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Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years

businessinsider.com

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Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years

#161

Post by threatofrain »

akanet wrote: post #118
Gunax wrote: post #23

I think there is a double standard applied to educational reformers like MOOCs, bootcamps, and video courses. Education largely does not work for most people who enrol. Most college students do not finish, and something like a third of university students do not either. And even among those students who receive the credential, many are probably able to slide through without actually learning much. Anecdotally I think…

I agree but would suggest you apply further rigor. There are bootcamps that are performing well. Bootcamps should be compared to other bootcamps.

Do you have any recommendations or a shortlist?

Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years

#162

Post by lazide »

gameswithgo wrote: post #86
bwing wrote: post #70

I was at Lambda when they announced the switch from 9 to 6 months and the elimination of paid team leaders. The feedback was universally negative. In a channel for open student discussion, Austen Allred deleted a poll from Slack because of how lopsided the reaction was. He explained the deletion by saying the poll was "misleading." Students then got a survey "explaining" why the change was actually a good thing by as…

Why don't companies just speak plainly about these kinds of changes? "We are doing this to cut costs, which we need to do to [Survive/Buy a Yacht/Whatever]" People tend to be really understanding when you are brutally honest, and brutally cynical when you bullshit them even a little.

For engineering or other pragmatic types? Definitely. For those who are used to hard reality and know how to make it fit in a nice way or move on like field sales? Often.

For most everyone else? There is often a need to provide at least some surface ‘here is why everything is not actually super terrible so you should stay’ sugar coating or it is not going to go down well.

The larger the group, the more apparent the effect and I suspect it’s due to lack of trust and/or familiarity with the speaker. If you’ve had your sleeves rolled up and been in the trenches with someone, you either know you can’t trust them already (and in which case, why are you still here?!?), or can trust them well and can see a positive outcome if it works.

If you can’t trust them, it’s just a signal that things are terrible and don’t know how terrible they really are - and what choice does someone have to anchor and assume it’s worse (or maybe a little better).

Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years

#163

Post by boringg »

ghaff wrote: post #144
boringg wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a far assessment. There is a certain level of mathematical aptitude that is essential for being able to be successful at programming. Maybe no in the strict sense of math but in understanding how different structures and concepts are able to relate to each other. However in the strict sense of math, there is a requirement there. I also posit that as bootcamps grew - the quality control and quality of…

>However in the strict sense of math, there is a requirement there. As someone who tutored first year MBAs at one point... My observation in general was that most people could at least muddle through most classes, even if they were at best mediocre students. But some subset of students pretty much froze at anything beyond the most basic arithmetic--and then probably only because they had calculators. Whether you call…

I always find it funny that MBAs struggle with math and that so many MBAs aren't actually that good at excel. It seems like it is a core tenant of success of the program. I fully understand that business isn't strictly math and there are so many other dimensions of importance. However in its purest form, it is mathematical.

Then again I guess you could always buy talent to shore up your insecurities.

Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years

#164

Post by hellbannedguy »

sam0x17 wrote: post #51
sam0x17 wrote: post #24

It isn't just Lambda School. I mentor for [insert large coding bootcamp here] and I will say things have been going badly across the board for more than 50% of students. They recently had to cut a lot of staff, and completion rates seem to hover around only 50-60% when you take into account all the students they remove from this calculation when they withdraw for "personal reasons". The employment numbers I don't hav…

This one particular student sticks with me. He was in his 60s-70s, and had a burgeoning career in IT/Security in the late 90s, but quit his job to take care of his ailing mother around 2001 or so. He took care of her, living off of her reverse mortgage for 20 years, but now she has passed away, and the term of the reverse mortgage ends soon (or I believe by now has ended) so the bank will be re-posessing his house, h…

What's even more sad is even if he did well in the courses; I doubt he would be hired because of his age.

I can't think of another industry that discriminates on age more than tech.

Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years

#165

Post by 0des »

horsawlarway wrote: post #117
ericb wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's the issue. The issue is that the United States provides such a poor safety net for those with health issues that one person's failing health destroys the economic potential of one or more people around them. From a sheer utilitarian perspective, healthcare and safety nets are positive ROI. Imagine the job-producing startups that don't exist because "how do you pay for insurance?"

