Bloom Institute of Technology

Before you continue reading I must state that one should be suspicious of the predominantly positive ratings about Lambda School on this platform because it is biased towards individuals asked to complete reviews after finding employment.  People who have bad experiences may not even bother finding review sites like these and posting on them.  Also, I can assure you that the signals of the internal level of satisfaction with Lambda from students (based on comments by students within the platform on Slack suggest a significantly lower true approval rating).

About a year ago a Lambda graduate wrote a reddit post that criticized Lambda School (henceforth "Lambda") for:

• cohort size
• inflating positive PR by encouraging students to say good things about LS on social media platforms
• not having a proven track record (due to the Lambda's relative youth compared to, e.g., App Academy)

This post was followed by a comment that said the real problem was:

• Negative students stirring up trouble
• Over-reliance on a "teaching you how to learn" Motto

This is by no means the only reddit post that says less than pleasant things about Lambda, but it's likely the top one if one Googles something like "should I join lambda school?". I won't agree or disagree with any of the statements in that linked post, but I think it forms a useful backdrop for my critique of the Lambda School Data Science program. The purpose of my post is to offer a review of Lambda School that is 1) specific to the Data Science program and 2) not constricted within the heavily-curated official Lambda subreddit. When I wanted to join the Lambda DS program, there were very few useful reviews (most were web-dev-centric), so I hope I can help others who are researching the program.---------------------------- Last year around this time Udacity did a major overhaul to its pricing structure that made it no longer an affordable option for me to use to pursue a career in data science (DS). I went on a google search to find cheaper alternatives and I found a reddit post about the Udacity price hike in which one of the commenters said something to the effect that Udacity's new pricing would make schools like Lambda more popular for career training. I Googled "Lambda School" and was sold on the length of the program, the topics covered, and the income share agreement (ISA) that would allow me to defer tuition costs until after I found a job paying $50,000 or more in a relevant tech field.I considered the length of the program (7-9 months) good because I personally would be more convinced about someone saying they obtained a certain skill set from a 7-9 month program than from a 3-month program (which is a common time period for many bootcamps). I liked that the program would spend a lot of time on statistics (4 weeks) instead of only introducing it as part of the EDA on an otherwise Machine-learning focused curriculum. I don't have any links to post you may see a lot of complaining online about DS education not being stats-focused. I appreciated the attempt at spending more time on the subject. Lastly, the ISA meant I went from allocating a budget for a lower-cost version of Udacity to a free-for-now (deferred cost) program, which allowed me to use that money to pay off my apartment lease for one year. This was advantageous since fulltime Lambda programs are time intensive (11 to 7 EST, in theory, but 11-9pm EST in reality)--so not not much time to earn an income (few jobs would be down for working around a schedule like that anyway, FME).Good things about the Lambda Data Science Program:

1. The Slack-based Learning Platform: Lambda school has a student dashboard webpage that may have been made to be the source of knowledge/information, but everything really goes down in the Slack app. While the instructor is teaching via Zoom, you can ask questions on Slack that can be answered by the instructor (more on this later) or answered by other students. Questions and comments are then visible and can be pinned to the Slack Channel for future reference. For anyone who has experienced the asynchronous "discussion board" layout of many online learning institutions (I have), knows the value of a synchronous learning environment. A good instructor will make excellent use of the to ability communicate with students while teaching by asking and answering questions, creating polls (including anonymous ones), and interacting positively by liking/adding emojis to certain comments. The emoji thing may seem trivial but the more interaction the better and an approval signals to others what is the "best answer".
2. The chance to interact with people who are in different stages oflearningandemployment. A Lambda Student will be assigned to a group with is led by a team lead (TL) who is former Lambda student who is still on the job hunt. They are not DS experts yet, but they have the potential to provide useful perspectives and even learn more themselves (as a lot can be learned by teaching). As a lambda DS student, you will also have access to Slack channels where students in other cohorts (ahead of and behind your own cohort) discuss various DS-related topics. Students who secure employment can remain active in communal Slack channels after securing employment.

