
Show HN: Make School – College replacement for founders and developers - DesaiAshu
https://www.makeschool.com/
======
pnathan
> 2 month capstone project where you can build a startup or dive deep into
> computer science topics like artificial intelligence and machine learning.

There is no deep in two months. There's broad, there's skim, there's
sophomoric. But there's _no_ deep. Particularly for people not already
seasoned and experienced in ingesting vast quantities of difficult data and
drawing out inferences.

Edit: Some more notes. There are 6 headliners in
[https://www.makeschool.com/education](https://www.makeschool.com/education).
Of those, one (CS) was covered adequately in my college career, one was given
lip service (Communication, something I struggle with today), one I learned on
my own (Open source), app dev & web dev were largely irrelevant to my
education (principles over practice), and networking (people, not wires) was
totally neglected.

Communication and networking are both subjects that deserve to be a higher
priority in collegiate CS environments.

My perspective is that this is essentially a trade school, which _is a good
thing_. It's not a replacement for a four year degree, it's a _two_ year
degree, which is something basically lacking in the software world. Now, if
this general package could be rolled up into a traditional two-year trade
school, I'd be all for it.

~~~
nmrm2
But they're looking for _top students_ , so presumably their competitors are
MIT, CMU, Stanford, etc. rather than the local Community College.

Trade schools are great things, but I'm not sure I could feel comfortable
advising a student to turn down MIT for a trade school, even one with really
great connections.

~~~
pitt1980
considering the price tag of those schools, they should be the most vulnerable
to competition

~~~
swatow
But almost all top schools have needs-blind admissions which means that if you
get in, they will provide the financial aid that you need if you can't afford
it. So it's actually very unlikely someone gets into a top school but then
decides it's not worth the money (assuming the school is worth the money,
which it is, and the only issue is whether they can afford it right now).

~~~
pitt1980
what college adminstrators will decide you need, and what you think you might
need, can differ significantly

~~~
beisner
They can differ, but they are usually extremely generous. I know loads of
people who pay less for Princeton, Harvard, and MIT than they would for state
school.

------
matthewmacleod
I'm suspicious for two reasons:

1\. I struggle to believe that a well-rounded CS and engineering education can
be squeezed into two years. Describing this as "the future of computer science
education" (their words)—when it appears to be a trade school which teaches CS
basics followed by Rails, Python and iOS development—is doing CS a massive
dis-service.

There's nothing wrong with this kind of trade school, but it is _emphatically
not_ "The future of computer science education".

2\. It's rather expensive. What'a a starting salary for a developer in SV -
maybe $70k? AT 25% over two years, that's $35k – which is comparable to
college debt. It's great that this prevents the broken US higher education
funding system, I suppose, but it's not cheap.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I've seen too many graduates of similar trade
school programs who have a couple of years of experience on paper, but are
woefully under qualified for the development and deployment of computer
systems in the real world. Given the sort of attendees this program will see,
I don't imagine it'll be the case here, however.

~~~
fuzzywalrus
I'm in the skeptic camp too, one of inevitable bonuses of a full college is
having many fields in close contact.

Cross academic pollination probably is one of the best aspects of college, and
honestly with the amount of resources at their disposal, they could facilitate
programs for the current state of "Startups" as a minor or even major, ideally
paired with an unrelated field.

This on paper looks more like a trade school, I imagine a program like this
could be designed to churn out competent programmers but beyond that, I'm not
so sure.

------
hackuser
It sounds more like a graduate program than a college education, a sort of
Masters in IT entrepreneurship? As a college education, it shortchanges the
students:

* There is so much more to life than a job. You will be a citizen; how do you decide on war and peace, economic issues, social policy, etc. without understanding history, politics, economics, social issues, other cultures, languages, etc.? Without being able to grasp and think critically about sophisticated propaganda, and how to challenge ideas? You will be a social animal: A member of the community, a friend, and maybe a parent. You will be a person, a being with an identity and life outside of your cubical; if all you know are technical skills for a job, what are you? What will you get out of life? Where will you learn about the things that make our lives rich, such as the arts -- you know, much of the content that is the purpose of the wires and systems you hope to build.

* There is so much more to a career than one job. If you focus your education on the skills needed for one job at one time, you'll find that soon both you and the world have moved on. The demand for skills change and, more importantly, you will change, and the skills will be obsolete.

