So she asks them, you seem happy with your career. What can I do to learn more about what you do? Because that seems like it would be a cool fit for me. I think that would be a nice option. So Kaya's cousin directs her to CodeCADME to learn all the basics, some various online tutorials, and Kaya works through them. She's really excited. She's loving what she's doing so far, and things are really clicking. So she goes back to her cousin and she says, this is going so well, and I think I want to take this a bit further. What else can I do? So they tell her about bootcamps, and she's really excited. It's like, wow, this is awesome. I can take some time, like I've got some money saved up. I can find out if this is really what I want to do. This could be the beginning of a great adventure. But Kaya is not representative of every boot camper, right? Everybody's different. So everyone could be going for a variety of different reasons. Why else might people seek out bootcamps? Though we think of boot campers typically as career changers, so folks that are going from one career to becoming a developer, there's so many different reasons. So many different folks out there looking for this new learning experience. So could be someone starting a business, and they want to learn more about the technological side of things so they have more understanding about what their business is really going to do and how it's going to work. Could be a small business owner that wants to save a little cash on developer and make a simple website for themselves. Could just be someone that wants to learn a new skill set, right? People that really just like to learn in their lives, and this is another chapter in that book. Could just be someone, like a hobbyist that just wants to see if this could be maybe a viable career for them. They've made a few apps on the side, and they've been having fun with it, but they're trying to see if it could be something more serious. And it could just be someone that wants to learn what coding is all about. So maybe they heard about this code on the news or in the paper, and they're trying to figure out being more touch with technology. So from career seekers, entrepreneurs, small business owners, lifelong learners, hobbyists, curious minds, it's important to remember that not all boot campers want to be developers. Not everyone is here to switch careers. And when we think like this, we stereotype boot campers, and we fail to understand that many of us joining have many different purposes for being here. There's an overgeneralization of it. When we fail to see this diversity of background and purpose, we fail to understand a growing segment of our industry. But why do we have this stigma? So in order to understand, we'll want to check back in with Kaya a little bit. So Kaya's really excited about boot camps, right? But she wants to make sure she makes the right decision. So she asks her cousin, there's so many different programs with different curricula, like what programming language do you work with? Maybe I can find a school that teaches something like that. Or a cousin says, well, I'm a Java developer, and that's not my favorite. Maybe you might like Ruby more. And thankfully, Kaya has a little more success with this, because 35% of all boot camps teach Ruby. So it's especially relevant for us here. But so Kaya looks into some Ruby courses, but in all of her research, she starts to notice some people saying less than nice things about boot camps. Things like, save your money, it's not worth it. You'll never really get value out of a boot camp. Things like, you'll never learn enough from a boot camp to have a real career. And things like, you should just teach yourself. Just take a year off work, you can do it. It's easy to learn programming. But Kaya's like, well, that's cool, but I'm fine. I learn better in a classroom. I like having that one-on-one interaction. That's the way I learn best. So she's confident in her decision, and she doesn't mind the haters. But what would happen if she couldn't just let that roll off her back? What happens when we refuse to acknowledge alternative education paths? To give them legitimacy and to mark them as valid ways into this industry. So let's consider the pipeline problem. If you're not familiar with the pipeline problem, it's the idea that there are groups underrepresented in tech because of schools and early stage education. But the problem with this theory is that it denies any existing technologist's impact on the lack of diversity in tech. And it denies that we could possibly be doing anything wrong. It takes all the blame off of us, and puts it onto people that are actually far removed from our industry. So we take into account the fact that a computer science program might is part of the pipeline that's problematic. Let's look at what boot camps are doing as an alternative to bringing in new voices. So on average, boot camps are a quarter of the cost of a CS degree. That's huge. That's so much more accessible for so many people. For people that previously couldn't have gone to college, they can learn development via boot camp. It's so much more accessible. Not only that, but in terms of bringing in larger waves of people we don't see in tech as often, 20% of boot campers Latinx over just 6.8% of CS students. In that same vein, women are 36% of boot campers, but only 14.1% of CS students. So this is a big way that we can bring in more underrepresented people into tech. But when we think about all the bad things that Kaia is hearing people say about boot camps, imagine how many people are deterred by this type of thinking at the very beginning