Also, you can actually talk to real Data Scientist during weekly "Brown Bag" Lunch presentations from guest experts. I personally never had time to attend a "Brown bag" session (and I don't see how a serious student could have such time, but the brown bags do exist).I suppose all of 2) still ties into the fact that Slack is used as the main hub for Lambda school and so one can avail of all the features Slack offers.3. The openness of administration to conversations about improvements to Lambda. There is a particular Slack Channel called "announcements" in which a new change/service is announced, and students can respond to it in a related channel called "announcement threads". An outsider would be shocked at the kinds of conversations that happen here in which students to varying levels of zeal, express how they feel about an actual or potential change. Administrators are exposed to a level of criticism that one can't help sympathize with but a lot is learned in the process. Also students (including grad) can and will offer criticism about specifically the DS curriculum in relevant slack channels. They are often a fun read after getting through a day of hard work.So far so good, right? Ready to enroll? Not so fast...Bad things about the Lambda Data Science Program:One might note that the benefits of Slack are more or less independent of Lambda School's educational quality. Meaning, putting a bad driver in a Lamborghini doesn't make them a good driver, but they will have more options and might be more motivated to learn to become a good driver (why let such a good vehicle go to waste?)

1. Admissions: It becomes apparent very quickly that not all students completed or understood the assignments that are supposed to be completed prior to being accepted into a cohort. I won't delve too heavily into this subject because such criticism about Lambda are echoed elsewhere. I do want to clarify, however, that my issue with whether or not a student was "smart" enough to be a part of the program. Instead, my issue is with, how at the very beginning, they did not demonstrate level of effort needed to be part of an intensive educational program. I don't care if they have to complete the precourse work five times, make them do it until they pass, and it can be certain that someone who constantly failed the precourse work, but stuck through it
2. Poorly evaluating students who in the program: Once students are in the program, they still are susceptible to being passed through even if their understanding is low or work is mediocre. The problems with this is the same as those mentioned in 1)
3. Confusing "Expert" with "Teacher"

The Lambda DS program, at the time of this post, has an energetic, interactive teacher, Ryan A., who teaches Unit 1. He makes full use of the synchronous learning environment that slack provides. Ryan stays on topic (or keeps his tangents short), constantly asks questions to check for understanding, creates comprehensive end-of-week exams that are sufficiently more difficult than the daily assignments (so you're not just copying and pasting and editing), and consistently makes himself available to video conference Q&A sessions during the time allotted for completing the daily assignment. It's true that he's a data scientist, but through either talent or effort has confirmed that he is a teacher as well.I won't bother calling out any names about the teachers that proceed Ryan A., but I can promise you that the learning experience after Ryan is a downhill tumble stemming mostly from the fact that there doesn't seem to be any standardized protocols or metrics for judging how well a teacher has performed except for feedback forms on which, one a week, ask you to rate your instructor and leave a comment if you wish.You will see a lot talk about how the CS section of Lambda school kills off a lot of students...many students attribute the problem to the curriculum. I can't speak for the other programs but the CS section the DS program (unit 3) doesn't have a curriculum problem, it has a teacher problem. I have no doubt the teacher in question has a CV that qualifies him for the role of "data scientist", but his level of interaction with students, ability to seek out gaps in understanding, ability to organize his allotted instructional time, eagerness to interact with students after class, ability to multitask (by looking at both slack and text editor, ability to live code instead of editing pre-coded material, ability to explain his steps as he does, ability handle criticism, are all LOW. This is the simple truth.The main point, even if it is against common belief, is that it is better to have a person with mediocre domain expertise who is a good teacher than an "expert" who is a poor teacher if the chief goal of an institution is to provide others with an education (think about a manager who "knows everything" but is despised...how effective could she/he be?) . Otherwise, you might find leaning too heavily upon pedagogical philosophies of "learning how to learn" when signs point to a lack of understanding among the students/customers who are banking their future incomes on the quality of your education.----------------------

