BloomTech

Like most people that end up at Lambda, I stumbled on to coding and found myself really liking it. So I learned as much as I could using free tools before I decided to find a structured program. I know for a lot of programs the financial requirements... Read More have changed since Lambda’s popularity but when I was looking Lambda was one of the few programs that didn’t ask for anything upfront. Nada. So I said what the heck, worst case scenario I drop out and waste a couple of months and best case scenario they live up to the hype and I end up a software engineer.

The short version? Lambda worked for me! I ended up with a really great job as a software engineer.

Now for the somewhat long version. To start Lambda is a startup that is constantly changing. That means if there is some part of the curriculum that isn’t working they’ll take the feedback and push an updated version pretty fast! And students and graduates will always have access to the new and older versions. The other side of that coin is that you’ll have to deal with the bumps along the way and if you want to see these changes made you’ll have to participate in the feedback loop, publically or anonymously.

The instructors and project managers, in my opinion, make the Lambda learning experience special! Instead of someone just lecturing and giving you an assignment that’s due by a certain day, don’t get me wrong the course material and lectures are fantastic, you get a more personal education. You get split into smaller groups where your project manager knows who you are and will hold you accountable. You get to work with your cohort-mates, ask as many questions as you have, and get continuous feedback on how to improve.

After the main course material, there is Lambda Labs an opportunity to work with a team to build applications for other. This portion of the program is grueling by design but its honestly led by some of the most passionate people at Lambda. They work really hard to get you over the finish line and prepared for interviews. And even after finishing, they keep working with you to find the right job.

I'm in the program, I am currently debating if its worth dropping out at this point. I wont need to pay anything till i get a job but the ISA lasts for five years and if i did any learning outside of the program within the 5 years, I owe them 17% of my... Read More income which could amount to 20k. not worth it

The instructors after the first month of the program are so bad it's not worth attending. Sure you get to put stuff on your repo but how much did you learn is iffy. I relied mostly on the strong students in my cohort and then they take the strongest applicants from your cohort to be PM's and the whole cohort dies.

They also over emphasize student feedback because truth be told. they use their students as unpaid consultants to fix the problem they can't seem to be able to fix.

Also I heard of a section leader in CS12 talk bad about his students and the student success managers response was "we all talk shit".If you want to be in an online community of egocentric dweebs for staff who condescend those who dont drink the kool aid and owe them 20k for shoddy education while fixing their problem as a guinea pig. go for it!

you're better off at another camp if you have options.

Lambda also keeps tweaking everything and often times than not they go back on promises. one of their recent 'tweaks' is to remove their role in finding you a job unless you do x,y,z and then some. so what used to be a guaranteed ended up being only if you did all this stuff. they keep changing their program and rectroactively enforce these rules upon those than have also graduated. also the response from their student success manager was 'change is hard'

student success presentations is another example of some of the extra BS. They expect you to put in three four hours of mandatory time not on coding or improving your code skills. but on corporate approved niceties like how to appropriately respond or what have you.

so much BS does not equate to the amount of money spent for a coding education, especially when the coding education is lacking. They tend to forget that their students are their customers and instead of trying to court investors by presenting a strong brand they should focus more on their students .

also If you are in lambda FT expect to spend a lot of time outside of class. do not listen to them say you wont... you have to! there is no denying you will.

When you hear about a school that offers no tuition upfront for 6 months, you would tend to think it is either a scam, or the content is not up to par with a bootcamp that charges more.

This is absolutely not the case.

Lambda School has given me the skills... Read More to be a full stack developer, both technical skills and soft skills. I have just interviewed and accepted an offer from a company as a back end engineer, mostly because they were impressed with the skills I had coming out of a non traditional school.

Being one of the earlier students, I was able to watch the curriculum evolve to be better and better each iteration. We had to be flexible with the changes, sure, but it allowed us to develop adaptability while learning technical skills. The structure of the curriculum is strong now, with multiple experienced instructors, and enough assistants to allow one-on-ones for each student in the class. Sections are repeatable, so if you don't get it at first, you are able to repeat until you understand it. Each week called a Sprint ends in a Sprint Challenge, which is reviewed, and talked about with the student to highlight weak and strong points, and talk about the week.