of the journey. How many flames are prematurely extinguished by gatecaping and trying to keep new people out? So how does a boot camp stigma manifest? Let's take a look back at Kaia and see what she's experiencing. So at this point, she's most of the way through her boot camp, and she's starting to get more involved in the community. She's going to meetups. She's joining developer chat rooms, et cetera. She's meeting a lot of great people and learning a lot of great things. She's having fun and is really excited about all the learning. But more and more, she's starting to hear things about her boot camp. People in her local community are openly talking about how worthless boot campers are, and it's extremely upsetting when everyone around her is talking about how her development experience thus far is invalid. How something she's so deeply excited about actually isn't any good. And she starts to wonder if she made a mistake. If she'll ever be able to find a job, when seemingly everyone hates boot camps and the people involved with them. So Kaia's seeing the boot camp stigma in a variety of ways. First being the boot camp horror story, right? We've all heard this one. When we interviewed someone from a boot camp once, and they couldn't even reverse a string without using standard libraries, oh, we're never going to interview a boot camper again. But here's the thing, is that not all boot campers are the same, right? That person that the anecdote teller was describing, like they could have been someone still trying to find out if they'd even like to be in tech, much less become a developer, much less even work at this company. And their boot camp maybe pressured them into taking an interview. But that person's focused classmate that was really driven, they definitely wanted to be a developer. They would have performed very differently under the same conditions. So how else are we seeing the boot camp stigma? So Kaia's seeing it in hiring processes. When she looks at job listings, she sees computer science degree required. And this sets a very clear barrier for anyone that didn't follow one specific path in their career. But Kaia manages to get a job interview. But once she gets in the room, they say, okay, now implement a hash table and Ruby on this whiteboard, go. But this is rough, right? Not only is this specifically testing theoretical knowledge from other things that may have been more accustomed to computer science programs, testing knowledge specifically that just those people might have. But whiteboarding doesn't exactly come easy to everyone, right? It's an acquired skill. It's not, you can't just get up on whiteboard and your first time like, oh yes, this is the solution to life. These antiquating hire processes weed out those that did not learn the specific principles and theories behind them. When we make our interviews for one type of person, all other people are set up to fail. So the stigma also rears its head in the exclusionary discourse, right? Lots of things this could be, but stuff like you went to a boot camp, right? Oh, you wouldn't know about this. Or things like boot campers only know about the languages there boot camps taught them. But this isn't fair, right? These things hurt and there are actually things people hear. This is real, this is common. And what are the costs of this ignorance? So it instills a lot of imposter syndrome, right? When you're not feeling adequate or like you belong for reasons that aren't totally concrete or tangible. When you're constantly hearing negative things about yourself, you start to internalize it. When someone says, oh, you don't know this, you won't know this. Well, wait, I thought I studied that, but I mean, maybe I don't know this. And this leaves us with a community divided. So on the one hand, we have a group of unhappy, disillusioned people that feel like outcasts. And on the other hand, we have experienced developers that have forgotten what it's like to be new. They're happy to stay where they are and keep the new voices out. And in doing this, we create a homogenous industry and we cheat ourselves and our future compatriots out of a diverse, well-rounded industry. When we exclude so many people from so many different backgrounds, we include only one type of person from a common background and no new ideas are allowed in. So it's our responsibility to make a change. It's our responsibility not to exclude a diverse group of voices from this industry because everyone deserves the agency to make software. So why should we change? Why does this matter? Why is this important, really? Let's think about what boot campers can do for you and your team. So first off, they'll encourage mindfulness in your team. Their curious minds will wonder a lot about every part of how your applications work. They'll be more present as a result, like you'll be more present when you're writing your code to ensure that it makes sense to newer developers. They'll question your code base and they'll ask things like, wait, why is this structured this way? How does this work? This doesn't really make sense. And you'll agree and say, yeah, you're right. That doesn't make sense at all. We got to fix that. You'll find more inconsistencies and fix more parts of your code base as a result. You'll have better applications. Not only that, but they'll energize your team. So when a team sees how bright and excited a new person is to learn and work every day, they'll want to rise to the occasion. They'll get more excited too. And finally, boot campers bring a diversity of opinion. Not just thoughts and feelings, but like actual code related stuff, right? So