BloomTech

I am presently enrolled in the Backend Development boot camp, and will very likely drop it. My progress through this program has admittedly been marred by a series of unrelated personal matters. However, neither divorce nor a heart attack slowed me down... Read More so much as the actual program itself. The refundable units are great. I'll start by saying that the quality doesn't diminish until you can't drop with a full refund. If you want to learn the basics of Java, then that part of the boot camp is high quality and well-developed. But then course quality completely falls off a cliff. The learning process is presented as a non-traditional inverted approach where the learner self-studies material instead of having a lecture, and then engages with a guided session instead of working alone. There are a few problems with this approach as Bloomtech implements it. First, the self-study material is overly wordy and at the same time, insufficient. Learners will waste time reading pages about material that could be covered in sentences while needed material is completely absent. For example, toolchain setup is not fully covered and this will convert guided sessions into a passive waste of time necessary to get full credit for attendance. The progress through material is at times challenging early on but always fun. And then it's neither. By the fourth unit after the full refund point, an entire week is spent covering disjoint topics where the only real instruction consists of memorizing four annotations. An introduction to databases is ham-fisted and clumsy, with a half-covered CLI adding mystique to fundamental material that should instead be fully understood. Due to the aforementioned personal matters, I attended a certain week three times and still cannot tell you how to set up half of the tools that were used that week. I didn't learn anything that week that I couldn't have figured out with a quick glance at an API reference. Bloomtech encourages students to have their cameras on during guided sessions, and then seems to hire a model to also be on camera. Consequently, you'll always feel ugly and uncomfortable when reviewing videos of guided sessions. Learners are encouraged to contact instructors with any questions, suggestions, or requests for assistance, and then entire policy and procedure changes make you feel unwelcome after you do. When I finally told staff that I was on the verge of dropping the course due to the poorly supported tech stack, the next day the entire means of contacting the instructor was changed to a public forum. Now if students don't understand something, they'll embarrass themselves among peers and future students by putting that lack of understanding on display. When I reached out to the academic advisor about this problem, I was told that it's assumed I was not putting enough time into the program. Well, yeah! How could I when the necessary tools aren't well enough supported to even use them?! That's the whole point I contacted him about! Furthermore, it's not an advertised part of the course design that you study for an hour before class, attend a guided session, sit around waiting for office hours, passively stand by waiting your turn during office hours, and then work on unit projects. That's an entire day for material that could be covered in two or three hours at most. It's simply neither dense enough in subject matter nor challenging enough to warrant the kind of time commitment Bloomtech demands, and that time is instead used up compensating for a lack of design and forethought. Bloomtech was Lambda, and it rebranded due to reviews so bad that many programming boot camp aggregators won't even list them. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, will likely end up in debt to them, and I have gained absolutely nothing in return beyond a reintroduction to elementary Java. I endured a heart attack at the start of my time in the program, and nobody even noticed. There was no change in my attendance or anything. I later had my family fall apart, and even then came back after a short break. My whole existence came apart at the seams and I was still ready to perform. But I couldn't overcome the poor design of the course material itself.

Mostly everyone who has submitted a negative review either does not understand the value prop from Lambda or did not commit fully to the expectations of the program. Yes it is a short amount of time to learn a lot of material, yes it is not the case that... Read More someone holds your hand 24/7 through the program, yes it is pricey when you're talking about a 6 month program (fulltime web 6 months). As someone who comes from a non-technical background and now works for a company making 6 figures (graduated 3 months ago), I can attest Lambda was a key driver in reaching a new point in my life and not because of the material but because of the mindset it encourages you to take. The instructors aren't wizards who will grant you knowledge just because you show up. The material isn't revolutionary or one of a kind by any means but it gives you a structure, or framework, to start learning and motivate you to seek more. If you told me a year ago that I would have to invest 30k in something to potentially earn 6 figures instead of a 60k salary in something I hated, I would have signed up years ago.

I write this 2 years after I "graduated" from Lambda School and have paid off my ISA. It has been an absolute persistent, nagging drain on my finances. I got a job shortly after joining Lambda School based on skills I learned on my own and through various... Read More other free and inexpensive courses. I found Lambda School's content to be very similar to the courses I took previously and found myself waiting for more advanced work but it only came in small doses at the end with the computer science section and only then it was so quick and I didn't get much out of it. I went into it thinking I'd really level up but but I can say 2 years later that I did not get anything out of the school that couldn't be learned for free elsewhere. I was hired for my relevancy and skills alone--as I was still enrolled when I got hired. I've paid $30,000 at this point and wish I had spent that money towards a computer science degree as I feel now no one will take me seriously saying I went to a "coding bootcamp". It feels utterly worthless to me. I wouldn't be so bitter if the financial commitment was the length of the program but 2 YEARS is just insane. Price your product for what it's worth! Also, it didn't help that some of the instructors were stumbling their way through the lectures having had only a few years experience themselves. I went into it thinking we've have true experts but was sorely disappointed. Really, the school is not that great and kinda scammy.

