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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

#351

Post by thatonecoder »

At the start Lambda seemed to be an okay "school" to attend, for me it was a continuing education thing. I wanted to add to my skill set and learn a new language (react/node) as I have been a PHP developer for roughly 10 years now. The more time I spent at Lambda things started to become apparent that the instructors are very ill prepared to teach other students. For example, whenever a problem was met that they could not solve they would just skip it and move on to the next problem...How is this supposed to help students learn to solve problems. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Once we got to the CS portion they force you to use Python and explain very little about it. When I was going through the CS course after 4 months they added the GCA (general coding assessment proctored by a third party) with a 2 day notice. "Take the test for the first time by x day and you will have a chance to take it again in 2 weeks, if you do not achieve a 650 or higher (which is what the one instructor that attempted to take the GCA scored) you will be flexed back to CS again. I gave notice to Lambda that proctored test would hinder me as I have sever social anxiety and even need a service dog to go out in public. (proctored is recording your screen/sound/webcam) Lambda made 0 attempt to accommodate my medical issues. So I went ahead and took it anyways. While nearly passing out due to anxiety I ended up scoring a 606 (not bad right) but failed. I was then put in a hospital days before the second attempt of the GCA was allowed with a life threating bacterial infection. I contacted my TL (team lead) and asked if I need to do anything. I scored in the 90s for the CS assessment and I knew I still needed to take the GCA again but he said everything for now is okay. I was released from the hospital on that Friday, the GCA was apparently due on that Thursday. I contacted Student Success and nothing...Was flexed into CS again which is no NO ASSIGNMENTS, NO GRADING, NO TEAM LEADS, NO CODING TO PUT ON GITHUB, it was reduced to taking tests on code signal and that's it. I finally got ahold of someone 4 days into the new CS cohort when I was told "What would taking the GCA accomplish for you", I was willing to set aside all the changes that made Lambda into a glorified Udemy to continue and finish but I was met with rude incomitance and negativity when I just wanted the same chance as everyone else...Take the test and move on. Since then I have been removed from the Slack for speaking my mind. There is NO RIGHT to free speech within Lambda, if you don't follow their ideology you have no voice. Your only choice is to shut up and comply. DO NOT be wronged by this "school"/"bootcamp" that is nothing but a glorified Udemy that will force you into free labor in their new "mentorship" program that you will have to help other students for free on your own time, even if you are struggling.

Make a better choice and good luck future coders.

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

#352

Post by jrochkind1 »

QuixoticChris wrote: post #338
jrochkind1 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> finally, my first day. and i was immediately disappointed to learn that the "team leads" in charge of grading our designs and reviewing our work.... were actually students two months ahead of us. two months!!!! Wow. While not an exact analogy, something about that makes me want to say MLM/"pyramid scheme" > i was so depressed. i started sleeping longer hours, i lost all enthusiasm. i was ashamed to tell my partner.…

I've seen this pattern before with other bootcamps. If you want to advertise "99% employment after 3 month", the people who aren't succeeding have to go somewhere. Failing them out of the program is one way, but also hiring the borderline cases you couldn't fail out is another.

It sounds like this in this case it's not recent grads, it's the people still paying the bootcamp, who are grading other's work. That is one way to reduce costs!

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

#354

Post by jrochkind1 »

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…

> The specifics of what students didn’t like: 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. Some students love it. Some students see it as one more thing distracting them from writing more code,

The complaints i have seen around mentors in this thread and those linked are not that they don't see the user of a mentor/mentee program, but conversely that their mentor was not qualified or good at it. That's very different, they like the mentor/mentee program in theory, they don't think it's well executed.

Anyway, with 2000 students enrolled, it's possible that some groups/courses/teams/classes/whatever you call them are worse than others. We may only hear from those in the worst. But then the question is, how do you find out about these "failing" teams quickly, and how do you correct them, so those students still get the quality you aspire for. It's kind of too late after they've had months of a bad experience, they won't get those months back, of their lives, or of your program. What systems are in place to do that; what systems might be possible?

Because the other disturbing thing in linked threads is students who tried to contact you to say the teachers/lessons/other devices weren't up to your standards, and could not get an ear.

