
Lambda School is SV big bet on reinventing education but students say is a cult - lhuser123
https://www.businessinsider.com/lambda-school-coding-bootcamp-y-combinator-cult-2019-10
======
manigandham
>> _" then locks them into an intensive program that ultimately leaves them on
the hook to pay back thousands of dollars in their future wages."_

So like any other student loan? Lambda school is offering an alternative to
help those who don't have funds or can't qualify otherwise. Nobody is forced
into it but of course it's not free.

>> _" when a white male student wore a Mexican sombrero to a presentation in
front of the class."_

What? That's not racist nor even a problem in the slightest. People who bring
up these kind of perceived faults will usually find offense in anything they
can and are better removed from the program for the sake of everyone else
who's actually there to learn.

Complaints like these make it clear this is a targeted hit piece with
anecdotes rather than a hard-hitting investigation.

~~~
klohto
Spot on. If anything, it makes me much more supportive of what is Lambda
doing.

Shortage of good SWE will always be there, so I’m pretty happy it’s Lambda
making money of this with actual results rather than leaving it expensive
universities who don’t deliver.

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pixelperfect
> According to the Council on Integrity in Results Reporting, 60.9% of Lambda
> School students were employed 90 days after graduation, going up to 85.9%
> within 180 days. Graduates earn a median annual base salary of $60,000,
> according to that same study — although a Lambda School spokesperson puts
> that figure at $70,000, and notes that many graduates are in rural areas
> where average pay is lower.

This is one of the only paragraphs of the article with data rather than
anecdotes. The article only focuses on students with negative experiences, but
if this data is correct, it looks like Lambda School is objectively
successful, and I bet only a small fraction of its students regret attending.

~~~
tempsy
Unclear if these figures account for students that dropped out...I’m guessing
no. Per the ISA terms you owe 40% of the ISA after 5 weeks of the 36 week
course (<14% complete).

My issue is the incentive that would create to enroll students you in
admissions know would likely not complete the program, and then still collect
40% of the value of the ISA.

It becomes a Survivor-esque learning environment where a significant number of
students might be dropping out and you’re left with a much smaller number of
students who do graduate.

~~~
pixelperfect
Graduation rate would be a good figure to publish on their site. I searched
for it out of curiosity, and according to the CEO they have ~85% graduation
rate.

[https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1140636581679624192](https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1140636581679624192)

~~~
pixelperfect
That said, .15 + (.85 * .15) = 0.2775, the proportion of the student body who
either didn't graduate or didn't find a job within 180 days of graduating. So
there is a significant fraction who might regret attending the program. But it
still compares well with universities.

~~~
throwawayjava
Which isn't the right point of comparison. How does it compare with University
CS departments?

~~~
tempsy
Usually a big component to these programs are weekly exams to make sure you’re
on track. I’ve looked into some of the local ones and usually if you fail a
few you will be dismissed from the program.

85% means little if Lambda has a low bar to dismissing students that are
struggling and not keeping up with the material.

------
tempsy
I think it would be tough to comment on any of this without having gone
through the program myself, though I do wish there was an “undercover” senior
software engineer who would sign up for the part time program and do maybe a
month or more of the curriculum and write about it.

Knowing nothing else about the program the biggest red flag For me is that you
owe 40% of the ISA after only 5 weeks of the 9 month program (e.g. less than
14% complete). That seems really excessive, and would seem like it would drive
employees to “accept” students even if they knew there was minimal chance
they’d be able to complete the entire program.

~~~
fossuser
The ISA is highly restricted though.

Only kicks in if you're employed in a _software_ job making more than 50k/yr.

ISA stops after repayment or ten years whichever happens first.

My favorite part of it is the ISA structure, it aligns the incentives between
the school and the students. Universities don't have skin in the game, charge
outrageous tuition fees and provide primarily signaling (even in the best
cases). If Universities had to switch to an ISA model we'd see which ones were
actually valuable - if they'd even be capable of adapting.

~~~
tempsy
Doesn’t matter in my opinion. 40% after 5 weeks is a joke. If the student felt
the need to drop out due to any reason so early and then ended up either
completing another program or becoming self-taught and then finding a job it
is silly that Lambda would still collect up to $12k from the student for very
little value.

