Lambda School can't catch a break from upset students
1–10 of 26 posts
Re: Lambda School can't catch a break from upset students
#2The program-wide changes that angered students back at the end of September are still having effect all over social media...
I was a student and was affected by the changes. I'll clarify here for anyone that wants the details...
Prior to the changes, small groups of students in every cohort was led by a TL. This TL was a student further ahead in the program, probably in part-time if they were a TL for full-time.
The TL had many responsibilities. They would attend lecture with their group of students, conduct 1:1 everyday with each of their students for 15 minutes, grading their work and giving them feedback. They would lead a stand-up at the end of the day with their group, reviewing whatever was relevant, and every morning before lecture they would meet with the instructor and acted as an intermediary to the instructor, relaying important information such as how well the students were doing, what they were struggling on, etc. TLs also supposedly acted as project leaders in build weeks, but I did not get to experience that.
Everyday, our assignments were graded by a TL on a 3-star scale. Our "sprint challenge" at the end of the week was also graded by the TL, which would force a student to retake the challenge if they got at least one question wrong.
Fast forward to when Lambda announced they were removing TLs, adding student mentorship, self-assessment, and groups called "track teams". The school also reduced from 9 months to 6 months (probably to pump us out quicker. From what I've witnessed, the shortened curriculum has done students no favors).
Most students were upset at the assembly announcing these changes, and pointed out the myriad of obvious flaws to the student mentorship program. Lambda claimed that the change was to improve "consistency" in the program, but students kept publicly speculating whether this was a financial move (Lambda admitted 3 months later that is WAS motivated by costs, after ignoring student speculation).
Re: Lambda School can't catch a break from upset students
#3The program-wide changes that angered students back at the end of September are still having effect all over social media... I was a student and was affected by the changes. I'll clarify here for anyone that wants the details... Prior to the changes, small groups of students in every cohort was led by a TL. This TL was a student further ahead in the program, probably in part-time if they were a TL for full-time. The…
No more attendance was taken, as well, which left the biggest accountability hole. My first student mentor wasn't great, and ended up ghosting me after a week. I was ghosted by my second mentor as well. And by no means was this an uncommon occurrence.
Track-teams, which replaced stand-ups, were now student-led, with the "leader" position rotated every week. The groups were now made of students of different cohorts, and the prompts we had to awkwardly read over during the meeting were mostly soft-skills. Very few people enjoyed this, and because Lambda was not taking attendance, most people did not go. This negatively affected build-weeks, though, since your track team is your build team. Build-weeks were supposed to give students experience with working in groups. But because Lambda was not keeping its students accountable, I ended up working with just one other person in both build-weeks, when it should have been 4 or 5.
Now the grading was the sketchiest part about all this. Lambda had just switched to using Google Canvas. The canvas was broken. The school had obviously not either tested or fully realized it, but it should not have been deployed. Students were now submitting all assignments and sprint challenges through canvas, and the only grade we got was whether we turned it in or not... So there was a period of confusion (at least in my cohort) where we kept asking around HOW and WHEN our work would be looked at and graded... Nobody really knew, this includes staff and "student-success". Then it became obvious that nobody was looking at or grading our work. We now "self-assessed" ourselves and determined whether or not we thought we were ready for the next unit. Heck, I couldn't even get the answer bank to the sprint challenges. I asked the Data Science program director myself at the time, and he just said "stay-tuned for updates on feedback".
Re: Lambda School can't catch a break from upset students
#4The program-wide changes that angered students back at the end of September are still having effect all over social media... I was a student and was affected by the changes. I'll clarify here for anyone that wants the details... Prior to the changes, small groups of students in every cohort was led by a TL. This TL was a student further ahead in the program, probably in part-time if they were a TL for full-time. The…
No more attendance was taken, as well, which left the biggest accountability hole. My first student mentor wasn't great, and ended up ghosting me after a week. I was ghosted by my second mentor as well. And by no means was this an uncommon occurrence. Track-teams, which replaced stand-ups, were now student-led, with the "leader" position rotated every week. The groups were now made of students of different cohorts, a…
I know that Lambda has now implemented an auto-grader, but it came too late for me. I was in that hole post-changes where Lambda seemed not to know what the hell it was doing, and graduated after.
