Bloom Institute of Technology Reviews
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Duraan
It changed my life.
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**I attended Lambda from early 2019 to early 2020. I didn't experience the recent changes**
My experience with Lambda School was an extremely positive one, I had some basic coding experience before I started but that didn't matter because they teach you things from the ground up and build you with projects and support. I had TL (Team Lead) who was always there for me and several other students, that helped a lot because I could ask him any question related to the course.
The support, the curriculum, and the instructors were great. -
Chris Price
Awful School
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I failed like 5 times. I kept thinking it was me. I was putting in many extra hours and dropped to part timer so I could study more during the day. You only got access to an aid if you were the first one to approach them. Otherwise they would be caught up helping in student. Eventually the aids were one unit ahead of me. They changed ever four weeks. I wasted two years. And now I have to prove that my income is not tech related because they are charging me $6k. I work as a mover and a second job as a bartender. They want my offer letters or job description in company letterhead. I’m a MOVER and a BARTENDER. (Note: I have a college degree and graduated with a double major in Film and Philosophy with a cumulative 3.2- I’m not a bad student). -
Sean
Dishonest recruiters
Tge recruiters misrepresented the school and how "teaching" was done. Don't go here unless you have a deep understanding of programming and unless you can teach yourself. Tge only help I'd get was "read the documentation" and "it was difficult for me too". -
Andronik Mkrtychev
Data Scientist
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I really enjoyed my time at Lambda School. The community is full of caring people that really want to see their students succeed in making their dreams come true. Be prepared to work hard and work overtime on many occasions. But if you have the desire and are willing to put in the effort you will make it happen. Overall, the curriculum is thorough, but can use some improvements in some area. With that said, Lambda is always looking to improve their curriculum. At the time of me writing this, I received and accepted an job offer as a ML engineer at one of the biggest companies is in the US. So I am happy. I will always be thankful to the Lambda community for their care, effort and determination. Really life changing. -
David
Change your stars
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I am a recent graduate of Lambda Schools Full Stack Web Development Course. As of two days ago, I had two job offers almost a year from the date of starting my course, and my life is forever changed. I would highly recommend this to anyone who has the determination to change their stars.
Let me explain, I was a computer science major for about 2.5 years before dropping out. I had to pay for some additional expenses and life got away from me. I was never hurting for money and despite my unfinished degree, I had been a General Manager and eventually Director of Operations at a water park making $30 per hour and after that, I had been an API support engineer making $67500 per year at a tech start-up. When COVID hit, I was laid off along with most of the company's workforce and I had to start from 0 at a new company. I was so beholden to my employers since they knew my value but I couldn't transfer that to others and getting laid off was essentially starting from scratch with a new employer. I was soon to turn 30 and was wondering what path to take and I got the advice to take this time to invest in my skills. I wondered if I should take out loans and go back to school to start over my degree but I was intrigued by the invitation from Lambda. I read plenty of reviews both positive and negative and applied at a few different boot camps but in the end, Lambda's Income Share plan was hard to pass up. I knew it would cost more than other boot camps in the end, BUT unlike college, I wasn't left holding the bag. They backed up their instruction with their own money knowing if they can't teach me the skills of the trade AND the skills to actually land a high-paying job, they were the ones bearing financial responsibility and not me.
With this confidence, I enrolled in the course and dove into the prep work. I am not going to cover all of the aspects of teaching but here is a basic pros and cons list of what I went through:
Pros:- They update their curriculum regularly BUT made sure to teach older concepts that were still widely used to make sure we were still able to work at the broadest amount of companies.
- The courses were built for remote learning and don't feel like they are a bad port of a classroom lecture
- They have a rigorous Computer science course that covered almost everything I did in 2.5 years of college courses and actually does a better job at retaining them.
- Your tests are actually mock interviews and are built from the beginning to prepare you to get a job
- You get to work on projects for real companies
- If you are struggling, you can just repeat the month. It doesn't cost you any extra. It allows you to take more time if you need it.
- They keep in contact with you after graduation to coach you through the job search and they set realistic expectations
- They have recordings of previous lectures if you forget something or fall behind.
Cons- You can fall behind.
- It is a fast-paced course that builds on the material every day and missing even a single day can be costly since you won't understand what is going on tomorrow. Every day missed almost counts as two since you need to understand your missed day before you can comprehend anything going forward. If you get behind, you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and catch up, no one is going to do it for you.
- This was tough, but I can't fault the school for this, I definitely had to catch up a few times and it was hours of extra work, but it's nobody's fault but mine if I can't reach out to a classmate for help.
- Group projects can suffer from different levels of mastery and dedication.
- If you have a team member who decides to repeat a month during a project, all of their responsibilities have to be accounted for. This happens regularly so you have to be ready and willing to adapt or ask for help to fill in missing team members.
- This one is tough and Lambda does try to fill in gaps with teachers to fill in codebases, but there are projects that I wouldn't put on my portfolio when I had completed my responsibility but our backend member fell behind or our front end team never finished
- They are always improving/adapting
- This can be hard when halfway through a unit they need to change a topic or switch the way teams are set up.
- This can be jarring but the alternative is taking too long to change. If given the choice I would prefer this
I hope it is clear that I don't have blinders on. They aren't going to guarantee you a job or do all of the work for you. After graduating, I was in the job search for nearly 6 months. However, this is not a fault of Lambdas as much as it was my goal of not just taking an easy Jr position. With what they trained me, and my previous experience, I knew that I had the chops to land a Mid to Sr level position if I work on my interviewing skills. I coded 6 hours per day and through hours into Leet code as well as practiced technical interviews on dozens of jobs I didn't want or was underqualified for and have now landed a job that pays 120k as a Software Engineer.
In short, I know the school isn't perfect. They didn't guarantee me a job and there are a few things that they are still working on improving, but I can't give them anything less than 5 out of 5 stars. It was the first time in my 3 decades of life that I felt like a school was in my corner.