Today, I quit the DS program even though I had passed all previous assignments and could easily be in the 85% percentile of my cohort in terms of understanding the material. I personally have no patience for a consistently poor learning experience and unfortunately Lambda has its DS program setup such that the same instructors teach the same units. So, at the moment, students will continue to enter the program with a false sense of how their learning experience will continue due to either a coincidental or clever decision to make the best teacher the teacher for unit 1. I say "clever" because if you don't withdraw from Lambda within 4 weeks, you will still owe part of your future income to the company (and each unit is 4 weeks long).I think the potential for Lambda's DS program to garner a reputation that catches the eyes of employers is high. I speak, nevertheless, only of potential because at the moment there are some serious pedagogical concerns that need to be addressed. I might suggest something like peer training (where different teachers show how they would teach the same lesson, for example). Ideally, there would be 360 feedback (teacher to student, student to teacher, and teacher to teacher) but any attempt to be more vigilant of instructional quality would make the program not worth dropping out of. Until then, there current platform is easily replicable by those who want to also get into the DS Bootcamp industry (or those who are already in it). Recipe: Slack, Zoom, small group of instructors, and a team of administrators, and some venture capitalists. Emphasis on the Slack and Zoom.I hope others find this helpful and I trust Lambda will eventually improve its DS program. I like the CEO and the leader of the DS program (Aaron). They seem to have their hearts in the right place, but education first, guys.

I was highly skeptical with the program in the ads. It seemed too good to be true. After enough nagging from my friend who is a designer, I started to look deeper into it, and eventually applied.

I started classes in March of last year. I had just lost my house in my divorce. I was living with my grandma, sharing a room with my son. I started my classes on an old laptop I got from a pawn shop in my bed.

I was a single dad who woke up at 4am every day. I'd take my son to his early entry daycare so I could start work in the warehouse at 6. After we got home I had just enough time to cook dinner and put him to bed before class started, where I'd then sit for another 3 hours and take in something entirely new.

In November of the same year, I accepted a role as a software engineer for a university, doubling my wages. I bought my son and I another house. We got a new car. I can afford to put him in preschool instead of daycare. He has never been happier, and it really is all for him.

Everyone will tell you, it's hard. At no point is it ever not hard. Every other day you have to learn something new and apply it, in addition to every single thing you learned before. It nearly infinitely builds upon itself. But the Lambda staff is there for you every step of the way. Your peers want you to succeed as much as they want to succeed themselves. Lambda is not for the faint hearted or the weak. Lambda is for the strong, the gritty, the determined. Lambda is for the people who not only want to do better but those who need it. The unique tuition arrangement allows people to come in at their lowest, and completely turn their life around. I am forever grateful.

Lambda School was by far the best educational experience I've had to date. It's remote, but it doesn't feel like it because you are constantly live chatting with instructors, team leads, and other classmates. I was not familiar with programming going into Lambda School, and I came out with enough knowledge and project experience to have a signed offer before I completed the program--the caveat there, is that I worked as a team lead for Lambda for almost four months during the middle of my program. Working as a team lead solidified the concepts for me and was the best choice I made. I've been working in a salaried position for about 8 months now, and I am able to consistently contribute to my company's progress. If you succeed monetarily in a career after Lambda, the bill is not cheap, but it's great that it will be paid off after two years of employment. The instructors and classmates were incredibly helpful and impressive. My opinion is that if you know you want to be a developer and you want to get there relatively quick but at the same time take no shortcuts, there is no better option than Lambda School. The pedagogy is unmatched. And one last thing, when I left Lambda it was a different school than when I started, so be okay with rapid change because Lambda is very motivated to improve.

I accepted an offer! I have officially increased my salary over 3x! It still doesn’t feel real.

I used to make 30k a year and now I’ll be making over 100k! I have to say THANK YOU LAMBDA SCHOOL. THANK YOU from the deepest part of my heart. Without your vision, this wouldn’t have been possible. You’ve made a dream of mine a possibility. I was a first generation university graduate with a communications degree, and guess what? Never used it. Could be partly my fault, I wanted to make sure to “go to college,” right?   But it wasn’t until a few years later that I discovered programming and fell in love and wanted to pursue it. But after my experience with loans and not being guaranteed a job afterwords put fear in my mind. What if I couldn’t do this thing I loved? What if I invested all this money on something that wasn’t going to pay back?   Lambda School allowed me to pursue this dream without fear of losing my investment. It’s like they decided to take the bullet in me potentially failing. But that’s it, they did not give up on me. There was definitely a point where I was going to give up, but Lambda School's Student Success was there. They consulted and calmed me down as if I were speaking to dear old friends.