Looking back at my Lambda School experience, if given the option of redoing it...I wouldn't. The fact of the matter is between all of the free material available on YouTube, Free Code Camp and pay sites like Udemy, Pluralsight, LinkedIn Learning, etc.,... Read More IMO it simply doesn't make sense to shell out up to $30K for Lambda. You can get exactly the same level of education I would argue for less than $500. Let's dispel some of the myths. A lot of the resource material Lambda points students to is free on-line content. For instance, you'll be pointed to W3Schools, MDN Webdocs, Python.org, etc. There's nothing magical about their content. Many of the instructors teach for supplemental income. They too, are struggling developers trying to make a buck, but I can't fault them for that. Just don't think that you're getting world class, pillars of industry. In fact, many of them came from boot camps and have two or three years of scattered coding experience. Instructors are given a list of objectives to teach. It's up to them on how they want to teach it. In short, no uniformity. Students are pushed through the program with the end goal of passing "the GCA" (run a search for General Coding Assessment). This is a standardized test Lambda uses to pitch students to prospective employers. The mile high view of a day at Lambda. Before class you read a bunch of content (and perhaps watch a few videos) of the material the instructor will cover. Afterward have a two hour live video session with an instructor and that is followed by an assignment. After that you're left to your own devices. Get stuck? Post a question on the help channel and hope someone gets back to you. It's up to the students to make relationships with other students to get help and work on problems together. In the past students were put into teams, so you would from the get go have people to study with and reach out to. These teams would have Team Leads who you could reach out to and ask questions pretty much any time of the day. Not now. The ISA. Your Income Share Agreement will be managed by Leif.org. Expect to receive numerous emails asking for income updates. "Hello Frank, we haven't heard from you in 30 days. Please update us with your current income information". Honestly, this turns into a nagging Hell. A few other things worth noting. Before signing the ISA, have an attorney look it over. Yes, drop $300 to have the contract reviewed so you know exactly what you're getting in to. Lambda broadly defines software industry. So, let's say you got a job as a receptionist at Intuit after your Lambda experience. Intuit makes software, so technically you're working in the software industry or "space" as they define it, in spite of the fact you're not coding anything. You will likely have to pay (provided you're making $50K or more). And one last thing, because I think it's important to have access to as much information as possible, there is a class action law suit against Lambda School. You should be aware of this. The National Student Defense Legal Network is representing three students and, from doing my own research, they have received a lot of interest from other students who have filed complaints. Go to their website, read the documentation and consider this information before committing to Lambda. Just be sure you're seeing the big picture and make an informed decision.

No college degree, attended school from October 2019 to July 2020, first tech job started in October 2020, been there ever since. I make six figures, and the school helped me negotiate an extra 20k onto my salary. I had run a court transcription business... Read More for over a decade prior to that, still do a little bit on my off time, and so I hadn't looked for a job in over 15 years. They helped me extensively with the job search. I liked the classes; they were pretty fast paced. But while I was attending, I didn't just study what they told me to; I searched out job descriptions and studied what I thought would make me more valuable. You really do get out what you put in here; it's not just handed to you. Put yourself in uncomfortable situations, don't be afraid to make mistakes there, and soak in everything you can in terms of learning. They aren't telling you to do things just because; they're telling you what they're telling you because it works. At my current job, about half the stack is stuff I wasn't exposed to at all in school. My employer is very happy with me, and I love my job.

The recruiters said that no prior coding experience was required and that we would be taught what we needed know rather than having to teach ourselves. I became skeptical of both when I was doing the test to see if I could be admitted. Over half of the... Read More test was coding in python and the pre exam material was a written course on python pandas. I decided to reach out to a recruiter and point out the test to get accepted was programming in python. I told them that learning to program for data science was what I was going to lambda for, I asked if I were to get into lambda would I be signing up to pay up to $30k for what isn't anymore than basically watching YouTube videos (the instructors were live but with how fast they went and their tendency to go off topic meant in some cases a prerecorded youtube video) and reading instructable articles. The recruiter that was not the case, told me the definitely teach and don't have us teach ourselves, then waived my pre testvand accepted. Everything I was told by the recruiter was not true. Including what I said about instructors was accompanied by 5-6 hours trying to get the assignments right because the instructors didn't teach what the assignments were having us do, and between being told "read tge documentation" and "it was hard for me too" by the TAs getting help was excruciating. Not to mention that the assignments and test expected a pretty high level understanding of programming on there own from the get go, trying to fo them alone even though "no prior programming experience was required and you wouldn't need to be able to teach yourself" was impossible.

