Lambda School’s Misleading Promises

Now he just posted a they have received $100M Investment.

I'm a current student at Lambda School. It's a pretty stressful time at the moment - I don't have any loyalty to Lambda, but the recent string of damaging stories about the quality of teaching and average graduates is concerning.

It's true that Lambda is incredibly disorganised and the build weeks etc are chaotic. Equally true that they don't do a good enough job of ensuring we have something to show for ourselves on our portfolio.

It's also true that their admission standards are seemingly incredibly lax. About 40% of my cohort struggle to code at a fundamental level - I don't mean that harshly, it's Lambda's fault

With that said, I've really enjoyed my time at Lambda overall and it saddens me to see it fail like this. The atmosphere and internal culture that they cultivated is second to none and I have enjoyed my time there a lot.

As with many people at Lambda, I joined them at a difficult time of my life, when I was suffering from pretty severe depression. I knew I loved coding but barely spent any time doing it and struggled with impostor syndrome, etc.

While at Lambda I benefitted hugely from the daily structure and discipline, and from having a community of people in the same position as me. I've made some great friends, and met some very smart and talented people.

What pains me is the embarrassment of appearing like some clueless fool who got caught up in some get-rich-quick scheme. I love programming, and I just wanted a structured curriculum to train as a professional.

Since the original HN post[0] is about 2.5 years old now, one would expect there to be more data released by LS regarding job placement/salaries before a potential student would sign a $30,000 ISA. I've been a fan of the idea of up-skilling at a bootcamp for those who either don't want to spend 4 years getting a CS degree or being unable to finance its associated costs which can be in excess of $75,000. In an increasingly tight labor market, there's fewer jobs available in the 'middle' where companies seem to be either wanting an experienced SME in a specific domain or less-experienced programmers to do testing rather than development.

I think the bundling and selling of student CDOs works for a company in its early stages, since the costs for recovering unpaid tuition can range from high to being declared a total loss. Some of the anecdotes make it seem like the company doesn't receive enough feedback from employers in order to strengthen parts of their curriculum that make interviewees fail at some stages during the interview process. Creating a complete curriculum takes more than bundling together Leetcode and Hackerrank problems, where the actual teaching reflects that bootcamps and a CS education aren't in direct parity with one another. [1]

Regarding the finances, student loan debt through an established institution can't be removed through filing for bankruptcy. This allows access to federal loans and underwriters that give better rates and agreements for all the business parties invloved. I've been denied refinancing my loans from multiple companies for a combination of those effects including not graduating and having too low of an income. The business seems like a good idea but too fixated on higher short-term valuations in order to attract VC capital; rather than fixing its underlying structural problems.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15011033

[1] https://hackernoon.com/bootcamps-vs-college-11dd76a4d127

Fascinating story. I think there is value in the service provided by Lambda School but the questionable revenue tactics like selling ISAs or using ISAs to secure loans means students can't really trust them with placements.

This is exceptionally good. Fantastic journalism.