Holberton School

TL;DR

"Overall, my experience with the school has been tough, eye-opening, satisfying, amazing, a roller-coaster of learning how to learn again and how to become successful in a new career field.  I would highly recommend this school to others, just be prepared for what it means to become a student at Holberton School and that what you take away is earned not given to you. "

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After 13 years in the Food and Events industries, I decided that I wanted to try something new and explore a field I had an interest in but no way in my mind to access. Software Engineering!  When I began my search for how to do this I had no idea what I was doing so I reached out to a mentor of mine who is a Software Engineer and asked him to help me weed through my options.  After looking through soo many options and trying out a few short length bootcamps my mentor and I found Holberton School.  

What drew our attention first was that it was easily accessible for someone who wanted to make a Career Transition into the tech world.  The school has no upfront fees rather it utilizes an ISA (Income Share Agreement) which makes it so that when you finish the program and get a job you will pay back the school for your education over 3 years once you get a job at 17% of your income to a maximum of $85,000. I cannot speak to how this has affected my lifestyle yet because I am in the 7th month of the first 9, but I will update my review at the point that I do get my first job as an engineer.

So to speak on the second reason why Holberton was the choice for me is the Curriculum, Project-based Learning, and Peer Learning system.  My engineering friend helped review all the listed curriculums that the schools we researched provided and found that what would be learned and how it was presented through projects and a peer-learning based model would really make me successful in the industry as a Full-Stack Engineer:

1. Low-Level Engineering in: C
2. Higher-Level Programming in: Python
3. Pointers, Linked Lists, Data Structures, and Search Algorithms
4. System Engineering & DevOps track:
   • Bash Scripting
   • System Design
   • Web Stack Debugging

I can go into more detail, but really the school does focus on giving you a well rounded Full-Stack Engineering background. With that said though there are some things to note before jumping into this program:

1. IT IS NOT FOR EVERYONE!!!
   • This is not to say that the school is trying to exclude groups, but do some research into peer-learning and realize that this model of education will not fit everyone.  For those who seek individual attention or need more of direct interaction with an instructor, this program may not be for you.  Self-motivation, a general curiosity of how things work and have some ability to problem solve I believe are the base requirements for anyone who wants to be successful in this school.
2. The program does not demand your attention, it REQUIRES it!
   • Not to say that there have not been people who work or try to attempt to make it through the program while having some sort of side gig going. But, from my experience and what I have seen from others, it makes the already rigorous program much more difficult to handle.  Keep in mind, you are attempting to become a Software Engineer who is capable of joining a company's engineering team in a 1-year to a 2-year time frame.  
3. The school does provide Job Assistance through their mentor network, interview prep materials, and now internal coaching and guidance provided by a newly hired on experienced Student Success Manager who has a strong background as a Career Advisor/Talent Manager for many other companies in the tech industry.

Overall, my experience with the school has been tough, eye-opening, satisfying, amazing, a roller-coaster of learning how to learn again and how to become successful in a new career field.  I would highly recommend this school to others, just be prepared for what it means to become a student at Holberton School and that what you take away is earned not given to you. 

I moved all the way from Canada to find an education institution that served my needs and work in the coveted Silicon Valley. Coming from a university background I was very unsatisfied with my degree, job support and University's overall involvement in my success. Holberton's application process is what persuaded me to believe in their model. The school is super intense and requires a full time commitment but their learning model does not focus on teaching 1 specific language, it actually teaches you to solve problems like an engineer. You are given new projects every day and solve questions by struggling, googling and peer support which makes you an independent learner. By the end of the program I was able to pick up new frameworks and languages with ease. The school does not focus much on Front end frameworks like React or Vue but it did not take me a lot of time to learn them on my own. I would say I am 100% satisfied with the curriculum, interview training, resume building and networking training that I received from this school. After 3 months of the end of 1st year I was able to secure a job in the industry as a software engineer earning a handsome starting salary. 

I am currently a student at Holberton School San Francisco (Batch January 2018). I finished my year 1 in october 2018 and least to say I have come a long way from a digital marketer to a software engineer in a matter of 9 months! 

Like the title mentions Holberton School is not just any bootcamp, it is better than one and less time consuming than a regular 4 year cs degree course. That is in itself a bonus point there. As a person who already has an undergrad degree I was least interested in going to a formal education to become a "software engineer" and during my research I came across Holberton and many other alternative education schools. 

Why I chose Holberton and why I love it? 

There are many reasons for that -

1. Holberton was close to the place I live in. Living is expensive in SF, but traveling back and forth is expensive on my time schedule and pocket.

2. It does not ask for upfront tuition. I as a person who recently left a job did not have much to finance another education and was in no mood to get a loan. The way Holberton promised to not charge before but after I got a job gave me confidence that the school trusts in its framework and assures you that it's not just any other bootcamp degree.

3. Focus on full stack development. You not only learn front end later on in the course but you learn coding languages such as C and Python. You learn how to learn and grow as a well rounded engineer.

