Making Education Free for Students, with Trevor McKendrick
Our guest today is Trevor McKendrick, Chief of Staff at Lambda School, where students graduate and get the job because they got the skills - and it’s free until they get a job paying over $50K.
“The idea is - if the student experience is as good as... if you had as much confidence in attending Lambda and getting the job as you did when you order on Amazon or got on Uber, then nothing else matters. ...that’s why it’s the main thing we focus on.” -Trevor McKendrick
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Summary
Our guest today is Trevor McKendrick, Chief of Staff at Lambda School, where students graduate and get the job because they got the skills - and it’s free until they get a job paying over $50K. In this podcast, Trevor goes to the heart of “the customer experience” and details how everything they do is framed in light of reducing the risk and elevating the satisfaction of the customer - their students.
Education is transforming, whether we are ready or not. With a steady eye on mastery-based progression and competency-based learning, Lambda School is trail-blazing an education model that begins with the end in mind. As they design skills training, they start by determining available jobs and target their program to prepare qualified candidates. In contrast, the traditional university model offers a more static curriculum, without the same regard for whether or not it ultimately prepares students for the market they will enter.
Listen and consider how the student experience in your school could be improved by starting with an innovative outcome in mind.
Quotes:
2:48 “When we are thinking about how to design an experience for our students, it always comes from the point of view of - how can we eliminate that risk?”
6:55 “The point of school is not to get through it as fast as you can; the point is to actually learn the material that you wanted to learn.”
21:40 “We think about - what are the jobs that employers actually want (to fill)? And let’s start from there and design the programs and get the students who are interested in those things.“
28:27 “The idea is - if the student experience is as good as... if you had as much confidence in attending Lambda and getting the job as you did when you order on Amazon or got on Uber, then nothing else matters. ...that’s why it’s the main thing we focus on.”
Where to learn more about the guest:
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevormckendrick
Twitter - @TrevMcKendrick
Lambda School - https://lambdaschool.com/
Trevor’s newsletter - https://www.howitactuallyworks.com/
Where to learn more about Enrollhand:
Website: www.enrollhand.com
Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com
Our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/