To put this in perspective, my old job offered me my position to come work for them before. I remembered feeling so beholden to them since they knew my value but now, I felt liberated since I was currently interviewing for companies that paid more and could see value in the skills I had gained from my time at Lambda.
If you are looking at boot camps and you have the drive to succeed, ask yourself a question: Do you want to invest in them, or do you want them to invest in you? I promise, if you have the dedication and diligence, you are more than worth the investment and Lambda can change your stars. -
Joshua Gonzalez
Best decision I've made
The structure of the course helped me learn Full stack web development in a way I couldn't on my own, and in a way I could afford (going through an ISA program). Now I can confidently learn any programming concept thanks to Lambda. I recommend always putting what you learn each week into side projects to learn even more and stand out. -
Adam
Great full stack web development program
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I would recommend Lambda School to anyone without hesitation. I began Lambda School's part-time full stack web development program in January 2020, simply as a way to follow my passion and curiosity for tech/web development without any economic risk (because of the income share agreement). After I completed the curriculum in March 2021, I accepted a fellowship with a startup, and was offered a full time position at its conclusion, which I accepted. The curriculum and student experience did indeed change significantly during the 15 months that I was a student at Lambda, but I don't see that as a negative. Lambda School is constantly trying to improve, so things change by design. -
Mohamed Essamaali
Student
Lambda School has a great curriculum and great system to help students to succeed in their career. -
Eric Capiz
Bait n Switch
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I've been a student since May 2020 and in the beginning everything was great and what I was hoping for. The TLs were great, lectures we awesome and the students were very helpful when anyone needed help.
Fast forward 4-5 months and things are not the same. Lambda switched up alot of things. They've done away with TLs l, which alot of students valued when it came to 1:1s for code review. The positive and constructive feedback would only better ourselves to become better developers. The forces us to become mentors and to be mentored as well. Not every student can lead nor teach. Fortunately, my mentee dropped out of lambda and I was able to get back that time to work on the assignments. I told my mentor I will not participate in the meetings. How can I trust the mentor to provide the guidance I need when they're forced into this role in which they probably didn't want to participate in.
The track team is an awesome idea but execution was extremely poor. This is another idea that lambda should have let their students opt in to. Most students do not attend these meetings, probably because it runs into our allotted project time or they simply don't find the value in having these meets. Nobody takes the meets seriously. We didn't need them in the beginning and we don't need them now.
Implementing canvas was, in my opinion, a decent improvement from the TK we were used to, but we just didn't get any help to figure out how to navigate through it at first. The quizzes were a great idea too.. the downside to this all is none of our assignments/sprints are graded. How do we know if we did it correctly, dry and effectively? Sure we can test but to make sure it works but like everything else, there's more than one way to solve a problem. Technically, we can clone and fork the assignments/sprints and submit submit the git repo and nobody cares to check to make sure it's been completed. Lambda doesn't care if you do the assignments, which is ironic since they are relying on us to learn and graduate and get a job in order for us to pay them back. Which leads me to believe that they will change the ISAs and we'll have to pay back regardless if we get a job or not.
There are tons of options, cheaper options out there that will give you the same skill sets that lambda is attempting to teach us..
codewithmosh.com
Codingphase.com
Udemy.com
Freecodecamp.com
Do your research.
Most of us are in to deep to back out and will need to finish the program. Students make lambda, without us there is no lambda. Students who feel even the slightest way against these changes need to stand up and speak and together, and only together, can we be heard and hopefull lambda will care enough to hear. -
julliann
Forced Labor
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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 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 -
Billy Gene
Horrible
Joke of a school. Stay away. Admissions is a joke. The curriculum and teaching is even worse. -
Brittney Thomas
Unsatisfied with Management
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This program was great until it wasn't. I had been withdrawn after only inquiring about withdrawing, I was only seeking information, but they have decided to move forward with the process. So after snapping out of a depressive state from me losing my job from Covid-19, losing a parent, and while all being pregnant, I sent a letter of appeal, for them to still not work with me and have not have the best open communication, whereas I wouldn't hear anything for a week so it prolonged everything. I've been with the program for a year before all this has happened, I put in hours, stressed and cried over it while working a job that had ridiculous overtime where I had to pull all nighters just to try and keep up and they still denied to help after just one stressful week.
I believed in this program and all they said to me was I can reapply after 6 months...I have written back more questions and how I felt and haven't gotten a response in almost 3 weeks. I honestly feel like I would've been better off purchasing classes from online courses, at least I wouldn't have to now owe $30,000. I would not recommend. -
Chris Schroeder
The Bottom Line
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Opinions about Lambda vary but I'll outline the bottom line. Is Lambda perfect? No. In any organization? No. Will Lambda get you where you need to be if you put in the time? Yes.
For me a program like Lambda needed to do one thing: give me enough experience to get my foot in the door with jobs that were previously inaccessible. There are rough spots in the curriculum and organization but at the end of the day I have gained the skills needed to find work in my desired field. What's more, I have developed a network of peers that will serve me well into the future. This is all the more true because Lambda is driven to improve by using feedback and data to fine tune the process.
If you want to gain the skills to change careers while joining and ever improving network you will be hard pressed to find someone doing it better than Lambda.
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Iraj
Lambda Works!
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 .
Thank you Lambda :) -
Jameson Brown
The best decision!
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I had been working in hotel management for about 6 years when I decided to pursue my passion for technology and problem solving and become a software engineer. I looked at many options from University, State College, Online University, and bootcamps. There are so many options to choose from but after research I knew the bootcamp route was the one for me. I researched and found the best bootcamps for me, put together pros and cons and ended up choosing the Full time Full Stack Software Engineering course at Lambda School. Let me start off by saying I have absolutely no regrets about my decision. Now that I am graduate and working in the industry, I will share a list of some of the pros and cons of my experience with Lambda. Notice some items are on the pro and con lists.