The end of the program ends in a program called Lambda Labs, where you build a Capstone Project with 3 other students, led by an assigned Teaching Assistant. The project wireframe and idea is presented, and you have 4 weeks to bring it to life. At the end of the 4 weeks, you have a Capstone Defense, where you are interviewed by both instructors and hiring partners on the course material, design decisions, and other web development related questions.

Recently released is Lambda Next, and it really is the key to finding a job. Every day is structured to help you land a job, with job applications in the morning, community contributions in the early afternoon, coding portfolio projects after lunch, and interview/ white board practice at the end of the day. It is a really amazing program, and definitely a key factor to how I landed my first Developer job.

In the beginning of Lambda School, there were a lot of kinks to work out, but each week, they have improved more and more. It is an amazing school that no one else is doing. There is a program for everyone here, including part time programs. If you want to be a web developer, Lambda School should be your number 1 choice.

In 2017, my wife and I earned a combined income of $23,000. We did what we loved but there wasn't much money in it. At the beginning of 2018, we were preparing to move states and move into the next stage of our lives. We were going to move back home,... Read More spend time with my parents and somehow, survive.

Some background: In January of 2018, I started coding again after dropping out of college (pursuing a CS degree), a few years earlier. I was ready to change my life. I started looking around and bootcamps were all so expensive. I was going to go the freeCodeCamp route but it all seemed so difficult to guarantee a job. I have a son and I needed something more solid before betting our whole life on it.

I heard about Lambda school. I really don't even remember how. I thought it was too good to be true. Or a scam. Or that the school would suck. But I was completely wrong. We're used to being shafted, so it makes sense that I would think that. But boy was I wrong.

Now the review:
Lambda was super fast paced. But the concepts of the school were taught so well, that I was consistently learning and growing. I honestly never felt like I was being destroyed by the code. I was definitely challenged but never overwhelmed. The pace was great, but what Lambda did more than anything else, is it allowed me to practice what I learned. Mornings started with a code challenge, then lecture. Then the afternoon was spent coding - applying what we learned in lecture. I spent time studying before going into Lambda and it definitely helped. I put my head down and really pushed into the program. I did every "stretch" goal and worked my tail off to make sure that I got the concepts.

See, the thing about any school, is that you only get out of it what you put into it. With Lambda school, they're giving you an avenue to put everything you've got into the school.

I'll be honest guys, I've probably had too much coffee to write this review. But I'm hyped right now. The reason I'm hyped is because I just accepted a job offer for 4 times my wife and I's combined salary. And I haven't even finished Lambda's program. Lambda school is so good that I finished the first half of the program and had enough experience to apply for and get a job. I went into the job, preparing for the worst, but after taking a coding assessment, I was told that I had the best coding assessment they've seen coming into the company. After that, the company asked me if I would be interested in applying for a senior level position.

I was nervous about Lambda because I was afraid to take a risk on my education. I was going to have to quit my job, move in with my parents and go to school full time. It was a terrifying thing. And I've heard horror stories about bootcamps. I won't go into the deets, but I've had friends spend over 15 grand on a bootcamp only to be abandoned by them with hardly any knowledge to show for it. Lambda school is not this way.

Austen and the gang are constantly improving the program. They're making sure that students don't get left behind but that they actually obtain the knowledge that the program offers. Lambda school started a cool program called "Lambda Next" that basically keeps grads working on projects and applying until they find a job. I've never seen anything like it. The content is incredible. The instructors are incredible. The support is phenominal. If you told me what I was getting myself into, then I would've started at Lambda in November.

They're pumping so much money into the success of their students that there are only 2 possible futures for Lambda school. Future 1 is that Lambda School changes the face of education in America. Future 2 is that they spend so much money on the success of their students that they go bankrupt. Though, at the rate that Lambda students are getting hired, I really don't think Future 2 is a likely future. I was the fourth "Senior Engineer" hired within the past 2 weeks.

