BloomTech

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.

Pros: If you are looking for a less risky way to see if you are interested in coding Lambda might be the ideal school for you. However, the risk factor is the first and last attractive thing about Lambda School.

They recently changed their Income Sharing... Read More agreement so that you can go through the first 4 months of the program and if you withdraw only be on the hook for up to 50% of the ISAs value. You could find worse ways and more expensive ways to try to learn to code. But you can also find better and cheaper ways. Lambda used to offer daily code reviews, Paid team leads to work with you and help you. Those are no longer available. All of Lambda Schools grading is self-assessed which significantly devalues the significance of its endorsement, if there is any value to it at all.

Cons:
- Everything is self assessed. There are no experienced individuals reviewing your codes and providing you with best practices or advice on how to get better. its completely on you to absorb the poorly constructed materials and be competent enough to land a job later on.
- You will have a senior student mentor you on a daily basis. However, they are unpaid and forced to fulfill this role. This is a mixed bag. Some mentors will do well by you others will not. There is little to no training for them. Later on in the program you will be forced to mentor others. You won't be paid and they will refuse endorsement if you don't participate.
- You are forced into many meetings where you have to fill roles like taking notes, managing time and leading. Useful skills but not useful when you are trying to learn to code. You can expect 2-4 hours of meetings a day and if you are lucky 2 hours of coding. Once you are mentoring you will be frequently interrupted to help newer students code.
- Program whiplash. Lambda has no idea how to roll out changes. They frequently makes changes that apply to all students right away, they fail to provide adequate time or resources to adjust to new changes.
- They don't listen to feedback. They claim to but they simply do. If you are in Lambda School you are on a ride with someone who is trying to be the next tech unicorn. Your opinion does not matter only the path to success for the executives. They completely lack the stability of any traditional learning environment.

Considering to learn to code? Try one of the many other programs out there. Lambda used to be a good value but for self-grading and little support you can find better options out there for far less money and respect for your time and career success.

Lambda was a 9month FullTime Fullstack Bootcamp.
it started out great
you have a careers session every monday
you have 3weeks of lecture and 1 week of build per unit
you are assigned into a TL team where in you have a teamlead that you can go for when you... Read More need help or to help you debug

each lecture week would be
4days(mon-thurs) of 2hours lecture, a daily project, and an afternoon standup
1 day(fridays) have a thing called sprint wherein you have 3hours to finish a project and hit mvp. after that there are afternoon meetings

every unit there is a thing called a build week
where in you work on a project for a whole week, and work on what your specific unit is taught its like a culmination thing and have it submitted by friday end of week.

the first months lambda was great, my study habits had structure the instructors were great, there were some hiccups here and there but overall id say it was worth the 30k ISA

they had a hirings team, where they help you get interviews with companies that lambda is partnered with.

this was all great until lambda decided to roll out with some changes

they cut the course from 9mos to 6mos.
they said they have a better curriculum, but they didnt. they just removed stuff from the curriculum without really giving any concrete reason why aside from `trust me ive talked with the hiring partners`. when you ask them why they do it this way they just dodge the question and say , trust me this is a proven way.
now there are no more TL's to guide you, and you are forced to "Mentor" students from earlier class and you get a "Mentee" from 2 classes ahead of you to build your leadership skills. the concept is great but then not everyone wants to be a leader some people just want to learn how to code. but for this thing you dont really have a choice on the matter and are just forced to roll with it.

a lot of people are complaining that this is a breach of contract from the ISA we signed and they still did not acknowledge that.
they continued to roll with the changes even if majority of students complained about it. questions are left unanswered and everyone is wondering if this is forced labor because it does seem like it

lambda was great this i dunno

pros is they dont charge you upfront, you dont have to pay them until you find a software job in 5 years cons is their lecture quality is soooo poor,after have one and two hours lecture you know very little things, even their training kit is not helpful... Read More most of time ,i have to spend a lot of time to find other resources to help me understand the concept the teacher dont know you at all,and of course they dont care you , they let the student help student! let amateur help amateur,so how can amateur be professional! after you find a software job,they will take 30 grand away from you even they dont help much.