Pros:
Class/group structure - Its very similar to a lot of real world work environments. Students are split into smaller groups/teams that are led by a Product Manager(which is typically a senior student at Lambda). These small groups were vital to my success at Lambda. They become your support system, friends, family, etc. We learn together, fix bugs together, tell stories, laugh, vent, etc. Having a great group makes all the difference at Lambda.Agile environment - Lambda is very agile and adapts quickly. From operations flow/procedure to last minute curriculum changes to based off whats needed/used in the industry and what hiring partners are looking for. This is incredibly nice cause you are not stuck learning tech thats not used anymore and your skills are more relevant during the job search. Lambda believes in finding the need for a change and making it quick, not waisting time or making excuses why not to change.
Instructors and staff - When I attended Lamba(5/18 - 12/18) the instructors and staff were amazing! They were all very involved and personally invested in each students struggles, concerns, and ultimately their success. Lambda will not hold your hand the whole way but for someone that is dedicated they will find the level of support very helpful and way above what other bootcamps and universities offer. I even unofficial was mentored by one of my instructors who helped me grow, network, and prepare for where I am today. The school has grown so much and many of the instructors are now directors over different programs and have hired more instructors. Hopefully they maintain the culture that was there when I attended.
Income Shared Agreement - The way Lambda uses ISA to pay is beneficial in so many ways. To name a few, it gives those without the opportunity to down pay for the program or cant get a loan or whatever the case may be an equal opportunity. Talent can come from anywhere and Lambda is giving everyone the chance. Its also beneficial because it aligns the goals of the student and the school. If the student isn't successful, nobody will benefit. Lambda is just as interested in your success and job hunt as anyone else.
Job Search Support - I received so much support when I graduated and began my job search. Besides the instructor that became a mentor to me, I was assigned an amazing career coach named Gigi, I received many follow ups from instructors, staff, and even the founder of the school Austen. Through their help and networking like crazy in my area I was able to land my dream job at an amazing company. Lambda Mission Accomplished!!
Cons:
Class/group structure - This is also included as a pro from above. The reason I included this on my cons list is the very reason it was on the pros list. If you dont have a great PM group with great vibes this can make your experience really challenging. Since this becomes your little family and support group you learn to really lean on each other and without that I dont know what my outcome would have been like.Agile environment - This is also included as a pro from above. The reason I included this on my cons list is because as great as agile methodology, if not done correctly it can cause its own set of problems. On some of the changes while I was a student it was so sudden and without any preparation that nobody including staff were completely ready for it and it created issues, confusion, and frustration. I think remaining agile is definitely best but Lambda should understand the issues it can cause and try to be more prepared for the change with the appropriate tools and resources in place.
Saturated Market - The market in a lot of places is incredibly saturated. Yes the growth of the industry is huge and more and more jobs are becoming available, however, there are also a ton of juniors looking for their first job as well which really saturates it. This is not Lambda's problem directly, however, I feel that staff, instructors, and career coaches need to do a better job at making this issue clear and expectations are set correctly. From talking too many other students, it is a common feeling that Lambda painted the industry as growing and that there is a deficit of engineers and finding a job should be easy. Upon graduation you learn that about the saturation and confusion starts to kick in. It is what it is, but would be nice to have been aware the whole time so expectations are realistic.
Overall I love Lambda. No bootcamp or university is perfect but of the options I truly feel this is the route to take. If you are thinking about the bootcamp route, do your research, make a decision, and jump in full speed. Lambda will help support you along the way and will be there even after you graduate and find your first job. Above everything else, Lambda values feedback and takes it very serious. Every single piece of feedback is listened too and will be followed up on. This feedback is what fuels the rapid growth/success of the program and the agile practice. Once you are a part of Lambda School you will always have that network and support system that you belong to and again, I could not be more excited and without regrets about my decision.
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Jacob Lyerla
Major career upgrade
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I am going to just say this may not be for everyone.
That being said if you don't put in the work you will not succeed, there is ever opportunity to get you where you need to go, and even if you are new and not sure you can do it there are people that will help you every step for every level no one who is willing to get put in the work gets left behind, Lambda does a lot to make sure the students are getting the support they need to succeed, this only works if you do.
The course is incredible value for money.
I went from working construction in the Arizona heat to making a very good Salary working in Boston, It took a grind and a lot of hard work and effort to get there, I won't say it came easy, but I got it and Lambda showed me the way to get there.
Passion for programming is really a must, that is not a Lambda thing that is a developer thing, if you don't want to be doing this than it's probably not for you, if you can find the joy in solving difficult problems with amazing developers and friends than you will do fine, for me solving hard problems with unique thinking, finding out fun ways to solve hard problems, it's really amazing.
I will say if you are not a team player this may not be the course for you, there is a lot of pairs work and working with teams, and really if you are not a team player it will be hard to find a place inside of the industry, to get the most out of your time at lambda be sure to make a lot of connections and you will grow as a developer and as a person, meeting so many people from different background and learning to approach code in different ways.
The instructors are Lambda are just amazing, really I don't have anything bad to say about them, some of the most inspiring and great teachers I have had, the are some of the best and they impress me with how well they do, I am really glad I got to meet and learn from each of them.
Job assistance was amazing Kelsey my career coach is one of the main reasons I never gave up on my job search, and they are improving they the way the connect the students with the hiring partners all the time, so I can only see it getting better from here.
Curriculum had a few hiccup but overall it was very good, in my class we learned MongoDB and I know they teach the students SQL now, I don't regret learning MongoDB though it's really awesome I enjoy it, however I use SQL at work so MongoDB has not come in use beyond personal projects.
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Jeremy A. Jones
Lambda completely changed my life!
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After accepting a job offer today that has completely changed the direction of my life for the better, I have an immense feeling of gratitude toward Lambda School. My base salary has gone up almost 3.5x from my former career as a teacher in San Francisco!
I decided to join Lambda School on a whim and honestly, it was something I stumbled into by chance from a series of events that happened over a couple of weeks that led me to meet a Lambda student who referred me directly to Austen Allred, CEO of Lambda. After getting special permission to complete the coursework in under a week due to my life circumstances, I joined the CS8 cohort that began in early February 2018.
