Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years • Hacker News Board

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

#21

Post by shkkmo » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

pillowkusis wrote: post #4

This article takes the angle that Lambda's profitability efforts may hurt its students: > the school can still reach profitability by enrolling 2,000 students a month while only placing less than half of its graduates in qualifying jobs. >Class sizes are like 150 students to one instructor — I've only heard that number going up I don't see what the problem is here. For students, the only cost associated with Lambda i…

> If only 40% of students get placed -- that's still 40% more than would have been placed without Lambda, right?

You can't draw that conclusion without a control group. It is entirely possible that a control group that spent that boot camp time doing independent study and job hunting would have higher placement rates and that Lamda school would thus have a negative effect.

I would guess that Lamda school does have a positive effect but that effect is smaller than 40%.

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

#22

Post by paulpauper » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

just change your bank account, withdraw your money. worse case, get new ID , or try to get a judge to suspend it. tons of ways to evade a civil garnishment. never keep much $ in your bank account. If lambda ripped you off, no need for you to keep having to pay for your mistake.

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

#23

Post by Gunax » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

I think there is a double standard applied to educational reformers like MOOCs, bootcamps, and video courses.

Education largely does not work for most people who enrol. Most college students do not finish, and something like a third of university students do not either. And even among those students who receive the credential, many are probably able to slide through without actually learning much.

Anecdotally I think you'll find education has a pareto distribution: the top few percent of students learn enormously, the top 20% learn a decent amount, the next 20% or so squeek through with marginal benefit, and the bottom half does not even finish.

The reason I get annoyed is that I think these new, data-driven forms of education shoot themselves in the foot by gathering data. If they just shut their ears and pretended that everyone was learning based on the grades/assessments like universities and colleges do, they might be just as successful.

In other words, the proper comparison is not whether the education is most likely to succeed, but how likely it is to succeed in comparison to other forms. Sort of like those quit smoking aids which reportedly double your success rate of quitting--in a notoriously difficult task like quitting smoking, going from a 3% success to 6% is profound.

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

#24

Post by sam0x17 » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

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 have as much insight into but I have definitely had students who I don't think will get hired easily, and students reach out via LinkedIn 6th months later still looking for a job and wondering if they can work for me.

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.

One thing I've tried to emphasize with my mentees is the need to go beyond the curriculum (because it simply doesn't cover enough) and do personal projects. I always tell them the narrative about how back in the early 00s, the only resources available were things like w3schools.com, documentation, and the occasional dubiously accurate blog entry. I was able to learn almost everything I learned not for the sake of learning it but because I wanted to build X or Y. Bootcamps will teach you a vertical slice of some skills that are relevant in [current year], but they do not do a very good job of getting you started on a lifelong process of self-learning and side projects, which is the only way you get anywhere in this industry. Plus the only way to stand out when you went to a bootcamp anyway is having a very exceptional github profile with open source contributions that demonstrates you actually have an interest and do things beyond what is required by the bootcamp.

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

#25

Post by eli » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

temp8964 wrote: post #20

999900000999 wrote: post #12

>The school recently sent him a letter demanding his banking information so that it could track direct deposits from a job. If he doesn't comply, it threatened to charge him his full tuition of $30,000 regardless of whether he gets a job. How disgusting. He should probably tell them no. Even if they wrote some non sense allowing this in the income share agreement, let them go to court. I've never met a successful boo…

Can you explain why is this disgusting? Why the income share agreement is non sense?

Was mandatory monitoring of your bank accounts spelled out in the agreement?

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

#26

Post by 999900000999 » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

temp8964 wrote: post #20

999900000999 wrote: post #12

>The school recently sent him a letter demanding his banking information so that it could track direct deposits from a job. If he doesn't comply, it threatened to charge him his full tuition of $30,000 regardless of whether he gets a job. How disgusting. He should probably tell them no. Even if they wrote some non sense allowing this in the income share agreement, let them go to court. I've never met a successful boo…

Can you explain why is this disgusting? Why the income share agreement is non sense?

They cancelled his program before he finished it.

Income share agreements are just disingenuous loans, eventually most people are going to get to $50,000 a year even if it has nothing to do with their education. At least a loan is upfront about what you're going to pay, I sure wouldn't give my bank account information to some sketchy company.

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

#27

Post by notJim » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

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

#28

Post by dnautics » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

whoisjuan wrote: post #19

In their eagerness to disrupt traditional education, all these programs forgot that the one single thing that makes traditional university education succesful is teaching people with aptitude and drive. To get accepted and graduate from a reputable university you have to get good results in standardized tests and work your self through multiple courses for at least 3 years. That by itself doesn't mean anything but th…

> one single thing that makes traditional university education succesful is aptitude and drive.

Networking, connections, and (external) credentialism?

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

#29

Post by zenithd » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

temp8964 wrote: post #20

999900000999 wrote: post #12

>The school recently sent him a letter demanding his banking information so that it could track direct deposits from a job. If he doesn't comply, it threatened to charge him his full tuition of $30,000 regardless of whether he gets a job. How disgusting. He should probably tell them no. Even if they wrote some non sense allowing this in the income share agreement, let them go to court. I've never met a successful boo…

Can you explain why is this disgusting? Why the income share agreement is non sense?

It's not the income share agreement per se. It's the request for his banking info. They weren't asking for a routing and account number, they were asking for enough access to track direct deposits.

There's no way in hell I'm ever giving that sort of banking access to an employer, let alone an educational institution. For starters, I share a bank account with my wife and her earnings are none of their god damn business.

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

#30

Post by ghaff » Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

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…

One nice thing about software is that you can self-teach to a significant degree. But you probably need some basic aptitude and you need a huge amount of self-motivation. And, as you say, you probably want to structure your learning in a way that works for you.