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

#355

Post by austenallred »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #330
austenallred wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If 3/4ths of a cohort have to repeat the material, it's not the students who have failed.

It was not 3/4ths of a cohort

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

#356

Post by sugarwater »

jo032 wrote: post #137
gexla wrote: post #96

Once you're in, why not forget about the quality and problems and just follow the program? I have only ever gone to low level state schools, but one of my instructors told me that he wasn't there to teach me. He was there to guide me through the curriculum. That stuck. Stick to the program, sweat out the X months. You'll come out as close to a programmer / designer / X as you would from any other path aside from some…

If you're self motivated enough to follow a curriculum on your own, you're probably much better off using online resources from MIT/Stanford/Harvard which are not only free but much better quality. The learning environment described in the linked thread (200 students per teacher, plus blind leading the blind with volunteer mentors) sounds terrible at any price including $0.00. Many MOOCs have community boards, TA's,…

Couldn't agree more. In fact, most students will look for outside resources because Lambda's resources are poor. In fact, one of my instructors shares a PDF of Grokking Algorithms to his students because the school's CS content is lacking.

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

#357

Post by mandelbrotwurst »

ryanSrich wrote: post #290
cat199 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

I didnt downvote you but I'd guess it's because you're calling something "psychotic" that many on this forum aspire to or at least respect.

Maybe you meant something more like "extreme" ?

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

#358

Post by tharne »

a123b456c wrote: post #348
tharne wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a founder should be 'trying to' make a quality product that fits a need, not 'disrupt an industry' This 1000%. The frequent use of the term "disrupt", just shows how much the culture has descended into degeneracy. When entrepreneurs and their backers are no longer making even a pretense toward things like progress, improvement, or even just running a profitable business, you know things have gotten bad. It seems li…

> The frequent use of the term "disrupt", just shows how much the culture has descended into degeneracy. This is an extraordinary claim.

> This is an extraordinary claim.

How so? I would argue that folks using millions of dollars in investment capital with no real goal other than to cause disruption, regardless of whether it helps anyone or even creates a viable business, is what's extraordinary.

Think for a second what a dumb goal 'disruption' is on it's own. That's what bored 15 year old's do to amuse themselves, they disrupt and break things simply to see something, anything, happen. As an earlier commenter pointed out, disruption is often a side effect of making a large change in an industry, typically in business this has meant changing something for the better.

When the side effect of causing disruption becomes the main goal of a business owner rather than creating value of some sort, I really don't know what to call that other than degenerate behavior.

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

#359

Post by gnicholas »

dfxm12 wrote: post #243
gnicholas wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's even better for the student because the tuition is paid via an income-sharing agreement. That means you don't have to try to "get your money back" — you just have to defend yourself if they actually sue you for a share of your earnings. This means that Lambda would have to deal with the bad optics of "suing their students" (which sounds worse than simply refusing to give refunds). If Lambda did actually su…

This means that Lambda would have to deal with the bad optics of "suing their students" There are other things that can happen. It looks like Lamba has been selling ISAs [0], [1]. These lawsuits would possibly not be coming from Lambda. 0 - https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/12/21135134/lambda-school-st... 1 - https://www.wired.com/story/how-we-learn-lambda-income-shari...

That's a good point. I would think that even if the owner of the loans is a third party, the income documentation would probably still flow through Lambda. So if a student refused to provide income information to Lambda based on the claim that the program fundamentally changed mid-stream, then presumably Lambda would have to be the one to sue them (not the owner of the loan).

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

#360

Post by gnicholas »

skylanh wrote: post #225
gnicholas wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's even better for the student because the tuition is paid via an income-sharing agreement. That means you don't have to try to "get your money back" — you just have to defend yourself if they actually sue you for a share of your earnings. This means that Lambda would have to deal with the bad optics of "suing their students" (which sounds worse than simply refusing to give refunds). If Lambda did actually su…

I imagine they have the elusive and ever present "arbitration clause" where they don't actually have to actually sue their students.

You're probably right, though I think the press would still present this as "coding bootcamp sues its students". The fact that the process is unfolding in front of an arbitrator doesn't change the fundamental story.
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