About a year ago a Lambda graduate wrote a reddit post that criticized Lambda School (henceforth "Lambda") for:
- cohort size
- inflating positive PR by encouraging students to say good things about LS on social media platforms
- not having a proven track... Read More record (due to the Lambda's relative youth compared to, e.g., App Academy)
This post was followed by a comment that said the real problem was:
- Negative students stirring up trouble
- Over-reliance on a "teaching you how to learn" Motto
This is by no means the only reddit post that says less than pleasant things about Lambda, but it's likely the top one if one Googles something like "should I join lambda school?". I won't agree or disagree with any of the statements in that linked post, but I think it forms a useful backdrop for my critique of the Lambda School Data Science program.
The purpose of my post is to offer a review of Lambda School that is 1) specific to the Data Science program and 2) not constricted within the heavily-curated official Lambda subreddit. When I wanted to join the Lambda DS program, there were very few useful reviews (most were web-dev-centric), so I hope I can help others who are researching the program.
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Curiously, my Lambda journey begins and ends with Reddit. This is only notable because I've rarely visited this platform. Last year around this time Udacity did a major overhaul to its pricing structure that made it no longer an affordable option for me to use to pursue a career in data science (DS). I went on a google search to find cheaper alternatives and I found a reddit post about the Udacity price hike in which one of the commenters said something to the effect that Udacity's new pricing would make schools like Lambda more popular for career training. I Googled "Lambda School" and was sold on the length of the program, the topics covered, and the income share agreement (ISA) that would allow me to defer tuition costs until after I found a job paying $50,000 or more in a relevant tech field.
I considered the length of the program (7-9 months) good because I personally would be more convinced about someone saying they obtained a certain skill set from a 7-9 month program than from a 3-month program (which is a common time period for many bootcamps). I liked that the program would spend a lot of time on statistics (4 weeks) instead of only introducing it as part of the EDA on an otherwise Machine-learning focused curriculum. I don't have any links to post you may see a lot of complaining online about DS education not being stats-focused. I appreciated the attempt at spending more time on the subject. Lastly, the ISA meant I went from allocating a budget for a lower-cost version of Udacity to a free-for-now (deferred cost) program, which allowed me to use that money to pay off my apartment lease for one year. This was advantageous since fulltime Lambda programs are time intensive (11 to 7 EST, in theory, but 11-9pm EST in reality)--so not not much time to earn an income (few jobs would be down for working around a schedule like that anyway, FME).Good things about the Lambda Data Science Program:
1. The Slack-based Learning Platform: Lambda school has a student dashboard webpage that may have been made to be the source of knowledge/information, but everything really goes down in the Slack app. While the instructor is teaching via Zoom, you can ask questions on Slack that can be answered by the instructor (more on this later) or answered by other students. Questions and comments are then visible and can be pinned to the Slack Channel for future reference. For anyone who has experienced the asynchronous "discussion board" layout of many online learning institutions (I have), knows the value of a synchronous learning environment. A good instructor will make excellent use of the to ability communicate with students while teaching by asking and answering questions, creating polls (including anonymous ones), and interacting positively by liking/adding emojis to certain comments. The emoji thing may seem trivial but the more interaction the better and an approval signals to others what is the "best answer".
2. The chance to interact with people who are in different stages of learning and employment. A Lambda Student will be assigned to a group with is led by a team lead (TL) who is former Lambda student who is still on the job hunt. They are not DS experts yet, but they have the potential to provide useful perspectives and even learn more themselves (as a lot can be learned by teaching). As a lambda DS student, you will also have access to Slack channels where students in other cohorts (ahead of and behind your own cohort) discuss various DS-related topics. Students who secure employment can remain active in communal Slack channels after securing employment.
Also, you can actually talk to real Data Scientist during weekly "Brown Bag" Lunch presentations from guest experts. I personally never had time to attend a "Brown bag" session (and I don't see how a serious student could have such time, but the brown bags do exist).
I suppose all of 2) still ties into the fact that Slack is used as the main hub for Lambda school and so one can avail of all the features Slack offers.
3) The openness of administration to conversations about improvements to Lambda. There is a particular Slack Channel called "announcements" in which a new change/service is announced, and students can respond to it in a related channel called "announcement threads". An outsider would be shocked at the kinds of conversations that happen here in which students to varying levels of zeal, express how they feel about an actual or potential change. Administrators are exposed to a level of criticism that one can't help sympathize with but a lot is learned in the process. Also students (including grad) can and will offer criticism about specifically the DS curriculum in relevant slack channels. They are often a fun read after getting through a day of hard work.
