Lambda School is the biggest mistake I made this year • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by ptero » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #210

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…

CEO of Lambda School here. This is disappointing, of course. We have 180+ people working really, really hard to make Lambda School the best experience it can be. At times we’ll fall short, and, as another poster pointed out, the margin for error is just razor thin; thousands of happy and successful students can be out there, but it’s the ones who don’t make it or have a good experience that cause us to lose sleep (an…

First, kudos for answering and not avoiding a group that you expect to hold (based on the linked post) adverse feelings. Good information, too. Education greatly benefits from more options; best of luck! Now for things that I think need work (I know little about Lambda school, so this is definitely an armchair strategist opinion):

First and foremost, as others pointed, is the growth plans. Education is hard to scale -- good educators deliver fantastic results; a very smart person droning on along a prewritten material adds no value. I doubt there is a way to quickly figure out how good a teacher a new hire is -- it will be clear after a semester or two, but not before. Thus good education needs long-term staff and careful hiring; both hard to scale.

> changes that a subset of students did not like are unquestionably for their benefit

Ouch. OUCH! Anytime someone is claiming that they do something for your benefit against your will, look for other motives. It is perfectly OK to limit options -- it is your business and you do not have infinite flexibility. But claiming it is good for the students rings hollow. Sorry. "We are tracking your web purchases to better serve you" (annoying advertisements).

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

#262

Post by mondoshawan » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #210

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…

CEO of Lambda School here. This is disappointing, of course. We have 180+ people working really, really hard to make Lambda School the best experience it can be. At times we’ll fall short, and, as another poster pointed out, the margin for error is just razor thin; thousands of happy and successful students can be out there, but it’s the ones who don’t make it or have a good experience that cause us to lose sleep (an…

  Some students see it as one more thing distracting them from
  writing more code, and believe the only thing that will
  determine their career success is ability to write code (as you
  all know, ability to write code is necessary but not 
  sufficient to success as an engineer).

As an interviewer, engineer and lead myself, I'd say your students that think this are pretty darn close. If I get a junior candidate that can't code, I write them off and say goodbye.

I can teach dev lifecycle to a junior, and often need to because every business I've worked at as a lead has a totally different model. I can coach them on inter-team dynamics (and often have to). I can help them with culture fit to a point (if they're willing). What I can't do is teach them to be able to reason and write code and do the engineering work I hired them for.

From the Reddit post (and from other reviews), it sounds like the students are not performing well and sinking without learning this core skill -- most didn't understand enough to code in JS, for instance. This seems like a pretty dire failure in the part of the program itself.

Do you plan on at least giving these students a chance to retake prior units without further charging them for knowledge you should have already taught them?

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

#263

Post by austenallred » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

pmart123 wrote: post #214

yanslookup wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Haha!

Most of my tweets are randomness from what I’m experiencing or reading about that day.

Am I lonely? Interesting. My family keeps me pretty occupied. Though I suppose I could be to some degree. I suppose we all are.

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

#264

Post by MivLives » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

blntechie wrote: post #14

Most open world reviews i.e. non curated ones I have seen for Lambda school have been negative to at best neutral. I believe they have a place in the education market if they do it right. Model is good enough but execution appear to be severely lacking. It’s interesting that pg is a big fan though.

I think that there's another factor to this. The cohorts have grown over time. When you have thirty people in the entire cohort the experience is going to be very different then when you have 130 or more. The earlier students reviews are going to read a lot different then later student ones.

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

#265

Post by MivLives » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

joshxyz wrote: post #39

Relevant experience I've read from twitter months ago: https://mobile.twitter.com/watsonwaswrite/status/12309001266...

Even worse, since the curriculum changes so much there's a chance that the person grading you is three months ahead, and also hadn't actually originally gone through the unit they need to grade at all.

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

#266

Post by 3np » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

jacobion wrote: post #244

3np wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, there could be a huge untapped retail market for financial derivatives such as interest rate and fx hedges. However, it's very hard to access this market because historically anyone who has started selling such products has pivoted towards targeting degenerate gamblers in order to fleece them. Tangential, but this is pretty much emerging in the cryptocurrency/digital assets/decentralized finance (defi)…

Most people will not use the ethical projects that you mention, at least until perception of crypto changes, because they will associate crypto/defi either with full-on exit/Ponzi scams, or with experiences investing in Bitcoin and others right before the peak.

