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

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

#221

Post by afsafsaf »

shakezula wrote: post #109
bwing wrote: post #70

I was at Lambda when they announced the switch from 9 to 6 months and the elimination of paid team leaders. The feedback was universally negative. In a channel for open student discussion, Austen Allred deleted a poll from Slack because of how lopsided the reaction was. He explained the deletion by saying the poll was "misleading." Students then got a survey "explaining" why the change was actually a good thing by as…

Interestingly enough, all of these comments could have been said about my experience at $BOOTCAMP that I attended and then was later hired at as a mentor. The degradation of quality from the removal of human presence is a common narrative, and the students react to it so much more than management ever realizes. > at no point did I feel like Lambda at its top level prioritized student wellbeing over PR, costs, or metr…

Just going to add a positive anecdotal example since most of this thread is negative. I finished App Academy back in 2015 and 6 years later, most of my friends are a top tier software companies. In general our cohort did well, although there were definitely people who did not succeed. The experience was truly life changing for some of the folks.

I do agree that I've seen a LOT of bootcamps try to "scale" out their programs by removing human teachers and using video/written content or by increasing student to teacher ratios. I'm curious if the experience I had still holds today at any bootcamps or if the drive to "scale" has messed up the industry

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

#222

Post by gonehome »

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…

> "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."

This is what I really wonder about - how many of the negative comments are from students not succeeding possibly because of unrealistic expectations around teaching (and what's actually required for learning). Lots of kids fail in college too (particularly in CS) where the attention given to students (and projects) is often worse.

I remember kids constantly complaining at University about how the teachers weren't good or giving them enough attention etc. etc. There's some truth to this, but it's also a common way people take away their own agency for failure.

There's some baseline IQ requirement (for lack of a better term) - LamdaSchool puts the incentives in the right place, but they can't magically get rid of that prerequisite and if their screening isn't good enough some admitted students will fail. At least that failure won't include tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

I think the outcome comparison needs to be with universities - at least with ISAs the incentive alignment protects students even when they fail.

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

#223

Post by [deleted] »

shakezula wrote: post #109
bwing wrote: post #70

I was at Lambda when they announced the switch from 9 to 6 months and the elimination of paid team leaders. The feedback was universally negative. In a channel for open student discussion, Austen Allred deleted a poll from Slack because of how lopsided the reaction was. He explained the deletion by saying the poll was "misleading." Students then got a survey "explaining" why the change was actually a good thing by as…

Interestingly enough, all of these comments could have been said about my experience at $BOOTCAMP that I attended and then was later hired at as a mentor. The degradation of quality from the removal of human presence is a common narrative, and the students react to it so much more than management ever realizes. > at no point did I feel like Lambda at its top level prioritized student wellbeing over PR, costs, or metr…

[deleted]

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

#224

Post by bcassedy »

ctvo wrote: post #38

My partner went through a bootcamp, and there was an interview process after the application process. In my partner's case, they hold an advance degree in a STEM field from an Ivy League. A few of their peers had similar backgrounds, and that group didn't have trouble finishing. I wonder if the push to scale out these programs meant lowering standards, since folks with the ability / discipline to finish are few. If s…

I think this is the main issue.

I graduated from a bootcamp 7 years ago and even back then it was becoming clear that despite admissions clear preference for people that would be successful regardless, there were those in the group that would struggle to find work.

A large portion of my cohort came from top tier universities and a good chunk of them with degrees in Engineering, CS, or Math. Those folks did well and found jobs relatively easily. Career switching folks that had tech exposure through product or UX experience also did well. Folks that struggled a bit seemed to come from good but not great schools and with a major/work experience in a non-technical field.

Working together day to day I started getting this impression and then I saw it play out in hiring. The top tier folks either got jobs almost immediately or held out a few months to land at a FAANG type company. The middle of the pack seemed to find jobs at around the 3 month mark and the bottom group took as long as 6 months.