The curriculum is rigorous to say the least, and my having no previous programming experience, apart from maybe some very basic HTML & CSS, every day and week was admittedly quite overwhelming. With that being said, the instructors at Lambda are A++ and the support system is like nothing I'd ever seen before in my 11-12 years as an educator. The system, though continually evolving , is designed where no student is left behind, and each individual student gets all of the support they need (granted they put in 100% effort) to succeed.
In just a matter of a few weeks, I had gone from basically knowing nothing to building responsive websites. In just a matter of a few months, I was building full stack web applications from end to end. By the time I got to Lambda Labs (apprenticeship program), I was working on a small team to build a first-of-its-kind app to market in only 5 weeks under the direction of an experience engineer/mentor. The progress students make at Lambda in just a short amount of time is truly incredible, and I would attribute this to two things: 1. Lambda's curriculum, instructors and staff. 2. The amount of work you put into the program.
On top of all this, Lambda's career services program is truly revolutionary. I've never seen or heard anything like it. Each student is assigned to an individual career coach and also has access to all of the other career coaches and other student success staff at pretty much anytime. One of the coolest things at Lambda is that graduation isn't celebrated, job offers are. To help you get job, the sales & outcomes teams work tirelessly to bring in new partners. In short, they set you up with all of the opportunities you need to be successful; you just have to step up to the plate and hit a home run when you're up to bat.
After I finished the curriculum in late July 2018, I signed on as a Teaching Assistant (internally known as a Project Manager) for 4 months (in my case). This program, open to most students upon reaching a certain point in the course, is pivotal in growing your skills for the tech industry. Having the opportunity to work more closely with an instructional team and mentoring and teaching others, launched me to a new level. It also helped me understand how much work goes on behind the scenes to run a school at the top notch level Lambda does. The amount of work and energy put into this school to make it an industry leader is phenomenal.
If anyone is looking to join one of the programs that Lambda offers and launch yourself into the technology industry, this is undoubtedly the best there is. The difference between Lambda & other schools is that Lambda isn't a bootcamp. It's a full fledged CS program merged with your track of choice (web for me) and designed to make you successful on day one of your job as an engineer. Even if you do have a CS degree or have worked in engineering for a while, Lambda would still be beneficial to you. In fact, I've talked to several folks with CS degrees who were in my cohort, and they said the education at Lambda was much better and much more relevant than anything they learned in their respective 4-year university programs.
I cannot thank Lambda School enough for changing my life and the lives of so many others for the better. They are a one of a kind in this industry, led by visionaries, and I truly believe they will come to lead the industry across the world with this model. -
Abdessamad Khaled
Software Engineer
Description here
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Mason Morrow
Best alternative to a CS degree
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*Full disclosure: Lambda asked me to write this review about 2 weeks after I had accepted a job, in exchange for some Lambda swag.
I'm skeptical of any company that promises to replace traditional education, because it's often framed with disingenuous arguments about student debt, the uselessness of educational bureaucracy, and what education should philosophically be. For most people, education is about gainful employment, which I disagree with.
That being said, I'm also a self-appointed expert in educational fraud—where established universities mislead students about outcomes in favor of enrollment numbers, or in my case fees—with the excessive private student loan debt to prove it. Yes, the interest is variable, and Sallie Mae is now a member of my family. Did I mention that my cosigner, my mom, is on the hook for payments larger than her mortgage? (Ask yourself, why is this legal?)
Point being: if you are thinking about taking out student loans, only do so if they are federally backed. NO private loans whatsoever. I have the lovely privilege of having *all* types of student debt.
Moving on. Lambda School. I was in the Fullstack Web track. I started in April of 2018, finished in October 2018, and was on the job market just as everyone was leaving for the holidays. I managed to land a job through my own efforts in January 2019. The career assistance was meager when I graduated, but better than any other career service I've had at the two universities I've attended. As of February 2019, I can say the career assistance has exploded in support and there are unbelievable companies giving presentations every single day that are looking for talent.
This has been my experience with Lambda as an organization: continuous improvement at an unbelievable pace. They take feedback incredibly seriously, because incentives are aligned if you are using the income-share agreement. It was main reason I chose Lambda (alongside the remote nature of the program), because I was weary of financial blunders that I continue to deal with from past educational experiences.
If you have the option to attend and complete a CS degree, do that!
Then attend Lambda!
Or better yet, attend Lambda in your last year of your CS degree.
I say this because of my experience so far at my new job. I made a production level contribution of several hundred lines of code in a framework I did not know on my 7th day of work. They said it was probably a record for first contribution. Am I an algorithm or data structure expert because of Lambda School? Absolutely not. Do I know how recursion affects computer memory and how to avoid writing quadratic algorithms because of Lambda? Yes.
Let's break down some problems I encountered with Lambda:
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PM groups - most problems I faced at Lambda revolved around my project manager group, which is just a small group of students you interact with on a daily basis, led by a project manager (which during my time was a Lambda student who had completed most or all of the course). It seemed that people's Lambda experience was largely influenced by who your project manager was, and who else was in your group. The format for these daily "standup" meetings definitely needs standardization, so that the hundreds of hours spent in these meetings are structured for a purpose. (This may have already changed! Remember, I've already been out of the program since October 2018).
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Code Reviews - I never really felt like my code was reviewed regularly, or if it was, the feedback was not always given, or it was non-technical. If you need help, there is always someone to help. However, sometimes when you are stuck, you don't even realize you are stuck. Lambda really requires personal responsibility and awareness, and making yourself vulnerable if you don't know what is going on.
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Pair programming - Looking back, I wish I had been forced to pair program more. I did a fair amount of it in the latter half of the program (remember they are always changing things—usually for good reason), and now at my job I realize how fundamental this is to working professionally as a programmer.