* There is so much more to a job than technical skills. As simple examples, you need to understand other people, to undertand other cultures in the U.S. and around the world if you will sell to or help (or work with!) people outside of SV. As was discussed yesterday, some in SV still don't even undertand those people called "females" enough to realize they may not enjoy playing male characters. You need ideas, and most great ideas are outside tech and outside SV and older than 20 years; there are thousands of years of them.

What a sad, myopic, even egocentric view of the world and of education. I feel
bad for the people who will encounter so little of the world of knowledge.

EDIT: Minor rewording

~~~
dollar
This tired liberal arts approach of mandatory enlightenment is exactly why we
have students graduating with tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt
with no marketable skills. Students can become a well-rounded person on their
own time, through the many life experiences they can afford when they are not
paying off debt. I am so happy to see the world of academia get disrupted, and
I cannot wait for the coming revolution where liberal arts education is
reserved to those people with a true desire to pursue it.

~~~
bphogan
No it's really not. We have students in debt because they MAJOR in areas where
they end up with no marketable skills.

Taking a history class, a philosophy class, and a sociology class along with
some economics and science helps you solve problems with people as well as the
world around you.

When I was in my 20s and taking those classes I found it a waste of time. Now
that I'm older I'm thankful for them.

Can you get well-rounded on your own? Depends. If you only read what people in
your bubble tell you to, maybe not so much. Having someone else curate things
for you to read, reflect on, discuss, and do has great value in my opinion.

~~~
hackuser
> We have students in debt because they MAJOR in areas where they end up with
> no marketable skills.

I disagree. I've never hired someone based on their undergraduate major; I
rarely know what they are. The skills imparted by an undergraduate educational
institution are very valuable, but not directly applicable to professional
work, and that even applies to graduate schools such as law, for example -- no
law firm cares what classes you took or believes those skills qualify you to
do that kind of work; they care you learned to write, think, and work like an
attorney well enough to apprentice you to a real one. Professional learning,
in every field I can think of, starts with your first job as an apprentice.
Most fields consider a graduate degree to be the minimum serious credential.

And after a few years in the professional world, nobody even considers your
undergraduate major. Name your co-workers' or any tech leaders'. Does anyone
mention it in their HN profile? Could you imagine being asked about it in an
interview?

> Can you get well-rounded on your own? Depends. If you only read what people
> in your bubble tell you to, maybe not so much. Having someone else curate
> things for you to read, reflect on, discuss, and do has great value in my
> opinion.

I'd take it much further. I think people underestimate the value of a college
environment. You get a cirriculum designed by an expert in the field, and then
their personal tutoring. You are surrounded by resources unmatched elsewhere,
from research libraries, to a room full of peers, to labs (if applicable), to
a department full of experts available to talk to you. Want to learn about a
subject? Try going to the office hours of a professor who spent their life
studying it, and see if they have time for you. How do you even know which
books to read? Which are respected in their field? What are their strengths
and weaknesses and who will contextualize them for you?

~~~
peri
As someone who's much better off as a person having a B.A. in Computer Science
in five years than their intended B.S./B.F.A. in four, I think the both
components are vital.

The undergraduate major I ended up with has definitely opened some doors; if I
had finished the other half of my degree I wouldn't need to spend nearly as
much time proving my literacy in other languages _on the job_. Most of my
clients do business in English, so it's not a major disadvantage, but for
someone who wasn't lucky enough to pick up a midwestern American accent at
home, both the liberal arts side and the major can be vital for proving that
you can do what you need to while you're not a "senior" or "highly
experienced" candidate.

~~~
hackuser
Thanks for relating your experiences.

> As someone who's much better off as a person having a B.A. in Computer
> Science in five years than their intended B.S./B.F.A. in four

In fairness, you don't know what would have happened if you took the other
path. (Not that I have any idea myself.)

~~~
peri
> In fairness, you don't know what would have happened if you took the other
> path.

I think my mental health was greatly improved, though of course I can't know
the alternative :)

------
codingdave
Sounds like a good program, at least from your marketing. But I would market
is an alternative to college, not a replacement. It is a just a matter of word
choice, but the word replacement could take you down a road of comparison that
isn't required and may distract your efforts. "Alternative" lets you focus on
what you offer, and the value it will bring to a student's life, without
getting caught into the mess of arguing about the value of higher education.

~~~
rpcope1
I agree, but I would take it further. I worry that things that are already
somewhat lacking in a lot of CS degrees, like having a reasonable background
in mathematics, are only made further problematic. This program sounds
excellent if you just wanted to be an app developer, but if you get tasked to
do something a little out in the weeds, one has to wonder what other aspects
of education got shortchanged.

------
PhoenixWright
As someone who took their online gaming course I wouldn't have anything to do
with these guys.

They abandoned Make games with us and have been spamming my inbox with at
least 3 different business models since then, this being their latest one.

The online gaming course had buggy code and horrible stumbling lessons. I
heard about them on here and was conned out of $100. Stay away from these
scammers.