If Lambda were extremely confident in their program and who they select they
would at least move it up to 25% of the curriculum complete, not 14%, or lower
the 40% to something actually proportional to the time spent in the program.

~~~
lacker
_40% after 5 weeks is a joke._

This makes sense to me if their capacity to admit students for a particular
class is fixed. If someone starts the class and later drops out, they can't be
replaced. So once you have started the program, Lambda School is paying for
your instructor for the whole class no matter what.

Don't you still have to pay for the whole semester if you drop out of a
regular university after 5 weeks?

~~~
tempsy
If I drop out of college in a given quarter, I only owe tuition for that
quarter. This is like dropping out my first quarter in college and owing my
university 5 quarters of tuition.

It’s an online course. There’s minimal cost to adding one person in a massive
Zoom session.

~~~
dack
9 months is 3 quarters, so it seems more like they are charging 1.2 quarters
if you drop out after 5 weeks.

~~~
tempsy
A four year university is 12 quarters. 40% of the total quarters is about 5
quarters.

------
lhuser123
I know one current student of Lambda. I kind of disagree with much of what is
said in the article. The student and family are very grateful for the
opportunity. My only concern is that, in their website they could be more
specific as to the fact that you need to already have some of the skills.
There’s just not enough time for beginners. To their credit, they give plenty
of opportunities and alternatives for the ones that get behind. It just going
to take more time than anticipated.

------
mikekij
I'm confused by this article's complaint that the instruction was so poor that
it requires students to "self-teach", and use materials outside of the
coursework to learn.

In my experience, and sufficiently technical topic will require a ton of self-
teaching. Should LS be expected to teach computer science in a way that
prevents their students from ever having to use Stack Overflow? If that is the
case, they are not preparing their students for solving problems in the real
world, where there are no clear answers. (except the ones you find on Stack
Overflow.)

~~~
wmf
FWIW I went to college long before Stack Overflow and it was definitely
possible for them to teach CS without the Internet. Obviously teaching
techniques should adapt but that's not an excuse for lazy teaching.

------
dataminded
I am married to a current lambda program student. I also regularly interview
and hire developers which I believe gives me a good sense of what the market
wants.

Lambda is a good program with meaningful room for improvement. I’m excited for
where they’ll be in a few more iterations and believe that they are worth it
today.

------
ng12
> However, current and former students say that they've been disappointed that
> Lambda School's teaching staff isn't diverse, in turn: most of the school's
> instructors are male or are not from underrepresented groups.

Is this like all the eggs being angry there's no chickens yet? Where do you
think qualified teachers are going to come from, if not the existing pool of
professionals?

------
acjohnson55
This reminds me a lot of Teach For America, a program I was a part of. It has
very similar complaints, and very similar defenses. The truth is, there's a
lot of truth to go around. Teach For America is not perfect. It's not for
everyone. There's a lot of hype on the outside and Kool-Aid to go around on
the inside. It inarguably has done harm to some people.

But for a lot of people, it works as designed. And I know a lot of people who
did become great teachers.

My own story is somewhere in the middle [1]. It changed my life immeasurably,
even if I never became a great teacher.

My guess is that the same broad spectrum of real stories and real outcomes is
true of Lambda School.

[1] [https://acjay.com/a-former-teachers-story/](https://acjay.com/a-former-
teachers-story/), if you care to read about it

------
brownbat
"If you're keeping up, you either already had a foundation or you're self-
teaching. The actual school is not effective at teaching. People are going
outside to get what they need."

That sounds like a lot of technical education.

More than maybe any other discipline, classes have such a wide curve of
expertise, they become almost impossible to teach to everyone at once.

On the need for outside study, I guess I've heard similar things about, of all
things, tough music schools. You just end up in a race to see who can practice
every waking hour.

Maybe there's an analogy there. We talk about computer science in terms of
concepts and problem solving, but undersell how much muscle memory is
involved. There is a ton of training your brain to reflexively handle certain
common problems.

------
Cedricgc
[https://outline.com/fSVvSB](https://outline.com/fSVvSB)

~~~
fourthark
Reader view worked for me! (FF/iOS)

