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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

#311

Post by driverdan »

panorama wrote: post #31

It's upsetting to see Lambda making so many negative headlines because it truly is in a position to do the most Good and provide the most value (especially after Dev Bootcamp and Hack Reactor were acquired). I attended Dev Bootcamp in early 2013, when bootcamps were still largely unknown, and had a transformative time. Just stellar teachers all around that compensated for any perceived weakness in curriculum. The ind…

Having researched and hired people from bootcamps Dev Bootcamp did seem to be one of the best. I was sad when it folded. It seems they were pushed out by lower quality companies with better marketing (eg Lambda).

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

#312

Post by shay_ker »

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 of the frustrations were also about removing standups, grading yourself, and no attendance. Can you speak to that as well?

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

#313

Post by austenallred »

FemmeAndroid wrote: post #304
austenallred wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine scenarios where a full refund would be make sense, but refund isn’t really appropriate when we’re talking about small changes in schedule, especially when everyone agreed such changes were possible.

Yeah, that's your prerogative. Personally, I'd eat some bad press by just making it a policy to always have opt-in changes across the board, or offer dissatisfied students refunds. And saying "everyone agreed such changes were possible" when you're essentially talking about the fine text of a contract only one side has the opportunity to define the terms of seems questionable. We aren't talking about two sides in a n…

How is the ISA questionably structured?

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

#314

Post by seem_2211 »

soneca wrote: post #271
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…

Thanks for your response. I’ll take your word that the mistakes are not due to too much ambition and are not originated by biting more than what you can chew or a “land grab” market strategy. I have no primary knowledge on Lambda School to do otherwise. But it is worth paying more attention to the frustrated students feedback. The OP one is about lack of team leaders and having “mentors” that are qualified just by ha…

> You say that you know more about what students want and need than themselves. I doubt that.

This seems like a bad frame to look at the situation from. We don’t know what we don’t know, and don’t always actually know what we want.

When I went to university there was a ton that I didn’t know. It took me at least a semester to get accustomed to how the institution ran.

If my university responded only to what I wanted and “needed” then I would be quite worried about the education they are serving.

Also optimizing for employer preferences seems to make sense you know... if you’re focused as a vocational style institute?

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

#315

Post by sireat »

austenallred wrote: post #228
airdweia wrote: post #202

Please please please under no circumstances attend Lambda, everything the poster says is true. Two weeks before the end of CS for me they initiated a pass/fail for a test that we were never taught anything about and then mandated that you repeat the entire CS curriculum if you weren’t able to pass it. They said that it didn’t matter that I passed all of my sprints and scored 100% on the unit assessment, that I needed…

Hey airdwea, I’m sorry you were frustrated by the GCA assessment. We don’t use assessments as a means of harming students, but we do genuinely want to make sure that you are ready to move onto the next level before doing so. I understand this can be frustrating. This particular assessment, you’re correct, is not a direct map to the previous couple weeks of content, but rather a summative general assessment that cover…

Just read this: https://support.codesignal.com/hc/en-us/articles/36005196013... - if you so much as sneeze you get disqualified..

What's the point of doing this privacy invasive test?

The cynic in me wants to think it is to prepare students for the future when they will be similarly tested by their employers.

PS I am a lector at a University (Europe) and teach at various bootcamps where I would never think of asking of such draconian measures.

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

#316

Post by PragmaticPulp »

panorama wrote: post #31

It's upsetting to see Lambda making so many negative headlines because it truly is in a position to do the most Good and provide the most value (especially after Dev Bootcamp and Hack Reactor were acquired). I attended Dev Bootcamp in early 2013, when bootcamps were still largely unknown, and had a transformative time. Just stellar teachers all around that compensated for any perceived weakness in curriculum. The ind…

At this point I have to believe there is a financial bottleneck limiting their growth. As you said, they’re i a prime position to shake up the industry with world class education under a new business model. They’ve had a staggering amount of positive press in the past few years.

Yet time and time again we hear about they’re using this opportunity to basically test how much they can get away with in terms of educational quality.

The optimistic take is that they’re bootstrapping their way into being able to afford top quality instructors after the cash flow is established.

The cynical take is that they’re getting hooked on the easy boot camp cash while the market is hot and they’d rather expand as fast as possible than invest in quality education.

I just hope they don’t sour the business model before someone figures it out.

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

#317

Post by borishn »

austenallred wrote: post #256
borishn wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Do not make changes to ongoing cohorts > We really try to avoid doing so, but in some instances it is impossible. You sold students something you can't implement. Apologize and offer a full refund.

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.

> I suppose it depends on what “changes” means.

Don't pull Bill Clinton [1].

When enough people complain you made changes that are material and detrimental.

[1] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/1998/09/bill-clinton-and...

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

#318

Post by PragmaticPulp »

swyx wrote: post #13

there have been a few prominent criticisms of lambda school recently but it is all anecdotal and disorganized. closest in my mind was fulligin's takedown on NYMag ( https://vincentwoo.com/2020/05/19/on-lambda-school/ which found some bad facts but was sensationalized beyond proportion imo, still, make up your own mind) very hard to tell what specific allegations and changes have been made without also needing to ques…

> there have been a few prominent criticisms of lambda school recently but it is all anecdotal and disorganized.

Keep in mind that unlike most products, Lambda School purchasers have an incentive to praise Lambda School regardless of the truth.

These are all young people looking to jump start their careers with the benefit of a glamorous Lambda School education. They don’t benefit by publicly admitting that it wasn’t a good education, or by cooperating with journalists to post national headlines about how their only credentials in this industry came from a bad program.

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

#319

Post by PragmaticPulp »

kostyal wrote: post #136

I went to Lambda School. The cohort based ISA model is groundbreaking. Lambda's execution of it is nowhere near a fraction of its potential

This is the root of the problem.

People love to champion the business model and they simply assume that the education part is easy.

Meanwhile, Lambda appears to be cashing in on those assumptions to sell a sub-par product.

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

#320

Post by FemmeAndroid »

austenallred wrote: post #313
FemmeAndroid wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's your prerogative. Personally, I'd eat some bad press by just making it a policy to always have opt-in changes across the board, or offer dissatisfied students refunds. And saying "everyone agreed such changes were possible" when you're essentially talking about the fine text of a contract only one side has the opportunity to define the terms of seems questionable. We aren't talking about two sides in a n…

How is the ISA questionably structured?

See my other thread here about how by not being a progressively structured ISA, you can cause the most harm to students who get the least out of your 'school.' Not to mention your securitizing of ISAs removes the argument for your model that you align your business with the success of your students.

But frankly, if the only thing you took out of this post is that the ISA structure is poor, without considering how you have all the power to set and enforce terms in your contract, I don't think I have much else I can say to try and help you. I think there are a lot of ways you can improve Lambda School to make it better for the people attending. And they don't involve deleting Reddit threads of criticism.

Edit: s/selling/securitizing

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