someone who learned Rails with Rails 5 will have a very different view of the way things are architected than someone that started with Rails 1.5. They'll likely be more in touch with newer style conventions, newer and hotter libraries, and they'll see different patterns in your code. They'll have different opinions on the way things are run. And because they're often coming from different industries, they'll have completely different ideas about how to run your team. And with more ideas, your team will run better. So Sarah May talks about this. She says, at this point, it's obvious to me that software has done great things for the world, not because of its own identity, but in spite of it. We will achieve so much more with a diverse community, and boot campers are helping us get there. When you have a large, diverse number of opinions from people from all walks of life, you'll get the best ideas. But why else should we change? So in addition to creating better, more well-rounded teams, boot campers contribute to longer lasting, engaged communities. When we welcome boot campers, they're grateful. They're grateful for feeling included in all the cool new learning opportunities that they have. They'll take that energy and put it back into the community. You'll see them give lightning talks at a local meetup, and then they'll be teaching a workshop, and then they'll be teaching a class. And then before long, that cycle will continue, and your community will be able to support itself on this pure energy and drive. Not only that, but boot campers are the future of this industry. Millennials are trending away from traditional four-year degree programs and toward accelerated programs like boot camps. The boot camp trend will continue, and this brings us such a large pool of bright people, and we can't count them out. So what can we do? How can we make boot campers feel welcome? How can we make our communities more inclusive? Well, we can leave our preconceived notions at the door. We can level the playing ground. We can bridge the gap with community and improve community communication and perception. So leave your preconceived notions at the door. And by this, I just mean, don't expect the world of recent boot camps, right? They won't leave their programs knowing everything there is to know about web development. When we compare computer science grads with boot camp grads, let's just take a second and look what we're really comparing here. So on the one hand, you have a person that spent four years learning computing and coding, and on the other hand, you have someone that spent 12 weeks learning the basics of web development. There's bound to be a difference in skill there, right? But though there is a difference in skill level and knowledge base, they will have different strong areas. So while a computer science student is more well-rounded in algorithms and data structures and theory, boot campers will have more practical skills. They'll be able to play with a Rails app much quicker to build out something probably a bit faster. But on the other hand, we also don't want to underestimate boot campers. So just as every boot camper isn't the same, they won't all necessarily have similar skill levels. And when you give a boot camper a chance, they just make it surprise you. So we can level the playing ground. Boot campers are operating in significant disadvantaged, more traditional career paths, including in community and industry perception, average time spent learning and knowledge base. So in order for boot campers to succeed, the system can't be set up to automatically make them fail. So what are some things we can do? Well, more apprenticeships. I love apprenticeships. Apprenticeships are great. As a paid opportunity for a few months, that allows a new developer to learn and grow quickly within the context of a real company. And by investing in an apprentice, you get a team member that's used to learning very quickly. So they'll learn and grow within your company fast. And they'll continue to provide value to you even after you hire them on as junior developers. So we can also prefer practical over theoretical coding tests. You'll never be denied your standard libraries in a real world context. That's not going to happen. Reversing a string without them likely won't come in handy. But if you give them a Rails app and have them at a feature, that's exactly what they're going to be doing in their everyday jobs. Why not test for what you're actually going to be doing instead of something arbitrary? Not only that, but these practical tests are much more equal for both CS students and boot campers. If you give them a Rails app, they're most likely both going to be able to work with it. Not only that, but in order to actually level the playing field, the best thing we can do is actually hire boot campers, right? Actually give them a chance. Because if no one ever actually hires them, so much of that fresh talent goes to waste. And there's so much of it. We can also bridge the skill gap with community. We ourselves can organize community initiatives to help others get into tech, including starting from zero level instruction and content for folks that have already been coding for a while. So do you in your local community have a bunch of inexperienced developers, hold a workshop, teach them, do that again, do that again. For long, not for long, they won't be inexperienced for much longer. So one organization doing this is Tectonica, which is really great. They're based out of San Francisco, founded by Michelle Glauser. They provide free tech training and living with childcare stipends and job placement for