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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

#371

Post by lifteatdev »

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…

I paid for the accountability, feedback, and support (which, was provided before I was financially committed). Why would I pay 30k to just teach myself when I can do that with YouTube, Udemy, and documentation?

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

#372

Post by sugarwater »

austenallred wrote: post #296
FemmeAndroid wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

"Small" is really exaggerating the changes. Schedule is just a small part of it. But while we're talking about schedule, many parents that are students at Lambda School struggled hard with the increase of meetings after the changes were implemented.

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

#374

Post by dang »

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.

Thanks for the course correction. Small things like that compound into big effects on the community.

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

#375

Post by storf45 »

effingwewt wrote: post #335
austenallred wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the ISA questionably structured?

How is it not This is why I hate you and your product. You come in here and lie through your teeth repeatedly. You sell yoyr ISAs which are already predatory. This means you dont give a flying fuck if students graduate because you get paid regardless, as opposed to the bullshit you spout about incentives being aligned. More softball bullshut or speak answers. Lambda needs to be sued into the groundlike ITT Tech and H…

Are you okay?

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

#376

Post by YuriNiyazov »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #217
jonsen wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 aspiran…

You are misreading it. The semantics that someone goes from place to place is captured in the word "wandering", and is not repeated in "journeyman", which still refers to charging for a day of work.

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

#377

Post by Saporaku »

austenallred wrote: post #268
mondoshawan wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think that some of the issue with allowing students to retake is that there is a lot of pressure to continue the program regardless of skill because: A) self judgement and passing leaves the unconfident people at a severe disadvantage regardless of their skill B) it’s not codified in the contract that this is allowed. It’s a worry that a student will be ejected if they are not performing or worth the time investment by lambda. That can look like missing resources or scheduling delays, which do seem to happen. It seems to be a normal event for cancellation for help from a tl or a technical hiccup not to be answered for several days.

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

#378

Post by shay_ker »

sugarwater wrote: post #347
austenallred wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But you implemented changes so that the students themselves determine whether or not they want to flex? That's what happened the last two units for me... For two build weeks I was in a team of 8 people, and in both cases only one other person showed up. There were no repercussions for those that didn't attend build week and they continued on to the next unit regardless of whether or not they were ready. You grade you…

> 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.

I hear that this is good feedback, but looking at sugarwater's response that seemingly matches up w/ the original critique, maybe the current situation falls short of what you're trying to do, Austen?

These may be outliers, but from my perspective, the frustrations seem valid.

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

#380

Post by 908B64B197 »

javaIsGreat wrote: post #336
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…

I dont know anything about Lambda's failures to serve students other than most students are upset at paying for less than steller experiences (most of the other prestigious bootcamps share this), but my gut tells me I dont think they grew to fast, its just the calibur of student went down, i feel like the hot new bootcamp of the day is able to get really bright and/or qualified students. More average learners require…

> I was surprised to learn the guy I was pair programming with had a CS degree from MIT lol.

That surprises me.

Someone who could drink from the firehose should not need some bootcamp to learn web dev.

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