Be aware though, when they say it's a full time commitment from 8-5, it's no joke. But there is a reason for it all! Literally everything they taught us, from the programming language to what happens in the work environment, Lambda puts you through. It's funny have Sprints, retros, stand ups, code reviews, and an agile work environement that lambda just intergrates to the program. It was honestly the best decision of my life. 

P.S. If you feel like you're going to give up, do not. You can do. Literally not giving up is all you have to do. Trust!

Like many others, I've researched a lot of code schools for cost and remote options. I've looked over hundreds of reviews, youtube videos, articles and it was really difficult to choose. I actually was accepted into General Assembly and two others before I even thought about Lambda. I had a friend who graduated from there tell me that it was the best option to get me where I wanted to be so I declined the other schools and applied for Lambda. I'm going to split this in this sections in case there are parts of it that people are interested in hearing about specifically.

The Instructors and team leads.
I can't say enough great things about the instructors. These are not just professionals in their fields, they're also caring people that love seeing their students succeed and enjoy talking about tech outside of just the lectures. They had some of the best instructors I've ever had and were able to break down extremely difficult concepts to an understandable, easy to follow format. The TL's are half and half I think in this category. I've had some that inspired me and really went out of their way to help every student without giving away too much and I've had some that would just disappear and only wanted to collect a paycheck. I'd love it if Lambda could tighten down on their selections of TL's or replace the ones that don't want to do the work. (I'm a TL myself in the evenings).

The Material.
Lambda has put together what they call the "training kit" for students to review before a lecture. A lot of it is a walk through with some small project that you can follow to get yourself ahead of the material that is about to be covered for the day. This includes articles that are linked for people that want to learn more in order to understand how something truly works and videos that you can watch in case you can't read long written material. This also serves as a reference to go back to throughout the day as you're going over your project for the day or during the end of the week sprint challenges.

The Lectures.
The lectures start as you would expect with a "Zoom" link dropped in the cohort channel and the instructor kicking it off. Depending on the subject I've seen anything from an instructor breaking out a white board to help visualize difficult concepts in an interactive manner to opening up code pen and even getting history lessons. A lot of the times you'll have a questions thread that the instructor will keep an eye on as they go through the lectures and they'll let you know if they want you to follow along, wait until they finish coding to write things down, or just wait until the end of the lecture to see what they've done. The lectures are recorded and posted later on after they've been processed so that you can come back to them in case you missed something or needed to revisit something the instructor said.

The Projects.
When I first started Lambda, they only had "Project week" which was a generic project that everyone all did that was only for the sake of making sure you could do the things you were taught for that module. This has since been changed for "build week" which is a team based full stack project where you'll be responsible for doing work based on the sections that you just studied. The projects are unique from each other and extremely interesting. This teaches you about git in a team environment, communication and how to establish a proper team agile work flow. You'll generally do about 5 of these build week projects in your time at Lambda so you'll be leaving with 5 projects plus a labs project. Labs is much bigger scaled version of build week where you'll be taught about staging and test environments as well as project management skills and dive deeper into AGILE. So that is 6 full stack applications by the time you leave Lambda.

The Job assistance.
This has evolved many times through my time at Lambda and all for the better. Lambda provides students that complete labs a career coach that will look over your linkedin, github, resume and portfolio. Once a career coach has cleared you as ready, you gain access to their list of hiring partners. They'll also try to put you in front of those hiring partners based on your preferences as well and are always looking for new programs to put grads into that will better their chances to get hired. I got my job through a pilot program that they put me in that got me in contact directly with companies that showed an interest in me so I didn't have to hunt them down and beat out other candidates just to get an interview. 

Pros
Knowledgable experts teaching the courses, evolving and improving curric, lots of unique fullstack projects done in a team to buff up your experience and portfolio, huge community of people that love to help each other, really caring staff. 

