Holberton School

p.s. It's better the webpage "hacker rank" than this pseudo academy, their offer the same educational model for free (checkboxes with different predefined cases/answers, you self learned at the time you fail the tests) You could try to understand their... Read More excuse to charge around $18.000 USD (this amount of money is higher compared to the fees and extra fees needed to study on a professional university in my country... and they knew that) for the overall for all their resources, interactive checkboxes to auto review your own auto learning process (you will learn for 3 hours per day accompanied by professional help, and the rest of the day are self-taught process) basically they remind you how to use Google and how to search correctly for simple programming questions... they don't even have like a formal library made by themselves, an 85% of their work are just links to public external resources, and the worst thing, their HR team sucks with the progress of the time... they only cared about money and how to make us sign another shared financial contract

they don't care about their students, the curriculum is outdated and full of bugs and typos and after 5 years it still feels half done with nobody to fix it. i don't expect this school to exist in the future, they don't intend to. all they care about... Read More is growing and making money

I'm currently a Holberton student on third trimester. The experience is really bad. The money is not worth it. Let me begin with something, they don't teach you anything, you have to learn for yourself, they just make a plan for each topic and you have... Read More to pass each task on an automatic checker. So they tell you that is because you have to learn to learn, but that is bullshit. I would have learn triple faster if I would have had good material or resources. So, then if you don't get itje topic you have to ask your peers, so, if people don't know the topic well enough, you have to ask to teacher assistant which sometimes you have to wait until they have the time to help you. By the end of the day you have missed a lot of time trying to answer something that could be answer in a minute by the engineer, that never really wants to help you. And the deadlines are very short. Don't think I write this because I'm a bad student. I'm already an engineer. And I know this is a really bad way to learn.
Also, payment is very expensive for what they offer. With a third of that cost you could pay awesome courses with excellent teachers.
They trick you trying you to build a "community" to get support, it is just because they know you mainly rely on your peers.
Also they don't teach you any framework, so you have to learn things from bottom, it could be a good thing, but at the end you have to go out and learn the frameworks the industry is really looking for. So you have to pay more courses and spend more time after you finish. I really don't recommend this school.

I attended Holberton school from January to October 2018 after a close friend attended for free as part of their first cohort. My review has a lot of negative and positive points but ultimately, my choice led to a successful career change, but not without... Read More a hefty price tag related to living jobless in San Francisco and signing over a large chunk of my income in the deal. I wish I had done more research into alternatives before signing on, but it wasn't all bad.

Because I was in the 5th cohort and based on the enthusiastic marketing I thought that the problems my friend experienced would be worked out, as they were in a new location, had many seemingly successful graduates and had expanded their staff. Instead I found a rigorous but partially complete curriculum with a lot of typos they made the students responsible for catching and reporting. I eventually gave up reporting errors to the staff because it was getting in the way of my project work. It may not seem like a big deal, but when you don't understand the vocabulary and technology, poorly translated and misspelled curriculum makes the "Google it" curriculum difficult to follow, because you don't know when it's an error or just a term you're not familiar with. The staff told me in one on one meetings that copy editing was not in the budget, but in the months since I left Holberton school, they've expanded to something like 8 more campuses. In the end, though, I went from having a little command line and CSS experience to being able to get some stuff running in C, which impresses people who think all boot camps are front end scripting only.

I got to know some of the students in their advertising posters and learned that they were using at least one of them with the caption "I am a software engineer" while they were still a student at the school, and the photos they used were taken by another student. Both of those students have successfully found jobs since then. When promotional photos were taken at the school they made up a reason for everyone to be on campus that day without telling us ahead of time that photographers and videographers would be on site. Then they singled out the only students of color in the entire building and featured them prominently in advertising, but the actual student body did not reflect their claims of diversity. Every student in those pictures is now among Holberton's biggest critics. Other students told me they felt people of color were not only overlooked but often more discouraged than their white peers, and when I brought this concern to the student support staff, they literally told me I was experiencing "group think." When I launched a campaign to have a sexist quote removed from the wall of the school, their response was to ask me repeatedly to remove the online petition and then they retaliated by speaking to the CTO of my company about it. To their credit, they did remove the quote but feigned ignorance as to why it would be offensive.

Lastly, I am one of the students who came to Holberton with the most information about what I was getting myself into, but found through talking to my peers that they were led to believe certain things about the curriculum and the payment structure that were different when they actually experienced the program. I got an internship through my company's connection to the school, but this only happened for a handful of the 54 people who started with my cohort, the rest were put into an extremely rigorous job hunting process that I think was devised to cover Holberton if hiring numbers didn't meet expectations. If someone couldn't find a job, it would be easy to say, "Oh well that person didn't send out x number of cold applications every week and we expelled them". Other examples are the advertised 3 year payment period (it's actually 3.5 years whether you get an internship or not), the second year specialization curriculum (more marketing fodder than practical expansion on the roles students actually end up in and from what I understand not entirely complete). The supposedly very selective application process was probably the biggest shock to me. I spent a lot of time on my application, especially the essay, only to find out that the entire process is automated to the point that they never read, watch, or view anything you submit and they accept basically everyone who completes the application. some people in my cohort were accepted along with everyone in the room at their "group interview." But after making huge sacrifices to come to Holberton, often moving, borrowing money, quitting jobs, etc. many of us tried to stay the course anyway. I tracked most of the people who completed the first 9 months and excepting the drop outs and people who were expelled, a majority of people *did* get some kind of tech job, but opinions vary on how much of a hand Holberton had in making it happen.