------
SamReidHughes
I read feedback about any bootcamp or any CS program with the background
understanding that there must necessarily be loads of dissatisfied customers,
people who can’t handle CS or software development. It is illuminating to poke
through the article to the source material.

~~~
allthetime
In my experience (went to a bootcamp 5 years ago, taught at a few since)
bootcamps are amazing for people who have the drive and interest, and ideally
some prior knowledge. They give you a place to meet like minded people, and
really focus on learning/implementing your knowledge. The quality of the
education is generally less important than the quality of the people. People
who are just expecting to get a quick job and don't actually give a shit about
the internet and programming should not be in bootcamps, but often are, and
are probably the source of most negative feedback.

------
UltimateFloofy
The data is consistent with most other bootcamps, though. There is a standard
for reporting student outcomes here:
[https://cirr.org/data](https://cirr.org/data)

Hack Reactor, now Galvanize, was one of the founding organizations of the
CIRR, circa 2014:
[https://www.hackreactor.com/blog/tag/student+outcomes](https://www.hackreactor.com/blog/tag/student+outcomes)

------
michannne
I can't fathom why someone would go to a school that takes 17% of your
paycheck for 2 years. I went to Western Governors University to get my
undergrad, it costed 6k for 2 terms and I breezed through and got a paper that
will help me for life, and I'm planning on heading to Georgia Tech for a
Masters. There are better options out there, there is no need to go to a shady
school such as this, even if they promise 0 tuition up-front. Additionally, as
tech companies become more lax on their degree requirements, there is less and
less value you gain from having a degree in Silicon Valley versus spending a
few months grinding leetcode, which definitely pays off.

On a side note: it took literally 1 minute to hide the modal window and find
the div containing the actual content and expand it, and turn the overflow
back on. Did they design it this way on purpose? Otherwise, I think they have
to find some new UI developers..

~~~
fossuser
There are huge advantages to the way Lambda School is structured compared to
other American universities.

I've written about this in more depth [1], but while ability is evenly
distributed, opportunity is not - and aligning the incentives of the students
with the institution is a much better model.

If your choice is risking 100k up front for a college education that doesn't
guarantee a good job (and has non-defaultable loans) or paying 30k only if you
end up with a software job making more than 50k a year it'll be an easy choice
for most people.

[1] [http://zalberico.com/essay/2019/04/08/lambda-
school.html](http://zalberico.com/essay/2019/04/08/lambda-school.html)

~~~
adrr
College education doesn’t cost $100k. In-state tuition at a public university
in California is $15k. You can save money by going to a community college and
transferring. With $30k you could do two years at community college and
transfer UCLA to get your final degree and that doesn’t include financial aid.

------
shay_ker
There does appear to be a contingent of Lambda students that have had a poor
experience. IIRC they were mostly related to a certain set of instructors.

I guess this is the issue of a popular startup - you get everyone talking
about you, good and bad. Every startup has the problems listed in this
article. It's pretty much the reality of startup life. But Lambda gets the
microscope treatment.

In the end, though, it'll make them better for it. It's still interesting to
note that this type of criticism will _never_ exist of any education system.
Public dialogue here is good!

~~~
tempsy
In fairness, the only reason I know about Lambda is because the founder, some
employees, and some of their VCs are really active on Twitter and write
incessantly about it in a “too good to be true” way.

Literally a few weeks ago their Chief of Staff wrote “if you don’t believe
Lambda School is a $100B company then you don’t understand American History.”
Really?

------
munherty
Honestly I don't understand the complaints.. For almost any technical career
you will need to do some form of self study.. Also this program is aiming to
compete with 4 year comp sci students. So yes you're going to need to grind to
make up in <1 year what took someone 4.

However I do think they could do better with diversity.

------
pl0x
Thinkful has been doing what Lambda is for the past decade. What makes Lambda
different from the rest of bootcamps, absolutely noting.

Not to mention Austen Allred always came off like a snake oil salesmen.

------
iamasoftwaredev
Why does hacker news allow paywalled content?

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codesushi42
Yet another PR story from Lambda School spun as news on HN.

Fake news.

~~~
neonate
The story is obviously negative toward Lambda School. With PR like that who
needs hit pieces?

