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Fast Crimes at Lambda School

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Re: Fast Crimes at Lambda School

#111

Post by itronitron »

bee_rider wrote: post #22
gatinsama wrote: post #9

The model is broken. Too many people want to learn to code, not everyone can do it well. The only way would be to filter many candidates going in, but the negative press would be huge. So you end up with huge cohorts of people who can't code, and you have to make the money back somehow. Good teachers need to know how to code well, and those are expensive too. And, let's face it, the internet is full of great material…

I think there’s probably room for something like: programming with less CS. But I mean, we already have trade schools and community colleges for that sort of thing. I also think there’s a ton of value in everybody learning a little bit of programming to help them automate things like office jobs. But that’s have to be carefully handled with nice intuitive libraries and thoughtfully restricted network stuff. Getting t…

I'm curious how much Calculus as a prerequisite is a barrier to entry for students. CS as a topic is not hard, but a lot of students are blocked from entry with fairly rigorous Calculus requirements.

Re: Fast Crimes at Lambda School

#112

Post by codeforafrica »

gatinsama wrote: post #9

The model is broken. Too many people want to learn to code, not everyone can do it well. The only way would be to filter many candidates going in, but the negative press would be huge. So you end up with huge cohorts of people who can't code, and you have to make the money back somehow. Good teachers need to know how to code well, and those are expensive too. And, let's face it, the internet is full of great material…

last week two students started learning on freecodecamp using a laptop i provide for them in my home. they work on their own, but they can ask me when they get stuck. so far it was mostly telling them to closely reread the instructions to see if that provides a clue. when they finish the html course, i'll pay them to update my website (it's all static html) then i'll see if i can get them started on javascript.

not sure yet where this will go. the first student that tried that gave up after a few days. don't know why. maybe he felt it wasn't for him. fine.

Re: Fast Crimes at Lambda School

#113

Post by jarsin »

paulpauper wrote: post #8

Not surprising at all.. as it's said "if something is too good to be true it probably is" Coding is hard, and there is no evidence to suggest it's getting easier , such as dealing with the integration of the front-end with the back-end, or having to deal with libraries and cloud environments and everything else that goes into it. The belief that average people can be turned into proficient coders in months is ludicro…

Haven't you heard the latest craze? Executives that wonder how the cloud works when there are no clouds in the sky don't need us anymore.

They will fire up good old chatGPT and put together million line code systems easy.

Re: Fast Crimes at Lambda School

#114

Post by dang »

throwaw2y342345 wrote: post #49
mapmeld wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I gave real $ to the "Lambda Perpetual Access Fund" and now feel negative about the whole thing, but the sections where the author is talking about Austen's golf swing, bots, having written a paragraph conscious of clickbait? Not really necessary.

[flagged]

No personal attacks, please.

Re: Fast Crimes at Lambda School

#115

Post by parpfish »

kbigdelysh wrote: post #107

I was one of the coding instructors at Make School which was similar to Lambda School and was bankrupt couple years ago. Our major issue? It was damn hard to find enough students for our school who were talented enough to understand computer science and had enough grit to finish the program and get a job. Why? Because those students were already absorbed by the established traditional universities.

I have a similar view and am skeptical of bootcamp claims that they can get anybody a job with X weeks of training. I'm reminded of the ending of Ratatouille when the critic figures out that the motto "Anyone can cook" means "Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist can come from anywhere".

I'm personally biased, but I feel like one bootcamp program that got this right (for a while) was Insight Data Science. For a few years at the start of the 'data boom' there was a market inefficiency where tech needed more people that understood stats and ML and there were a ton of STEM postdocs that wanted to leave academia. The program worked because it wasn't really about teaching any new skills, it was mostly about being able to market the skills you have in a different sector. But after a few years, the market corrected itself and there was no shortage of data/stats people in tech anymore and there were enough resources for those academics to manage the transition on their own. I don't know if the program still exists, but if they do I'm not sure what they could do now to make themselves relevant.

Re: Fast Crimes at Lambda School

#116

Post by dang »

throwaw2y342345 wrote: post #54
forgot_user1234 wrote: post #13

I have been through lambda. It was the force of nature that turned my life on the right path. It was the best decision I ever made This wouldn’t have been possible without Austen.

[dead]

You can't post like this to HN regardless of who you're for or against, so I've banned the account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Fast Crimes at Lambda School

#117

Post by localfirst »

> Lambda School targeted single mothers, the disabled, reformed convicts, and people struggling with serious medical problems. They lost tens of thousands of dollars, some lost years of their lives, on a broken, predatory program.

Seeing a huge wave of ponzified educational courses being pushed by influencers and famous people that results in financial ruin.

1%ers, 10x engineers, these are ALL caricatures that is created by course sellers to instill the belief that the participant NEEDS to purchase it.

If I was to create a society based on principles, the founders of Lambda School, should be behind bars.

Re: Fast Crimes at Lambda School

#118

Post by wmf »

jonathankoren wrote: post #89
dustincoates wrote: post #14

I'm convinced that Lambda School was shady, and I'm not debating that, but some of this seems over the top. ISAs as indentured servitude? The shadowy negotiating a company's validation "behind closed doors?" (Where else are you supposed to do it.) The criticism of Lambda School can stand on its own without wading into the extreme hyperbole.

ISAs were indentured servitude. That's literally what they were. It was the single most scummy concept that Austin came up with and PaulG endorsed.

What does that make student loans? Slavery?

Re: Fast Crimes at Lambda School

#119

Post by goat_whisperer »

swyx wrote: post #53
DetroitThrow wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad to hear that it was a positive experience for you! Do you think you know what % of your peers ended up working in tech off the top of your head?

just to level set, i myself went thru a normal (non lambda school, but still highly rated) bootcamp in 2017 (some of which were ISAs, the rest regular tuition), and about 30% of my classmates went back to their past jobs and careers. i'm sure about 20-30% of the rest are in tech but in unhappy situations. but for the remaining 30-50% of us it was a lifechanger. i wish that people would not throw out the baby with the…

"TAs are TAs, all colleges have them; they do not replace full instructors, but some of them are worth their weight in gold due to their student empathy."

Lol. TAs in colleges are graduate students. They aren't undergraduates who can't find a job.

Re: Fast Crimes at Lambda School

#120

Post by localfirst »

busterarm wrote: post #18
paulpauper wrote: post #10

On the surface, this is another window into the 2010's tech bubble, a period where mediocre people could raise ludicrous money amid a venture capitalist echo chamber fueled by low-interest rates. But what makes this any worse than Juicero, Clinkle, or Humane? Why does this rise to the level of Theranos? It has been a bubble now for 13 years. I disagree here. Maybe it's just the new normal? Comparisons between now the…

People really forget what it was truly like in the 90s. If you could breathe and knew how to turn a computer on, you could get a job in tech. The hiring was that desperate and that easy. The fundraising was that easy too. Everyone just assumed that you even knew what a computer was that you could figure the rest out. That all changed with the Russian ruble crisis, which hit finance first late in '98 and then took ano…

You know something about this? It's just money being moved around between the rich, middle class and poor. Each cycle ends when that resource extraction is complete (or rinsing).
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