BloomTech

I found out about Lambda School from an ad on Facebook. What caught my eye was the no money down AND you didn't have to pay until you have a job paying at least 50k. I thought it was too good to be true because you see bootcamps or other institutions... Read More charging 20k-30k minimum to teach you CS and Web Dev. I also thought that there was some super specific criteria that you had to qualify for that would apply to me. Even still I filled out the application just because...who knows?


Two days later I get an email from the CEO Austen saying that I've been accepted and sent me a link to the pre-course work. I am beyond happy at this point because not only do I have a chance to learn specifically what I need to get in the field that I want to, but also I wont have to add to the debt that I already had from college.

I attended Lambda School while working full time which probably wasn't ideal, but I still did it because there were really no other options for me. I worked 10 hours a day so I didn't have time for college and if I didn't work, I couldn't support myself, so online was the way to go.

All of the instructors are amazing, but I think Ryan was my favorite. He teaches like his students are his children, and he is very passionate about what he teaches. 

Lambda School is different because its not just the teach you how to use a framework or a library, they teach you so that not only do you know how to use it, but also you know what is going on under the hood and teach you how to do it yourself. They also tell you why they are teaching you by giving real world scenarios and examples backing what we would see in the field.

One of the biggest things to me is that before your capstones, LS gives you the option of becoming a Project Manager for the cohorts behind you as an in house internship. This gives you experience managing other students and it reinforces what you learned when you went through the curriculum. Just seeing students go through what you did and then seeing them figure it out and get that same joy that you did after trying to figure something out after sometimes many hours of struggling with it, is one of the best feelings especially when they can count on you to help them out. It also shows me how far I’ve come. I went from not even knowing anything about Javascript, to knowing how to create pretty much anything I wanted and how to show someone else to do it as well.

10/10 would recommend

I graduated from college in a non-STEM field and decided that I did not want to keep job-seeking in my field of study. I had been programming as a hobby, and thought that it would be a great field in which to find a job. The problem was, that I had not... Read More been experienced enough to land my first job. I knew the basics of a couple languages, but I couldn't make anything complex. I decided that returning to college for a CS degree was not a financially feasible option, as I had already landed myself in a ton of debt from student loans. I also did not like the typical bootcamp structure because I did not feel that I would have a very solid foundation after just 12 weeks of instruction. I applied to Lambda School on a whim thinking I wouldn't get in. A few days later, I was talking to Austen Allred on the phone about my future career plans if I were to get accepted. I got an email saying that I'm accepted just a couple days after that. I immediately started the pre-course work, and boy, was it hard. I never touched JavaScript before that, so I was basically a beginner to that work. I ended up barely finishing it on time. If you do not complete the coursework, the entire rest of the course immediately builds on that from day one, and you will be miserable. I won't lie about the six months of work. It was very difficult, but, they design it that way on purpose to emulate a real world company that does not hold your hand through a complex bug. I struggled a lot, and sometimes I felt like I would surely fall behind. Thankfully, the instructors made a huge effort to allocate instructors' time to helping anyone who needed help. If it weren't for the extra help I received, it would have been significantly more difficult. While I am glad that I did it, it is definitely not for everyone. If you plan on being a passive learner, your likelihood of success is going to be very low. It is important to dedicate a MINIMUM of 40 hours/week to be successful in this program, and many students spend nights/weekends to surpass the requirements just because they are curious or they want to build things for themselves. Before I attended, I had never heard of version-control or deployment, and now I have been a part of several full stack projects, including a capstone. It has been a great experience. After graduating, I was added to a large job search network with many hiring partners. I highly recommend this school to those who are willing to dedicate 6 months to hard work, and you will come out on the other end with the skills to land a position in software development.

Lambda School, for me, was one of those “being at right place at the right time” opportunities. I was in limbo between jobs and going back to school after obtaining a few associate degrees and doing nothing with them. I had decided to resume my pursuit... Read More of a computer science degree and began taking courses at a local college. After realizing it would take 2 years to finish and an insane commute to the main campus without relocation, it almost seemed unrealistic with my financial position.

Then I ran into a talk on HackerNews with Austen talking about a thing called Lambda School. The Income Agreement Plan was exactly what I needed in my situation. It all seemed too perfect.

Not having a tremendous amount of coding experience, I decided to try out the one-week boot camp on JavaScript as well as a Web Development Bootcamp they had on their website for free. Keep in mind these boot camps offer more information and knowledge than you would receive at most 1-2 month boot camps. It was an amazing introduction.