Lambda School has changed my life. At my current income, I'm going to be paying more in taxes than my family's whole salary last year. I get it, it's not about money. But last year, there were tears in my eyes as I sold one of my most prized positions because my wife and I needed to travel to visit family for Christmas. Lambda school has made it so that I never have to do that again. Lambda's ISA is an EASY price to pay to have my life changed.

If you're on the fence, do it. Your life will never be the same.

I have learned more in lambda during 2 weeks than I learned in College for 2 years. The teaching style prepares students through an intensive program where they code every day for 8 hours through real projects and interact through live lectures, GitHub... Read More code reviews, and pair programming sessions.

Lambda was first introduced to me via an add on Facebook. It was advertised as a Software Engineering program that requires no payment if you don't find a job in the field paying an annual salary of fifty thousand dollars or more. With a strong background... Read More in troubleshooting electronics and a deep desire to learn how to code, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Being a skeptic, I dug up as much information about the program as I could to see if any scam reports were made or any concerns of legitimacy had arisen. To my surprise, I dug up blog after blog written by students participating or graduated from the program that expressed nothing but gratitude and gratefulness that they had the opportunity to attend. I thought, how could this be? Not a single negative review? It scratched the part of my brain that doesn't let good exist without condition, so I decided to apply so I could do my own reviewing.

Living in a small, the only opportunities to establish a lifelong career are provided by factories and retail stores. I've worked in various retail and factory positions and let me tell you, I was miserable. With strong research and troubleshooting abilities, I was able to gain feelings of accomplishment and joy by volunteering to help an online gaming community in my spare time. I quickly became their "goto guy" when a new game server needed setup or if there was a serious problem with one of their existing servers. They quickly gave me a title as their "scripter". I really thought I had a solid grasp of coding concepts until I began attending Lambda School. I quickly learned that I had no clue! The more I learned at Lambda the more addicted I became to learning. Absorbing so much knowledge in such a short amount of time is the most invigorating thing I have experienced and I am not afraid to admit that I am addicted! Being a Software Engineer/Developer is just that, a career of learning. Of course, the salary is great but it's more than money for me. Lambda opened doors in my mind that I couldn't have opened myself.

I have been liberated!

On graduation day I was winding down from the most intense learning experience I had ever endured when I began reflecting on the program. It came to me, the conditions required for something this great to exist. I had to be willing to put in the time and effort to persevere through an extremely steep and difficult learning curve. I had to stretch and bend my mind to reshape the way I learn and think. Those are the conditions required to be successful at Lambda and for me, they were worth every drop of blood, sweat, and tears!

I am ~45~, 46. About a year ago, I lost my job. I had a mountain of debt, I hated my career track, I had no retirement savings, etc. And I wasn't sure where to turn.

I knew I liked computers and believed that I could get a career going in computers if... Read More I could only get the right chance.

I got on unemployment. They had a program to train for CompTIA A+ certification. My friends with previous work in the IT industry said I would get bored with that though. And I wouldn't make as much money as I would if I became a developer.

I had written HTML for websites when I was in college, but that was 20 years ago. I started finding some free online courses for JavaScript. I'm not great at self-discipline, so I knew that self-paced would mean I would have the skills in about 10 years.

I wouldn't be able to afford to go back to college for 4 years at my age. I needed a new career launch ... NOW. So I started looking at coding bootcamps.

There was no way I could afford an upfront payment for a bootcamp that was $9,000.00 for 12 weeks. Besides, like I said, I was in debt to my eyeballs already, so I could not qualify for a loan anyway.

Let's talk about the 12 weeks thing too. I was starting from scratch. I had a master's degree in the humanities and tons of life experience and I could find my way around an HTML doc.

What would 12 weeks get me? I could learn to write some JavaScript, and some Front end frameworks. This would give me the bare bones to get a very specific job. This would not prepare me for a software engineering career.

