TIL most beginner coders quit in the first 3 months...

I was reading a report from a coding bootcamp in Chicago and it said over 60% of people who start learning to code drop out before hitting month four. I found it on their website's blog page last week. That number really got me thinking about why people stop. What do you think is the biggest reason beginners give up so fast?

3 comments

3 Comments

christopher_wilson1mo ago

Used to believe it was all about talent or smarts. Changed my mind after helping a few friends start. The real killer is the gap between following a tutorial and making your own thing. You copy some code, it works, then you try to change one small part and the whole thing falls apart. That moment where you have no idea how to fix it, and no tutorial covers your exact mess, makes people feel stupid and they quit. The learning stuff out there is great for steps one through five, but step six is a brick wall.

jordan_owens752mo ago

Totally, that missing semicolon thing is so real. I spent a whole weekend once because I used a single equals sign instead of a double in an if statement. The error message made zero sense to me back then. It feels like you're just hitting a wall over and over. The tutorials make it look easy, but then you're on your own and nothing works. How do we even make the first few months less brutal for new people?

emma_butler872mo ago

Wow, that number is wild but honestly not shocking. I mean, how many people start because they see a big salary and not because they actually like solving puzzles? The first time you stare at an error for three hours just to find a missing semicolon, the dream kinda dies. Maybe we should warn people it's less like a movie montage and more like banging your head on a keyboard.

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