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I can't read this account and say anything other than Lambda School is an ineffective educational program. You can set aside the issue of ISAs or anything abou

I can't read this account and say anything other than Lambda School is an ineffective educational program. You can set aside the issue of ISAs or anything about this woman. This poor of a product from Lambda is indefensible. A consumer or enterprise software startup can get away beginning with an ineffective MVP and iterating. A school offering an educational opportunity has a much higher floor to responsibly operate. This person shows that Lambda is operating well below that floor. Even if the students will never activate the repayment clauses of their ISAs Lambda has failed them. Silicon Valley seems to think that what it can't measure doesn't matter. But Lambda School, by pitching itself as a way for anyone to be a part of the tech boom gets up a person's hopes and then completely and utterly fails to deliver on its promise. That is on top of the opportunity cost of attending a school that fails to deliver anything close to the education advertised.

nicesnowoman 7y ago
This, 100%. I'm a student and, while ISAs make Lambda interesting, am mostly disappointed due to the terrible educational quality (and staff's refusal to admit that the quality is pretty low across the board). Still, though, I've noticed the ISAs create some nuanced perverse things happening that are specific to Lambda - students attracted to the value prop are often much lower income (Lambda cited $22K average starting salary amongst their students) than the average bootcamp student. If Lambda fails them, these students may leave in worse financial prospects than they started with no safety net. The ISA also kicks in at 40% when you're only 4 weeks into a 40 week curriculum. After that point, it's very hard to leave due to sunk cost fallacy, and you are roped along wasting time, hoping for them to get their stuff together. I wish I and others left well before.
- the_watcher 7y ago
  The last part seems like it could easily be improved by simply tying it to the portion of the curriculum covered.
  - nicesnowoman 7y ago
    I doubt they'd do that because it'd be bad for Lambda's financials.
  - austenallred 7y ago
    That is exactly how it happens. It’s 10% per week for the first 10 weeks, except you don’t owe anything at all until week 4. So it’s fully locked in at 10 weeks but is gradual until then.
    - wpietri 7y ago
      That is definitely not proportional. For 40 weeks, proportional would not be 10% per week, but 2.5% per week.
      - austenallred 7y ago
        0 0 0 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
        the_watcher 7y ago
        The pushback here is that this isn't proportional to the duration of the program. While you're right that this is proportional for 10 weeks, it's not proportional to program duration. If your position is that it's fair to charge 100% tuition for a 40 week program after 10 weeks, make that argument. Don't try to argue that 10% per week for 10 weeks is somehow proportional to 40 weeks. I'm a big fan of Lambda and am a pretty vocal defender, but this is simply misleading.
        austenallred 7y ago
        We're clearly talking past each other. Yes, I think it's fair to owe full tuition once you're past 10 weeks in Lambda School, especially given a generous 4-week dropout period during which you owe nothing.
- heymijo 7y ago
  I’m really sorry to hear you feel stuck. I hope you come out the other end of this with good prospects in spite of the inadequate training Lambda is providing. Thanks for adding your insight and experience to this thread.
SamReidHughes 7y ago
You realize that there are colleges offering degrees in philosophy, right? And they don't even give you a refund when you find out the 4 years of education was useless.
- bawolff 7y ago
  This is rather obnoxious. First off, philosophy is an interesting subject in its own right. You're probably not going to get a good job in it. However nobody goes into philosphy thinking they're going to become a millionaire. The issue in this thread is that lambda school isn't as described. Tricking people is very different than teaching people some esoteric stuff they know upfront is kind of useless pragmatically
- heymijo 7y ago
  Hi Sam, HN asks that as discussions intensify, we get more thoughtful and substantive. I'll do my best to follow that norm as well as to converse with you, with Paul Graham's "How to Disagree" in mind [0]. I'm not quite sure how your response fits into Paul's disagreement hierarchy with my original post in mind, but it doesn't seem to get at the meat of what I said. I do realize universities offer philosophy degrees. They certainly aren't STEM degrees that have set career paths outside of academia, however I would say that "useless" is too strong a descriptor. For one, I bet we could both look and find a number of successful people in the startup world that HN encompasses who have philosophy degrees and are doing interesting things within companies (eg they have successful financial careers). Second, there could be a solid argument that philosophy teaches a useful way of thinking. Third, if we want to move the goal posts of this discussion to universities, I could go on for quite awhile about ineffective practices and ways they set students up to fail as well. My main concern is the students. Seeing students at any level from early childhood to university and beyond taken advantage/set up to fail/screwed over/bamboozled gets me fired up. BTW, I checked out your webpage and enjoy the Spartan nature of it. The "end of page" is a nice touch I haven't seen before. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
  - SamReidHughes 7y ago