low income women and non-binary adults. Now this is amazing, right? Please support them if you can. This is awesome work, and they're truly making sure to provide for people that otherwise wouldn't be able to be into tech. But this is an ideal, right? This isn't necessarily possible everywhere, and we can't always provide everything for everyone. So how can we make this achievable? How can we achieve this on a smaller scale? Well, I don't know about you, but in my local community, there's a handful of people that are excited and advocating for junior developers and they're trying to give more people a second chance. But that handful of people, they work hard, and they get tired, and they get burnt out, and it's really hard to keep that going when there's only a few of you. So we can try equal distribution of labor. So instead of just having one or two people organizing your meetup, get a whole group. So in organizing with Rails Girls Atlanta, we have a board of directors, and we equally distribute our tasks amongst ourselves. We have six people now, and it's been going pretty well for the past year. Not only that, but are your coworkers helping the community? Think about all the developers you work with. How many of them are actively contributing to the community? Probably not very many of them, right? Well, kick their asses. Ask them, say, hey, will you TA this workshop that we're holding? Great, thank you. If you ask all of them, you'll have so many different resources, so many more, and so many more people will be able to afforded opportunities. Get them involved. Not only that, but you can ask your employer for help, right? We're not all going to be able to crowdfund our meetups and events, but we can ask a hand from our employers, whether it's food or space or even just cash. And if you're trying to organize something for the community, ask your company for help. If they have a developer and vaginalism program or department, like, that's exactly what they're there for. And even if your company can't contribute, maybe your co-organizer's company can. And just remember that it never hurts to ask. So we also want to pay attention to community communication and perception when we're trying to smash this bootcamp stigma. So basically how we talk about bootcampers and bootcamps. And the thing about language is that can be really subtle. So here's a tweet from a person that's trying to discuss a community-run alternative for code schools. And while bootcamps may not be the best solution for all that we need, they do provide many people opportunities that they otherwise may not have. But this person is making a Blake statement that bootcamps are bad. And no one intentional. This person means very well. This is harmful. When you say bad code schools, their students think, oh, am I bad by being here? Am I bad for liking what I'm doing here? Am I bad for being associated with them? And even though this person means well, they're active in the community and they're very pro-juniors and bootcampers, this language can hurt the most when it's coming from allies, from people that you feel like you trust. So it's important to keep yourself in check. And these sound like just a decent being a person things, but it's important to check your bias and think about how what you say will affect others because it will, it will affect others. Half the battle is knowing that there's a problem in catching yourself. And in order to fix the problem, we have to know the problem. So not only that, but you can keep your peers in check. As cliche as it sounds, if you see something, say something, right? Don't let others be mean and exclusive to people trying their hardest. If someone is on Twitter or in Slack and they're saying blanket things that bootcampers don't belong here, they're just trying to take our jobs and we don't need them here. We can get away with it. That's not okay. You can fix it. So let's check Brecken with Kaya. What is she up to now? She's finished her bootcamp. She knows that she definitely wants to be a developer, but she hasn't found a job yet. She's reviewing what she's learned and she's building up a portfolio. She's volunteering with her local girl develop a chapter and knowing how hard it is to break into this industry. She wants to make it a little easier for others. So let's start by wrapping up a few takeaways for y'all. One, bootcampers have feelings. It's the name of the talk. No one is immune to hate. When you say exclusionary things, it really resonates with people. Even if no one responds, what you're saying is being seen and internalized. And no two bootcampers have the same goals or knowledge. Don't let any one bootcamper set a standard or stereotype for all others in your mind that's already here. Every CS student is different. All the bootcampers are as well. And bootcampers are more accessible paths that are friendlier to people from underrepresented groups. It helps us bring in new voices that otherwise might not be here with us for being an accelerated program at such a lower price point. And finally, bootcampers, you deserve to be here. You belong here. You may have to fight a little bit but we're really glad you're here and welcome. Most importantly, it's on us and it's time to get to work. So thank you. Again, my name is Megan Tew. I work for Call Reel. We are hiring, so if you're in Atlanta or you're willing to be, please come ask me about how you can work for our awesome company. I will be taking questions offstage. So please come find me either in this room or in the hallway afterwards. I don't want to talk about bootcamps or anything else really. So thank you so much.