~~~
DesaiAshu
Founder of Make School here. I'm really sorry you had a bad experience with
our online game development course :(. We're continuing to improve both the
curriculum and user experience. Please drop me a line - ashu@makeschool.com -
and I'll be sure to give you a refund.

~~~
PhoenixWright
I'm not interested in a refund. I posted my experience so others can learn
from my mistake. When make games with us was on HN I believed in your company
and by the end I felt duped. Maybe things have changed but I would never give
you guys a second chance.

Also, my experience is not unique. During the course many students voiced
their frustration. Your site crashed the first day, content was posted late
and the example code had bugs in it.

That was the time to offer refunds, privately, to every one of your customers.
Not here, publicly, to one person exposing your company.

~~~
xerophyte12932
I totally understand your frustration, but frankly I think you're being a bit
harsh on them. I have recently started providing CS courses independently and
trust me, it's not as easy as it seems. Shit happens. As a first timer, I know
I have made mistakes and I have learned from them. I know my current course
wasn't all that but I know my next would be better. Obviously I am going to
email people telling them about my newest venture, though I would try not to
make seem like spam.

Anyways, everyone deserves second chances. Just because my first code draft
had bugs in it, doesn't mean I should stop coding. (though I really should
remove those bugs before shipping)

------
dollar
Sorry, but 25% of a persons salary for two years is a ridiculous amount of
money. With a first year programmer making $75-$85k this cost will be similar
to college debt. Will these payments qualify as tuition and be tax deductible?
That could soften the blow slightly. I like the idea that companies will pay
the school for their candidates and relieve the student burden. But why not go
all-in on this model and just guarantee that the school will be able to place
a graduate? The salary sharing model is just another form of debt.

~~~
eonw
you are aware of what most higher-end 4 year colleges cost? i think 25% of two
years wages is a lot less debt than many are left with.

~~~
nmrm2
This is not true.

The opposite is true.

The average person has 27k, which means it's a pretty exceptional person who
leaves college with 40k in debt (that's 25% of 80k over 2 years). The real
cost disparity is probably even larger than 10k due to taxes.

~~~
eonw
I am speaking about higher-end, which they seem to be looking to compete with,
not averages. Also the 2013 average is $28.4k across the board, with private
colleges closer to $39.9k. You are also assuming that the person will be
making $80k. A fresh grad outside of SF probably wont be making that.

~~~
nmrm2
Be consistent. Graduates from top private/public unis will have more debt,
sure, but they also _do_ make 80k+ on average, as a matter of fact. So the
debt load is best case comparable in 1/2 the time and for no degree.

As others have pointed out, undergrad debt numbers include R&R but the 25% for
2 years doesn't. What's 2 years of rent in SF for two years.

~~~
eonw
You are welcome to your opinion, but i think you are wrong.

------
Jimmy
I'm confused. College is amazing. Why would you want a college replacement?

>Your education will be focused on building apps and websites that improve the
lives of those around you.

Getting a wide-ranging liberal education was never really that important, huh?

~~~
vinceguidry
> Getting a wide-ranging liberal education was never really that important,
> huh?

It's important, but it's also expensive. Unbelievably so. What I see happening
is ambitious kids going here to gain marketable skills, and figure out what
they like doing, and then using those skills to pay their way through college
with a much better idea of what they want to do. That way you don't have to be
saddled with a crapload of debt.

~~~
Kalium
That's a nice ideal. Have you considered that people will tend to do the
former part and not the latter, leaving us with a population of people with
obsolete skills and lacking the foundation to easily learn new ones?

~~~
pitt1980
I don't see any evidence that taking college classes lays any foundation for
learning additional skills later

~~~
Kalium
I have seen evidence that a fundamental understanding of computing makes it
easier to learn particular languages later.

------
CzechsMix
So what you're saying is we've found a way to fund education without debt to
students or taxes, and the school has an incentive to get you internships so
that you graduate with work experience AND incentive to place you at the
highest paying job after college?

Consider my interest piqued.