Cons
Through the nature of changing needs of hiring partners and technologies, a lot of things will change from the time you start to the time you finish the curric. This isn't really a con to say but being a part of the "first" to go through these changes can be a bit bumpy most times. CS portion feels extremely rushed and is a lot of information to fly through on a weekly basis, I gained more of a general exposure and overview of topics than an actual hard understanding through repetition of important algorithmic strategies. 

Attending Lambda School is the best decision I have ever made in my life. Their cirriculum is well organized and relevant to the skills companies are looking for today. Their careers team is the best in the business. They find students a lot of companies to interview for. I've got friends who have gone through other bootcamps and they don't have any career help at all.

Going through Lambda School helped me land a job at Amazon making way more than I thought I'd make for my first software engineering job. 

Lambda School changed my life. 

Before Lambda, I was a disgruntled college student that was really struggling with finding something that I loved doing that could also be a viable career option. I decided to learn to code, did some research on code schools, and finally made the decision to go ahead with Lambda.

I can't tell you how glad I am that I made that choice.

I've landed my dream job a month before I even completed the program. I literally couldn't draw it up better. Lambda School is a world-class organization filled with amazing people who will do everything they can to help you hit your goals and your dreams.

The staff is wonderful. Great admin, leadership is on-point, teachers are amazing, and the career/outcomes teams are incredible. I can't speak highly enough of the people of Lambda. They've done so much for me including referring me to companies, giving me feedback, helping me negotiate offers, helping curate a pathway to success, and helping me solve problems.

If you want a full-stack code school that will take you from zero to your dream job, this is the spot and these are the people. I'll look back on my life and see Lambda as a major inflection point and as one of the best decisions of my entire life. I literally can't think of anything bad to say about the school. Everything from curriculum to career support to culture is an A+.

If you're thinking about doing Lambda, you should do it. I couldn't give it a higher recommendation.

I can't even begin to explain how amazing my time at Lambda School has been. I came in to Lambda with 0 relevant CS work experience. I had been working as a welder for a hand full of years and I always knew that I wanted to find something that I actually LOVED. The curriculum is A+, the ISA is awesome, all of that is true, but the best part about Lambda is the COMMUNITY!! Theres ALWAYS someone on to help. Theres always a hand to pull you up. There are THOUSANDS of Lambda Students eager to do everything that they can to succeed, and being surrounded by that Is AMAZING.

 

Lambda isn't selling a dream. It's not unrealistic. But It takes SO MUCH HARD WORK. I've  dedicated every single day of the last 8-9 months to this program. And it worked. Two days before graduation, I received an offer for a Software Engineering position making multiple times more than I've ever made before. It just takes the hours.

 

Lambda dosn't just teach you. They don't just show you the skills/how to write a resume/how to set up your portfolio. They hustle WITH you. They teach you how to SELL YOURSELF.  As soon as you're "endorsed" (meaning lambda thinks you're ready to interview for jobs/you've met the criteria), you'll be given a FULL TEAM to help you get a job. They'll help set up interviews FOR you. They'll practice WITH you. All that is asked of you is that you bust your butt.

 

I'm 24, I had 0 relevant experience, 0 degree, and a million other reasons to say "no one will want to hire me". I would have been wrong to say that. Not only do I have a great job now, but Lambda set me up so well that I'M being reached out to for interviews. Employers want your skill set and your abilities. If you can work hard, you'll make it. They'll make sure of it.

Within 6 months of graduating from college and moving to the San Fransisco Bay Area, the place I was born and raised, I came to the dreaded realization that I wouldn't be able to support myself financially. I was working 50+ hour weeks in a career path that I was quickly losing interest in.                                   

*queue quarter life crisis*

Coming into my career change I had barely any programming experience. The most I knew about computers was that there was a thing called the "command line" where you could execute commands to the Operating System. I began self-studying after work for 6 months before realizing I was ready to take the plunge... but I needed help. I had just started learning React and it was destroying my mind. I needed the accountability to push through the hard parts (I'm looking at you CS curriculum).