So then I found lambda school. Here it is almost a year later and I have launched my software engineering career. I'm making the kind of money I could never have made in my previous career.

And I got here without paying a penny. I am paying them now, but I can afford it now, and there is no interest or debt. They invested in me and it turned out to be a worthwhile investment.

Besides that, I have a new joy and passion for my career. I have learned so much at Lambda school. Sure I got the full MERN stack (Mongo, Express, React Node) training. But I also got a solid foundation in tons of computer science principles. I know operating systems, algorithms, data structures, computer architecture. I even have a decent intro to assembly language. I have learned so much more about what is going on under the hood.

The most important thing I learned at lambda school was HOW to learn and confidence I CAN learn. Whatever hot frameworks and trending languages are today will not be the languages and frameworks they're going to want you to know in 5 years.

I learned to program at a basic level in C, and also picked up Python in a matter of weeks. I am a full stack engineer now thanks to Lambda ready not just for a job, but a career.

As a graduate from Lambda School recently, I highly recommend everyone who are seeking software engineering career to attend Lambda School since it really rocks and make your dream come true. Lambda School is Computer Science Academy not traditional bootcamp... Read More since it teaches you everything necessary for software engineer field and equip you with the most powerful skills and tools in the market which will make very competitive and productive. You will get lots of hands-on experience and work with real world projects. If you could be able to survive through seven months course, you will be super confident on what you are able to do and start the software engineer position right away. Another huge thing is you don't pay before you find the job which will make you more focused on the learning process not worrying about the financial side. And you will find a job for sure if you graduate from Lambda School. I feel confident and so do you.

I was lucky to be accepted to the second cohort of Lambda School’s computer science program. Before I joined I spent months researching coding bootcamps and none of them were feasible for me at the time. In addition, many of them appeared to lack core... Read More fundamental principles of programming and were bolstered up by inflated statistics. When I found out about Lambda School it seemed too good to be true, but with the school taking on much of the risk I decided to take a leap of faith. Now, I can tell you firsthand that Lambda School is 100% the real deal. I graduated in February and began a full-time position as a React developer in March. I’ve been amazed at the amount of information I’ve retained from the school and how well I was actually prepared for the job. Within 3 months on the job I’ve already been promoted and am leading my own team. I have Lambda School to thank for that. There are a few reasons on why this program works for me and can work for anyone with the drive to make it in this industry:

1. Curriculum is top notch. I think it may be the best Web Development curriculum out there and why I was so willing to take that initial leap.

2. They hire the best instructors in the industry. I don’t think I need to explain this more all you have to do is look at their credentials.

3. Community. While being online can be a disadvantage it also allows more students to access the program. One of the things that many online schools lack is a sense of community. That’s not happening at Lambda School. There’s a sense of togetherness here.

4. Feedback loop. This school is one that actually listens to it’s students and makes adjustments in realtime.
​
You spend everyday working with people that are hungry. People that were never given a chance before ceasing on this opportunity. It’s truly inspiring and an environment that will bring the best out of you. To me this is the real magic of Lambda School.

So, if you’re thinking about joining Lambda School it’s a no brainer. It’s what education should be. You have little to lose and everything to gain.

When I decided to become a web developer, I had 0 background about CS or software engineer. So I wanted to find a longer program to learn more CS fundamental besides web development techs. I watched Lambda School's mini bootcamp videos, I like the online... Read More class that you do not need to go anywhere, so I chose Lambda School last November. I left my old job and started the 6 months full-time CS fundamental and software engineering program. Honestly, it's like information explosion for me every day! Every day I thought I couldn't learn any more, my head would explode! I took classes, did homework, re-watch lecture videos after school, etc, when we started working on lab project, all these knowledge just pop out automatically by themselves, that moment I realized, Lambda school not only teaches me knowledge, also the way to think like a software engineer, to resolve problems like an engineer.
I started from 0, but now I could create an App from scratch to deploy on heroku!
For those who already chose Lambda School, believe Lambda School, believe yourself!
For those who want to change their life and also want to learn CS, start from choosing Lambda School!