~~~
nmrm2
Read the admissions page. It's a well-connected trade school for gifted
students entering the tech industry as defined by SV, not a scalable
alternative and repeatable model for general-purpose higher ed.

edit: This isn't judgemental. Nothing wrong with trade school But that's what
this is.

~~~
CzechsMix
Yes, now it's a very specific, tough to get in trade school.

You might recall it was quite a luxury to have a mobile phone not too long
ago.

Demand for this kind of education might persuade others to implement a similar
model, and I don't see any major roadblocks for other areas.

Employers will finally get graduates with work experience, as well as access
to cheap intern labor.

Looks worth exploring if nothing else.

------
ajaymehta
Having met some of the students that went through Make School's summer
session, I was very impressed. They seemed to be more widely-experienced and
driven than your average student at a top-tier school. Excited to see that
Make School is turning this into a full two-year program.

------
tomazz
Given enough effort and determination I can totally see how this could work.
Maybe you won't be a programming god but I can totally see how those 2
productive years easily replace a 5 year CS masters course.

High schools, colleges, universities often have boring teaching programs that
force everybody to learn at the same speed, programs that look like a progress
bar (The Matrix training program?) In real life we can't ask Tank to load the
Networking course from a floppy disk and yet that's what metaphorically most
Universities are trying to do.

Because of that kind of system we are maybe 10-20% as productive as we could
be. We are bored with exercises and we don't really want to do leaving them
till the last moment before the deadline. Now, take a moment go back to your
ol' university years and think. When did you learn the most? In labs and
lectures? Or when you thought "It would be cool to do a 2048 clone that
negotiates every move with the server side that you cannot cheat"? You got
excited, spent a week coding, learning new things, redoing, rebuilding,
learning even more. I remember doing project of that kind in my 1st year of
the University. Over the Christmas holiday I learnt more than in the past 3
months at uni...

Yeah I could totally see the Make School work. At least I hope it will ;)

------
sah88
Neat. Would be interesting to see a more detailed syllabus of what is covered
when. Also is the 25% rake net or gross? It is two years full time (well 1.5
if you consider internship) so I don't think it is really fair to compare it
to a 3 month program.

At my local university doing 3x semesters of just CS classes leaves you 1
course short of the required CS courses for a degree. Mind you I'm not
including the math requirements. But on the other hand this is probably more
intensive and with a better student/teacher ratio arguably you will be
learning stuff quicker. Not to say they are equivalent... but I'm not sure its
fair to write it off as being "code monkey" school.

Not a fan of the location choice though. I get that SF has a lot of really
good networking opportunities but for a two year program it is crazy
expensive. The difference in rent compared to where I live makes this more
expensive than attending university. If I was to get an apartment with
equivalent square footage to what I have now the cost of this would actually
be pretty close to doing a 4 year degree. That's before factoring in the 25%
rake. Mind you I'm in a relatively inexpensive Canadian city.

------
Geekette
Seems odd that the actual cost of tuition is not stated anywhere on the site
and discussion on it is vague; all that's stated is that you pay it with your
internship earnings + 25% of your salary for 2 years post-graduation. Seems
ridiculously steep[1] and unscrupulously variable[2].

[1] With some companies paying interns to $10k+ monthly, a student could pay
out around up to 60k earned (a 6 month internship period is referenced on the
site), then get a $120 job afterwards _and_ have to pay another 60k over two
years, totaling 120k.

[2] Meanwhile, a student who gets a 30k internship + 100k job only pays back
80k for attending the same school.

------
kriro
First of all I applaud all attempts to find alternative ways of CS education
(or I guess applied CS/software engineering). I'm still convinced that
programming is essentially a selflearning and experimentation kind of
discipline that benefits from a hands on approach (and collaboration with
others that are on a similar path).

That being said if they position themselves as "for startup minded people"
they should focus a lot more on the "get out of the building" aspect. In fact
I think there'd be huge value in a program where you essentially learn this.
Talk to a lot of potential customers simulate it find creative ways of going
about it. I think this is what a lot of us need more than (not meant as an
insult) "yet another bootcampish thingy".

I think they need to clearly pick one focus and go allin on it. Either "you'll
be excellent founder material" or "you'll be a great hire". I think they try
to spotlight the former but the latter creeps in. I think the biggest
potential is taking the "university like we wished it was" line and the "no
debt" line and mix it with "hands on/projects/good hire" and focus less on the
startup angle.

If you want to focus on the startup angle...way more non-technical hands on
talk to people things. I think there's a nice gap there. It's easier for a
sufficiently curious person to teach themselves technical things than to have
access to potential customers and interview them (imo)

Either way, good luck :)

------
dkyc
These types of programs represent a funny trend in the SV tech scene: While
workers of every other sector are busy _increasing_ the barrier of entry in
order to reduce competition for jobs, every other week some new startup /
bootcamp / code school wants to tear down the barriers and provide _" CS for
the masses"_. Of course a noble goal, but if it actually works, it also means
the end of the privileged, six-figure-entry-salary, 20%-of-your-time-free tech
jobs.

------
Alex3917
Great idea, two years seems like too long though. It shouldn't take more than
6 - 9 months to learn the basics of being a full stack web developer, with
another 6 - 9 months to actually become competent enough to work semi-
independently. I think it would make more sense to make the program 18 months,
and then have things like swift and devops as optional six-month extensions.

------
pskittle
This seems too good to be true. Are there any plans of making the curriculum
available to students who are not in the US. Perhaps for a fee? You could
reach a wider audience. Don't know how the internship thing would work. As a
student on leave from school in the US, this is something i could see myself
doing