I knew from college that I do well with remote/online classes. Plus the time saved from commuting to San Fransisco I got to spend working part-time. It was the instructors and administration staff that really sold me. They had excellent communication and answered all of my concerns right away. So I pulled the trigger on Lambda School, a new startup that had only 2 reviews here.

I won't speak too much about the curriculum, structure, or job assistance because the thing about Lambda School is that they are always improving. Honestly, some of my experience was a little rough around the edges, but as I went through the program and became a Project Manager for later cohorts Lambda iterated on itself and improved. Everyone there is committed to your success (the beauty of an ISA). There are multiple disciplines to study now, insanely strong career support, and multiple opportunities to make real-world projects with a team (just as you do on the job).

At the end of the day, Lambda School is not a miracle. It will be hard work, not only through the schooling itself, but in the many extra hours you will need to spend studying off of school time. Then there is the interview process, which is a whole beast in itself. And then a lifetime of learning to be had on the job. But if you are ready to dive in head first - to fast track yourself - Lambda School is the best and most painless way to do it. 

I decided that I wanted to pursue software engineering during my second semester of senior year in college (studying biomedical engineering), so I was learning web development during my free time while finishing up my degree. I was making good progress, but I wanted something more structured, as I found myself "getting lost in the rabbit hole" too many times. However, as a student with accumulated debt from the most expensive university in the nation and a family overseas, there weren't a lot of opportunities for me to consider. I had already turned down my return offer from the previous summer, as it just wasn't something that I wanted to do or saw myself happy with.

That's when I coincidentally learned about Lambda School, while browsing /r/learnprogramming. Like a normal person, it sounded way too good to be true... What was an ISA? How could Lambda afford to teach people before taking money? I was too familiar with the current education system, where students are overwhelmed, but forced to take out loans, so obviously Lambda's system sounded too good to be true. However, I saw that there was a free intro course, so I decided to take it to see what Lambda was all about. 

Long story short, I was accepted to Lambda School and was convinced with the curriculum after taking the introductory "bootcamp." I told my parents that I was joining this program, and they were heavily against it, thinking along the same lines that I did (that it was too good to be true, that it had to be a scam). However, once they realized the amount of work that I was putting into Lambda and also outside of Lambda, they slowly began to realize that maybe Lambda's system could work. Lambda taught me to become a software engineer, not just someone who knows how to use a particular technology, but someone who can take those concepts and apply it to any other technologies. Lambda taught me a lot of various topics, but most importantly, Lambda taught me to be a lifetime learner.

Lambda works, but to my own credit, I put in a lot of personal time outside of Lambda to be where I am today. I came to Lambda super hungry and I leave super hungry. I was fortunate enough to receive an offer before graduation, thanks to the help of my wonderful career coaches, so I'm not too familiar with how Lambda Next works, but I know that it's a great program with great instructors to help you on the interview journey.

All in all, I wanted to conclude that I am very grateful for the opportunity be a student at Lambda School, and look forward to the growth of Lambda in the upcoming years! Lambda truly changed my life, as I went from a recent graduate from college to a software engineer in 6 months.

Living in one of the world's most exspensive cities while making a minimum wage is not any easy thing to do, but that was the position I found myself in for the majority of my twenties. From fast food to grocery stores to Uber/Lyft, I found myself in a cycle of poverty that seemed impossible to break out of. After a series of unfortunate events towards the end of 2017, I found myself without a car, and out of a job. Fortunetly, this is when I started to notice ads for various coding bootcamps on my social media. Lambda School stood out to me because they said you didn't need a background in development or engineering, you just need a dedication to work hard. I believed them, and began to put in the work by Googling the basics of programming. A month later, I found myself accepted into the program, and two months after that I was starting my first day in class. 

Lambda's daily structure begins with a code challenge. These are designed to warm up your brain for the day and get you thinking the way a developer should. At the beginning of the course, these are relatively simple challenges, but the difficulty level is raised progressively as they course continues on. Next comes the lecture, two hours of  highly interactive learning, with instructors having amazingly productive discussions with students. If something doesn't make sense, just ask. After an hour break for lunch(during which there are typically brownbag presentations), students begin work on a project related to the day's lecture. The instructors make themselves as available as possible during this time to lend a helping hand or answer any questions you may have. At the end of the day, you and a group of 6-8 other student have a standup meeting with a PM to talk about what went well, or any concepts you might be having trouble with. 

