Holberton School

I have been a student at Holberton for about a year. Before I came to this school, I knew virtually nothing about coding or how an operating system works internally. Now I feel I can confidentially say I possess that knowledge in addition to acquiring... Read More the priceless skill of independent learning with a large support system to aid in the process. Holberton's model of learning is palpable in everything that they are from the students to the setup; covered wall to wall in whiteboards and bean bags to lounge in comfortably when writing your code. It is in all these ways and more that Holberton successfully converts ambitious people with little technical knowledge into potential candidates for sought after companies like Apple and Google.

It is NOT an exaggeration when they say the program is intensive. There are tons of stuff to get through on a daily basis, and you have to put the time and effort to get the claimed results. It is a hands-on learning environment where you learn by doing... Read More rather than sitting in front of a lecturer and trying to retain that information. The curriculum is peer-learning based and there are no formal classrooms or teachers. You do have access to plenty of resources such as your peers from former and current cohort, staff, and mentors.
Another great advantage is that the school highly encourages and supports networking opportunities by listing and hosting relevant events and meetups where you are exposed to people and opportunities to connect with.
I personally really like the culture and environment of the school where you can approach anyone on the floor and ask a question and they will help you or guide you to a better resource.

I am posting this anonymous review to caution potential students looking into Holberton School. They advertise online to "become a full-stack engineer" but you won't be one at the end of this program alone. The curriculum is no better than freeCodeCamp,... Read More and in some ways worse, and will cost 17% of your salary for 3.5 years. They have little to no job support, have no plans to become accredited, and care way more about investors, press, and doing sketchy marketing schemes than actually caring about the well-being of the students. If you are serious about being a software engineer or developer, please find affordable online resources and go to an accredited university. Don't fall for this scam.

I'm currently 3 months into the 9 month intensive Software Engineering program here at Holberton. So far I've learned computer programming at lightning speed compared to traditional education or self-teaching. The curriculum is well designed so as to... Read More get you coding asap. Concepts are presented in a very palatable way, where you solve byte sized challenges that progressively increase in size and scope. After large projects I end up stepping back and saying "Wow! I made that!"

The peer learning model fits my learning style very well. I'm the type of person who learns better by talking and doing, as opposed to passively listening for long periods of time. I don't think I've ever learned so quickly with such a deep understanding as I have here.

The staff can feel a little bit distant, which makes sense seeing as the school's growing very fast and the goal seems to be automating the education experience. Automating education allows for a school to teach more people with maximum efficiency, but I do feel like the school would benefit from more personal touch and face-to-face communication with staff.

One of my favorite parts about the school is actually the student body. I love the sense of community here. So many of my classmates have diverse and interesting perspectives on life and are incredibly passionate about learning. It makes learning a difficult subject like programming so much easier when you're working with people you enjoy being around.

All in all it's a great learning experience, very accessible (no upfront tuition), great facilities, good community, and a well designed curriculum. I'd definitely recommend this program for the budding software engineer!

The curriculum is amazing! I love how the school is all project-based, makes me learn the material better and faster. The staff is a little distant, but everything else is great! Would highly recommend attending here if you struggle with learning programming... Read More on your own.

Holberton School is an amazing place to learn full stack software engineering - from the fundamentals and low level software engineering to higher level programming. All assignments are project based and there are no traditional teachers. The students... Read More are expected to do their own research to learn the material to complete the projects. Instead of formal teachers, students are encouraged to first ask other students for help and teach each other.

The school also helps prepare students for the soft skills they need as a programmer. There are days were the students practice interviewing through mock interviews with each other. There are also mentors who are available to do mock interviews with students once they are ready to start interviewing at companies for jobs and internships. Some of the projects are also done in groups, so students learn how to work together to complete the assignment.

I am currently close to half way through the initial 9-months of the two year program. Some of my favorite things about the program are:
- The staff is wonderful and genuinely care about the students.
- Great network of mentors who work in the industry
- Very diverse population of students - many people are changing careers, others are fresh out of college or high school - all learning programming
- No payments up front - just once you get a job
- Great space with plenty of whiteboards and variety of working arrangements (sitting and standing desks, study rooms, bean bags)

For me, the only "con" I can think of is that it is very difficult to have a job while attending the school which means living on a budget. I don't really mind this as much, though, because I am having so much fun learning about software engineering and programming.