4. Meetups and Hackathons! These are gold from my PoV. I have connected with such amazing mentors worked in side projects and learnt a lot by attending free meetups to get insight into the industry.

5. Deadlines. I am a procrastinator, I like my deadlines. All projects are timed and have deadlines you have to meet like in regular world.

6. Peer learning - you don't have teachers! you have your peers who help you learn and you help them in return. Real world stuff here. Collaboration is the key to success.

7. The application process - It was amazing. Never have I seen an application process that makes you learn bits and pieces of coding while you're applying! That itself made me feel confident that okay, I'm already learning even if I have not been selected as a student! 

Overall I love that I am a Holbie and I would never trade it for anything. I have learnt a lot and learnt how to learn which will be one of my biggest assets in the future. So if you're looking for a school that invests in you before you invest in them, then it is for you. Although, beware the course is not easy and not meant for everyone. IF you have perseverance and dedication you will succeed!

Choosing to attend Holberton School was probably the best decision I've ever made in my life. Before attending, I graduated from a prestigious engineering school cum laude with a Chemical Engineering degree and couldn't have felt any less prepared to enter the job market. After months of applying to numerous companies and coming up short, I ended up working at In-N-Out in the daytime and tutoring high school students at night just to make ends meet. Luckily I had received a full-tuition scholarship and wasn't in debt. I can't imagine how stressful that time would have been if I also had to deal with student loans like so many other college graduates.

When a friend of mine (who also attended Holberton) suggested I apply, I jumped at the opportunity. I had been exposed to a tiny amount of computer science in my undergraduate degree and found it fascinating but thought it was too late for me to switch. Since Holberton is only a 2-year program and is focused almost entirely on software engineering, I knew I wouldn't have to waste an additional 2 years redoing general education requirements before I even touched any software engineering classes. Also, since Holberton is an ISA based model, I knew that I wouldn't need to go into debt and that they were truly invested in my learning since their success as a company was tied to my success in finding a job. The ISA is 17% of your salary for 3.5 years if you make >$40k and is capped at a total of $80k. Since most entry-level engineers in the bay-area start off at around 100k, you'll probably end up paying around $60k in total, which is the cost of only 1 year at a private university. To me, it just made sense to choose Holberton over a traditional educational model: faster, no debt, cheaper, invested in my success.

If that wasn't enough, the best draw of Holberton was that it's a peer-learning, project-based school. That means NO TEACHERS and NO LECTURES! Although some other reviews saw this as a negative, I found this model to be MUCH better than the traditional education approach. In college, I often found that professors just repeated everything that was said in the textbook and never actually added anything of great significance. This made lectures feel like a waste of both my and the professor's time. Also, the only real measure of success was tests, where students would be told ahead of time what topics would be covered and then would immediately forget everything after the tests were over. If the goal of college is to be able to land a job and perform well at it, this model of education fails tremendously because it makes students strive for grades instead of striving to actually learn how to perform well at various tasks. Holberton fixes this model by actually focusing on learning and being able to perform. In a real job, you can't just go to your employer every time you have a question. They will think you're incompetent. By making students actually read and solve problems, Holberton teaches its students how to learn how to learn. If students need help, they're encouraged to first do their due diligence in researching what they're stuck on and then go to their peers just like you would in a real working environment. If a student is really stuck, the staff is super helpful in explaining complex topics that no one else can teach. This forces students to actually think critically about the task at hand and how to solve these tasks. The schools' model is all about empowering its students to take learning into their own hands instead of viewing professors and experts as the gatekeepers of knowledge.

I also felt that the project content and order was beautifully crafted. As a former tutor, I can say one of the most important aspects of teaching is the order in which you introduce various topics. From a high-level view, each project was built on top of the previous one such that you were always using the knowledge learned in previous projects and pushing your understanding even further. The projects not only help to teach students various concepts but also help students learn how to actually implement this knowledge. I found that in my job searches, the ability to actually implement knowledge is what employers are looking for. This project-based model allows students to build a portfolio while learning. This means that by the time students begin to look for jobs, employers are able to see exactly how competent students are at actually performing the tasks required of the position. Students are also able to practice their whiteboarding and interview skills throughout the program during mandatory days. This was invaluable practice that made me feel extremely prepared to go into my real life interviews. Although Holberton didn't have a formal employee to help with interview preparation/job applications at the time of my studies, they have since hired a new employee whose entire focus is on student success.

Overall, I felt that I learned more in just the first week of Holberton than I learned in an entire semester of a computer science course in college. The community at Holberton went above and beyond anything I could have imagined. The school stressed collaboration over competition and there is a true sense of "nobody left behind". Students across all cohorts are always willing to help each other and I've made some of my best friends through the program. After only a year of studies, I was able to land a job as a Jr. Software Engineer! I would not be where I am today without Holberton.

Holberton School fosters effective learning of full-stack web development in a supportive, enjoyable, and career-building environment.

I am a student at Holberton currently half-way through the Year 1 curriculum. Already, I have learned just so much, and every day, I look forward to learning more.

