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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

#281

Post by austenallred »

FemmeAndroid wrote: post #276
austenallred wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends on what “changes” means. We specifically tell students (and they even sign a document that says) that we will make changes to aspects of the the experience during their time as a student (e.g. schedule, specifics of curriculum). Students can be with Lambda for as long as 2+ years. Everything being frozen in time would be to their great detriment.

Why not let them opt in to new things if they really are benefits?

Generally speaking we do, and almost every change we made had an opt in/out option.

The only times we can’t do that (and that’s happened maybe 1-2 times in the history of Lambda School) is when it’s a change to teams of students that run across multiple cohorts.

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

#282

Post by MivLives »

ruined wrote: post #98
echelon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can learn everything you need on your own without a degree or bootcamp. All you need is a starter project and an interest. You can Google everything. Pick an easy language. I recommend Javascript or Python. There's a wealth of learning material and you can use these two languages to build a wide variety of things. Pick something fun: a simple game, an interactive website, a blog, etc. Make it your objective, and…

i've done this more than once. nobody cares about a toy i made or its website, even if it looks pretty and i'm proud of it.

When I was applying for jobs last year with no real experience coding those toys and websites were:

- A source of anecdotes about how I solved problems I faced

- Something that proved I wasn't at absolute zero

- A good ice breaker in the interview, I made a snake game that was styled after one on Nokia phones, it came up a bunch

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

#283

Post by nrmitchi »

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.

What? Are you following his personal twitter account? Because I am too. Unless I am mistaken, it is a personal twitter account.

I fully expect to see personal stuff on a personal twitter account, and don't expect it to be 100% focused only on the topic of someone's business.

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

#284

Post by rorykoehler »

barry-cotter wrote: post #229
rorykoehler wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because most people can’t. Self-directed learning is brutally hard and most people can’t do it even with a detailed road map. Without even that the competition rate will drop even further. To a first approximation the only people who complete MOOCs are those who already have degrees. The kind of people who can compete freecodecamp by themselves are very close to the ones who can work through a Math textbook by themse…

If you can't do that then I'd argue you're not cut out to be a developer. As someone doing hiring I would never hire someone who had difficulty in doing any of the things you mentioned are difficult. You've basically listed the things I value in a hire.

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

#285

Post by austenallred »

nicoburns wrote: post #280
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…

> The first is a mentor/mentee program we set up within the school. Employers tell us literally every day they want students who truly understand the development and release cycle, and work on teams. We created a mentor/mentee program where every student has a chance to do that, and the result of that program so clearly creates better outcomes that employers ask specifically for students who have done that. One thing…

This may not be a bad idea. We didn’t do this in the past because the benefit is actually more to the mentor than to the mentee.

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

#286

Post by FemmeAndroid »

austenallred wrote: post #281
FemmeAndroid wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not let them opt in to new things if they really are benefits?

Generally speaking we do, and almost every change we made had an opt in/out option. The only times we can’t do that (and that’s happened maybe 1-2 times in the history of Lambda School) is when it’s a change to teams of students that run across multiple cohorts.

So in those rare circumstances, why not offer refunds to those who don't want to stay with Lambda School after the change?

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

#287

Post by thelastwave »

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.

> a manager that espouses the "we don't want", that's EXACTLY what they want.

How does that work? Sincere question.

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

#288

Post by PragmaticPulp »

viridian wrote: post #213
michaelcampbell wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Take all absolute statements and mind-reading tricks on HN with a grain of salt.

If a manager says they don’t want heroics, it’s not reasonable to assume that they actually do want heroics but they’re somehow trying to communicate that to the team by speaking in opposites.

If someone says they want one thing then asks for the opposite, verbalize that you were following the original directive. Have a conversation like professionals and sort it out.

This HN comments that treat employers and managers like a foreign species that will only lie and abuse you are really not healthy. Learning how to establish healthy professional relationships with your managers as actual human beings is a critical workplace skill.

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

#289

Post by checkyoursudo »

rubidium wrote: post #178
checkyoursudo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My family of four spends less than $15K per year for necessities in Sweden (housing, clothes, food, car ins, phone, internet, other utilities), so I can believe that a single student could live for $6000 per year if they have roommates or live in student housing. We live in a very small town and rent a nice house for less than $500/month, so of course your choices will make all the difference. We couldn't do this in…

That’s pretty remarkable... can you give more details on monthly budget: After $500 for rent that’s only $750 left. Food: $500? Cell phone/ internet:$70? Clothing: goodwill? Car insurance: $100? Utilities:?

I'm really sorry that I don't have accurate numbers at hand, but I can give you some estimates. I will also note that the SEK/USD exchange rate is not quite the same as when it sort of got fixed in my mind. I think of it as about 10:1, but I guess it's really more like 8.3:1, so instead of approx. $15K USD maybe it's more like $18K.

Anyway, here are some numbers that I know or can give pretty accurate details for:

Rent under 4500 SEK/mo

Phone data SEK 400 per 6 mo. -- pay as you go - 20 GB for 6 months and never have had to add more. Wifi at home, on the train, and both in the city center and at the University means I rarely use my own.

Phone calls SEK 100 has lasted me god knows how long for minutes. I don't think I add minutes more frequently than every six months or so.

Car insurance is something like SEK 2500 or 3000 per year for a Food ~1500 SEK per week -- we are vegetarian and rarely buy anything fancy; we also grow fruit and veg in the summer; this of course can be quite variable, with some weeks being SEK 1200 and others SEK 2000 or more.

Utilities: we have a geo heat pump; we don't pay very much in utilities; we mostly charge our EV at the train station for free.

Clothes: H&M primarily, Amazon.de occasionally (I guess we have Amazon.se now too) -- my wife and I don't buy new clothes very often, though my children definitely need new stuff regularly. Still, we don't spend very much on clothes, but I will freely admit that this is the one I don't have as much sense of.

So, minus an exact number on utilities and clothes, it looks like a bit more than SEK 10,000 per month. Add some exact amount for utilities and clothing, and I think we are within a $15K-18K range.

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

#290

Post by ryanSrich »

cat199 wrote: post #260
notwedtm wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads like an idealized version of reality. Budgets exists, deadlines are a thing. "Don't be a hero" sounds like the mantra of an HR department at an insurance company; not what you want to hear from a founder trying to disrupt an industry. Heroics can exist without them being a standardized thing. There are occasions when you need people who are willing to move mountains to get something done, and demonizing th…

> a founder trying to disrupt an industry. a founder should be 'trying to' make a quality product that fits a need, not 'disrupt an industry' - 'industry disruption' is a consequence, not a goal - if one is seeking the latter without focusing on the former, ones priorities are skewed, and likely for reasons of promoting one's own self-importance.

Semantics.

Founders building potentially billion dollar businesses (not $10m lifestyle companies) need to have a psychotic drive to achieve that goal.

That often creates tough work environments in the early stages of the company. To many people, failing to build that billion dollar company is the same as outright failing completely. They’ll do whatever it takes to get there. I’ve worked with engineers and designers that like this type of environment. I’ve worked with others that thought they did until it came time to actually pull an 80 hour week.

EDIT: Several downvotes, but only one reply. If you have issue with anything I said I'd appreciate a response.

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