I completed Lambda and immediately started mentoring for Lambda X (post-graduate employment preparation program). Within two weeks, I was hired as a contracted junior front-end wed developer for a fortune 10 company. After a month at that company I was... Read More hired full time. Since then I have been promoted and work as a senior lead engineer. I now make more than double what I made in my last career and haven't looked back since. - Lambda is NOT a scam and is a real educational program that gives back whatever you put into it. It isn’t always easy but if stick to it and ask for help you too can get through it. - There is an amazing and vast community you have access to learn and grow together, even after graduation. - Lambda’s program is 100% designed like the real-world Agile framework (at least in my case). You are not only learning tech work at Lambda but also how to work in the tech industry. - There are so many Lambda “extras” as you can utilize like after-hours help, hack-a-tons, career mentors, Lambda X, etc. These are all offered to Lambda students at no extra cost and only help develop your technical and career skills. - Lastly, there is no money up front and the ISA agreement is completely reasonable for what you get out of the program. - You have to remember you are trying to cram an entire careers worth of knowledge into a few months. At times it's hard work. You have to treat the school like a full time job. For me it really was a full-time job. I had to quit my job and had no personally income during that time. If you are not willing or able to work whole heartedly throughout the entire program it may not be the best program for you or you may want to consider the part-time program. - You're career after Lambda is your responsibility. Lambda has countless opportunities, programs, groups, and mentors to help you after you graduate to help you find and land a job. But you have to put in the time and effort to get and nail those interviews. You have to take the career side just as seriously if not more than the school itself. Networking and out-reaching is essential and only you can do that for yourself. Lambda can't guarantee you open positions after graduation but they can prepare you for finding and obtaining those opportunities if you put in the work.

I started Lambda School in November 2020. This was right after they made the change to their Full Stack Web Development (FT) program from 9 months to 6 months. This school is designed to help you succeed. They genuinely care about your career success,... Read More and about your learning. They throw many different resources out at you to use, and lots of 'safety nets' if you don't get a concept the first time around. All of that said, you are still very much in charge of your learning, and if you want to succeed, you really need to put in the time that they expect you to. The full-time track is a FULL-TIME JOB! It should be treated as such if you want to succeed with Lambda School. Lambda school is very fast-paced and intense, but I've seen firsthand that people from very different career and personal backgrounds have found success with this program if they had put in the work. I've also seen the inverse, where people really dislike this program, yet they also just didn't put in as much work as some others! I have personally found nothing but an insurmountable amount of support and pointers for success in this school. The projects you get involved in prepare you for greatness and equip you with real-world experience that you can speak on in interviews. A Bootcamp/trade school can never be perfect and teach you everything you will need to know in your career, but I'd say Lambda School does an incredible job getting you to the correct point to begin your career, not stopping short at all.

Just don't bother. They give up on their students very quickly, if you have family emergencies come up? and need quite a bit of extra time off to handle them, and then request to start back a few months later, they'll tell you it's against their policy,... Read More and still hold you to the ISA agreement. Their student success team also never responds to students, or if they do, it'll be weeks later and just be two-four sentences in length, usually never answering the question that you actually asked. The CEO is full of crap and lies constantly in order to get his way, he's just a manipulator. This school IS NOT WORTH IT, take it from someone who went through the program, and who was a TL for them for a year before they got rid of it. It's absolutely not worth it. If you plan on using an ISA, look somewhere else, do not bother with Lambda. They are a failing bootcamp, they average like 2000 students currently right now, two years ago that number was probably close to double. They don't hold anyone accountable, don't waste your time and money here. I've seen them do too many people dirty.

I joined Lambda during the time when the pandemic first hit. I had virtually no background knowledge in tech, but Lambda assures that that no prior experience is needed. This is the part that is mostly false. Lambda is incredibly face-paced that you pretty... Read More much have should already have had some programming experience. Throughout my time at Lambda, I've seen them change many things about our curriculum, and it mostly seems to be more determintal to our learning than helpful. Here's my biggest beef with Lambda. They promise that they can "turn you into a web developer" in 6 months with no prior knowledge, but that isn't even close to reality. What they don't tell you is that you pretty much have to put in extra hours (on top of the 9-5pm schedule they have for you already) to learn things that go above and beyond what they teach. For example, they never even mention the word AWS while you're in the program, but after graduation, they somehow expect that you should already have known not only what it is, but how to utilize it. Same with Postgres, Docker, and other tools. They don't teach you enough. They teach you below the bare minimum, and they kid you into thinking that they're teaching you "enough". When you graduate, you'll quickly learn how underqualified you are for entry-level positions. Those entry-level positions will be asking that you have some experience in AWS, SQL, or even how to host a site. When you don't even know how to deploy a website, you'll start feeling like Lambda really ripped you off. Bottom line (TLDR): Lambda is not going to teach you all you need to know to become a web developer in 6-months. They'll teach you the absolute basics, and sometimes, they won't even teach it well. You'll graduate and realize just how grossly underprepared you are for even entry-level work. Those who find success are those who either already had prior experience or those who took the initiative to learn MORE than what Lambda taught. Those who probably knew where to look.