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I'm extremely skeptical of bootcamps, especially after learning that some of the TA's at Lambda are hired to help with teaching as little as two months into the

I'm extremely skeptical of bootcamps, especially after learning that some of the TA's at Lambda are hired to help with teaching as little as two months into the program as students[0]. I guess that counts toward their "placement" stats! Not only that, but Lambda seems so desperate that they will offer a fresh grad at no cost to any company for a 4 week trial period. [1] I don't think I've seen a single hire out of a bootcamp work out in the end. Except a few cases where the person actually came from a STEM degree from a good school (and more crucially, already had some exposure to programming during the degree) but it's unclear to me that they actually needed the bootcamp and not just a good primer on modern software development and something like the Missing Semester [2] or a few classes at their school covering software engineering. [0] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/lambda-schools-job-placement-rate-is-lower-than-claimed.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/lambda-schools-job-p... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25138610 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25138610 [2] https://missing.csail.mit.edu/ https://missing.csail.mit.edu/

MivLives 5y ago
I'm a currently working software engineer from Lambda, who knows other people who succeeded at Lambda and other bootcamps. The TA thing, a TA doesn't teach, a TA pretty much grades/code reviews. They answered questions. (I did this while I was hunting for a job). They also don't count that towards placement. I have an IS degree, but some other people I know succeed with pretty much anything you can think of. I don't have enough of a sample size to know if we're all just exceptions or not.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > The TA thing, a TA doesn't teach, a TA pretty much grades/code reviews. They answered questions. That sounds like... teaching doesn't it?
  - MivLives 5y ago
    I guess I should have used the word lecture. Maybe they do lecture now, it's been awhile since I was involved.
    - abeyer 5y ago
      Many would argue that lecturing is (/should be) the least important or impactful part of teaching.
      - Grimm1 5y ago
        Man, in college I designed the curriculum for, led 7 other TAs, graded and lectured the introductory CS course with 300+ students for two semesters. Clearly I should have told them I was the teacher (Ha!) and should have been paid more than 23/hr but nope my title was Head TA while the professor, who admittedly I hold in high regard supervised to make sure things didn't go off the rails. Honestly it was a great learning experience but yeah sometimes I think about that and laugh to myself.
sokoloff 5y ago
We definitely have a few career changing bootcamp grads working out for us (no STEM background, nothing to indicate they were "almost there" on their own, turned into fine employees). That said, the hit ratio from bootcamp graduate to productive hire is incredibly, incredibly low. I think there's a place for bootcamps, but I'm not sure most bootcamps are operating in that space. I don't know how to fix it, but I did think the Lambda School income share arrangement at least served/tried to align incentives for the school to actually help the students transform themselves.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  Lambda isn't aligned with students though, their goal is to sell the ISA for maximum value while minimizing instructional costs. There is some natural overlap there, but that isn't the same thing as alignment.
gamechangr 5y ago
A friend of mine hired 5 bootcamp grads and said they had no backgound in programming/CS. He said 4 worked out well and the 5th ended up taking an internship across town. So there is 5
acjohnson55 5y ago
I've worked with and hired a bunch of fantastic bootcamp grads without STEM degrees. There are plenty of them out there. My own brother is one such story, and within 5 years in the industry, he became a manager and now runs engineering at a small startup. He did have programming familiarity before his bootcamp, which helped him make the most of the bootcamp, but zero prior formal training or professional experience. That said, my brother also reported that the majority of his class didn't seem to be really on top of the material, and I wouldn't doubt that that's typical.
conartist 5y ago
Maybe the failure of bootcamp grads not working out is on your end? We've seen plenty of bootcamp grads succeed at our company.

MivLives 5y ago

I'm a currently working software engineer from Lambda, who knows other people who succeeded at Lambda and other bootcamps. The TA thing, a TA doesn't teach, a TA pretty much grades/code reviews. They answered questions. (I did this while I was hunting for a job). They also don't count that towards placement. I have an IS degree, but some other people I know succeed with pretty much anything you can think of. I don't have enough of a sample size to know if we're all just exceptions or not.

908B64B197 5y ago
> The TA thing, a TA doesn't teach, a TA pretty much grades/code reviews. They answered questions. That sounds like... teaching doesn't it?
- MivLives 5y ago
  I guess I should have used the word lecture. Maybe they do lecture now, it's been awhile since I was involved.
  - abeyer 5y ago
    Many would argue that lecturing is (/should be) the least important or impactful part of teaching.
    - Grimm1 5y ago
      Man, in college I designed the curriculum for, led 7 other TAs, graded and lectured the introductory CS course with 300+ students for two semesters. Clearly I should have told them I was the teacher (Ha!) and should have been paid more than 23/hr but nope my title was Head TA while the professor, who admittedly I hold in high regard supervised to make sure things didn't go off the rails. Honestly it was a great learning experience but yeah sometimes I think about that and laugh to myself.

sokoloff 5y ago

We definitely have a few career changing bootcamp grads working out for us (no STEM background, nothing to indicate they were "almost there" on their own, turned into fine employees). That said, the hit ratio from bootcamp graduate to productive hire is incredibly, incredibly low. I think there's a place for bootcamps, but I'm not sure most bootcamps are operating in that space. I don't know how to fix it, but I did think the Lambda School income share arrangement at least served/tried to align incentives for the school to actually help the students transform themselves.

maxerickson 5y ago
Lambda isn't aligned with students though, their goal is to sell the ISA for maximum value while minimizing instructional costs. There is some natural overlap there, but that isn't the same thing as alignment.

gamechangr 5y ago

A friend of mine hired 5 bootcamp grads and said they had no backgound in programming/CS. He said 4 worked out well and the 5th ended up taking an internship across town. So there is 5

acjohnson55 5y ago

I've worked with and hired a bunch of fantastic bootcamp grads without STEM degrees. There are plenty of them out there. My own brother is one such story, and within 5 years in the industry, he became a manager and now runs engineering at a small startup. He did have programming familiarity before his bootcamp, which helped him make the most of the bootcamp, but zero prior formal training or professional experience. That said, my brother also reported that the majority of his class didn't seem to be really on top of the material, and I wouldn't doubt that that's typical.

conartist 5y ago

Maybe the failure of bootcamp grads not working out is on your end? We've seen plenty of bootcamp grads succeed at our company.