It's worse than just lost startup opportunities. I think healthcare in the US is riddled with ways to "accidentally"* spend the entire accumulation of your wealth, leaving absolutely nothing to the next generation. Long term care is needed by a lot of folks over the age of 65 (~70% of adults age 65 will require at least partial long term care). Even "reasonably cheap" care (in my experience, roughly the same quality…

> my mother only retired this year when my grandmother died of covid - as horrendous as it sounds, it was almost a blessing

I can only imagine the hardships your family endured for this sentence to come out. I'm glad things are working out for you guys and I'm sorry for your loss.

Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years

#166

Post by sunny--tech »

Gunax wrote: post #23

I think there is a double standard applied to educational reformers like MOOCs, bootcamps, and video courses. Education largely does not work for most people who enrol. Most college students do not finish, and something like a third of university students do not either. And even among those students who receive the credential, many are probably able to slide through without actually learning much. Anecdotally I think…

You can’t compare uni and bootcamps because they’re a false equivalency as someone else pointed out.

The sole purpose of a bootcamp is to get a job afterwards. That’s why they market their job placement rates so much.

Uni, video courses, and MOOCs are for education. Not everyone uses them to get a job, so job placement for a video course or uni compared to bootcamp doesn’t give you much info.

Anecdote: I did a self-paced online school to get my first software job. I did research on it in regards to job placement.

After getting my first software job, I have since taking many video courses and even went back to uni to get a degree in Computer Science. All of that was purely for further education, not getting a job.

I wouldn’t go to a bootcamp in my position because I don’t need it. They aren’t focused on education or academics but job training.

Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years

#167

Post by 0des »

devteambravo wrote: post #148
Daishiman wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Move fast and break people.

People who aren't equipped to deal with it, mainly. People who won't fight back. It's disgusting

Your testimony sounds a lot like those of the peers I have who were from ITT Tech.

Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years

#168

Post by sunny--tech »

lostinquebec wrote: post #160
sunny--tech wrote: post #98

> “Danner, who invested $1 million shortly after Lambda School's Series A, compared the complaints to his own experience launching the charter school Rocketship Education, which received public backlash for teaching elementary-school students on laptops without instructors for part of their day. "They said we were experimenting on the backs of children," Danner said. "But when SpaceX launched their first five rockets…

> last time I checked, SpaceX wasn’t promising 80% of its rockets would work back in its early days. Is your criticism that these places are making false promises, or: > “Move fast and break things” doesn’t work when the “things” are humans, not code and technology. RCTs and placebos work exactly this way. People literally die to help us learn what does and does not work. We lost 8-9 months of COVID-19 deaths because…

Why are you bringing up vaccines and medicine in a discussion about bootcamps?

I’m criticizing both the false claims and the VC model of hyper scaling and hyper growth being applied to education.

"Move fast and break things" isn't the motto of the medical industry, but it is for tech. So how is this even related?

If you want to talk about medicine, that’s a completely different discussion.

Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years

#169

Post by brian_spiering »

Gortal278 wrote: post #31

I have always been surprised by how many students of lambda and equivalent graduate to immediately teach at these bootcamps. It just seems gross.

I have worked at many bootcamp-style educational programs.

Teaching in a bootcamp-style environment is a team endeavor. Recent graduates can be a part of that mix.

Generally, it makes sense to hire some of the instructor pool out of recent graduates. It is often difficult to find instructors at all. The recent graduates know the curriculum. It also helps those recent graduates develop a deeper understanding of the material and extend their job searching window. It can be a form of peer learning that some students respond well to.

There are also definite limitations. Primarily, the recent graduates might not have great teaching skills, knowledge outside of the curriculum, and knowledge of real-world applications.

Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years

#170

Post by lostinquebec »

akanet wrote: post #121
katmannthree wrote: post #85

It's not just lambda. There's another bootcamp, lets call it crap college, which effectively asks their ~~customers~~, sorry, _students_ to work 10+ hours a day 6-7 days a week for months. If you fail or withdraw, you have to pay back prorated tuition at the rate of several hundred dollars per day you were there. There is no grace period, if you get three days in and decide it's not for you then you owe them almost a…

Can you email me about this? me@vincentwoo.com

I think it's a veiled reference to traditional college?
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