There was even a week where I tested whether or not Lambda cared if I was submitting anything at all by NOT submitting anything. And... crickets. No more accountability.
There were even form submissions where a student could select "I want to be contacted by student-success or an instructor". Those form submissions didn't work, I tried them every week, and I sent feedback and personally DMed people complaining about this. Lambda School said the changes were to give students more 1:1 time with instructors... but there was no (working) process implemented to have this come true.
Re: Lambda School can't catch a break from upset students
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
No more attendance was taken, as well, which left the biggest accountability hole. My first student mentor wasn't great, and ended up ghosting me after a week. I was ghosted by my second mentor as well. And by no means was this an uncommon occurrence. Track-teams, which replaced stand-ups, were now student-led, with the "leader" position rotated every week. The groups were now made of students of different cohorts, a…
I know that Lambda has now implemented an auto-grader, but it came too late for me. I was in that hole post-changes where Lambda seemed not to know what the hell it was doing, and graduated after. There was even a week where I tested whether or not Lambda cared if I was submitting anything at all by NOT submitting anything. And... crickets. No more accountability. There were even form submissions where a student coul…
Students all across the board were and are still really upset. Some student posted a poll asking whether or not students liked the changes. Overwhelmingly, students answered NO, but soon after the poll was deleted by the CEO Austen. He's deleted quite a few negative posts on the Lambda subreddit, too. I'm obviously no fan of his, after he described the changes Lambda made as "small changes in schedule" when [this post](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25415017) blew up on hackernews.
The school really has a major problem with transparency and holding trust with students. I left the program unhappy with what I got from it, and I can say the same about my peers. If someone in real life asks me about the program and whether or not I recommend it, it's a solid no from me.
Re: Lambda School can't catch a break from upset students
#6Wasn't Lambda School already exposed as a sham years ago? How are people still signing up for this? https://hn.algolia.com/?q=lambda+school
Re: Lambda School can't catch a break from upset students
#7Wasn't Lambda School already exposed as a sham years ago? How are people still signing up for this? https://hn.algolia.com/?q=lambda+school
Yep. Plenty of controversy surrounding it, and I knew that coming in as a student. The reality is, is that I had a really good experience during the first month of the school (the "free-trial" period, where you can back out of your ISA if you want) and decided to stick with it.
Re: Lambda School can't catch a break from upset students
#8Sad tale. I went to a competitor of theirs, Holberton School, and also left with a bad taste in my mouth (whole other story). I would recommend others try Lambda, which in retrospect seemed like a better choice. It sounds like the quality has really degraded since then (this was 2018).
I can’t help but think this is related to chasing venture returns. College needs to be “disrupted”, but there’s not necessarily a way to do this that creates the type of leverage of a SaaS company. I recall seeing Austen on here once boasting about how he’d raised upwards of $70m, and my first thought was that I hope this doesn’t destroy them... now they’re at $122m
Re: Lambda School can't catch a break from upset students
#9Sad tale. I went to a competitor of theirs, Holberton School, and also left with a bad taste in my mouth (whole other story). I would recommend others try Lambda, which in retrospect seemed like a better choice. It sounds like the quality has really degraded since then (this was 2018). I can’t help but think this is related to chasing venture returns. College needs to be “disrupted”, but there’s not necessarily a way…
Maybe they can turn it around? Idk. They certainly couldn't improve things quick enough when I was there. The most unfortunate thing is that Lambda is walking away with a tainted reputation.
Re: Lambda School can't catch a break from upset students
#10Sad tale. I went to a competitor of theirs, Holberton School, and also left with a bad taste in my mouth (whole other story). I would recommend others try Lambda, which in retrospect seemed like a better choice. It sounds like the quality has really degraded since then (this was 2018). I can’t help but think this is related to chasing venture returns. College needs to be “disrupted”, but there’s not necessarily a way…
Maybe they can turn it around? Idk. They certainly couldn't improve things quick enough when I was there. The most unfortunate thing is that Lambda is walking away with a tainted reputation.
Certainly the most unfortunate thing is that students committed thousands of hours to a business that knowingly lied to them about the value of their program?