Do bootcamps exist outside of software development? Are they as prevalent?

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I don’t think so. What makes bootcamps work is the crazy amount of demand there is for web developers.

The role of targeted, affordable education has traditionally been taken on by technical colleges, which structure their offerings into certificates that you earn. A certificate is less work than a degree, but still needs to be accredited by an organizing body.

A bootcamp dispenses with the accreditation and simply offers job training. You pay us, we train you, and make vague promises about getting you a job. There’s a piece of paper we’re giving you at the end of it that we’re calling a certificate, but it’s backed by nothing but our good word.

It will work so long as the demand keeps up. No other field has demand so great that we need bootcamps to funnel people into it.

Construction is a big field, but between apprenticeships, unions, and technical colleges, the training demand is met quite nicely.

You couldn’t make it work in the medical field because they actually do need accreditation, they could never get by on a bootcamp model.

There are also the institutions that bootcamps were named after, actual military bootcamps. These work because the military is only answerable to itself when it comes to how well their troops are trained. So they can take a lot of shortcuts and focus on efficiency. If they had to push troops out to other militaries, then they’d need more quality control on their training.