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Lambda School is the biggest mistake I made this year

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Re: Lambda School is the biggest mistake I made this year

#211

Post by barry-cotter »

jo032 wrote: post #145
rorykoehler wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are quite literally selling tech savvy people their future It's a bit overkill. You can just do it yourself. Plenty of resources available for free. Students have to put the work in regardless.

this is what I don't get though. Why mortgage your future earnings to take a MOOC from a random startup employee when you can get the same from a world class professor for free?

The idea before was at least partly that you get a great deal more structure, feedback and accountability than you do in any university. Now that all seems to have been jettisoned but a learning community with a schedule and a curriculum is worth something. Udemy courses plus a knowledgeable lecturer and a lot of TAs who know the material less well but can solve most problems and a schedule of full time study/building for nine months would absolutely be worth Lambda’s upfront or ISA cost for a lot of people. I paid £10,000 for a Master’s that was basically a textbook subscription service with access to past exam papers and two graded essays per module.

Re: Lambda School is the biggest mistake I made this year

#212

Post by danjac »

papito wrote: post #160
jgalt212 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> praise how insanely ambitious the founder was It seems to me that VC's often link ambition with intelligence and other assorted skills needed to get the job done.

I believe Adam Neumann was ambitious, with a "unique leadership style".

I get the feeling some older VCs are playing out their mid-life crises by vicariously enjoying the lifestyles of their "crazier" founders. Perhaps it would be better for the world if they just bought that motorbike or sports car instead.

Re: Lambda School is the biggest mistake I made this year

#213

Post by viridian »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #194
soneca wrote: post #62

What is sad to me looking from the outside it is that it didn’t have to be that way. Most of negative reviews seem to boil down to too many students, not enough support, not professional enough course management. Symptoms of growing pains. But why Lambda School had to grow that much that fast? It didn’t. It shouldn’t. It was at the expense of their students. Lambda School seemed a great idea from the start, revolutio…

> praise how insanely ambitious the founder was If this isn't a warning sign of a spectacular failure, I don't know what is. Not to mention praising it, after all the ink spilled on "rockstar" "ninja" types and how bad they are, yet they still get kudos and praise. If you ever have a manager that espouses the "we don't want the heroic cowboy type here", run, because that's EXACTLY what they want.

Why would you automatically assume a hiring manager wants the exact opposite of what he/she claims? I tend to take people at their word.

Re: Lambda School is the biggest mistake I made this year

#214

Post by pmart123 »

yanslookup wrote: post #201
soneca wrote: post #62

What is sad to me looking from the outside it is that it didn’t have to be that way. Most of negative reviews seem to boil down to too many students, not enough support, not professional enough course management. Symptoms of growing pains. But why Lambda School had to grow that much that fast? It didn’t. It shouldn’t. It was at the expense of their students. Lambda School seemed a great idea from the start, revolutio…

My original comment was too mean spirited, even for this alt account. I think what I meant to say is, Austen Allred does a good job of talking his book on Twitter. He also seems like a great Dad and partner.

I had a similar impression. His most of his tweets veer off topic from education and feel a little forced.

Re: Lambda School is the biggest mistake I made this year

#215

Post by UncleMeat »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #194
soneca wrote: post #62

What is sad to me looking from the outside it is that it didn’t have to be that way. Most of negative reviews seem to boil down to too many students, not enough support, not professional enough course management. Symptoms of growing pains. But why Lambda School had to grow that much that fast? It didn’t. It shouldn’t. It was at the expense of their students. Lambda School seemed a great idea from the start, revolutio…

> praise how insanely ambitious the founder was If this isn't a warning sign of a spectacular failure, I don't know what is. Not to mention praising it, after all the ink spilled on "rockstar" "ninja" types and how bad they are, yet they still get kudos and praise. If you ever have a manager that espouses the "we don't want the heroic cowboy type here", run, because that's EXACTLY what they want.

I don’t want heroes on my team. It isn’t sustainable. Heroics are discouraged in performance reviews and promotion considerations. Nobody will die if people aren’t working nights and weekends. If I see people engaging in what seems like heroics I will have a very serious chat with them to understand why they are doing it and make absolutely certain that it isn’t coming from any pressure to do so.

Re: Lambda School is the biggest mistake I made this year

#216

Post by bennysonething »

brandmeyer wrote: post #205
nikanj wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Junior programmers suffer from the tragedy of the commons. Why waste $$ training juniors, when for a fraction of that $$ you can poach a ready-trained senior from the company next door? Every company wants someone else to take apprentices and carry the burden of on-the-job training

Also tragedy of the commons: Why invest in training when you can expect employees to get poached by the company next door in only 1-2 years?

Most of the poaching happens (well to me anyway) because the jobs became unbearable. And because it was the only way to get decent salary increases.

Re: Lambda School is the biggest mistake I made this year

#217

Post by jrochkind1 »

jonsen wrote: post #195
jacobion wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way apprenticeships traditionally worked is that the apprentice was bound to the master for a certain number of years, and his parents also often had to pay to have him taken on. The tension between needing trained labour, but not wanting your trained labour to walk out the door and seek employment elsewhere (literal meaning of 'journeyman') was resolved firstly by extremely severe constraints on the apprentice a…

> literal meaning of 'journeyman' The title "journeyman" refers to the right to charge a fee for each day's work. : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman#Origin

Interesting, the wikipedia right before your quote says that the "journey" "comes from the French journée (day)," as you say, charging for a day of work. But the next paragraph says:

> In parts of Europe, as in Late Medieval Germany, spending time as a wandering journeyman (Wandergeselle),[6] moving from one town to another to gain experience of different workshops, was an important part of the training of an aspirant master.

So I guess at least in some times/places journeymen also did actually journey? Whether wandering or not, I'd think the right to charge a fee for each day's work is also the right to leave at the end of the day if you'd like, having gotten paid. Unlike an apprentice who is tied to his master and does not get paid for a day's work, if he leaves he's out of work entirely.

Re: Lambda School is the biggest mistake I made this year

#218

Post by JacobSuperslav »

RyanGoosling wrote: post #151

What happened to good ol’ 4-year college educations?? Lmao what even is this

people are trying to skip it in fields where it isn't really necessary. why waste time and resources if you dont have to? my buddy spent 6 years in higher education now he's clicking things in excel and pasting snippets in Apex. I'd argue that these 6 years were mostly a waste of time for him.

Re: Lambda School is the biggest mistake I made this year

#219

Post by [deleted] »

rorykoehler wrote: post #147
jo032 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is what I don't get though. Why mortgage your future earnings to take a MOOC from a random startup employee when you can get the same from a world class professor for free?

You learn something completely different in a comp sci course. Regardless why mortgage your future earnings when you can learn everything for free?

[deleted]

Re: Lambda School is the biggest mistake I made this year

#220

Post by FeepingCreature »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #29
thaumasiotes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What costs more, $30,000 and 6 months, or $30,000 and 48 months?

Depends; do you get 48 months worth of education in 6 months? I doubt it. A lot of learning also takes time to process, to settle in. That said, half my 4 year software engineering education was hands-on, figure-it-out-yourself stuff; a year of internships and a ton of group projects.

> Depends; do you get 48 months worth of education in 6 months? I doubt it.

Depending on your university, focused education vs scattershot education, this actually sounds about right.

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