I think you're right, it's going to stay fringe for a while - which I think is for the better, as I think it will be another couple of years before the ecosystem is quite ready for a huge influx of new active non-tech/non-enthusiast users.

The rational part of me does not want BTC > $30k (or <~10k) within the coming months.

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

#267

Post by FemmeAndroid » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

mhaymo wrote: post #250

learc83 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re missing the point of the analogy. Progressive taxation doesn’t produce a cliff where you’re potentially better off if you make less money. The higher rates only apply to money over the threshold. Lambda school works the way many people think the US tax system works (but doesn’t). When you make over X, all of your money is taxed at Y. So it’s better to make X - 1 than X + 1.

Only if you place no value on paying off your ISA. Once the ISA is paid off, the "cliff" disappears. Obviously this is quite different to taxes.

Your ISA is a sunk cost. Obviously, if you can afford to, many people will be better off in the long term having it paid off, but going from making $4,208 a month at a $49,500 salary, then getting a small raise to $50,000 and making $3,493/month is not something a lot of people can afford. Especially when you consider how that $715/month you're losing by bumping your income could be going to debt that won't expire if you just wait out the 5 years under that cap. This is especially true if you've had a few years under $50,000 before even having the chance to edge up over $50k. It can very much be in your financial interest to not take a raise, if offered.

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

#268

Post by austenallred » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

mondoshawan wrote: post #262

austenallred wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEO of Lambda School here. This is disappointing, of course. We have 180+ people working really, really hard to make Lambda School the best experience it can be. At times we’ll fall short, and, as another poster pointed out, the margin for error is just razor thin; thousands of happy and successful students can be out there, but it’s the ones who don’t make it or have a good experience that cause us to lose sleep (an…

Some students see it as one more thing distracting them from writing more code, and believe the only thing that will determine their career success is ability to write code (as you all know, ability to write code is necessary but not sufficient to success as an engineer). As an interviewer, engineer and lead myself, I'd say your students that think this are pretty darn close. If I get a junior candidate that can't co…

Certainly agreed that being able to code is necessary. I’d argue it’s necessary and not sufficient.

> Do you plan on at least giving these students a chance to retake prior units without further charging them for knowledge you should have already taught them?

Students are actually strongly encouraged to retake units at no additional cost in order to move on to the next level, and in some instances we require it.

This is actually where some of the greatest frustration comes. It would be easy to close our eyes and wave people along but we have to say at times, “You’re not quite there yet, let’s keep working at it.” That’s not what students want to hear.

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

#269

Post by mcculley » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #227

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

I did work briefly work for a small consultancy that decided to take on juniors, even though it was anticipated that for probably a year they woudln't be billing enough to cover their salary; because there weren't a lot of qualified applicants anyway where we were located, and as a sort of intentional public service to help people get into the field (especially underrepresented people etc). Of course, the most skille…

I also did this with my consultancy along with reimbursing employees for passing certifications and paying for tuition. Three of them work for Microsoft now and one works for Amazon. Others are at other big firms. I don't regret how I invested in them and I think it is great that they are doing so well in their careers, but I will not make an unsecured investment like that again.

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

#270

Post by Grustaf » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

jacobion wrote: post #158

Grustaf wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post didn't say that it made sense _relative_ to something else, it just said running a school in the proper way didn't make economic sense, and that is not true (except in the sense pointed out in another comment, that honest schools may be outcompeted). My point is just that a project's economic viability doesn't depend on the relative merits of other projects.

> a project's economic viability doesn't depend on the relative merits of other projects. I'm not sure this is true - certainly the opposite of this statement is the central thesis of most investment activity.

If you are evaluating the viability of a specific project you don't vare if there are other projects that are even more profitable, you only care if the current one has a positive return on investment.

Of course when choosing between several projects, such as starting a school or launching a scam, then yes you would look at relative profitability (_and_ absolute of course).

Few people will hopefully find themselves choosing between those two options.