Yet another friend pinged me for advice to break into UX. A project manager that hates being a PM, but has a newfound interest in UX. Sound familiar?

“I feel like taking a bootcamp to really kick-start the process, you know?” Her voice was nervous, because she knew how I retaliate to statements like that.

“So you just want to take the easy way out?” I rolled my eyes.

It’s 2022, and I no longer tolerate naive thoughts that attending bootcamp would magically start your career as a UX designer.

Why UX Bootcamps look cheap on your CV and is, in fact, cheap.

As an ex-bootcamp teacher, let me tell you that it took only a week to come up with the teaching materials for an 8-week intensive course. Assuming that I get paid $100 an hour, that’s just a $4000 one-time-payment for reusable slides and teaching notes.

It just takes a well-spoken preacher to be able to recycle the content repeatedly to a bunch of clueless students who are paying nearly five digits each for something that isn’t worth nearly what they pay for.

If I had almost five digits in my savings and I want to start my career in UX, I am not blowing it on a bootcamp. It’s just not the financially smart thing to do.

“But I’m paying for the connections and network! And there’s also a job guarantee where they give us internships — ” She protests. I sighed and that put a halt to her sentence.

“That’s a trap.” I explained, as gently as I could. “There is no such thing as a good job guarantee and your only true network are a bunch of other new, clueless people that can barely make it in the industry.

These bootcamps get hundreds, maybe thousands of students every quarter. Do you really think they’ll take care of you specifically? If you are exceptional, the best they can do is sell you to a sweat-shop agency which they get paid for by doing so.”

The business model of Bootcamps is not just through classes.

Bootcamps are not just educational institutes, they are also recruitment agencies getting paid for every successful hire they refer.

Altruism does not exist in any competitive industry. What benefit would a bootcamp business owner have to refer their far-from-industrial-standard graduates to their close networks? Lost of credibility will be strife for the bootcamp’s reputation.

Instead, it makes more business sense to sell the graduates to sweat-shops and profit from it. The graduates get a job as they were promised, and the sweat-shops wouldn’t care about the quality as long as the work is done.

It’s a win-win-lose situation, where only the bootcamp graduates are the biggest losers in the whole scenario. And they don’t even know it.

At this point, my friend looks crestfallen. “Welcome to reality.” I smirked. The events leading up to today did not make me a nice person.

“I think the worst part of it is how bad all of the bootcamp portfolios look.” I winced. “Being cookie-cutter is the least of your issues.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have no issues if the layout or the projects you work on are the same. The biggest issue is the lack of knowing how to sell your designs.” I pulled a portfolio from the bootcamp’s success stories.

“All I see here is content telling me what they did, and not why they did it.

During the interview when I ask ‘why’, no one can ever give me a decent answer. They did as they were told, there was no time to explore and there is barely logic in the decision-making.

How can I hire a designer that doesn’t know what they’re doing and doesn’t care to make mistakes?”

Bootcamps are too much of a safety net.

In Design school, I wasn’t given much direction in any of the briefs we were given. This led me to feel a lot of resentment for my former lecturers and mentors, but over time I realise being lost and finding your way is a day-to-day for a designer.

We did stupid experiments, we made endless mistakes; sometimes not finding a solution and getting a big fat ‘F’ at the end of the term.

In a bootcamp, you’re not allowed to do any of that. There’s simply no time for failures or experimentation.

Just like how children get spoiled due to parents providing too much of a safety net, bootcamp grads lose their value as there wasn’t much problem-solving in their classes.

Basic technical skills isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Things I rather do than spend 10 grand on a bootcamp

“So what do I do?” She laments. “Do I give up on the bootcamp altogether and just give up UX?”

“If you feel really strongly about the bootcamp, go ahead.” I held up a finger to signal that I wasn’t done talking. “But — there’s always a ‘but’, with the time and money you have, there’s a smarter way to do things.”

I scribbled what I could think of quickly on a piece of paper:

1. Use that money as a cushion to quit your job and learn UX full-time through free online sources.

2. Work for free at a UX studio for a few months.

3. Buy an intensive design course at a local design school.

4. Invest in a financial portfolio.

5. Start a business.

“If you find none of these feasible for you, then bootcamp’s the way to go.”

She went to the bootcamp in the end; and let’s just say sometimes learning the hard way works better than letting people learn the smart way.

This article is written in the context of Singapore, where the UX industry boom has gotten increasingly competitive. Despite the explosive talent base, the quality of UX newbies has been rather… questionable.

I mean no malice writing my honest thoughts, and I’m sure my intended audience will get a good chuckle or two at some hard truths spoken about the UX industry in Singapore, and some parts globally.

If you get offended, I have only one thing to say: If you fit the shoe, wear it.