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HTML / CSS gaps - When I attended, this was the first thing we learned, and the teacher was excellent. However, as the program progressed into React, Javascript, and until the end, you could really tell how easy it is to forget everything you learned about web basics. I failed a technical interview partly because I did not know what the ARIA standard was off the top of my head. Lambda did not cover Accessibility, nor a lot of the finer details of many important, native Web APIs that many would consider basic web dev required knowledge. For example, how to access a webcam. (I believe Lambda has introduced something called build weeks throughout the program, which I think would go a long way to closing this gap).
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Growth stage - The organization is incredibly intelligent, but always be aware that this is an investor-backed venture that could sour for a lot of reasons. Thankfully, the income-share agreement reduces that risk to basically 0 for yourself, and my personal ISA terms are generous.
And for the incredible benefits of Lambda:
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Lambda for life - you have full access to the curriculum, which is always being updated, for your life or that of the company (whichever is shorter).
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A growing network of Lambda students all over the world, ready to help at the post of a Slack message.
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If you get in to Lambda, you will be surrounded by highly motivated people (usually), which is probably a principle that their admissions process screens for.
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If something goes wrong while attending Lambda, they will go out of their way to help (including financially).
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A sincerely kind and positive atmosphere, which I hope never changes.
Overall, Lambda continues to surprise me, and I'm thankful to have chosen it and been accepted. It's also not bad that I found some dollars along the way. If you know you like staring at computers for hours on end, and continually being frustrated / elated, then programming is probably for you. Like I said, CS degree first (for lots of silly and not so silly reasons), and Lambda 1.5st because sometimes ain't nobody got time for that CS degree.
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Alex McEvoy
Lambda School actually cares about you
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I had spent the last 3 years trying to get into the world of software engineering. I'd taken several MOOCs, received two certificates in introductory programming courses, one online and one through a 4 year university's certificate program. I'd even started classes in a post-bac program (I already had a bachelors in Biology) through a different 4 year university's online program, in order to receive another bachelors in Computer Science. The whole time I was job hopping from positions in landscaping, arborist work and house painting. I'd applied for over a hundred jobs in entry level positions and internships, and still didn't feel like I could call myself ready for the workplace. Lambda school changed all that.
From day 1, your broken up into small teams with a poject manager, who is genreally a Lambda student further along in the program. You have daily standup meetings and weekly sprint challenges, which are evaluated and graded. You are encouraged to peer program and both help those who don't have as much experience, or to get help from those who do. This structure is very similar to what you'll experience in the real world of programming, which is just one of the ways that Lambda school prepares you for your new career.
The full stack web development program (which is the program I went through) trains you in modern frameworks like React, Redux, Node, Express, knex, Postgres and even version control like Git and Github. Lambda is ultra responsive to the wants and needs of both the market and their hiring partners (one of whom I recently got a job with). My cohort in particular saw a shift in curriculum from one back end stack to another, all to ensure that we had the most in demand skills when we graduated. Lambda moves in days where other boot camps move in weeks and higher education moves in years. With an education from Lambda school, you can be sure that your skills will be valued.
The computer science curriculum is really what sets Lambda school apart. I'm confident that my ability to speak about Big-O notation, runtime complexity and various algorithms/data structures is what got me my job. This portion is tough, and they throw not only 2 new languages at you (Python and C) but new frameworks like Django as well. You learn about operations on the CPU and even create a terminal emulator. The idea is getting you used to learning new things, quickly. I found that while a lot of us struggled during this portion, it really helped me to set aside my ego and realize that in this field, the learning never stops, and the most important thing is to stay curious. Again, this portion is what sets Lambda apart, and ensures that you have the tools to learn any tech stack.
I do feel like I should mention that, like any boot camp, those with prior experience do tend to rise to the top relatively quickly. The important thing is to try and learn from those people, and not see them as competition. If you have the time, brush up on your Javascript, maybe even your C, sign up for codewars or something like it, and put in your prep work. It'll really pay off when you start classes and let you focus on the higher concepts instead of getting bogged down with minor syntax bugs.
The capstone project was an amazing experience and the closest thing you'll get to real world development experience while still in a relatively low pressure, educational environment. That being said, get ready to work like crazy and learn a ton. We all came away with pretty impressive pieces for our portfolios and I know of at least 5 people who got jobs based solely on the merit of their capstone projects.
The career team is awesome and if you haven't looked into Lambda Next, check it out. It's basically a continuation of Lambda school UNTIL YOU GET A JOB. None of this "We've fulfilled our responsibility, it's on you now" mentality which has driven higher education for so many years. These people take a lot of time to work with you, even when your out of the program, to try and find something that's the right fit for you.
If you can, try and save your money, move back in with your parents, whatever it takes to go back to school full time for the 6-8 months. If you can't swing that, maybe go for the part time, year long program which takes place nights and weekends. It's definitely worth it. I more than tripled my previous income and am entering into an exciting field where I'm truly valued as an employee.
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Ashwin
It works!
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Let me start by giving some background. I have been an accountant for over 4 years. I was always passionate about coding and web development. I have been trying to teach myself how to code for several years now by going through tutorials online, MOOCs, blog articles and what not - just like some of you reading this right now. I was determined to change my career and that's when I found Lambda. What I learned in the past 4 years, I learned all of that and more within just a couple of months into the curriculum. It is amazing how efficient and thorough you can be with all that guidance and structure. I have not graduated from Lambda and I have already landed my dream job as a developer. I have come to a realization that it is not about how much you know, it is about how well you know something. I'm happy to say that "IT WORKS". Whatever Lambda is doing, they are getting it right. I was overprepared for my job interview and at the job I only needed minimal amount of training before i was assigned projects. It is a wonderful feeling going into a job knowing that you are going to standout. Lambda is not just about getting you a job they are actually more concerned about you keeping the job or go higher. We learn not just about computers but also about how to conduct yourself at the workplace and more. Right from Day 1 you will know that everything you do is ultimately going to get you your dream job.
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Brandon Alexander
A Worthy Endeavor
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Lambda School was the most fun and challenging part of my academic career. Every day was a different puzzle that would unravel by days end and I would be better for it. Lambda taught me so many things that I use in my daily work life.
