Launch HN: Edlyft (YC W20) – Paid Support Program for CS College Students
Arnelle and I came into college as freshmen not knowing how to code, but wanting to graduate with a CS degree. We found the steep learning curve discouraging, the lack of support frustrating, and felt like everyone else was always ahead. Impostor syndrome hit hard. But we made it through! In the end, what made the difference was connecting with students and mentors who had come before us. My junior year out of desperation, I wrote a letter to a grad student who was willing to meet with me weekly to review concepts and connect me with other CS students. Without that support system, I probably would've been weeded out from the CS major and not here writing this launch today.
Despite almost being weeded out, Arnelle and I were fortunate enough to land internships and jobs at fine tech companies. However we kept thinking about all the talented people who could and should be succeeding and don't have access to the same tools that we did. If they'd had the same kind of support that we were able to create for ourselves, they could’ve not dropped CS and maybe pursued their dream job in tech. Finally we decided to quit our jobs to build the support program that can make this difference.
If you got into programming before college and/or grew up in an environment where you were encouraged to play with tech, it may be hard to appreciate what an enormous head start that is. For many people who didn't take that path before college, there's a huge culture shock in the beginning to learn the basics of computing. It's all too easy to get discouraged and think that you don't have what it takes, and the sink-or-swim culture of academia unfortunately encourages these outcomes. Just having access to someone who was once in your position and knows that you can do it--because they did it--can be a game changer, especially in STEM.
You might be wondering why universities don't provide this already. That's what we ourselves wondered while we were going through the experience. For a while, we were fighting within the departments to get more support implemented. But it turns out that the incentives just aren't there. Colleges mostly aren't incentivized to increase CS enrollment, as Professors want to focus on their research and budgets are tight. Instead schools cap the major and struggle to increase support as demand goes up. Students wait for hours in line at office hours to get help--sometimes as long as 6 hours. At Cal, almost half of students who take the intro CS class will not receive a qualifying grade for the major. For universities, this is just an attrition number, but we know that much of that so-called attrition is people who have every ability to succeed at the material but need the right kind of orientation and support. Given the incredible value and growing importance of CS in our economy, this is not a minor difference in outcome. This is a broken system that we’re determined to solve.
Once a student joins Edlyft, they are immediately connected to a group of students in their CS class and an older student mentor from their school who has aced the class before. We hire compassionate and patient student mentors who host weekly group tutoring sessions and on-call q&a hours. Every Edlyft student gains access to up to 6 more hours of CS help per week and becomes a part of a larger community of CS students. They answer each other’s questions over Slack, work together over Zoom, and rely on our growing school-specific playbooks that are kept up to date by the student mentors. This is the supportive ecosystem we wish we had.
We’re currently launched at UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Santa Cruz. But the vision does not stop there; We plan to expand to other schools beyond California as fast as is sustainable and see a clear path to expanding into all high growth STEM fields, like Data Science and Pre-Med. We charge a monthly subscription for students to join, and offer need-based financial aid to ensure Edlyft is accessible and inclusive. Our hope is that the students who succeed through this program will become mentors to the ones who are coming up later, and make some money in the process.
If you have any memories struggling with Computer Science, please share them below! Although many people on HN were programming from an early age, we also know that there many who came late to computing and have done very well for themselves. We’d love to hear your stories and share them with our students to remind them that it’s normal for CS to be challenging and they’re not the only one.
Most importantly, if you know a college student struggling through CS, encourage them to find a mentor who can guide them through. And put them in touch with us! We’d love to talk to them.
We’re excited to hear your thoughts on how we can make computer science better for college students!