There isn't this huge pool of students from very good schools with technical degrees that allows these camps to scale up their enrollment while maintaining their initial success

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

#225

Post by tdeck »

afsafsaf wrote: post #221
shakezula wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly enough, all of these comments could have been said about my experience at $BOOTCAMP that I attended and then was later hired at as a mentor. The degradation of quality from the removal of human presence is a common narrative, and the students react to it so much more than management ever realizes. > at no point did I feel like Lambda at its top level prioritized student wellbeing over PR, costs, or metr…

Just going to add a positive anecdotal example since most of this thread is negative. I finished App Academy back in 2015 and 6 years later, most of my friends are a top tier software companies. In general our cohort did well, although there were definitely people who did not succeed. The experience was truly life changing for some of the folks. I do agree that I've seen a LOT of bootcamps try to "scale" out their pr…

> do agree that I've seen a LOT of bootcamps try to "scale" out their programs by removing human teachers and using video/written content or by increasing student to teacher ratios.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is how every bootcamp pitches to their investors. "We're just starting out with an MVP. Once we've nailed the curriculum we're going to scale our instruction without increasing labor costs".

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

#226

Post by sokoloff »

908B64B197 wrote: post #171
bwing wrote: post #70

I was at Lambda when they announced the switch from 9 to 6 months and the elimination of paid team leaders. The feedback was universally negative. In a channel for open student discussion, Austen Allred deleted a poll from Slack because of how lopsided the reaction was. He explained the deletion by saying the poll was "misleading." Students then got a survey "explaining" why the change was actually a good thing by as…

I'm extremely skeptical of bootcamps, especially after learning that some of the TA's at Lambda are hired to help with teaching as little as two months into the program as students[0]. I guess that counts toward their "placement" stats! Not only that, but Lambda seems so desperate that they will offer a fresh grad at no cost to any company for a 4 week trial period. [1] I don't think I've seen a single hire out of a…

We definitely have a few career changing bootcamp grads working out for us (no STEM background, nothing to indicate they were "almost there" on their own, turned into fine employees).

That said, the hit ratio from bootcamp graduate to productive hire is incredibly, incredibly low. I think there's a place for bootcamps, but I'm not sure most bootcamps are operating in that space.

I don't know how to fix it, but I did think the Lambda School income share arrangement at least served/tried to align incentives for the school to actually help the students transform themselves.

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

#227

Post by jpindar »

felistoria wrote: post #78

Are there any reputable bootcamps? Serious question as someone who wants to transition from IT Management to programming.

There are some that are run by accredited brick-and-mortar colleges. I don't specifically know how good they are, but that's where I would start looking.

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

#228

Post by cm2012 »

sunny--tech wrote: post #166
Gunax wrote: post #23

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 can’t compare uni and bootcamps because they’re a false equivalency as someone else pointed out. The sole purpose of a bootcamp is to get a job afterwards. That’s why they market their job placement rates so much. Uni, video courses, and MOOCs are for education. Not everyone uses them to get a job, so job placement for a video course or uni compared to bootcamp doesn’t give you much info. Anecdote: I did a self-p…

The only people to who can afford to go to school to broaden their education without a clear job benefit are those born rich. In other words, the people who used to go to college pre 1970s.

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

#229

Post by cm2012 »

Gunax wrote: post #23

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…

This. Based on public outcome data, Lamba is an incredible decision compared to a standard college degree.

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

#230

Post by cm2012 »

rossdavidh wrote: post #110

So, I learned to code at an odd program at Univ. of Texas - Austin, essentially a bootcamp for coders that began in the 1970's and still runs today. They take about 9 months to get you to a beginning programmer level, then you program (for UT administration) up through a kind of apprenticeship. It worked very well, and the washout rate has historically been about 10%; that is, 90% of those initially admitted go on to…

That the dirty secret of all higher education. The value of the credential comes from the screening, not the education. Research shows people accepted to ivy league schools who don't attend have the same future incomes as the people who attend.
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