Lambda's curriculum as a whole is great in almost every aspect. I really enjoyed the teachers and the coursework. The only reason that I would call it 4 stars is that it was in flux during my time there. It has since grown to a now 30 week program which will be terrific for future students.
The job assistance is great. I had fun learning about how best to build emails, resumes, portfolios and a variety of other useful tools. I really enjoyed Lambda Next which is a program that was created to help you succeed in your job hunt post Lambda. The meetings really helped me focus on improving my public image with LinkedIn, AngelList, and my portfolio. Lambda Next is really useful if you put the work into it.
As a life experience this was one of the best. This school helped me to get a great job and an even better future. I would honestly recommend this to anyone who isn't afraid of hard work and is willing to dedicate themselves to it. It will amaze you how much more you will learn under guidance from good instructors. -
Kevin Jolley
A Story of Success
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As an avid reader of fictional novels and a writer of my own, I've found something rather interesting. A great story follows the growth of the character; we laugh as they do, weep when they fall to the ground, then cheer when they get back up and push ahead - clearing all the obstacles in their path as they achieve monumental success. I never would have thought that this fictional arc would come to pass in my own life as well.
I came to Lambda School with nothing to offer. I was living with relatives working a 9-5 minimum wage job, with absolutely no programming experience to speak of. I took the assessment, got accepted, and started classwork on February 4th of 2018. I showed up to class that morning with a burning passion to learn, a massive sense of imposter syndrome, and a hot cup of coffee.
The first few weeks were hard, I hit the ground running and fell flat on my face. What was I thinking? I didn't have any programming experience, there was no way I was going to keep up with the rest of the class. I voiced this to my Teaching Assitant; he helped me up, brushed the dirt off my shirt, put my head on straight again and pushed my right back into the gauntlet. I hit the ground a few more times, but he was always there to catch me and throw me back in. After the first couple of weeks, I was keeping pace without breaking a sweat. The curriculum was getting harder, but I was getting faster and things were beginning to click for me.
Fast forwards 26 weeks, I graduated in August as part of CS8 - that passion I started with burning bright as ever after being used to construct the foundation on which I now stand. I walked through the hypothetical doors of success with my head held high, my confidence soaring, and a bright smile on my face as I plowed directly into a solid brick wall - aka the job market.
This is where things really shined for me, and it's part of the reason I am so passionate about Lambda School. They tell you about this monster when you're in school, the instructors give whole Q&A sessions where they talk about their first jobs - they were not joking when they said it was hard.
We were given access to an incredible resource in the form of Career Coaches - passionate and very experienced people with the soul purpose of helping you find a job with your new skillset. A mock interview and a quick resume building session later, I was eager and ready to go.
Now, as you'd expect from the average bootcamp, I was allowed to jump in head first even after being warned how cold the water is. Trust me, it's very cold. As I pulled myself from those frigid depths, I was greeted by none other than my Career Coach - towel and a warm cup of "Let's get you back out there" in hand.
The next month was trying; I felt my confidence fading, imposter syndrome setting in, but I never once felt helpless or alone. If I had a question, I could reach out to anyone in the school - instructors, career coaches, even Austen (the CEO). They answered any questions I had without hesistation, offered comforting words of support, and with the instructors - they answered my questions as if I was still one of their students. Try going back to your University and asking your instructor about a problem you're having in a personal project.. On their day off no less!
Fast forwards again to the current time, December of 2018. It's been exactly 1 year since I found out about Lambda, 10 months since I started my life as a programmer, and 4 months since I graduated. I haven't paid Lambda a dime of my money, and yet they have been unwavering in their passion to help me succeed.
I accepted an offer this week making more than I've ever made in my entire life, working as a Software Engineer for a company that I would otherwise not have known about, doing meaningful work that will be enjoyed by millions of people around the world for years to come.
Looking back on everything that I've been through in the past 12 months, I just smile. For the first time in my entire life, I have a niche, I have a very valuable skillset, and I get to wake up every morning excited because I get paid to be a programmer.
If you're on the fence, take my story and put yourself in my shoes. Everyone learns differently, and this might just be what you need to succeed. Don't think about what you have to lose, think of all that you have to gain and success will find you.
With humble beginnings come the greatest endings. This is my story.
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Eric Hechavarria
Lambda School is Fantastic
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When I first found Lambda School, I thought it was too good to be true. You hear this a lot because really, it seems too good to be true. The financing through an Income Share Agreement (ISA) puts all the risk on the school and none on the student. The people at Lambda genuinely do care about your success. The school was founded with an altruistic heart, but the ISA ensures that this always remains the case. Lambda only succeeds if you succeed. And for me, they lived up to their promise.
The curriculum is tough, for sure, but it has to be. It's nothing people can't handle, but it does require a lot of time, consistent dedication, hard work, and a balanced lifestyle. Every week, when Lambda surveyed how my week went (because they really care about making improvements and becoming the best school possible), I always answered the last question the same: How likely are you to recommend Lambda School to a friend? 10/10.
When I finished Lambda School, the team there did everything in their power to help get me hired. They worked with hiring partners, they coached me on how to apply to jobs successfully, they encouraged me to stay active as a developer and keep learning, they warned me about the pitfalls, the provided opportunities for mock interviews, the list goes on. In just under two months, I was hired making six-figures at an amazing place. I couldn't ask for more. I'm deeply grateful to everyone there. All of the staff treated me with deep kindness, and I made meaningful friendships along the way.
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John Correia
Lambda School Review
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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 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.
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Logan Wright
What on Earth Just Happened to My Life
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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, 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. -
Moises C. Dobarganes
Lambda: Education done right!
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 code reviews, and pair programming sessions.
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Pat Collins
well worth it
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The course i intense but becuse they are teaching you technologies (javascript, react and much more) that carefully help you to manage the moving parts of complex applications , you are up and running and creating maintainable apps much faster than traditional java or C# apps.
The online tutors are friendly, competent, knowledgeable and willing you to suceed . They use slack zoom and github to teach and interact. you projects are submitted and evaluated on github. They listen carefully to student feedback.
