Students say the Lambda School coding bootcamp isn't delivering on its promises, with concerns about poor instruction and prospects while being bound by income-sharing agreements
People in these situations ending up at places like Lambda School is a classic American story. Someone down on their luck and struggling is seemingly offered a quick route to riches. At their...
Bethany Surber was sleeping on friends’ couches and living out of her car when she first heard about Lambda School, a buzzy coding bootcamp that promised world-class instructors and a top-tier curriculum.
People in these situations ending up at places like Lambda School is a classic American story. Someone down on their luck and struggling is seemingly offered a quick route to riches. At their worst, tech bootcamps are get-rich-quick schemes just like the Multi-Level-Marketing companies that recruit vulnerable people into selling bullshit supplements or poor quality leggings.
The best stories coming out of (usually just the top) bootcamps are those of people who already had advanced technical degrees who wanted to intensively on-board into web or app development. These people are smart, used to solving difficult technical problems, and have an advanced academic credential that pleases potential employers. They might be trading a $40k lab technician job for a $100k mobile application development job.
Occasionally I wonder if these bootcamps are actually a great idea, mostly because my university experience was pretty bad and I felt like so much time was wasted in that program. But then I snap out of it and realise that I still worked my arse off for 4 years at university and in self-study to get into a high-paying job in the field, and I'm not slow; in my home state of Victoria, Australia, my high school academic performance was top ~5%. It just makes no sense that 3-12 months in a bootcamp is enough.
These bootcamps are selling a fantasy to people who are too desperate or naive to realise their chances of success are tiny.
I can't imagine anyone being able to learn what is being taught in university in 3-4 years in just six months. Especially starting from zero, it takes so much time and repetition to finally get...
I can't imagine anyone being able to learn what is being taught in university in 3-4 years in just six months. Especially starting from zero, it takes so much time and repetition to finally get things, and not just churn out code.
The math that is contained in a degree by itself takes way more than 6 months to fully grasp.
I'm of two minds about this. When learning a musical instrument, practicing more has diminishing returns because you need time for stuff to sink in. Daily practice, even for just a few minutes, is...
I'm of two minds about this. When learning a musical instrument, practicing more has diminishing returns because you need time for stuff to sink in. Daily practice, even for just a few minutes, is recommended over trying to learn a lot in a day. It also seems like if studying were just a matter of putting in the time then cramming would work better than it does?
On the other hand it seems like you need lots of time for experimenting and trying new things. I'm remembering how rushed lab courses seemed in college when you're not getting done what they expected in a 2-3 hour period.
Also, with learning a foreign language, immersion seems pretty effective?
I saw your comment expanding on this claim below, and I still disagree with it but could see than an exceptional, intensive course could get it done in 12 months, assuming everything is super...
could cover the same material in 6 months
I saw your comment expanding on this claim below, and I still disagree with it but could see than an exceptional, intensive course could get it done in 12 months, assuming everything is super optimised and the student workload is >= 50 hours a week. 12 months is possible but it almost resembles a hazing ritual.
Beside that though, I'm very confused by you saying that you think learning relational algebra was "useless" to understanding MySQL. Relational Algebra is core to SQL.
Someone who drops out of Lambda School has lost time,
In the bad cases the students are forgoing income and burning through their savings. If the students were living at home with parents able to support them then it's better than guaranteed debt.
Follow-up to this today as well, after responses to the report brought attention to the fact that Lambda was selling the income-sharing agreements: As Lambda students speak out, the school’s...
I think it comes from seeing Lambda always making claims like, “Lambda School doesn’t just train people; Lambda School bets on them". The impression they're trying to give off is that they're so...
I think it comes from seeing Lambda always making claims like, “Lambda School doesn’t just train people; Lambda School bets on them". The impression they're trying to give off is that they're so confident in the quality of their program that you don't even have to pay them unless you're able to get a good job because of it.
But if they're selling the ISAs, obviously they're not actually confident. They have to be selling them for considerably less than their repayment value, otherwise there would be no reason for the other company/investors to buy them. So while they frame themselves as being that confident, in reality they're not betting on their students and are selling their ISAs at a fixed rate. In a way, they're almost betting against their students, believing that this fixed, lower return is safer than one dependent on their students' success.
That can also encourage them to do things like reduce their costs, instead of focusing on maximizing the success of their students. Their hiring rate doesn't actually matter to them much, as long as it's high enough to keep the ISA buyers happy with the overall return.
