BloomTech

I remember when I got my admissions into Lambda school in late 2019, one of the slides as part of the orientation read something like, "This is going to be hard!". They weren't lying, as someone who has gone through a five-year undergrad engineering course.... Read More Lambda school is probably up there among the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life, funny enough equally the most rewarding. The curriculum is top-notch, I can say this because I felt like I could apply for most industry jobs after only spending five months in the program, the students also make the experience equally more interesting, driven, and knowing why they are at Lambda. I got my job largely thanks to the skills I learned at Lambda school and navigating the job is way easier (my job also uses the agile methodology that got drummed into us while at Lambda, plus I have to work remotely now due to you know who and guess who has had to learn remotely for nine months?) I would give Lambda an 8/10 rating, the missing two is because the careers team still doesn't have a lot of hiring partners in Africa, which made the job search a bit more daunting if I compared it to the US and Europe.

I love Lambda school! The only con is that when they make changes, it can take a minute to be able to get everything in order. That being said, all changes are to make Lambda's experience better for students, and it's impressive with the growth they've... Read More done for how long the school's been open. Pros: You're offered more material that jobs are looking for in candidates (projects working with teams, data structure basics, internship-based experience, etc.) AND it benefits YOU personally with career resources to help find jobs, mental help/support while going through this rigorous program, materials/support while job searching to land you that job, AND you don't pay tuition until AFTER you're in a job in that field. Lambda has many programs such as the Fellowship program to get you on-the-job experience working for a real company looking for developers. I wouldn't be a successful developer today without Lambda.

After I was a few Units in (3) and thus financially obligated to pay the ISA, they removed core components of the program. There are no more assigned team leads. There are no more standups with your classmates so you can discuss the same project and see... Read More the many different ways to approach a solution. There is no more 1 on 1 review of your work. Where a mentor was paid to mentor you, you are now forced to mentor other students and vice versa. I've never heard from my mentor. You grade your own work. There is no attendance. I signed up for 18 months of programming, choosing Lambda especially because of the length of time of the program that was advertised. They suddenly reduced it to 12 months. As of yesterday, I've withdrawn after 4 months as this is not the program that was sold to me. I completed 22% of the program I thought I was signing up for, but under their new reduction, they said I owe 37% withdrawing before Unit 4. People in my cohort don't even understand basic Javascript and I'm not faring much better. I'm nowhere ready for a job. Now I have to find an education elsewhere and probably teach myself because now I don't trust boot camps.

Software Engineer and Former Lambda Student on "Is Lambda Worth It"

This will be a bit long-winded I apologize beforehand. But I have strong opinions and feel they should be fully explained.
I attended Lambda for 4 months as a student and 4 months as... Read More a TL before dropping out of lambda completely. I started with virtually no experience and did lambda full-time. With no job. And now I am a Salary Software-Engineer employee.
The first 4 months of lambda was "ok" at best. I found the Lectures to be decent but the materials were pretty much all free projects that could be found anywhere on the internet. The curriculum itself was pretty weak and also contained nothing you couldn't find with a simple google search. It is really aimed to try and give you a high-level web dev skill to React without giving much of a foundation at all in the actual language it uses (JS). By month 3 all students could make some simple React UI App but virtually no one could write a for loop from scratch. I found this to be one of Lambda's greatest shortcomings. They focus more on teaching you one specific library that is always apt to change instead of really teaching you the language everything is built off of. At month 4 I felt like I had somehow skated by. I mean I passed everything but really didn't understand anything at a low level. At this point, I decided to apply for a TL position. I did it because I was wanting a second pass on all the materials since I felt lambda hadn't really taught me anything. Most of us were in this boat. Lambda claims you can flex whenever but I did not find this to be the case at all. There was immense pressure to not flex and lambda loves to blame their bad teaching on "imposter syndrome". Whenever students would express they felt left behind lambda staff would just always say it's just imposter syndrome.
My second Four months as a TL Is what really gave me my career. I say this for 2 reasons.
First, after becoming a TL I had more time and I started taking Udemy courses on JS and react and also took front-end masters courses. I learned far more from these courses than the lambda curriculum. It wasn't even close and by the end, I was really upset thinking about what if I had been using these resources the whole time instead of lambda's materials.
Second, helping other students solve problems and fix code all day when their approaches are all very different helped me to be a much better problem solver and really build my skills in pattern recognition. This was where I felt myself grow the most and start really gaining the confidence to be more hands-on.
Why I dropped out?
After seeing how much their curriculum had failed me and how much more I learned through other resources I could not constitute staying. Even if I had to pay my ISA the real goal here was getting a job. I knew I could do that better with other resources than what lambda was giving me. But I did want a big showcase Project for my portfolio. I considered staying for labs but seeing how much of a shit storm my original cohort went through while I was a TL really made me decide against it. After 2 months full time, most groups had nothing better than any regular build week project. Most groups complained about constant requirement changes and lambda changing the list of acceptable technologies and forcing groups to restart their projects if they weren't compliant. Lambda shows these labs videos with these great projects and stories but anyone who went through it has a very different story. I find this to be a lot of things at lambda. They advertise things one way and then act surprised when the students are so upset with changes.
3 weeks after dropping out I was hired as a contractor and since then the company has hired me full time. So if it worked for me where do I stand on if a new student should apply to lambda ??
I would say absolutely not. This school's interests are not aligned with you. It's like any cooperation built completely on venture capital. They will keep growing as fast as they can. They will keep making insane policy changes that hurt the student but help their bottom line. For Example, the only positive thing I really said here about lambda is the TL program in which I felt really helped me become a Programmer. Well that TL program has since been ended. Projects don't even get graded anymore. Why in the world would they do this? Is it because it Will help more people get hired? Of course not! It's because they are a business, and their interests, for the most part, are self-aligned. Now they don't have to Pay the TL 13 bucks an hour, who cares if that immensely helped facilitate learning. A lot of people believe lambda doesn't get paid unless a student gets hired. This is just completely untrue. Almost all their money at this point has come from VC funding, and they sell the ISA's in bulk before the student even finds a job.
I will say regardless of anything I just said I don't believe in finding problems without offering solutions. So what should you do in lou of lambda?
Front end masters and Udemy. For a fraction of the cost, you can learn React JS and Node in a way far deeper way than you will get from lambda. With loads more hours of resources. These programs can actually help you master these technologies. While lambda will just generally expose you. I don't feel lambda is worth the time let alone the money.

