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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

#201

Post by homo_ergaster »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #124
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?"

Can't people choose to refuse medical help? The only reason I see expenses really causing massive debt is if you choose to accept/request medical procedures you can't pay for. While it's morbid to consider the idea of just letting yourself die because you don't want to go into debt, it still is a choice... isn't it?

> The only reason I see expenses really causing massive debt is if you choose to accept/request medical procedures you can't pay for

Have you ever been to a US hospital? They don’t have a menu where you browse treatments and prices. You get your treatment and then later on you get a massive bill

That’s all putting aside the fact that a society allowing people to suffer from treatable illnesses is completely unnecessary and cruel considering that providing free care to everyone is something many countries do successfully

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

#202

Post by sanxiyn »

emaginniss wrote: post #131
ggreer wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we judged colleges by the same standards, I doubt they'd come off better. Normal colleges are fishing expeditions to land as many students as possible for as cheaply as possible and burden students with inescapable debt. Students have to pay even if they don't graduate or get a good job. 4-year graduation rates are below 50%. After 6 years, only 62% of college students have gotten a 4-year degree. The rest are stu…

Source control is not in the domain of computer science. You're thinking of software engineering. Many CS grads become software engineers (myself included) and we apply the concepts that we learn from CS in our jobs. CS teaches us: - How computers work (assembly, compilers) - Logic and math (automata theory, set theory, numerical analysis) - How to make computers do what we want (algorithms, data structures, performa…

I actually learned how to use Subversion in university and it has been useful. Concept of version control transfers between systems.

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

#203

Post by sophacles »

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…

> 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.

...

> * - I personally don't think it's an accident at all, I think it's very, very intentional.

Its extremely intentional wealth stealing, and it's even worse than just lost generational wealth transfer. Filial responsibility laws mean that your illness and long-term care are your children's financial burden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_responsibility_laws .

In the worst cases, people estranged from their parents for decades end up bankrupted. Depending on what state your grandmother lived in - your mother may have been on the hook even if she hadn't chosen to keep working to care for her mom.[1]

The idea that paying for elderly parents' expensive (intentionally or accidentally) care is a choice only applies to people in less than half of the states. These laws make the only choice "pay the provider directly now" or "pay the provider costs and late fees, etc via the courts". So anyone who wants to claim that the people who care for their parents are chosing to do so is claiming wrong - if your parent spends their last days in one of 26 states, the parent is chosing what your wealth is used for.

[1] I hope that didn't come across as suggesting your mom was only making a financial choice, or that she didn't make her choice out of love. I'm sorry you lost your grandmother and I hope your mom enjoys her retirement.

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

#204

Post by ghaff »

ativzzz wrote: post #199
boringg wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Expert Excel proficiency is mostly useful in data heavy roles such as finance, which is just one subset of MBAs. For other roles, it's useful to be able to calculate simple sums/averages/vlookups but going beyond that is outside of their required skillset

I've done big spreadsheets over the years in product management and other roles. But they've never been especially complicated--certainly not in the stereotypical complex models sense.

Honestly, anyone who goes into the corporate world and, outside of pure creative roles, thinks they never will have to deal with big spreadsheets associated with budgets, sales forecasts, and the like is going to be very disappointed. But that doesn't mean most people need to deal with anything that's complex mathematically.

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

#205

Post by katmannthree »

ummonk wrote: post #195
lostinquebec wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not unless they're counting student loan deferral / income driven repayments as an income share agreement.

It's not, I just don't want to name them for reasons that should be obvious. There may or may not be enough info in my post to figure out what I'm talking about, you'll have to use your best judgement.

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

#206

Post by ksml »

sam0x17 wrote: post #56
threatofrain wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JS is a small language when you consider the core of constructs which are in use today. I'd ballpark JS to be around 80-120 "constructs", which will differ based on how you divide semantic and conceptual units of learning. I'd ballpark Go to be around 80-120 as well. A junior developer who is just learning how to code will not deal with all of JS historical baggage; they will deal with historical JS when joining a la…

Except they will actually deal with all of it. First question I get is usually "what is var" followed by "when do I use arrow functions and when do I use normal functions" shortly followed by "why does this code work with a normal function but not with an arrow function" or "why does my code using classes and arrow functions not work on [ancient browser some family member has for some reason]?". I'll also get numerou…

That sounds like a pedagogy problem, not a language problem. From my experience [1], students learn JS just fine as a first language, as long as the learning process is structured well. Every practical language has its quirks, and no one learns a programming language by learning all the quirks at one time. You can be productive in JS without understanding all of the quirks, and then build up to that later.

When you're teaching, you should be enabling the student to do one more thing that they couldn't do before. If you're spending 30+ minutes trying to explain what an object is, you're trying to do way too much. You don't need to have a 100% complete and correct understanding of Javascript's object model to use objects.

> Contrast that with something like Java or even Rust where, despite the other complexities, it's pretty clear what the data is and how it is stored.

That's nonsense. Particularly with Rust, now you're deep in the weeds of pointers, stack vs heap vs other segments, and borrow checking rules.

[1] helped design a JS class at Stanford for first-time programmers. Also designed an intro Rust class.

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

#207

Post by syndacks »

ResearchCode wrote: post #74
wly_cdgr wrote: post #47

Having majored in English Literature at an Ivy, let me just say, 30% is a pretty damn good industry placement rate. That said, I'm sure the large majority of those people could have done just as well through self-study and $1-2k worth of MOOCs

While not having majored in medicine myself, I see no reason why CS couldn't have a 99% placement rate too.

This is a troll comment.

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

#208

Post by ksml »

temp8964 wrote: post #80
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…

Is 50% really bad? How much did they pay? Compare to graduation rate of traditional colleges: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40 "The overall 6-year graduation rate for first-time, full-time undergraduate students who began seeking a bachelor’s degree at 4-year degree-granting institutions in fall 2012 was 62 percent. That is, by 2018 some 62 percent of students had completed a bachelor’s degree at the s…

I think the bigger issue is with dishonesty in numbers. They're advertising a different set of numbers to students, and it does not seem like they're being very transparent with the process

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

#209

Post by munificent »

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.

Probably because a startup's primary audience for information is investors, not customers.

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

#210

Post by tschwimmer »

rossdavidh wrote: post #110

So, I learned to code at an odd program at Univ. of Texas - Austin, essentially a bootcamp for coders that began in the 1970's and still runs today. They take about 9 months to get you to a beginning programmer level, then you program (for UT administration) up through a kind of apprenticeship. It worked very well, and the washout rate has historically been about 10%; that is, 90% of those initially admitted go on to…

This sounds like a decent way to run an educational program but a very poor way to run a business (at least a VC backed one). You probably won't get enough volume by doing a hard screen. You need to ensure that your program is good enough that even moderate or marginal candidates come out able to find a job. Otherwise, your business is quite small.
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