As a student in the Full-Stack Web Development class, the curriculum began with the basics of HTML and CSS, then moved onto the fundamentals of JavaScript. All of this was already covered in a pre-course mini-bootcamp provided for free via Youtube that needed to be completed before the actual class began. This bootcamp has since evolved, and works differently than from when I went through it, so I cannot speak to how it currently works. After a month of these fundamentals, the course moves onto more practical frameworks that Lambda has chosen based on what they think will get you hired. My class learned about Node, React, Redux, Express, and MongoDB, among other things. During the time we were learning about these frameworks, we had two project weeks, the first one a front-end React project, the second one building an Express/MongoDB backend for the first project. After completing the full-stack portion, we moved on to Data Science, and switched gears by being introduced to Python. During this portion of the course, we learned about various data structures like trees and graphs, as well as algorithms such as stacks, queues, and multiple sorting algorithms. After a couple weeks, we switched gears again, and began learning C. During this time we learned about process scheduling and system architecture. We even built a web server from scratch. The culmination of the course was Lambda Labs, where students were assigned to a 4-5 person team, led by a Project Manager. We were provided a concept for an app, with wireframes and weekly milestones. Labs was meant to emulate the real-world environment of working at a tech company, and I believe it is successful, like everything else at Lambda.

Lambda does not end when a student completes their course. A newer addition to the school is Next, a program designed to keep graduates engaged while searching  for their new job. There is a Career Developement team that makes themselves readily available to any student who wishes to utilize the team's resources and help. The guidance provided during Next is just as important as learning the code. I am beyond grateful for everyone at Lambda who played a part in my success story. At the time of writing this, I have recently accepted a job offer, and will soon begin a trek across the country to start a new chapter in my life, all thanks to the opportunities Lambda School provided for me.

I started out as a FT Full Stack Web student and picked up a side job as a teaching assistant for a PT cohort a few months into the course so I've seen Lambda from two sides and the view is refreshing. I recently picked up a FT development job and will be completing the course as a PT student.

The first half of the curriculum is full stack web development split into front and backend. With only about 5 weeks for each, it's a firehose of information. In class and for projects, you work primarily with React / Redux / Node / Express + SQLITE3 for a database. You're also exposed to basic algorithmic challenges through code challenges and pair programming through peer reviews. By the end of the full stack curriculum, you should have built a full end-to-end complete application.

They've recently changed the curriculum so that students will immediately go into Lambda Labs after the FSW portion of the curriculum. This is a 5 week group project with weekly deadlines, check-ins, and presentations. The projects are fully spec'd out by staff members and I believe will soon be fully integrated with at least one other type of student like iOS/Android or Data Science. My labs experience was a bit rocky due to group dynamics, but overall positive.

Finally, the last part of the curriculum is computer science. I can't give much insight here as I have yet to take it, but you learn a bit of Python, a bit of C, and a smorgasbord of theoretical topics like data structures and algorithms, operating systems, computer architecture, etc. I'm really looking forward to getting into it.

On a personal note, I went through some hard times during Lambda. A few months in, I was in a serious car accident. With a concussion and several injuries to my spine, I was left in both a medical and financial bind and without a vehicle. I live in a very remote area, so I needed a car to get to a location with good enough internet to participate in Lambda each day, so I thought I would have to drop out. After a short discussion with one the staff members, the VP of Finance reached out to me to see what Lambda could do to help. I have never been driven to tears by someone's kindness before, but this was seriously so above and beyond anything that I would have imagined possible from just a school. Lambda is so much more than that and I will be forever grateful.

Lambda has not only taught me how to be an engineer, but has also refreshed my faith in human decency. I fully recommend Lambda to anyone that wants to learn to code and needs that extra push of an incredible community surrounding you. I will be thrilled to pay back my Lambda Income Share Agreement and plan to donate further once I'm rid of my other financial obligations. Austen and the team are changing the world and I'd love to be a part of that in any way I can.