Ultimately, as stated before, I got a job after going to Holberton but the tuition cost is twice that of my bachelor's degree. I told myself in the beginning that this would be offset by Holberton being incentivized to make sure I got a job, only to find out that they accept everyone who applies and charge them the full 17% for 3.5 years if they complete even a fraction of the whole program whether they get a tech job or not. I could have gone back to my pre-holberton job and still technically owe them the money, which I imagine was part of their business plan in the first place.

Notice how most of these glowing reviews are from students who are still in the program. They have not yet experienced the lack of school support in the job search and the absurdity of the year 2 curriculum. Plus, Holberton School offers gift cards to... Read More students who post reviews, even though they have not finished the program.

I graduated from Holberton School and was able to get a job. However, looking back at how much it costs compared to other alternatives and how nonexistent the job support was, it is definitely not worth the money.

I did everything by myself to find a job. There was no such thing as school support or a supportive professional network. If you’re looking for that, DO NOT come here. Need more proof? My cohort started with ~34 students and ended up with ~15 students. After our first year graduation, only 9 of us have jobs after 6 months. How is that for student support?

The cost of Holberton can come up to $85000 for a pitiful one year curriculum and a useless second year curriculum. The first year curriculum is basically all free URL links you can find yourself and the second year curriculum is of poor quality. Please do yourself a huge favor and choose another place (college or another boot camp). Think about it - 85K is worth more than a Masters at a top level graduate school! Do you think it’s worth it for a curriculum that basically links you to free online websites?

Please, please, please do not make the mistake I made. Even though I was able to get a job, I deeply regret my decision and hope to prevent others from doing the same.

I decided to write a review because I do not want anybody else to be fooled by the marketing and social media and billboard branding. Especially if you are younger and have the option of doing college and getting a wholesome education.

Please search thoroughly... Read More in regards to where you want to advance your education. Not all of the positive reviews here are forthcoming and I know some of them were incentivized. From what I know now, a lot of Holberton students and past alumni will speak very positively about the school because it's too late for them. They were already too attached to the school's contract and needed to market themselves and praise the school for jobs. But behind closed doors, I was surprised to find that these same people actually had many negative things to say about the school as well. Some of them ended up moving on, accepted their ISA (Income Share Agreement) fates, and bit their tongues. I'm one of the ones who decided not to bite my tongue anymore.

The Curriculum:
Firstly, there are no teachers and mentors. It's you and your cohort and some TA's who were previously former students. In this regard, it felt more like a bootcamp to me than a school. You can spin it in a positive way and say that's a good thing because you need to be able to teach yourself anyways when you're out in the workforce as engineering is a lifelong journey. There was a catchphrase that the founders passed on to the community which was "Learn how to learn." I do not agree completely with this. Even in engineering, you do need a teacher, especially if you're starting out. You do need to be able to think things through and code on your own, but you also do need experienced professionals who can teach you and help you improve. You will not get this from a cohort of peers, the quality is different. I personally found myself learning more on the job with engineers at all skill levels who were able to help me grow.

Some parts of the first year curriculum itself were actually pretty good. Like what the other reviews said, for the first year, you go through the basics in a curriculum covering C Programming, Python and Flask development, web fundamentals, and DevOps. I would not call the curriculum project-based though, there were only four real projects: making your own printf function, making a simple shell, making a very bare-bones AirBnB web app clone, and a final project of your choice. These project were great and got you to work with partners and emphasized teamwork. However, the rest of the curriculum were simple questions asking you to write a single function or make a rectangle with features from object-oriented programming. While these types of questions are also important and necessary, I would never consider it project-based. The DevOps portion itself was a complete joke and barely scratched the surface. I found I could just follow docs and simple Nginx, Apache, and YouTube tutorials to finish the DevOps assignments. Holberton's own learning concepts were unoriginal and scarce and they will tell you to google for the learning concepts. You will find yourself questioning many times why you even need Holberton since you can just google, youtube, and read docs on your own without them telling you to. The curriculum material also isn't proprietary and you could easily find a lot of the same type of content in Udemy and Udacity courses.

I have no comment on Holberton's second year as I have never done it and never will. To sum it up, you will learn and get better, but it's because of you and the time and effort you put into your passions, learning, and building and not because of the school.

The Student Experience:
One of the things that I strongly agree with the positive reviews: you get to meet a lot of cool, smart, and ambitious people in your cohort and Holberton did a good job with community network building. It's what got a lot of people to stay with the school.

