Learn to code.

Career stalled?

Learn to code.

Laid off?

Learn to code. That message isn't just a meme,

it's practically conventional wisdom.

Well, not so fast.

Coding is great for some people.

I have a nephew who was born doing calculus.

He majored in comp sci at college and now earns a

six-figure salary at 24 years old.

That kind of stories it's why boot camps are

popping up everywhere and their classrooms are

full. But here's the cold, hard truth people

don't tell you about boot camps.

Most of them only teach you the basics.

You come out not ready for a high-paying

engineering job, like the one my nephew got but

as fodder for big companies to hire en masse,

fully expecting to lay off half.

That's right, boot camps promise you a job paying

$60K or $70K upon graduation, and they typically

deliver. But they very rarely say that afterward,

most big companies put you through their own

in-house training programs and for every hundred

boot camp graduates hired, about 50 are screened

out after six months.

Now, in this economy, with a boot camp degree,

you'll probably get hired again.

But that reality suggests boot camp mainly makes

sense under two circumstances.

The first is that you have an actual aptitude for

coding, because come on, coding is like every

other field.

You have to have some skill to succeed.

So before handing over your credit card, do

yourself a favor and take one of the many online

classes or tests to see if you have an aptitude

for coding, which hello, is actually an

inextricable prerequisite for a real dev career.

The second circumstance is if you literally have

no other career options or passions.

It happens.

And when it does, again given this economy,

serial $60K coding jobs are not just better than

nothing. There are a lot better.

I get that.

So should you learn to code?

I'm not saying the answer is "no."

It's maybe. Just

make sure you face reality first.