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Comment by ludicast | Hacker News Reader

I liked them better when they were a gorgeous co-working and hackathon space. They really had a "future of NYC tech" vibe.

Their pivot/focus on education seems to be unfortunate, not sure how they can get money back for their investors when education's future is more likely things like coursera (especially with their specialization tracks) udacity and edx.

That said, I do hope they succeed, I never had a bad time sitting on their couches.

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I don't want to malign GA because I know nothing about them. But the future of online education is IMO more along the lines of extensively marketed low quality private colleges. That's where the money us: attracting high volumes of low information young people.

> That's where the money us: attracting high volumes of low information young people.

What happens when the old wood (stubborn, ignorant, ingrained) dies off and people who don't care about a college degree start hiring those educated with Khan Academy/Coursea?

I see no indication that the "new saplings" care any less about pedigree than the "old wood." Indeed, the VCs have imported a lot of Wall Street culture and the tech industry is noticeably more pedigree conscious than it used to be. And it's not like the rest of the economy is moving in a different direction, not with the constant drumbeat of "you must go to college."

In any case, that's irrelevant. Even if employers warm up to online education, I still see heavily-marketed, lowest common denominator type places dominating. Maybe Westwood College will be dead, but the MOOC equivalent will be thriving. They'll be the ones making all the money (which is what 'ludicast was posting was about).

I think the in-person element is crucial to the future of education. While there are many people who live in rural areas or internationally who benefit immensely from online platforms like Coursera, there are also a ton of people who live close enough to a city that it's worth it to pay more for the opportunity to learn in a physical environment. That's why GA is great - it takes the best of both, and can provide online education that is greatly bolstered by an in-person experience. Excited for them.

I agree that live interaction is important to the quality and results of education, but as far as making money from it, I believe many will choose the option that requires the least possible effort on their behalf.

Look at fad diets, get rich quick schemes, "one strange trick to perfect x," all those hilarious exercise machine informercials... people love the idea that they can get something for next to nothing, in terms of both effort and cost.

I imagine there's room for both (and for the middle ground, which apparently this is), but for many reasons, I don't see the online-only model going away (or even stalling).

Don't want to be "that guy" but compare these offerings:

GA Data Science (4000$ and taught by MBAs): https://generalassemb.ly/education/data-science/new-york-cit...

Johns Hopkins Data Science via Coursera (490$, taught by Professors of Biostatistics, and granting a cert with Hopkins' name on it): https://www.coursera.org/specialization/jhudatascience/1?utm...

Now I'm not taking either class, but going to be very hard for GA to compete with things like this (and not to mention the outrageous quality codeschool.com pumps out). Let alone the rent they must pay for their awesome spaces.

Spanish, Chemistry, EE, Woodworking, Gross Anatomy and other classes with a serious lab component need an offline element for sure. But they are teaching things that most people usually pick up better from blogs, coursera, etc. (IMHO).

To play devil's advocate, it's not all about the quality. It's about the product, and to whom they are selling it.

GA is something like the University of Phoenix meets the Apple Store. In-demand course offerings, aspirational customers, sexy downtown location.

Good luck earning all that money back though.

> GA is something like the University of Phoenix

Show me one person who takes a University of Phoenix degree seriously.

I don't know them personally, but there are many thousands of them: the people who pay to pay to take University of Phoenix classes, and who forked over about $1B dollars in each of the last two quarters.

I think the key to this is what University of Phoenix directly illustrates in their commercials. They claim to have a huge alumni network which will help you get a job. So basically if they are able to get enough people to go through their program early on, they can turn around and leverage that to recruit new students. All of the previous graduates have to take the degree seriously when looking to hire. Otherwise they would be admitting that their own degree is a joke, which they are unlikely to do.

Wow, the Data Science course in NYC is taught by MBAs?? That's bullshit. I'm attending (on my company's dime, since they actively encourage any and all training) the DS course in DC. I had met both the instructors in the past and seen their work. They are real deal industry stat/ML experts with full time jobs in the field. Had they been MBAs, I would NEVER have signed up.

Regarding the online stuff like Johns Hopkins, I'm a self-learner. I love doing the online courses, but there is something that is fun, engaging, and advantageous to meeting classmates in person. Unlike University of Phoenix, this is a class where people are actively building shit. You can clearly and objectively see who is and is not competent among your classmates. This makes identifying people you would want to work with a lot easier. This won't happen in an online class.

But let me add: 4000 is a lot. I probably couldn't have swung it without my company picking up the tab.

What happens if a statistician gets an MBA? Are they all of a sudden disqualified to talk about statistics? In what way is a Data Science class taught by an MBA bullshit?

An MBA with a focus in Statistics. Irrationally hating on MBAs for no reason doesn't make your point stronger.

Their pivot to education was precisely about money, I think. It certainly sounded like being a co-working and hackathon space wasn't very profitable.

I know a few people that put on hackathon events and apparently GA jacked up their prices far enough to become totally unaffordable, hence why everyone ended up going to Pivotal Labs instead.

This. I suspect their actual motivation was always to be a education play, but wisely used the co-working / hackathon angle to generate income while they built out the education piece.

That said, there's plenty of great places here in NYC to co-work from, so it's probably all for the best.

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