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Launch HN: Lambda School (YC S17) – CS education that's free until you get a job

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Re: Launch HN: Lambda School (YC S17) – CS education that's free until you get a job

#51

Post by jansho »

webwanderings wrote: post #45

I was curious about the type of students you'd want to recruit. The type you're featuring all seems to be out of college and have experience under their belt. Your schedule is full day learning. So now I wonder: are you targeting people who are out of jobs? It seems a little confusing to understand your criteria of recruiting students (I have not paid too much attention yet).

Ah I forgot about the full week schedule (my post was also about your first question). I'm also curious about how the programme is structured on a typical day.

For me personally, if there is a part time option (4 days a week even) this would be hugely attractive.

Re: Launch HN: Lambda School (YC S17) – CS education that's free until you get a job

#52

Post by austenallred »

jansho wrote: post #47

What's the application criteria like? I notice that the current students listed in the website all have some sort of technical/reputable background (one even had an MS in Computer Science already!) Does this mean that the computer science course is not for complete beginners? I also noticed a mini web dev bootcamp, when will this be launched? Thanks :)

The application criteria is pretty much that we can only accept n% of students (currently it's a little less than 3%), so those are the most "credentialed" students, but probably not representative.

It's vague, but what we really look for is dedication and a love for programming itself (as opposed to wanting to make more money), which exhibits itself in a variety of ways.

We hope to move to a model soon where as long as you complete code challenge x, you're enrolled, but we're not there.

Re: Launch HN: Lambda School (YC S17) – CS education that's free until you get a job

#53

Post by austenallred »

webwanderings wrote: post #45

I was curious about the type of students you'd want to recruit. The type you're featuring all seems to be out of college and have experience under their belt. Your schedule is full day learning. So now I wonder: are you targeting people who are out of jobs? It seems a little confusing to understand your criteria of recruiting students (I have not paid too much attention yet).

There's not a "type" we're looking for; some of our best students barely finished high school, let alone college.

Our schedule is full-time just because we're looking for people that are dedicated. We're working on part-time, but have to be more careful with that, as it would be about a year long.

Re: Launch HN: Lambda School (YC S17) – CS education that's free until you get a job

#54

Post by austenallred »

balls187 wrote: post #46

How will you prevent this from becoming predatory as pressure for improving the bottom line mounts? It feels like a very fine line between altruism and taking advantage of ignorance.

I'm not sure how to answer that question; if you are giving people a job it's hard to be too predatory so long as you charge reasonable rates. We simply try to be honest and fair up-front.

Re: Launch HN: Lambda School (YC S17) – CS education that's free until you get a job

#55

Post by 0xffff2 »

austenallred wrote: post #18
nxc18 wrote: post #14

This is very interesting and I like the finance model a lot. I'd be curious to see more details on the syllabus, however. I also have questions about the quality of instruction. There are some big name institutions listed, but that doesn't necessarily indicate quality instruction. The best researchers are often emphatically not the best instructors, and for this venture instructors are much more important. I sincerel…

> The best researchers are often emphatically not the best instructors, and for this venture instructors are much more important. This is very true. Most of our instructors are refugees from an academic world; they really just want to teach, and research for them was a necessary evil. We have a pretty rigorous hiring process (and we're hiring now! careers@lambdaschool.com) >I'd be interested to see more on the syllab…

>What would you like to see?

Not OP, but I think your "syllabus" is seriously lacking in detail. For example, you have a week and a half of "operating systems" That is summarized as 4 bullet points. I would really expect to see at least a paragraph under each of the three sections describing exactly what a student should understand after completing each module. For the operating systems section, I would like to see something like this for the first half of week 19:

|Operating Systems II

|After completing this section, students should be able to describe the various levels of memory used by modern computers, including CPU caches, RAM and swap space. Students should understand how each of these levels of memory are used during program execution. Additionally, students should understand how memory is addressed, including physical and virtual addressing, how memory is managed and allocated by the operating system, and how memory may be shared by multiple processes on the same system.

Re: Launch HN: Lambda School (YC S17) – CS education that's free until you get a job

#56

Post by _jordan »

austenallred wrote: post #3
jbob2000 wrote: post #2

How do you know that your graduates are or aren't making more than 50k? How do you know that you're getting your 17%? Aside from that, you're essentially giving your students a loan and then having them repay it once they start earning money. How is this any different than a regular student loan (but with way more risk on your end)?

> How do you know that your graduates are or aren't making more than 50k? Great question. In addition to our income share agreement, each student submits a form to the IRS that will essentially copy us on their taxes. We have annual reconciliation based on those numbers to see if they match a student's self-reported numbers. > You're essentially giving your students a loan and then having them repay it once they star…

What is a student decides not to pursue software engineering? Do you still take your cut? In my experience, the market is oversaturated with code bootcamp grads; many of them decide to go back to their previous profession.

Re: Launch HN: Lambda School (YC S17) – CS education that's free until you get a job

#58

Post by austenallred »

0xffff2 wrote: post #55
austenallred wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best researchers are often emphatically not the best instructors, and for this venture instructors are much more important. This is very true. Most of our instructors are refugees from an academic world; they really just want to teach, and research for them was a necessary evil. We have a pretty rigorous hiring process (and we're hiring now! careers@lambdaschool.com) >I'd be interested to see more on the syllab…

>What would you like to see? Not OP, but I think your "syllabus" is seriously lacking in detail. For example, you have a week and a half of "operating systems" That is summarized as 4 bullet points. I would really expect to see at least a paragraph under each of the three sections describing exactly what a student should understand after completing each module. For the operating systems section, I would like to see s…

Good feedback. We'll add more detail.

Re: Launch HN: Lambda School (YC S17) – CS education that's free until you get a job

#59

Post by austenallred »

jeron wrote: post #57

What are the differences between this and Make School?

A lot of things.

We're online-only, focus on CS not building apps, 6 months long (vs 2 yrs), a bit less expensive, and generally speaking target different markets.

I don't have anything bad to say about Make School. Have never met them, but they seem like they're doing a fine job!

Re: Launch HN: Lambda School (YC S17) – CS education that's free until you get a job

#60

Post by Seylerius »

This is an awesome idea. What I'd really like to know, however, is if any of the existing loan options will accept this as schooling in order to loan a student money for living expenses. Some students already have a family, and thus they cannot crash at a flophouse.
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