I'm so glad i did this course. -
Xiaoping Li
Lambda School Alumni
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I used to work in clincial filed, when I decided to become a web developer, I did lots of research about bootcamps. Most of these programs are 12 weeks, with 9 weeks classes and last 2 to 3 weeks for career. I had 0 knowledge about CS when I made my decision, so I want to find a program that could teach me more about CS fundamental besides the web development techs. I found the Lambda School, and checked reviews for Lambda. There are 3 reasons why I chose Lambda:
1. 6 Months CS fundamental and web development
2. teachers care students (got this info from reviews before final decision, It is ture!!!)
3. Online classes. No need to waste time for cummute.
Lambda School has the best teachers!!! As a student, I learned from their lectures, I did my homework, and I am also benefit from code challenges, brown bags from Lambda School. I started from 0, but now I can create an App from scratch to deploy on heroku.
If you want to make big change to your life and want to be a software engineer, you should start making plan from applying Lambda...
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Michael Dennis
When you need to touch up your skills!
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Often in the software development and engineering field, I have found it important to find resources that allow me to become a better developer. I have often looked for the right education platform that worked at the pace I do. High volume is important to retention, the more you do it the more you learn, at least that is what I believe. Lambda School goes through an intense course of learning that even an experienced developer can appreciate. It take many years to get great, Lambda School can help you push your limits and teach you the skills you will need to know to be able to develop efficient well thought out applications using some of today's more popular languages and frameworks.
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Mark Oliver
great school
Greate teachers and students, as students we all help each other.
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Jiovan Melendez
Computer Science Academy > Dev Bootcamp
Lambda has its perks:
- $0 to start
- Take classes from anywhere
- Learn from elite instructors
For me, the last point was most important. I wanted to learn the equivalent of the four semesters in a quality computer science undergrad program in just two semesters. Lambda provided that for me and has opened many doors for me in my career.
5 stars!
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RonaldG
Opportunity meets skill
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The fact that Lambda presents an opportunity to people who other wise would not have this type of option says a lot for what type of company it is. There is no hidden rules, hidden fees, "whats the catches" or anything of that sort. It is pure opportunity. If you want to be a better programmer they will make that happen. With anything else in life it is still about how much you put in. There is no magic wand to automatically make you amazing at development. but there is a school with instructors who spend an insane amount of hours to make it as easy as possible for you. I have gotten quite a few job offers and they started coming well before I graduated as I have not even graduated yet. The full stack side is amazing and throws you in the deep end but also throws you a float to make sure you don't drown. The instructors are amazing and it is literally the best thing I have done. I am able to talk to anyone with questions or etc about the school.
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Teri Wilkins
Dropped out of another bootcamp to attend Lambda. So glad I did
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OK, so I don't want this to just be a rant and rave about the other bootcamp I attended (and paid $10,000 for), but Lambda School was seriously 1,000,000 times better.
The instructors were experts and very approachable. In the other program I couldn't even talk to instructors.Luis was awesome, Ryan was helpful, Sean was great if not a little standoffish, and Beej and Aaron are clearly incredibly smart.
I had help instantly whenever I needed it.
The curriculum was hard, but much more in depth.
When I talk to students form other bootcamps I'm blown away by how little they know compared to how much Lambda School students do. Maybe it's that other bootcamps are all that bad, maybe it's that Lambda School's extra time and curriculum makes a huge difference, but I see Lambda School students graduating and getting jobs within days.
It's not perfect, of course, there were some communication issues around scheduling, but all in all it was a phenomenal experience, and one that I can't recommend enough.
As for my job search, I got a couple of offers quickly, but I'm still on the lookout, because I didn't love either of those comapnies. -
Angelia
Review
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I took the web development mini-bootcamp and the part time full stack web development course. It was tough in the beginning but I was highly motivated by the end of the course. It was the first time I worked so hard and invested time and money. But, it was all worth in the end. The teachers were always available to me, and really supportive throughout the process. I had a great time going through the course.
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Ethan Robinson
Decent Experience
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I didn’t have any experience in programming or advanced computing whatsoever. And, my sole intention in joining lambdaschool was to become a programmer and get a job. I did not research anything about the bootcamps, and joined lambdaschool because it was online and cost effective.
Now, I am glad that I joined lambdaschool but I immediately regretted after the first class. It was way too fast for me. And, I think almost all of the coding bootcamps are paced like that to cover everything in three months. Anyone who has no background in programming is going to have hard time going into these courses, and lambdaschool is no different. Don’t be afraid to ask, instructors are amazing. They will answer anything and repeat any time you want.
I eventually caught up, but I had to work a lot to barely catch up. But, I am glad that I was able to catch up and thankful for wonderful instructors who helped me, and Austen for the support.
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Boomer
Pick the "RIGHT" bootcamp
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I have been an anti-bootcamp person for a while. (I have a fair share of friends that have taken them and came out not much better than they went in). I was doing the normal FCC/Udemy courses and just not making it anywhere. Have a problem? Go google it and have a sparatic understanding of the question or get little to no answer at all and just randomly copy and past stackoverflow posts until your tests pass or code does what you want. This is the overwhelming issue with self learning or these "pre recorded" video courses wether they are on Udemy, MOOC's, Udacity and even some of the expensive online bootcamps are just recordings being played back for you.
Then comes Lambda School, I took their free mini javascript bootcamp and was pretty impressed with the content. Then they let us know about the upcoming Bootcamp and I was kind of interested and kind of not cuz it's still a relatively expensive bootcamp (I took the PT bootcamp as I have a full time job) but figured i'd fill out the form and see what they said/emailed/talked about. Got a phone call from Austen and it wasn't just "Hey, do you have X amount of money??. You do? Awesome you are in the bootcamp". We talked and he asked why I was interested, what my previous experience was, how the mini camp series was. They actually made sure I was a good fit for the bootcamp they aren't just cashing checks and spitting students through the course. I signed up and they gave me pre course work to be ready for the course 3 weeks later.
