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Lambda School lays off 65 employees

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Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#211

Post by legerdemain »

lifer555 wrote: post #103
bboylen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How was the job search? Was LS' career services useful at all? I'm a self taught dev that is going to start looking for a job in a few months

It took me ~4 months. I interviewed with a handful of really great companies and made it to the final round with 4. Companies are definitely willing to interview/hire self taught developers. LS career services overall were pretty useless, but there were a few staff members who helped give guidance and I am really grateful for that. Try and find someone in the field who can help mentor you.

What aspects of mentorship did you find useful?

I have made an effort to reach out to potential mentees, but the interaction falls apart when it becomes very clear that all they really need is for someone to give them a job or introduce them to someone who will give them a job.

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#212

Post by whiddershins »

jishnum wrote: post #210
pmorici wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"motivated reporter" Strange way to describe oneself as a reporter isn't it? Shouldn't a reporter's goal to be to follow the facts where ever they lead devoid of any particular motive?

Off-topic, is there any cue in the above comment to indicate 'motivated' should be read as 'has a defined motive' vs 'enthusiastic / hard-working' ?

That’s not off topic, because i read the comment the other way.

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#213

Post by izgzhen »

teruakohatu wrote: post #28

Can someone explain how you can train Data Scientists in 6 months? What jobs do these grads walk into? The tech prerequisite is: "You should feel extremely comfortable with how a computer works including: touch-typing, web browsers, search engines, and basic computer programs." The Curriculum: Stats, Linear Algebra AND Data Wrangling: 4 Weeks Modeling: 3 Weeks Data Engineering, Databases, SQL, Productionisation: 3 We…

One issue is that if you take a top CS program grad with “proper” academic training and even some internships, they still need to look up references or take a quick review to remembers the things in this list. What really made them competent at work is the ability to learn quickly and solve problems not in book.

That is the main concern I have regarding these bootcamps is that they focus way too much on surface knowledge.

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#214

Post by chrisoverzero »

pmorici wrote: post #202
akanet wrote: post #63

Any former employees interested in speaking to a motivated reporter about their experience, please feel free to contact me. My contact information is on my account bio. I am happy to speak to you completely off the record, in any manner that makes you comfortable. I have never lost a source.

"motivated reporter" Strange way to describe oneself as a reporter isn't it? Shouldn't a reporter's goal to be to follow the facts where ever they lead devoid of any particular motive?

That’s not what “motivated” means in this context.

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#215

Post by legerdemain »

joebob42 wrote: post #160
Isthatablackgsd wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Federal government is backing almost all the student loans, but universities automatically increase their tuitions. On the condition of getting the federal student loan is that the loan is exempts from bankruptcy. The loans follow us to the death or until it is paid off. It actively screws those naive students until to the point of no return. I have a friend who is still stuck paying the loan more than 15 years bec…

On the other hand, this sort of needs to exist on some level for two reasons: 1. If you go bankrupt, most stuff can be taken away if you can't pay for it. I can take your car, house, etc, but I can't take you education. You still have the full and complete value of that, so I'm not sure it's obvious that bankruptcy should remove the debt. 2. When you graduate, you typically haven't really got any money yet. It would…

The goal of bankruptcy laws is not to rob you blind, but to find a mutually acceptable way out of a bad situation. At least in the US, most bankruptcy is civil bankruptcy. There's no element of criminal justice at play. It's about what's practical, not what's fair.

It shouldn't need to be said, and yet it appears that it does, that bankruptcy is not without consequences for me, even if you fail to rob me blind in the process. A bankruptcy will limit my ability to rent an apartment, get a car loan, or win certain jobs. There is no story of people scamming bankruptcy in the US, not even in the recent past when educational debt was still dischargeable.

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#216

Post by sugarwater »

sutterbomb wrote: post #205
painfulpox wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am about to start with a company through the Fellowship program on Monday. There is a staffing agency that we are paid through. The pay isn't phenomenal, but it is a buck or two above a living wage for the state you reside in. If the company decides they like us and want to keep us on, then they reimburse Lambda for what they paid us during the Fellowship. We aren't locked into the Lambda pay rate if we are hired,…

Above a living wage means what exactly? Above minimum wage?

Above minimum, I believe. Last I heard the fellowship pays ~$15/hour

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#217

Post by jolux »

dkarras wrote: post #191
jolux wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It seems highly likely to me that if you get someone who excels on the steep parts of learning curves, 6 months studying the right things would be just as effective (if not more) than 4 years doing mostly busy work. I don't know what you were doing in college but anyone who can learn four years of material in six months probably doesn't need Lambda School in the first place.

If you cut out the commute, obsession with socializing, 1x speed inefficient lectures, impersonal general purpose homework, breadth first class catalog that try to get you well rounded - the necessary material for most professionals is not four years worth. "I never use what we learned at school, professional life is very different" is a very old meme. Where I live, colleges prepare you to be able to choose to be man…

I mean, I’ll be the last person to say you need four years of college to be an effective programmer, but that’s not really what I take issue with. I dropped out of my BS after freshman year and got my first job in the industry instead at 20. The rest of school isn’t busy work, I just prefer teaching myself, as I had been already for eleven years.

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#218

Post by whymauri »

dnautics wrote: post #152
jurassic wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the value is similar to the value of a personal trainer. There's no rocket science involved in maintaining fitness, but many people find value in the added accountability and planning support.

serious question: Why isn't there a service "personal trainer for coding"? Not so much for juniors looking to get into the industry, but... I'm sure there's a continuous pipeline of high-value people who would pay $$$ to keep them accountable to doing say three coding exercises a week while they are getting ready to switch jobs or are between jobs.

This actually exists. I would link to a specific example, but it's run by an individual and I'd feel weird doing that. "Software coaching" might be a useful keyword?

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#219

Post by legerdemain »

akanet wrote: post #63

Any former employees interested in speaking to a motivated reporter about their experience, please feel free to contact me. My contact information is on my account bio. I am happy to speak to you completely off the record, in any manner that makes you comfortable. I have never lost a source.

I'm kind of curious about what's making you follow up on the Lambda story a year since your initial reporting. Are you working on a longer story on the topic (a book?), or trying to build up a journalistic brand for yourself, or something else?

Re: Lambda School lays off 65 employees

#220

Post by TechBro8615 »

nrmitchi wrote: post #203
TechBro8615 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, people can sell the contracts for their future salary? I had no idea how wild that industry had gotten. Or do you mean Lambda was selling them to banks?

Lambda was securitizing the ISAs and selling them to investors on the backend, obviously with a discount based on risk. Some people treat this like a bad thing, but it's really pretty basic risk-mitigation and cash-flow stabilization. This is kind of like basic factoring, or "modern" solutions like Pipe ( https://www.pipe.com/ ). There is an argument to be made that it disaligns Lambda and student incentives ("outcom…

> calling these ISAs non-dischargable would lower the risk to the investor, which would make those ISAs worth significantly more

I wonder how true this is. Declaring bankruptcy comes at a huge cost. It's not something people do lightly. Most people, if they have the money to pay back the loan, would probably do so. Once they're in that position (presumably with a stable job), they have little incentive to declare bankruptcy.

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