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Lambda School’s Misleading Promises

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Re: Lambda School’s Misleading Promises

#131

Post by soneca »

I learned to code from scratch using freeCodeCamp.org, tutorials and official documentation. Got a good job after 8 months studying full-time. Almost 3 years now and everything is good (more details on my experience here: https://rodrigohgpontes.github.io).

As a totally outsider (not even from the US), Lambda School seemed too good to be true, in a good way, and I said so here in HN. 9 months of serious commitment, no upfront payment, ISA, all of it seemed good to me.

These days, I don't think the same way. Lambda School and it's founder seem more worried about being a billion dollar company than doing the right thing for its students. Personally, that's strategically stupid and counter-productive. They won't be a billion dollar company because they don't care about their students. But it looks like the direction they took. This mistake is not inherent to VC ventured companies or Silicon Valley, so I think the ones to blame are Lambda leaders, not the system.

So, I still recommend freeCodeCamp.org as the best thing that exists for people that want to learn to code and get a job. I wish some of these effective philanthropy multi millionaire would give them generous money to pursue their mission.

It changed my life.

Re: Lambda School’s Misleading Promises

#132

Post by [deleted] »

hundt wrote: post #94
songzme wrote: post #17

I'm not a fan of bootcamps because I think a lot of them are more focused on making money than actually helping people who need help. Last year I decided to take action and started a free coding group at our local library: https://www.meetup.com/San-Jose-C0D3 I show up before work every day (M-F at 8am) to help students who are learning how to code. So far no students have gotten a job yet, but our group consistently…

This is very cool! How did you choose the curriculum that you are following?

[deleted]

Re: Lambda School’s Misleading Promises

#133

Post by byproxy »

songzme wrote: post #17

I'm not a fan of bootcamps because I think a lot of them are more focused on making money than actually helping people who need help. Last year I decided to take action and started a free coding group at our local library: https://www.meetup.com/San-Jose-C0D3 I show up before work every day (M-F at 8am) to help students who are learning how to code. So far no students have gotten a job yet, but our group consistently…

As someone making a somewhat-late-in-life career change (foisted upon me, of course), thanks for the site!

I'm not a beginner coder, but I haven't worked on projects in a team environment before, so I signed up on c0d3.com hoping to gain some experience.

Any pointers?

Re: Lambda School’s Misleading Promises

#134

Post by mattmcknight »

akanet wrote: post #72
mattmcknight wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you choose to write about this program as opposed to other programs that teach people coding skills, but have vastly worse payment plans, including some which can't even be dispensed in bankruptcy? The criticism seems unmoored from its placement in the set of alternatives for people who want to try to see if they can get a job coding. The undergraduate degree is notoriously bad for this purpose, from time, pr…

Why? Its prominence.

Do you admit it has advantages over the alternatives? It sure doesn't sound like that in the article, where all you do is bash the company, without mentioning how it is an improvement.

Re: Lambda School’s Misleading Promises

#135

Post by hydrarijar »

akanet wrote: post #58
intherdfield wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you mentioned that the student doesn't have to pay back Lambda after 60 months of deferred payments. That seems important. From the Lambda site: "The income share agreement has no interest. It's a flat percentage that goes away once you've reached the $30k payment cap, you've made 24 payments, or after 60 months of deferred payments (even if you haven't paid us anything)." But you wrote in the article:…

Yeah, got cut for brevity, but students definitely experience serious anxiety about even the five year horizon.

Writes a 2000+ word article, cuts 14 "for brevity".

Overall, I think this was an insightful article, but cutting that out seems misleading, even underhanded.

Re: Lambda School’s Misleading Promises

#136

Post by fronofro »

There are inherent limitations to edu that go unacknowledged.

- There are a relatively fixed number of high skill jobs.

- More people with the same skills/portfolio reduces the value of that skill/portfolio.

- While people can learn new skills, people have different learning rates and integrating that knowledge deeply often takes much longer than teachers/bootcamps want to believe.

- Most edu info exists for free online, what school/bootcamps uniquely provide is feedback. Quality feedback is HARD to scale.

- How much does pre-application screening find people who don't really need that much help vs trying to help every applicant and getting unmotivated people in your bootcamp. I have seen very few examples of a bootcamp fundamentally changing someones motivation/work ethic.

ISAs will be the big winner in the ed tech space and providers of education will likely come and go unless someone cracks all the issues above. Perhaps the current distribution of students to universities (having plurality) is actually more suited to serving this function than a typical tech world power law distribution where one or two companies would provide 80% of the edu.

Re: Lambda School’s Misleading Promises

#137

Post by ChicagoDave »

The problem with Lambda School is the model and vision that suggests a general college education isn't worthwhile. That college should focus on a marketable skill directly leading to some job. That's optimal, but that leaves out the social aspects, the critical thinking aspects, and the safe space to have an open mind and absorb and share ideas.

I would argue those other aspects of higher education are far more critical than the bootcamp model and vision.

And eventually, it boils down to a waste of time for some subset of students, which is not helpful to our higher education interests.

Re: Lambda School’s Misleading Promises

#138

Post by songzme »

byproxy wrote: post #133
songzme wrote: post #17

I'm not a fan of bootcamps because I think a lot of them are more focused on making money than actually helping people who need help. Last year I decided to take action and started a free coding group at our local library: https://www.meetup.com/San-Jose-C0D3 I show up before work every day (M-F at 8am) to help students who are learning how to code. So far no students have gotten a job yet, but our group consistently…

As someone making a somewhat-late-in-life career change (foisted upon me, of course), thanks for the site! I'm not a beginner coder, but I haven't worked on projects in a team environment before, so I signed up on c0d3.com hoping to gain some experience. Any pointers?

Not sure what pointers you are looking for, but you can start by saying hi in the chatroom.

If you think it is helpful, you can breeze through the lessons and exercises so you know / understand how other students use the curriculum, then work with the more senior students as a team on c0d3.com and build features to make it better. Proudly put all your contributions (features, mentoring work, authoring work - if you contributed to the course material) on your resume.

Re: Lambda School’s Misleading Promises

#140

Post by nemothekid »

akanet wrote: post #58
intherdfield wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you mentioned that the student doesn't have to pay back Lambda after 60 months of deferred payments. That seems important. From the Lambda site: "The income share agreement has no interest. It's a flat percentage that goes away once you've reached the $30k payment cap, you've made 24 payments, or after 60 months of deferred payments (even if you haven't paid us anything)." But you wrote in the article:…

Yeah, got cut for brevity, but students definitely experience serious anxiety about even the five year horizon.

That seems like a giant omission. 5 years is nothing compared to student loans. There are people in their 40s still paying back loans they took when they were 18
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