There was also a lot of blatant favoritism at the school when I was there. You were able to see that if you were a woman, LGBT, or French, you would be receiving a lot more visibility and help from the staff and the founders. I have no problems with giving out help to underrepresented groups. It's very true, the software industry is very unfair and unbalanced and I do believe there needs to be more representation and collaboration from more groups and people from all different backgrounds and walks of life. But during my time at Holberton, I personally felt shunned and ignored and I know some of my former peers felt the same way. I have heard that the school has listened to this and masked the favoritism more now.

The Cost:
To put it simply, the school is very expensive and not worth the cost. The ISA is very expensive and you will be paying the bill for three and a half years to a third party company. I personally felt I didn't get the value I needed out of the school. I can honestly say to myself that I could have gotten my current job without the school. Remember, in SWE it's ultimately about your ability and presentation.

Conclusion:
All in all, the school is trying to improve. Alongside the marketing and community building, there are apparently more TA's than before and they're listening a lot more to student feedback. I still would not recommend the school to anybody given the costs and alternatives. Please look at all your options for education. Teach yourself introductory programming and web technologies and see if you enjoy it before going anywhere. Even App Academy has a completely free and very extensive online curriculum now that you could try out. Try building things on your own, especially things that you enjoy, this industry rewards those qualities heavily. As mentioned before, it will ultimately be your ability. If you need more, please look for a cheaper bootcamp. If you need a strong education, please look into a two-year or four-year college (onsite or online), get FAFSA, and have a traditional schooling experience. Explore your options.

My experience at the moment is positive, the weekly challenges have allowed me to grow in my soft skills and also develop the logic necessary to understand any language that in the future I want or need to learn. There is still a way to go in the program,... Read More but from my personal opinion, I recommend this boot camera because it is a program that has a curriculum consistent with the duration of time, the intensity per hour is high and with some basic knowledge, discipline, responsibility and commitment. You can get 100% success this program.

From my experience, Holbeton is a great challenge. You are exposed to constant change and that requires you to learn quickly. Holberton connects you with people from all areas, journalists, designers, lawyers, engineers ... all looking for the same goal:... Read More learn to program.
Holberton gives you a framework that allows you to succeed in learning programming programs. It teaches you to learn.

I am way over 40. Even having a industrial engineering degree my perspective of having a good job was not fulfilled. Now, after attending HS in Bogota I can say i got a dreamed job. All the learning and the process (which is not easy at all) helped me... Read More to get to a new level. You can check my profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodrigo-cruz-devops/ in case of verification

Today I'm going to talk about my experience at (Maybe the best decision I've ever take in my life) Holberton School Bogotá, Colombia. First of all, let me explain who am I shortly: I'm a Philosopher from the National Pedagogic University of Colombia,... Read More I have 24 years old, and I'm that kind of person which normally people in Colombia think that is not possible that I could lead a class (Basically, because I'm very me, I mean I'm not the typical girl with long hair and shiny lips... That's not me, that's boring for me, I really like to be myself, and probably that's exactly a great problem being a teacher at Colombian schools). So, here is exactly where this experience starts to become true.

Last year I thought, I would like to start a new thing, thinking in my life, my family, people who I love and people with whom I like to share moments. And these kinds of things made me understand that I needed to start again, then an angel, who always thinks in the best way for me, told me about Holberton School, and they were just starting a new site in Bogotá. In those days I thought this is just a lie, then I start to search more and more info, two weeks before the deadline of the exams finish. I said to me: "I going to try it, and I hope I could do it". Then I was just going out of my job, It was a Saturday when Andres Barreto call me to said to me: "the program starts this Monday, are you ready? the program is really hard", then I was happy, all I could answer that day was: "Yes, I'm ready, thank you so much".

I'm not going to lie, we were the first cohort at Holberton School Colombia, we were a kind of experiment testing if it could work. But, even in that way, this was the best experience I could ever have. Base on my experience (Now, that I'm just finishing the first year) I say: The curriculum is true? Yes, it is true, now I know a lot of things about programming, not only low-level programming but high and very soon not only OOP but functional programming. It is the magic of Holberton they give us tools, we learn how to use it, they give us a great team, we just need to keep in mind learning how this industry works. But, this is not all, Holberton School, (Maybe it could be at every part where you could find them) is a great family, in just 9 months you will be part of great people, who always want that each one of their peers learns in the same level. This is magic, nobody cares if you know or don't, and the reason is really simple, we can learn even more if we try it as a team.

Probably, this is all that I can say, it could depend on each perspective, this is mine. All that I can say is that this space let me learn about programming and soft skills (Things that companies want), but not only this, I meet great people, friends, geeks, nerds like me, it is really one of the most valuable experiences that I have. Thanks to Andres Barreto and that call, also the great team of Holberton Colombia, and a big hug to my friends from Holberton Colombia, also you the one who read this (Basically for take the time for reading all this).