No upfront cost, you can sign and ISA. Sounds like a dream, too good to be true even! That's because it is. They will change up the curriculum mid-way through your learning experience and expect you to just accept it and not complain. If you make to much... Read More noise you will be removed from the school causing the full isa cost to be your responsibility. They will spring tests on you 2 days up to 2 weeks prior to having to take them, and the material on these tests are not covered in the lessons at all, you also do not get to use resources on this test. If you flex (repeat a unit) twice they talk to you about leaving the lambda school. Again meaning that you have the full isa to pay back without the income base to protect you (the full reason you sign the ISA) Please read the full ISA to make sure you understand what you're getting into. I personally feel Lambda is a scam, they sure paint a pretty picture but in no way do you get what you pay for.

Lambda is a good starting point for learning to code, but they are growing and changing so fast with really poor implementation that it is hurting the current students and these students like me are stuck with their ISAs, especially if they are already... Read More in Unit 4 and beyond where the ISA is at 11K and 30K respectively.

I started Lambda School at the beginning of Covid 19 lockdown. I came from a construction background and had no prior experience in the tech industry. It was a huge wakeup call for how tough it was going to be. But guess what? Did it suck at first? Of... Read More course. It's an accelerated learning program in a subject that's already pretty tough to learn. The learning curve is brutal. But is it worth it? Absolutely! Anyone going into Lambda should know the cost of not being able to work for 6-9 months and should plan accordingly. Plan on taking ownership of your learning. Anyone who says college is just as good and you're guaranteed to learn more in college . . . well that could be true and at the same time I've got friends who graduated college and are working at the starbucks 3 years later because they didn't take ownership of their time in college. So it goes both ways. I personally had an amazing time at Lambda! It challenged me more than I've ever been. It gave me confidence to do things I never thought I'd be able to. Are there teachers you don't understand or click with? Yes! But they have more than one teacher and they record every lecture so just go watch a recorded lecture. They have solutions everywhere and resources everywhere to help you succeed in your time there. If you're willing to put in the needed hours to understand the material you will succeed!! Lambda's Great! Because it's a startup they're always looking to improve the programs and the curriculum so it's very different now than when I first started and they continue to admit that it will continue to change as they go along and receive feedback on how to make it better. Can't recommend it enough. After 9 months at Lambda I have no clue how anyone can get a job at one of the 3 month programs that are coming from zero prior experience!

Cons:
1. Lambda School presents itself as a risk free choice to break into coding but instead they play favorites and defames anyone who gives feedback they don't like. Several students were removed for questioning the eratic school and its staff.

2. They... Read More have a very cult-like culture that rewards praisers of the mediocre school and staff. A student claimed that there were issues of a toxic school environment, another student spoke up to say there weren't issues and then he was promoted to staff.

3. The CEO claims that he routinely will download all data from the Slack, including your personal inbox, so there is zero privacy in the school.

4. They make up things on the fly without set policies based on them doing whatever they can to make it seem like it's rosy to their investors.

5. The CEO was formerly homeless and now his school is being given millions, he seems to think being dishonest about the school justifies the means.

6. They protect toxic and abusive students claiming they "can't police freedom of speech".

7. The grading is arbitrary by students who may or may not fully understand what they're grading.

8. The students who become TAs aren't necessarily trained in anything, even the curriculum. They're given a book of the answers and told to be confident even about things they don't understand.

Pros:

1. You have access to the CEO if you want that..

The program was good at one point but has changed significantly. They no longer have paid support in the form of TLs, all the 1 on 1 your going to get is coming from other students, they shortened the program, and added 2.5 hours of meetings to your schedule... Read More every day.

I am 4 months into the program and saw both sides. I can honestly say it WAS a good system at one point but no longer worth your time. The mentorship that your forced into is complete garbage and they no longer have any accountability for your work.

You essentially get your first month free, drop out and not pay a dime except I'll say this now: YOU CAN LEARN HTML ANYWHERE FOR FREE. Their instructors for HTML, CSS and JAVASCRIPT are awful. LS recently let go of all Team Leads which are students further... Read More along that qualified to be mentors etc., they have yet to explain themselves as to why the layoffs were made THEN they "redesigned" the format and curriculum so that students were now mentoring each others and a single individual FO FREE as "part of the learning experience." Most people don't sign up for these course to learn how to mentor others - but now thats like 40% of their focus. Their career training consist of 30 minute sessions 1x/week of all materials you can also find online or LinkedIn more specifically. The recent changes also included going from 2 months of learning Computer Science to 1 month and scratch the surface on Python; students were given the basics as pre-lecture material then thrown right into very complex Python problems daily. They promised students tons of instruction and help and have moved to being full on assessment, little to no material "paper thin" training kits, unprepared instructors for lectures, no extra support hours, and best of all no one signed up for this and are now paying $30,000 to a school that basically got extremely lazy & greedy. You're way better off with Flatiron school if you were looking for something like Lambda or go through a quick bootcamp since lambda basically cut their program and lessons in half.