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Lambda School lays off 65 employees

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Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#91

Post by BrianOnHN »

This is a real testament to the failures of higher education.

The revenue-sharing once seemed "at least aligned" to me. But it's become clear that Lambda school is classic game theory at work, optimization without regard for process.

Because of this, I'm corned into thinking that education, like healthcare, is one of those things that should be off limits to profit seekers. And yes, that means having to do the hard work as a society and identifying how we can maximize education through common resources for a common good.

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#92

Post by idoh »

void_mint wrote: post #37
idoh wrote: post #9

That's too bad. I'm rooting for Lambda School, they are trying hard to innovate in the area of education. Maybe ISAs are the future, maybe not, but the traditional university track of spending out $100K+ is clearly not the future. They should have been really excelling during the 2020 year of covid, I wonder where things went wrong. Anyone know?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26946972 Not all degrees are 100k. Lots of STEM degrees pay themselves off. The real issue is the time commitment. Most code school students (IME) are career changers that can't afford to spend 2-4 years changing skillsets. Also, Lambda School caps ISA at 30k, which I would argue is insane for a 6 month fulltime program. To your 100k example, college is actually cheaper.

Yeah, maybe the ISA asks for too much. It is reasonable to find ways to align the incentives between students, schools, and employees. So in that way the ISA as a concept is plausible.

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#94

Post by void_mint »

nrmitchi wrote: post #77
void_mint wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most code schools (including Lambda School) don't really train students effectively. It's closer to a crash course in a bunch of different topics. Students that graduate often aren't actually able to perform whatever they were supposed to have learned effectively on the job. Worse, to pad hiring stats, lots of code schools also will hire recent grads that cannot find employment as instructors. They technically aren't…

> Worse, to pad hiring stats, lots of code schools also will hire recent grads that cannot find employment as instructors. They technically aren't lying when they say "95% of graduates get a job within 6 months", but their statistics would be a lot worse if you looked at those hired _externally_. I'm aware that many other bootcamps and programs have done this, and it is obviously extremely misleading. I have not hear…

Yes, that is what I am saying. It is relatively easy to verify via LinkedIn

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#95

Post by calderarrow »

teruakohatu wrote: post #28

Can someone explain how you can train Data Scientists in 6 months? What jobs do these grads walk into? The tech prerequisite is: "You should feel extremely comfortable with how a computer works including: touch-typing, web browsers, search engines, and basic computer programs." The Curriculum: Stats, Linear Algebra AND Data Wrangling: 4 Weeks Modeling: 3 Weeks Data Engineering, Databases, SQL, Productionisation: 3 We…

I think most people who would be considering bootcamps are comparing it to a traditional 4-year college curriculum -- at least I did. I enrolled in the full-time web program a few years back and this was the back-of-the-napkin math I used to make my decision:

Total Hours of College: 4 years, of which 2 years are "core" coursework and 2 years are general education.

2 Years * 2 semesters per year * 15 weeks per semester * 15 credit hours per week = 900 hours for a degree.

Lambda School: 6 months * 4 weeks per month * 40 hours per week = 960.

Obviously this doesn't account for a number of variables such as 0-credit "mandatory" labs, out-of-class work/projects/studying, but a Lambda student who spends an extra 5-10 hours per week during the program would end up with 1000-1200 total hours.

But this still ignores the main advantage of a program like Lambda, which is the ISA. An education that would be inaccessible to students at the margin -- think people who can't afford to move to a university, qualify for loans, or take 2+ years off of work -- can get in if they're committed enough. Even if Lambda were a total scam, at worst you're out 6 months and $0. If Local State University doesn't get you a job, you're out 4 years and $50k+.

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#96

Post by SilasX »

rcthompson wrote: post #56
wbronitsky wrote: post #32

The levels of inhumanity and doublespeak in here are staggering. This post attempts to euphemize 65 people losing their incomes, and probably healthcare, to the point that it reads almost as farce. Not to mention what the impact will be on those remaining, students and staff alike. "...they believe it's impossible to make this model work. We strongly disagree." This is wildly insensitive to those involved. I find it…

I thought "right-sizing" was a fake term made up to parody the already euphemistic "downsizing". I can't believe people are actually using it.

Yep, Scott Adams was one of them, and he further extrapolated that we’ll eventually say “orgasmsized”.

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#97

Post by pvarangot »

medvezhenok wrote: post #84
mrcartmenez wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s decent science on why this isn’t possible. Basically you need to space things out to give the brain time to work out what to put into long term memory

It's possible, but for very few people. I went to MIT and there were stories of people there taking ~12-16 classes a semester which theoretically averages out to a course a week (though they ran concurrently and it's a crazy course load for the average person). To be fair, the people who could do that were way on the right of the distribution and it's hard to convey just how fast they could pick things up (think of t…

I react well to that approach if I'm really excited about the material, and usually do well in the coursework. It does take a few months for everything to "really" sink in though, and having a lot of friends or acquaintances from MIT and Stanford that did that I think it's rather the norm.

Approving coursework doesn't mean that the concepts sunk in. It just means you have new tools to further your understanding of everything, but it still takes a long time for it to sink in. During that time maybe you just need to do nothing, just let it sink in, but in my experience everyone ends up needing some time.

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#98

Post by void_mint »

lifer555 wrote: post #68
staticautomatic wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The job is at a fast food restaurant.

I got an entry level SWE position. A bunch of my peers have also landed really awesome positions. It's all about what you put into it, but Lambda School as a whole is just very chaotic. I think if executed properly it would be a pretty good option for people.

I have worked with and managed quite a few code school grads (in my city there are several). This matches my experience with them. You kind of just get force-fed a bunch of content, and if you're a person that does the (extra) work to retain that information, you have the opportunity to find success.

I have also observed that lots of code school grads move away from coding immediately on graduation. Lots of QA/PM types come from them (at least here). This is not necessarily a negative.

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#99

Post by lifer555 »

seriousquestion wrote: post #80
lifer555 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a recent LS graduate. The program is a total shit show. I was able to get a job but I would never recommend it to anyone. They are just very good at marketing. Great idea, terrible execution.

If you could do it over, what would you do instead to get the job?

I don't really regret attending Lambda School because it gave me structure that I needed, but I just got super lucky. I joined right before they made a ton of terrible changes to the program. I would either attend a better/different bootcamp or self teach and start working on solo projects. I participated in a few different hackathons and learned a whole lot more than I did during my 9 months at Lambda School.

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#100

Post by femiagbabiaka »

wbronitsky wrote: post #32

The levels of inhumanity and doublespeak in here are staggering. This post attempts to euphemize 65 people losing their incomes, and probably healthcare, to the point that it reads almost as farce. Not to mention what the impact will be on those remaining, students and staff alike. "...they believe it's impossible to make this model work. We strongly disagree." This is wildly insensitive to those involved. I find it…

All of this is well taken, but IME, when you read a "perfect" statement about layoffs, it was the result of a process meant to generate exactly that. Which isn't really any more human or personable. This reads like Austen wrote it personally. Is that better or worse than an artisanally crafted statement by a team of PR people? Or worse -- no statement at all?

I'd expect that all of the clarifying questions you're looking for answers to are covered in internal Q&A's, at least that's how it has been done at every startup I've ever worked at.

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