nicesnowoman 7y ago

This, 100%. I'm a student and, while ISAs make Lambda interesting, am mostly disappointed due to the terrible educational quality (and staff's refusal to admit that the quality is pretty low across the board). Still, though, I've noticed the ISAs create some nuanced perverse things happening that are specific to Lambda - students attracted to the value prop are often much lower income (Lambda cited $22K average starting salary amongst their students) than the average bootcamp student. If Lambda fails them, these students may leave in worse financial prospects than they started with no safety net. The ISA also kicks in at 40% when you're only 4 weeks into a 40 week curriculum. After that point, it's very hard to leave due to sunk cost fallacy, and you are roped along wasting time, hoping for them to get their stuff together. I wish I and others left well before.

the_watcher 7y ago
The last part seems like it could easily be improved by simply tying it to the portion of the curriculum covered.
- nicesnowoman 7y ago
  I doubt they'd do that because it'd be bad for Lambda's financials.
- austenallred 7y ago
  That is exactly how it happens. It’s 10% per week for the first 10 weeks, except you don’t owe anything at all until week 4. So it’s fully locked in at 10 weeks but is gradual until then.
  - wpietri 7y ago
    That is definitely not proportional. For 40 weeks, proportional would not be 10% per week, but 2.5% per week.
    - austenallred 7y ago
      0 0 0 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
      - the_watcher 7y ago
        The pushback here is that this isn't proportional to the duration of the program. While you're right that this is proportional for 10 weeks, it's not proportional to program duration. If your position is that it's fair to charge 100% tuition for a 40 week program after 10 weeks, make that argument. Don't try to argue that 10% per week for 10 weeks is somehow proportional to 40 weeks. I'm a big fan of Lambda and am a pretty vocal defender, but this is simply misleading.
        austenallred 7y ago
        We're clearly talking past each other. Yes, I think it's fair to owe full tuition once you're past 10 weeks in Lambda School, especially given a generous 4-week dropout period during which you owe nothing.
heymijo 7y ago
I’m really sorry to hear you feel stuck. I hope you come out the other end of this with good prospects in spite of the inadequate training Lambda is providing. Thanks for adding your insight and experience to this thread.

SamReidHughes 7y ago

You realize that there are colleges offering degrees in philosophy, right? And they don't even give you a refund when you find out the 4 years of education was useless.

bawolff 7y ago
This is rather obnoxious. First off, philosophy is an interesting subject in its own right. You're probably not going to get a good job in it. However nobody goes into philosphy thinking they're going to become a millionaire. The issue in this thread is that lambda school isn't as described. Tricking people is very different than teaching people some esoteric stuff they know upfront is kind of useless pragmatically
heymijo 7y ago
Hi Sam, HN asks that as discussions intensify, we get more thoughtful and substantive. I'll do my best to follow that norm as well as to converse with you, with Paul Graham's "How to Disagree" in mind [0]. I'm not quite sure how your response fits into Paul's disagreement hierarchy with my original post in mind, but it doesn't seem to get at the meat of what I said. I do realize universities offer philosophy degrees. They certainly aren't STEM degrees that have set career paths outside of academia, however I would say that "useless" is too strong a descriptor. For one, I bet we could both look and find a number of successful people in the startup world that HN encompasses who have philosophy degrees and are doing interesting things within companies (eg they have successful financial careers). Second, there could be a solid argument that philosophy teaches a useful way of thinking. Third, if we want to move the goal posts of this discussion to universities, I could go on for quite awhile about ineffective practices and ways they set students up to fail as well. My main concern is the students. Seeing students at any level from early childhood to university and beyond taken advantage/set up to fail/screwed over/bamboozled gets me fired up. BTW, I checked out your webpage and enjoy the Spartan nature of it. The "end of page" is a nice touch I haven't seen before. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
- SamReidHughes 7y ago