~~~
DesaiAshu
Let's chat :) - ashu@makeschool.com

------
alexvr
This is kind of gimmicky. Most people are probably better off going to a
4-year university and studying CS/engineering/math/physics or something, and
the few who want to learn in a nontraditional way and don't intend to get a
corporate or hardcore engineering job would probably be smart enough choose to
use books, a startup internship or some freelance gigs, and, say, the Internet
(???) over something like Make School. Many big cushy corporate jobs require
traditional degrees, and most startups could care less about your formal
education if you can show what you're capable of. I'm having a lot of trouble
picturing the market for Make School, even as a massive proponent of
autodidacticism and hands-on learning.

~~~
clay_to_n
>the few who want to learn in a nontraditional way and don't intend to get a
corporate or hardcore engineering job would probably be smart enough choose to
use books, a startup internship or some freelance gigs, and, say, the Internet
(???) over something like Make School

I'm not convinced of this. The value of having mentors and teachers is
tremendous, even if you know you can learn to code on your own. Having someone
to ask "What's the best way to structure this program?" or "Does this idea
make sense to you?" is very valuable - someone to answer questions that text
books, google, and stackoverflow can't.

------
xasos
Let me give some perspective from a high school senior: The main reasons for
going to college is (a) a highly specialized education, (b) ability to grow
your network, and (c) a good social setting that you may not get anywhere
else. Particularly on point (a) - sure there are a lot of good online
resources to learn, but you can't beat having an expert in the field at your
disposal. Some topics like The basics of machine learning (Stanford CS229) can
be found, but it's the truly specialized courses (more advanced machine
learning) that are hard to find.

------
rpcope1
I think I would far rather see this as a supplement to college than a
replacement. I know it's in vogue today to claim that education is about "job
training," but I worry that this attitude is short sighted and destructive.
Saying that you're a "replacement" to a quality four year degree is also
rather arrogant.

------
danielscrubs
If this is computer science I will eat my hat. _checks site_ No it's just
computer programming. _so surprised_

As one who is often in charge of interviews I could tell you that if I saw a
CV with this school and no other redeeming qualities it would go straight to
the bin.

I will now go and salute D. Knuth and get drunk.

------
aesthetics1
What is the deal with this?:

You'll need a mac laptop purchased in the last 2 years running the latest
version of OS X and an iPhone or iPod touch running the latest version of iOS.
We provide need-based hardware assistance for students who can't afford a mac
or iPod.

~~~
joshvm
Given that a big chunk of the course is developing iOS apps, it makes sense
for participants to own both a Macbook (for XCode) and the hardware they're
running their code on.

------
cottonseed
Reminds me a little of ADUni:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArsDigita_University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArsDigita_University)

------
ripb
I really like the innovative funding model, although intuitively it seems
pretty high risk?

~~~
pitt1980
"intuitively it seems pretty high risk"

for who?

~~~
ripb
For the company. Depending on how it is implemented, taking a cut of the first
2 years' salary could be very high risk. Intuitively there seems to be little
to stop someone taking the education and then absconding abroad.

~~~
pitt1980
it's be interesting to know how a situation where student takes school, then
starts their own company and pays themselves ramen salary is handled

seems like a good portion of their target market might have something like
that in mind

also (opportunity cost of two years and having to live in one of the more
expensive real estate markets in the US isn't exactly risk free for the
student either)