So far so good, right? Ready to enroll? Not so fast...
Bad things about the Lambda Data Science Program:
One might note that the benefits of Slack are more or less independent of Lambda School's educational quality. Meaning, putting a bad driver in a Lamborghini doesn't make them a good driver, but they will have more options and might be more motivated to learn to become a good driver (why let such a good vehicle go to waste?)
1. Admissions: It becomes apparent very quickly that not all students completed or understood the assignments that are supposed to be completed prior to being accepted into a cohort. I won't delve too heavily into this subject because such criticism about Lambda are echoed elsewhere. I do want to clarify, however, that my issue with whether or not a student was "smart" enough to be a part of the program. Instead, my issue is with, how at the very beginning, they did not demonstrate level of effort needed to be part of an intensive educational program. I don't care if they have to complete the precourse work five times, make them do it until they pass, and it can be certain that someone who constantly failed the precourse work, but stuck through it
1. Poorly evaluating students who in the program: Once students are in the program, they still are susceptible to being passed through even if their understanding is low or work is mediocre. The problems with this is the same as those mentioned in 1)
2. Confusing "Expert" with "Teacher"
The Lambda DS program, at the time of this post, has an energetic, interactive teacher, Ryan A., who teaches Unit 1. He makes full use of the synchronous learning environment that slack provides. Ryan stays on topic (or keeps his tangents short), constantly asks questions to check for understanding, creates comprehensive end-of-week exams that are sufficiently more difficult than the daily assignments (so you're not just copying and pasting and editing), and consistently makes himself available to video conference Q&A sessions during the time allotted for completing the daily assignment. It's true that he's a data scientist, but through either talent or effort has confirmed that he is a teacher as well.
I won't bother calling out any names about the teachers that proceed Ryan A., but I can promise you that the learning experience after Ryan is a downhill tumble stemming mostly from the fact that there doesn't seem to be any standardized protocols or metrics for judging how well a teacher has performed except for feedback forms on which, one a week, ask you to rate your instructor and leave a comment if you wish.
You will see a lot talk about how the CS section of Lambda school kills off a lot of students...many students attribute the problem to the curriculum. I can't speak for the other programs but the CS section the DS program (unit 3) doesn't have a curriculum problem, it has a teacher problem. I have no doubt the teacher in question has a CV that qualifies him for the role of "data scientist", but his level of interaction with students, ability to seek out gaps in understanding, ability to organize his allotted instructional time, eagerness to interact with students after class, ability to multitask (by looking at both slack and text editor, ability to live code instead of editing pre-coded material, ability to explain his steps as he does, ability handle criticism, are all LOW. This is the simple truth.
The main point, even if it is against common belief, is that it is better to have a person with mediocre domain expertise who is a good teacher than an "expert" who is a poor teacher if the chief goal of an institution is to provide others with an education (think about a manager who "knows everything" but is despised...how effective could she/he be?) . Otherwise, you might find leaning too heavily upon pedagogical philosophies of "learning how to learn" when signs point to a lack of understanding among the students/customers who are banking their future incomes on the quality of your education.
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Three days into Unit 3, I quit the DS program even though I had passed all previous assignments and could easily be in the 85% percentile of my cohort in terms of understanding the material. I personally have no patience for a consistently poor learning experience and unfortunately Lambda has its DS program setup such that the same instructors teach the same units. So, at the moment, students will continue to enter the program with a false sense of how their learning experience will continue due to either a coincidental or clever decision to make the best teacher the teacher for unit 1. I say "clever" because if you don't withdraw from Lambda within 4 weeks, you will still owe part of your future income to the company (and each unit is 4 weeks long).
I think the potential for Lambda's DS program to garner a reputation that catches the eyes of employers is high. I speak, nevertheless, only of potential because at the moment there are some serious pedagogical concerns that need to be addressed. I might suggest something like peer training (where different teachers show how they would teach the same lesson, for example). Ideally, there would be 360 feedback (teacher to student, student to teacher, and teacher to teacher) but any attempt to be more vigilant of instructional quality would make the program not worth dropping out of. Until then, there current platform is easily replicable by those who want to also get into the DS Bootcamp industry (or those who are already in it). Recipe: Slack, Zoom, small group of instructors, and a team of administrators, and some venture capitalists. Emphasis on the Slack and Zoom.
I hope others find this helpful and I trust Lambda will eventually improve its DS program. I like the CEO and the leader of the DS program (Aaron). They seem to have their hearts in the right place, but education first, guys.

