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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

#351

Post by sam0x17 »

1270018080 wrote: post #113
notJim wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> two of our best junior devs (at Arist YC S20) are Lambda School and Ironclad grads I just want to echo this, I have also worked with some really really sharp engineers coming out of these bootcamps. They were also people changing careers. I would really hate for the questionable aspects of these bootcamps to reflect on all of their grads, because some of the grads are fantastic.

Some of the grads are fantastic, but not because of bootcamps. They would probably succeed only through self-teaching if they wanted. The school isn't doing them any favors besides adding a little standardized badge on their resume. I guess traditional colleges are the same way, right? A degree is like an informal union card that says "Hey this person can sit for 4 years and take tests."

For me this was very true, yes. Though a lot of it was just the organizing of curated topics I wouldn't have known to pick up. These days you can get all of that on github though (i.e. the open source computer science education)

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

#352

Post by sam0x17 »

gonehome wrote: post #222
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…

> "That said, two of our best junior devs (at Arist YC S20) are Lambda School and Ironclad grads respectively, and neither of them had any background in programming and went right from bootcamp into their current positions. So it definitely works for some people." This is what I really wonder about - how many of the negative comments are from students not succeeding possibly because of unrealistic expectations around…

I don't think I've ever encountered a student lacking the intelligence needed to succeed (I find that to largely be a myth after mentoring hundreds of students... literally anyone can code) -- it's always external factors, like too many jobs, kids, not enough motivation, etc., that get in the way.

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

#353

Post by sam0x17 »

missinfo wrote: post #73
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…

> things have been going badly across the board for more than 50% of students How does this compare to traditional colleges? We hear a lot about students saddled with massive debt and useless degrees, but I don't have a good sense of what percentage that is. And my understanding of Lambda is that you don't end up with debt if the school fails you?

It's much worse, though. If you fail out of college, you can still transfer many of your credits years later to another institution, and simply having "some college" on your resume is enough to get your foot in the door at a lot of places. Having "some bootcamp" is not going to have the same effect (in some cases some college plays better than having graduated from a bootcamp, even), plus the debt you have is not subsidized by the federal government in any way.

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

#354

Post by sam0x17 »

bwing wrote: post #102
gigatexal wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this sums up the issue with bootcamps: "That said, two of our best junior devs (at Arist YC S20) are Lambda School and Ironclad grads respectively, and neither of them had any background in programming and went right from bootcamp into their current positions. So it definitely works for some people." Some folks thrive in this environment either by natural ability or their learning style and others do not. For…

Because they have minimal admissions filter and constantly tell students not to give up, to fight imposter syndrome, student testimonials, "this is the toughest thing you'll ever do but it's so worth it." College is gated by GPA and standardized test scores. You can quibble over the effectiveness and wisdom of this specific gate, but the upside is that mediocre students aren't going to spend a year and $30,000 convin…

> College is gated by GPA and standardized test scores

I recently learned this is increasingly no longer true. Many top institutions have made standardized test scores optional in recent years, and we're a few years away from it becoming normal to not even take the SATs and get into multiple ivy league schools as a top student.

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

#355

Post by tjpnz »

ummonk wrote: post #194
tjpnz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've interviewed a few candidates in a similar situation to your partner. My impression is that the bootcamps had very little to do with their success. I would put it more down to personal drive and possibly the programming STEM grads tend to get exposed to.

Would they have been given an interview without going through the bootcamp?

This was for an intern program we run for individuals with non-traditional backgrounds (self taught, degrees in non-CS subjects etc), so I don't imagine it having much impact. We were looking primarily at the coding test and the candidate's Github profile.

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

#356

Post by google234123 »

lozenge wrote: post #180
lostinquebec wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

People joining trials aren't given fake information about how 70% of participants are given immunity from COVID...

Placebo gives 70% immunity?

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

#357

Post by [deleted] »

sam0x17 wrote: post #339
ksml wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'r…

Right but this is my point. The bootcamp does a terrible job explaining this stuff, so I have to re-teach it in my mentoring sessions.

[deleted]

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

#358

Post by harry8 »

eru wrote: post #332
harry8 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an issue in market information where regulation can't really work [1]. Vendors have a brand. They establish the value of the brand such that purchasers have a signal that they aren't going to be ripped off. For example you can be pretty sure coca-cola isn't going to cut costs to the point where they don't care about putting poison in the bottle - and you don't need regulation to know they won't do it. Zeus-Cola?…

In a sense, this is all about interest rates. If capital becomes abundant enough that rates of return become low enough, then the long term becomes more and more important in corporate planning. If interest rates are high, then short term gutting of the business _is_ the rational move. (Interest rates have been rather low in the last decade or so. Not sure if that had much of an influence?)

