Korea’s national support on AI Bootcamp and my six months of experience with it
- 한국의 국가적 AI 코딩 교육 지원과 내가 관련 부트캠프를 6개월 간 다닌 이야기
Hello, hitchhikers traveling to the Medium!
I have no idea who you would be, but I believe this article will be worth reading if you have interests in programming, coding Bootcamp, and the IT industry in Korea.
I will address the Korean adult re-education support system called “Card for tomorrow education” and the AI coding boom along with it. Moreover, this article is for people who didn’t major in CS but decided to learn programming after university like me. Because I also searched a lot of posts on the Internet about starting programming in Bootcamp before I joined it. Either way, I hope this would be a meaningful waste of time.
- Yesterday Product planner, Today coding BootCamp student, Tomorrow Frontend Developer
I am 27 (Btw, I am 28 years old in Korea. We have our own age-counting system. Seriously.) and currently preparing to get a job as a front-end developer after taking the web & AI Bootcamp from December 2020 to June 2021.
I majored in Korean literature and minored in storytelling at a university, then worked as a product planner in the E-commerce industry.
- I heard that a ‘product planner’ is a rare position outside of Korea. For your information, it would be easy to think that a product planner is similar to PO or PM, but it mainly exists in large companies with vertical decision-making structures, playing a role in designing overall products.
Well, it sounds like a cool job. Isn’t it? However, I felt that I was not suitable for that job when working as a product planner.
I like creative works. That was one of the reasons why I decided to study storytelling, entered into the IT industry, and became a product planner. But the more I worked, the more I thought I preferred to implement the requirements by myself and actually make things work rather than directing others.
To be honest, though, when I was at the university I felt that learning programming was something beyond my ability. Besides, back in the day, educational platforms or materials were not as abundant as they are now, especially in Korea. The time I took the courage to learn programming was after I entered the IT industry and had a chance to communicate with various developers. I was lucky enough to work with people who were not reluctant to share developmental knowledge with a person in other positions like me. After I learned basic IT knowledge from them and studied on my own after work, I slowly started to think that programming might be a job for me.
And most importantly, here in Korea, we have a system that provides free coding education and living expenses for six months. Thanks to that support and the thoughts that I should start learning before it’s too late, I finally decided to take the risk of quitting my original job and study programming.
2. What is “National Funding on adult re-education?
Please do not get it wrong because “Card for tomorrow education”, the support system in Korea is not just about programming-related fields. Adults who meet some conditions can study the desired field for as short as 3 months and as long as 6 months. And support means that the government pays for academy registration in addition to providing 150,000 won to 200,000 won(125.42$ to 167.22$) every month so that students can buy textbooks and transportation fees to attend the academy.
From baking to web design, there are various subjects that the educational system supports.
However, the new course called “K-Digital”, which is for teaching newer programming tech stacks in Bootcamp became the star of this system recently. The K-digital course was differentiated from former IT education institutions in that it deals with the latest web development technologies such as React and Django, even including data analysis and AI curriculum. Before this course is made, most of the IT academies taught back-end development using JAVA and Spring framework, or front-end development using basic HTML, CSS, and Jquery. (Most of the web products of the Korean government are built with Spring and Jquery, so linked educational institutions tend to follow those tech stacks as well.) Aside from that, the new Bootcamp requested applicants to pass a resume, coding test, and interview to enter the course.
Each K-digital Bootcamp has a different application process. A Resume, coding test, and interview were not for testing professional development knowledge in the case of the Bootcamp where I applied. It was rather a verification process to see if the applicants were sincere and passionate enough to study hard for six months. At that time, I lacked expertise(even though I worked in related fields) but was passionate enough to pass that process.
3. So, how was the Bootcamp?
I’ll be honest with those who’ve read this article so far. It wasn’t good.
Since the K-Digital curriculum was made for the first time, there were many administrative inadequacies. Do you remember when I said that the tuition and transportation expenses were provided by the government for 6 months? Well, it was provided… 😆 But the subsidies often came out late, and there were cases where the professionalism of instructors and coaches was not reliable. Sometimes I thought, ‘Why should I learn from these people when there are plenty of good materials on Udemy or even YouTube?’
Moreover, the course I enrolled in was to teach all of the back-end/front-end web development, data analysis, and even AI for only six months. After some time started this course, I realized that the curriculum was not realistic at all.
During quarantine, it was hard to interact with other students or academy managers. For the whole six months, we were taught online.
As the camp progressed, the operation gradually improved and online meetings were held. But I remember that there were some frustrating moments at first. I want to remind you that I learned backend/frontend web development, data analysis, and even AI for only 6 months. If you’re a developer, you would know how much insane this course is. I felt lonely thinking that I had to endure all this just by myself.
However, I don’t regret a thing. Rather, I think I did a good job. Whenever I look back, I wonder if I will be able to have this kind of whole-hearted feeling ever again. It’s because of the following reasons.
- I found people to study together through online studies.
- Thanks to studying various fields, I was able to know and choose which one fits me best.
First, I was so lonely that I kept looking for friends on Discord inside of the Bootcamp, contrary to my personality of liking to stay quiet. I tried to be connected with people even creating CS study to find colleagues. I still communicate regularly with those who I met in the studies. Even though we talked online, all of us were able to continue coding without giving up for six months as long as we take care each other. And still, we share various IT news, development knowledge, or just encourage each other.
Second, on the other hand, studying every field gave me a chance to choose which part of development I fit well with. After studying various fields, I was able to solidify my confidence that my interests and abilities as a product planner were linked to front-end development. In addition, I realized that my experience of majoring in literature in university could coincide with NLP(natural language processing) in AI.
Of course, I have never accumulated professional knowledge in all fields. Instead, I should have studied even harder after the Bootcamp was over because I knew everything but nothing really well. I studied algorithms, data structures, JavaScript, browser operating system, Webpack, React, and so on from scratch again. Then I had to make a new portfolio. (I’m going to post about it next week. If you subscribe to this channel, you will be able to see what I made! ❤ ) But now I think I was lucky to learn backend, data analysis, and artificial intelligence even if I will never work in that field. I can’t do well in all of those fields, but it’ll be easy to communicate with the people there. And if I want to study that field more later, at least I know where to start with.
4. Messages to people like me
Did you enjoy reading this article? I hope you did.
And, here is one last thing I want to say if you didn’t major in CS but still want to learn programming like me.
Do not hesitate to start.
Programing is difficult but worthwhile. Of course, it may not a job for you. But you will never know until you try it.
A year ago, even a plain HTML file was strange enough to frighten me. Now? I feel comfortable writing JavaScript. Although I have not started working as a developer yet and have no idea what will happen in the future, I am glad I came into this industry.
Whether during a Bootcamp or any other project, there will be a lot of difficulties if you start studying programming. There will be times when you want to give up everything and feel sick of coding. But if you endure it for about six months (HaHa), there will be a moment that uncomprehensive code becomes something readable suddenly.
Let’s start from there.
[PLUS] I hesitated a little before writing this, thinking a lot about whether it is okay to post this(I am not even a native English speaker). But if there are people who have similar concerns(Of course, KOREANS included!), please leave your opinion! Then, maybe I’ll come back with content something like “How to pick a good Bootcamp” next time. 😎
Dear beginners, good luck.