You won't be job ready, not in the EU. Less then 10% of EU students are employed and they don't care about the minority EU. All their decisions take, US Cohorts in mind, they even closed the EU program.

Don't sign up, go to college, you won't pay 27k... Read More €.

The school has this really cool deal they set up with you called an income share agreement that states that you don't owe them anything until you land a tech job making at least $50,000 a year. This makes them HIGHLY motivated to do everything they can... Read More to get you hired, because otherwise, they don't get paid. They take on the risk of learning a new skill and making a career shift with you, instead of the traditional university approach where all the risk is on you. You pay for it and then you're on your own. The staff are really awesome, and they're a direct message away. I've had nothing but amazing experiences at my time there and have gone from working in restaurants to working as a Front End Web Developer, and I got this job before I even graduated. The curriculum is top notch.

I started Lambda in January of 2019, and started my full time software engineering job in January of 2020. Lambda School changed my life and allowed me to move from being an English teacher to being a software engineer within a year's time.

Pros:
Huge... Read More sense of community (rare for an online school)
Lots of help when you need it
Instructors who listen to feedback and change when necessary
Safe places to fail so by the time you're job hunting, you know exactly what you're doing
Tons of practice and hard coding work
the ISA
lots of support via career counselors

Cons:
If you don't want to put in the effort, you will not enjoy it. Everything is mastery-based (actually a pro IMO), so you have to actually know your stuff.
. . . I honestly can't think of any more.

I nearly tripled my income after graduating. But that's because of what I put into Lambda. Not everyone has the same experience, though many do.

Prior to attending, I'd been in and out of university semesters for a few years. I did a lot of research before... Read More choosing a new path and saved money while I did it. After looking into a multitude of programs, Lambda stood out because of its community and payment model. I quit my job and enrolled full time. I was at my desk for at least 10 hours a day, and sometimes even 14+. I made Lambda school my entire life.

But it paid off. I was hired exactly a month after graduation and given a dream position.

I had a head start, with a lot of independent study prior to attending, so the program was easier for me than it would have been for someone with no experience. Still, I learned an INCREDIBLE amount of information and struggled often. It was difficult, brutal even at times. But I loved it.

The best parts of the program are the team-based projects (SCRUM experience), the community, the instructors and

The biggest frustration that I experienced was that the curriculum is CONSTANTLY changing. Everyone is a guinea pig at some point, and that detrimental to stability. But keeping the curriculum dynamic is also very important, because it means that it will never get stagnant like some university programs do.

Pros:
Quality Education
Excellent Instructors
Team-based projects
Carrer Connections
Alumni Forever (seriously, there will be a monthly event for you to attend forever)
Don't have to pay until AFTER you have a job making 50k/yr.

Cons:
DIFFICULT
Remote (you NEED to have personal drive to stay motivated)
Expensive (relative to similar programs)
Morphing Curriculum

I was job hunting ,had a CS background but employment gap killed me then I joined lambda and it gave me my confidence back and the the practical learning boost me to start applying again and I landed a job . So stoked to continue both my job and lambda... Read More .
Thank you Lambda :)