I took the PT bootcamp so it was mon - thur 6pm - 9pm and sat 9am - 6pm I only bring this in because when i'm talking about what was being taught at the different stages it will vary if you do the FT or PT stuff.
Now I have no personal experience with any other bootcamp but from what my friends have told me/complained about with other bootcamps I knew I made a good choice right out of the gates. We started with Data Structures, Hash Tables, Linked Lists, Graphs, Binary Trees and lookups. Now this was tough and really challenged my brain but these were things that my friends were being asked about in their interviews and had no knowledge of from their $15k bootcamps. Immediately i'm thinking awesome this is a great start. Then we start ramping up and going over how to use these data structures, manipulate and do various other things that we will need through out the course. The other amazing thing was there were coding challanges at the beginning of every class. Really helped to drive home the ideas from the first week (as you can't learn all of that stuff and remember it from just a week or 2). Then we go over React and the basics, followed with Routing and then we dive into Redux and Redux-thunk. Now this in my opinion was almost worth the whole admission amount in and of itself. I could not wrap my head around Redux or Redux-thunk. I have had this same problem before and no course, article or anything else really cleared it up for me. Since these are live classes not pre recorded I DM'd Ben and we got on a google hangout and we took 15 mins, LITERALLY 15 mins and I was able to ask direct questions and get direct answer and I was able to wrap my head around how to layout the actions, reducers and store which was HUGE. Not waisting a day or 2 trying to tie multiple articles together to try and usually only gain an entry level understanding if that, was SOOOOOO amazing and SOOOOO worth it to just ask and be taught. Along the way we were building a front end project with React to connect all of the pieces together.
Then we jumped over to node and the backend. This again was a super huge benefit to have Ben the instructor right there and he even had some guest instructors teaching stuff which was awesome too (usually people in the field). A decent amount of those guest speakers are not instructors with Ben so you will get that benefit along the way. There isn't a whole lot for me to go in here but it was awesome to build backend servers with node, express, mongoDB and mySQL. Along the way we continued to build a backend server and keep on building through out the weeks we were learning this. After we had a lot of GET/POST requests working and doing various things for us we went over how authentication works. Encrypting passwords and the right way to store the encryptions (not the passwords) and how to check if someone was authenticated and provide limited access depending on that, which we used web tokens to keep track.
The last month for us was putting all of the previous stuff together to see how you put the front end and back end together (which this again was another HUGE mind blown situation). All of the other courses I have seen or taken were either FE (react/angular/vue) or the BE (node, express, templating language) and I never understood how the pieces fit together and that opened my eyes SOOO much. After that you will never look at site the same again! This time was really really cool cuz we were doing out own thing with minimal instruction (compared to the rest of the courses) or Ben would do a video, let us know what it was gonna be about then let us choose to watch or not. This was awesome because the instructor was available for more one on one time and helping along the way.
Also for what it's worth I interviewed and received an offer 2 days after the course end while I was back home. I was able to negioate an above average salary for both that area and the area I actually live in. The fact that I could speak to CS style questions (hash tables, binary searches, linked lists and things like that) put me according to the interviewer "above the other people interviewing" and allowed me to negotiate a higher salary.
Here is the big thing, can you learn the same things and end up with the same salary as I was offered for free?? Yes you can but I have been trying for a 1.5 with FCC and various other courses and NEVER got close, let alone the CS stuff that is really hard to wrap your head around. The money spent was the best investment in myself I have ever made. I got direct access to the instructor during the lectures, a direct path to learning, a great bunch of class mates and an environment mean to help you learn. Lambda School has free options know which make this an even BETTER option if you are willing to apply yourself and work with the team at Lambda School.
I hope this was helpful and if you are serious about becoming a "developer" I think this is a great option as the knowledge taught will put you more on the software developer side of things which in most areas equates to better pay/options.
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Anonymous
Most difficult thing I've ever done.... and TOTALLY worth it
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I started this bootcamp as a senior business data analyst making $109,000, and graduated as a senior software developer making $140,400. It was the most difficult and best investment I've ever made in myself. My background and skillset before starting the program was in data analytics, data engineering and data science. I chose to complete this course because I wanted to gain the skills and acumen needed to deliver end to end, data-driven applications. This was definitely the right place to go - cheaper than a 4 year degree, and with more hands on practice. I also really enjoyed the the pace - since you only have 18 months to complete the course, there is slight pressure to move quickly, but not too much that you can't slow down and self-pace when you need to. Since I was working full time during the course, I was only able to complete lectures and classwork on the weekends - and I mean ALL weekend. Literally all I did for 12 months on Saturdays and Sundays was code from morning to evening. The curriculum is project-based, so you are ALWAYS hands on coding. I loved it because I felt it helped me learn new concepts at a very rapid pace. My learning assistant and career coaches were super responsive and supportive, my classmates were collaborative, and not only did I gain a software development skillset, but I am now a better data engineer.
A note on tuition - I got a little creative to pay for mine. I found credit cards with high cash back rewards, and used them to pay tuition in 3 upfront installments (because I really didn't want to pay the high loan interest), then paid back the credit cards. Doing it this way saved me about $3,000 on tuition, and boosted my credit score. I would highly recommend if you can swing it.
If you are considering this course - be prepared that you will not be handheld, and there will be very difficult moments, but it is 100% worth it.
Just remember to breathe, and believe in yourself.
You can do hard things. Best of luck!
Thank you BloomTech!
PS - this is not a sponsored review haha. I just had a really great experience. -
Anonymous
BEST COURSES OUT THERE
They have the best courses on the market to help you change your career. If you want to gain the right knowledge for the right career here it is. But I love this online school it’s the best -
Anonymous
Very Hard - take your time if you can
I made it through. I was a part-time evening student, I was working on an assembly line during the day (Lost 30 lbs- not an easy job). I was given a lot of extra chances, extra help, and eventually made it through. I held myself back when I wasn't sure how to deal with certain concepts (redux). You have to put in the reps. But I did make it. I did get a better job!