So now I’m 4 months into the Full-Time Web Development course, and gotta say it’s the most intense 4 months of anything I’ve ever done. Every topic builds on each other being able to add to personal project applications as you learn to implement and cement the knowledge gained. All the way to deployment! The live lectures are fully interactive with amazingly smart instructors who know their stuff and fully and willing to help you until you feel comfortable with the content. The curriculum is fast-paced but on point. As they tell you, in the beginning, be where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there, missing a day is like missing a half a week in college. You better invest in yourself as much as they invest in you. But if you do fall behind they will fully work with you to make sure neither of your time is wasted.

One of the coolest parts of the program in comparison to another higher education establishment is the flexibility they proved in their syllabus. For instance, enough people wanted have python be apart of the course and bam! Lambda provides. They are always up to date with the latest technologies and ensures that we are right with the industry. Which you probably won’t find at a university considering their curriculums are set in stone in many ways and take forever for a change to happen.

I’ve also made a ton of friends in this program and there are more than enough interesting people with all types of backgrounds.

They also provide a cool thing called brownbags, which is a section of time after lunch where a highly qualified person in a field of study or a software engineer that’s in the industry to present a cool topic that pertains to the interest of all students. It helps to get an understanding of what the industry is like or you can get your feet wet into an interesting subject like Machine Learning or Music Software, etc. it opens doors for connections and gives you a glimpse of all the possibilities you might not have noticed before.

All in all, Lambda School has been an amazing experience, I’ve learned more than I know my money will be worth, and I can’t wait to see the opportunities they provide for graduation.

Lambda School is onto something incredible, and I feel very fortunate to be apart of it.

It’s not just a web development academy, it’s a building block for the next wave in the forefront of technology.

Lambda's Computer Science Academy was a worthwhile experience on many fronts. Some of its perks include:

$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... Read More 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.

Top-notch!

I started searching for code boot camps because I wanted to be a web developer as I love websites and always had an interest in creating them I just had a really hard time understanding it. For the most part I think it was because I tried 100 different... Read More tutorials that put me in 100 different paths, so I started seeing ads for boot camps and I interviewed with tons of them. I spoke to a founder of Lambda School and from day one he was one of the most helpful and genuine people I met. I joined Lambda School and it changed my life. I have a job and have not even finished my cohort. The thing is that these things are what you make it and you can make this a phenomenal experience. I won't lie and say it is easy, as it is super hard. But the instructors are amazing at helping you through the tough parts so you can see the other side. I have had to go to them many of times and they helped me step through it every single time. The staff is amazing and the content is some of the best I have seen. The computer science side is amazing and in depth. I can not recommend this school enough. When they say they invest in you they are being a 100 percent real with that. I am also available to speak to any future students or anyone wanting to ask questions about my review or about the school in general. Lambda is awesome.

If you can devote the time to their program, Lambda School will make you a better programmer. I'd been studying on my own doing the usual Free Code Camp, Coursera, Codecademy courses and not getting a lot of traction. I was considering a bootcamp but... Read More very hesitant about plunking down a bunch of cash up front. The financial arrangements with Lambda School made all the difference for me - as a student my goal of getting employed is TOTALLY matched by by their desire and effort to get me there. I started out by taking their free online courses in Web Development and JavaScript around February of 2017. I really liked their teaching style. Also, the emphasis on LIVE lectures made a big impression on me. I joined the first full-time cohort in the Computer Science Academy course in July of 2017. It has been a long and difficult six months - there is so much to learn! - but it has been so rewarding and Lambda School has been there all along supporting me and all their students. There is no way I would have accomplished as much if left to my own devices! If you enroll, you will meet a lot of great people, learn more than you even know and make some great friends along the way :)

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... Read More 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.

I recently finished the first ever fulltime cohort of Lambda School CS1.

I will keep this review short and to the point. I personally think Lambda School is a great investment in yourself. LS has helped me take my skills to the next leve. Before starting... Read More LS i had genaral knowledge of web technologies and could possibly create very basic static application, now i can confortably whip out a fullstack application by myself. I am sure many of the other students can attest to this.

All in all if you have time, you should definitely join LS and take your skills to the next level.

The curriculum is great, you can learn to code from the scratch.
So for those who already have years of programing is just plus of the same?
Not at all. You start with es6 in the first day, right after spent time in the pre-course material, React in 3... Read More weeks, nodejs, express, lot of discussion about the topics, data structures in a way that it keeps permanently stored. Coding challenges with real world examples, helps a lot in the job search (The highlight of Job Search IMO, everyday challenged a lot by structures and logic).

Do your best to get accepted cause you definitely are in good hands.