Incredible curriculum, staff, facility, community, and professional network.

It's impressive that they manage to fit a foundational education of low-level, high level, system administration programming (along with tech culture, professional skills, and... Read More best practices) in only two years.

The only "con" is that you'll need to put the rest of your life/goals on the back burner, BUT if you love programming that won't be a problem ;)

Pros
Peer learning
Project-based, hands-on
Full-stack curriculum
Network of industry experts
Staff and mentors care about students
Projects prepare you well for professional life

Cons
Inaugural batch faced a trial and error approach

Being lucky enough to be selected... Read More for Holberton School’s first batch, I agree with many reviews of my fellow schoolmates regarding peer and project-based learning. Along with their vast network of experts working in the tech industry, project-based peer learning make up the school’s strengths.

The fact that the curriculum is full-stack (meaning, containing low-level programming, algorithms and data structures, web development, sysadmin and devops projects) is also a great advantage. The majority of the projects we worked on proved quite helpful for my first professional experience in IT; first as an SRE trainee, and now as a developer (I was originally interested in both roles, and later decided to focus on backend development). Some examples of these useful projects include building your own API for a website in the style of AirBnb while storing your data in a MySQL database, using Docker, load-balancing your servers. Do not underestimate the power of C. I believe practicing coding in C makes you a better programmer, or, as John Carmack puts it: “Low-level programming is good for the programmer's soul”.

In my humble opinion, the financial and personal investments to attend Holberton School pay off, as it was surprisingly easy for me to land a job after finishing the first year (at vente-privee.com, a European 3 billion dollar revenue company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vente-privee.com). You should know that I had no experience in programming prior to joining Holberton!

Another positive point is that the staff and mentors do care about the students, you see this consistently as they regularly keep in touch with you (ensuring you ask for help and that you get the help you need, making sure you are ok, and not just projects-wise, also in your personal life ie settling in the bay area).

The only downside I can find is that my batch being the first one, the staff could not have any previous experience with managing this disruptive type of school (which pretty much works like a startup, where everyone is encouraged to bring in new ideas). Consequently, they had to revise and adapt some of the projects that were deemed not very helpful (though one can say that it helped learning either way, and that in the workplace you might also face projects being abandoned or modified along the way). Even that disadvantage had a plus side; being the inaugural batch made us feel special, and the staff certainly took extra care of us!

By joining Holberton School as a student I learned how to learn by getting hands on experience through projects. The curriculam is prepared so that it makes the student to think algorithmically, even if he/she doesn't have a computer science background.... Read More

Also, Holberton has mentors and instructors around the globe who are always ready to help. Mentors and cofounders help to find out successful job through connections.

Holberton is setting the standard for training new software engineers with a two-year program that can take anyone, no experience required, and make them an impeccable Full-Stack Software Engineer.

I was coding and working with peers on the first day... Read More at Holberton. This was a refreshing change for me after years of dreading going to class in public schools where my daily objective was to sit down and listen to a topic I was scarcely interested in. Holberton has overwhelmingly embraced project-based and peer learning and it creates a natural way to learn that I have never experienced before. At Holberton you’ll learn the most from your peers and mentors while working on projects and that will give you a tangible edge when you go to get an internship or job. Having the opportunity to learn from project-based learning with my peers surpasses sitting in a classroom lecture any day.

There are no upfront costs to study at Holberton. The school charges a percentage of your internship salary and your salary once you find a job. You’ll still need to find and afford your own accommodations in or around San Francisco for the duration you are attending the school on site. This was a challenge that I found exceedingly difficult and at times it affected my ability to be at the school because I was looking for a place to live. Holberton has taken a step in the right direction and is working with companies like Google, Accenture, Scality, and CloudNow to help students defray living expenses.

A great thing a new school can do is set themselves up to be able to adapt to what their students need and Holberton is exceeding at doing that. I was in batch 0 that started in January of 2016. Since my batch started, the school has made many improvements to projects based on feedback from students. Additionally, Holberton has worked to improve interactions with experienced mentors in the community. New students are only going to have more opportunities to exceed with Holberton.

TLDR: If you want to be a Full-Stack Software Engineer, the elite program Holberton has to offer is exactly what you need.