Disagree with that.

The decision is between a higher probability shorter realization, bigger annualized result vs longer realization, lower annual return (possibly bigger return if things go particularly well) with a bigger probability of things going wrong, especially a few years into the future where the crystal balls get less sure of themselves.

I can get a real 30% return this year and I'm out with high probability. Vs I could get 150% in 7 years time but not much this year or next and maybe it won't work out because the unknown unknowns etc?

If you're pretty sure you're on a winner you take option b and hold. If you're less sure, a bird in the hand is worth two in your dreams... Your bonus this year is on this year's results, will you still work there and get the bonus in 7 years? The decision is probably not made by the owners of captial but their professional agents.

The interest rate really doesn't figure in that calculation (real returns rather than nominal). It's all about the return probabilities and good enough with more certainty can win out where you might not like that and think more highly of the longer term prospects.

Factoring in interest rates, when they're high its because inflation is high. At that point an inflation hedged investment (which most equity is) becomes relatively more valuable than money in the bank (bonds) because money in the bank is a sure, steady loser. Capital has to go somewhere and its owners will want to put it where it can "lose the least" Get it invested in some kind of business equity, diversified as hell, across industries, business sizes, geographically, startup vs established, precious metals, Art, all of it. Just get the hell away from bonds which will hemorrhage value from the inflation. Where capital is having trouble finding investment because all captial owners are looking the incentive becomes to hang on and hold, let the business run rather than rip the value out now and have to find somewhere else equivalent to put it which may not be easy at all.

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

#359

Post by exporectomy »

homo_ergaster wrote: post #201
RobertRoberts wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unnecessa…

That's false. America has probably the most advanced healthcare in the world. Almost every new treatment is invented and made available there. Other countries don't provide that cutting edge stuff for free, they simply don't provide it at all. I live in New Zealand which has free healthcare but we sometimes hear about people pressuring the government to pay for some expensive new drug, or a dying person using crowdfunding to pay for what the government won't, or complaining they have to spend their own money flying to America for private treatment because no doctor in New Zealand is capable of that special thing. But those are the exceptions that get into the news. Mostly people just die when it's too expensive. Our standard for "treatable illnesses" is lower than the reality of what technology can do.

At the extreme end of diminishing returns, I'd guess that most deaths of elderly people in hospital are preventable because machines to perform the function of failed heart, lungs, kidneys, GI tract, etc. exist. But it's expensive, and countries with socialized healthcare don't pay for it for everyone because they don't have infinite money. My dad died this way when his lungs filled with fluid while in hospital.

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

#360

Post by harry8 »

lmm wrote: post #312
harry8 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's a reasonable point of view. The other way to go on that is you're in an country whose culture you don't understand which as a wildly corrupt, crony-riddled military dictator and nobody has any rights at all. Do you want locally bottled Coke(tm) with the red label and dynamic ribbon for your very thirsty child or locally bottled "Odin's Thirst Quencher! (est. 2021)"? Coke are going to enforce quality control…

> Do you want locally bottled Coke(tm) with the red label and dynamic ribbon for your very thirsty child or locally bottled "Odin's Thirst Quencher! (est. 2021)"? > Coke are going to enforce quality control and safety to protect their brand or get out of that market. There is no regulation you can rely on in this mythical country - but there are quite a few countries like that which you may know yourself from having…

It's obviously not a panacea. You may not be able to trust the brand is what it claims to be. You frequently can't in wealthy countries with low corruption indexes.

There are plenty of times what you trust is the interests of the brand holder to defend the value of the brand where regulation can't help you. Coke in a sealed bottle is extremely likely to be coke in a sealed bottle in Mogadishu. The brand "Coke" gives you some information about the probability of not drinking poison. Obviously it isn't perfect. I think it's evident that it isn't something to be dismissed as inconsequential information either. Coke will be trying very hard to make sure nobody impersonates them and kills their customers anywhere in the world because it would be an advertising disaster. Better that than nothing.

(Just quietly I hate the coca cola company and think they are pretty evil. Diabetes. Obesity. They're similar to a cigarette company. Meh. Useful points can still be made using their business as an example.)

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