This confuses me - the terms don't change just because it's now nominally owned by someone else. It would be interesting to see whether the terms require an actual sale, or if Lambda became a...
debt can be sold off and enforced by a more aggressive collector
This confuses me - the terms don't change just because it's now nominally owned by someone else. It would be interesting to see whether the terms require an actual sale, or if Lambda became a middleman where the investors couldn't go after the students directly). Regardless however if the terms say you don't pay unless xyz conditions are met then you don't pay unless conditions xyz are met, no matter how aggressive the creditor might be.
People in these situations ending up at places like Lambda School is a classic American story. Someone down on their luck and struggling is seemingly offered a quick route to riches. At their worst, tech bootcamps are get-rich-quick schemes just like the Multi-Level-Marketing companies that recruit vulnerable people into selling bullshit supplements or poor quality leggings.
The best stories coming out of (usually just the top) bootcamps are those of people who already had advanced technical degrees who wanted to intensively on-board into web or app development. These people are smart, used to solving difficult technical problems, and have an advanced academic credential that pleases potential employers. They might be trading a $40k lab technician job for a $100k mobile application development job.
Occasionally I wonder if these bootcamps are actually a great idea, mostly because my university experience was pretty bad and I felt like so much time was wasted in that program. But then I snap out of it and realise that I still worked my arse off for 4 years at university and in self-study to get into a high-paying job in the field, and I'm not slow; in my home state of Victoria, Australia, my high school academic performance was top ~5%. It just makes no sense that 3-12 months in a bootcamp is enough.
These bootcamps are selling a fantasy to people who are too desperate or naive to realise their chances of success are tiny.
I can't imagine anyone being able to learn what is being taught in university in 3-4 years in just six months. Especially starting from zero, it takes so much time and repetition to finally get things, and not just churn out code.
The math that is contained in a degree by itself takes way more than 6 months to fully grasp.
I'm of two minds about this. When learning a musical instrument, practicing more has diminishing returns because you need time for stuff to sink in. Daily practice, even for just a few minutes, is recommended over trying to learn a lot in a day. It also seems like if studying were just a matter of putting in the time then cramming would work better than it does?
On the other hand it seems like you need lots of time for experimenting and trying new things. I'm remembering how rushed lab courses seemed in college when you're not getting done what they expected in a 2-3 hour period.
Also, with learning a foreign language, immersion seems pretty effective?
I saw your comment expanding on this claim below, and I still disagree with it but could see than an exceptional, intensive course could get it done in 12 months, assuming everything is super optimised and the student workload is >= 50 hours a week. 12 months is possible but it almost resembles a hazing ritual.
Beside that though, I'm very confused by you saying that you think learning relational algebra was "useless" to understanding MySQL. Relational Algebra is core to SQL.
In the bad cases the students are forgoing income and burning through their savings. If the students were living at home with parents able to support them then it's better than guaranteed debt.
Yeah but relational algebra is the foundation of the SQL language, so that's why I think it's weird to call it useless to a MySQL practicioner.
Follow-up to this today as well, after responses to the report brought attention to the fact that Lambda was selling the income-sharing agreements: As Lambda students speak out, the school’s debt-swapping partnership disappears from the internet
I think it comes from seeing Lambda always making claims like, “Lambda School doesn’t just train people; Lambda School bets on them". The impression they're trying to give off is that they're so confident in the quality of their program that you don't even have to pay them unless you're able to get a good job because of it.
But if they're selling the ISAs, obviously they're not actually confident. They have to be selling them for considerably less than their repayment value, otherwise there would be no reason for the other company/investors to buy them. So while they frame themselves as being that confident, in reality they're not betting on their students and are selling their ISAs at a fixed rate. In a way, they're almost betting against their students, believing that this fixed, lower return is safer than one dependent on their students' success.
That can also encourage them to do things like reduce their costs, instead of focusing on maximizing the success of their students. Their hiring rate doesn't actually matter to them much, as long as it's high enough to keep the ISA buyers happy with the overall return.
This confuses me - the terms don't change just because it's now nominally owned by someone else. It would be interesting to see whether the terms require an actual sale, or if Lambda became a middleman where the investors couldn't go after the students directly). Regardless however if the terms say you don't pay unless xyz conditions are met then you don't pay unless conditions xyz are met, no matter how aggressive the creditor might be.