I do not intend to dismiss the traditional education system; I myself am a product of it, and a successful one at that. Yet, Holberton School achieves one thing (among many) very well that I believe holds back student success in colleges and universities - removal of inter-student competition. At Holberton School, there are no grades. Rather, the emphasis is on understanding of the material you study. And not just individual understanding, but collective understanding.

Holberton School flips the script on effective education. By eliminating grades, studying becomes not a matter of memorizing material for the sake of short-term performance, but a practice in true critical thinking. The school encourages you to question everything. Why does this work? How does this work? Why this over that? Every project is provided with corresponding learning objectives where such questions are essential. These learning objectives are not mandatory per se - there are no grades after all - but failure to develop true understanding of the programming concepts and skills you study makes it difficult to succeed over the course of the program.

Projects themselves are offered in such a way that you can go about the curriculum however best suits your individual learning preferences. Projects are released on a school intranet. They must be completed by a deadline, and are checked with completion scores (for the sake of ensuring student progress), but beyond that, can be completed according to your schedule. There are no classes or lectures; instead, projects include links to all the references and material necessary to learn and code programs. From there, you have access to any additional help or resources you need through the school framework, a philosophy involving independent research skills and peer assistance. Holberton School is attended by and employs people of many skill-sets, of many tech specializations - if someone does not know the answer to a question, they know someone who does.

Even at the point where you do feel that you personally understand a topic, where you can comfortably code a program off the top of your head, you are not quite finished. At Holberton, you are not truly proficient in a topic if you cannot explain and teach it to others. This is where the peer-learning model comes into play. Every week, we participate in peer-learning days, where we gather in groups to collectively understand what we've learned, and reefineries, mock student-to-student interviews that force you to work through programming concepts and problems based on the skills you've gained up to that point. Such mandatory days enforce peer-to-peer learning, but you learn the most by collaborating with others at the school on a daily basis.

The emphasis on learning, adaptable curriculum format, and development of research skills make Holberton's model effective, and enjoyable. I do not simply learn a lot about software development at Holberton - I love how I learn it. The school is one big group of people collectively striving toward becoming the best possible software developers they can be. This environment is non-competitive, supportive, and friendly.

Of course, all this would be meaningless if not for an expansive and thorough curriculum, and Holberton does not disappoint. The Year 1 curriclum provides a complete full-stack web development education. Only halfway through Year 1, I can comfortably work in shell scripting as well as both functional and object-oriented programming with either low- or high-level languages. I have worked in Bash, C, and Python and look forward to applying HTML, CSS and more to web application projects soon. I have already coded complex programs including a Linux shell and bytecode interpreter, both independently and with partners. On top of the web development material, I have been exposed to game development and machine learning - topics I could choose to pursue in specialized Year 2 curriculum. And regardless of the language, I have become practiced in independent research and learning skills which I could readily apply to learning any coding framework I might need in the future - a technical skill-set arguably more important in the every-evolving workspace that is the tech industry.

It is important to note your personal goals and investment when considering going into software development, or attending a coding school. Holberton School is not a job guarantee. It will not hold your hand and walk you through the curriculum. And it will not give you any official certification. None of this is the school's intention, and it does not advertise itself this way. Instead, Holberton School is just that - a school. The goal at Holberton is to provide students a complete education in software development, to give them the best possible skill-set to succeed in the tech industry, and to provide them the opportunities necessary toward applying those skill-sets in long-lasting careers. This is accomplished in a condensed time frame - two years - and the program is correspondingly intensive. Success at Holberton may not be measured in grades, but requires a dedication and commitment to investing time and struggle into developing a strong programming skill-set.

Do not attend Holberton School with the goal of achieving a tech job in the shortest time frame possible. Rather, attend Holberton School because you are passionate about coding and working in tech, because you believe in learning, and because you strive toward self-improvement. For these reasons, few schools will provide an environment as personally enjoyable and permanently effective as Holberton.

I have been attending Holberton for approximately 4 and a half months. Over the first three months, we learned in depth about C and bash for low-level development and fundamental computer science concepts. Those three months were perhaps the most valuable. We are getting into more high-level programming now. I would say Holberton's curriculum is excellent, with a focus on pushing you to become great at the interview process. That is another area they are unique; allowing you to practice interviews from week one definitely is going to give me a leg up in the hiring process once I complete the first year. I feel that they truly fit as much content as they can in the nine months. 

The only problem I have with the school is personally I joined it as an exclusive software engineering school after they advertised a shocking 2.9% acceptance rate (total horse **** btw). It has since been removed from the site and they have rebranded to the software engineering school that anyone in the world can go to. Both of these are great, and it definitely is a very good school, but I do feel mislead by the promised exclusivity only to have two campuses open in Columbia and one across the states in New Haven, and be lied to about acceptance rate. As I said, great content and a great program, but it is not exclusive so if you are looking for credentials so to speak, rather than an education, I wouldn't say this is the place. Thankfully I was looking for both so I am still doing great. You will notice despite this I have given them great reviews, that is true because I believe they are a great school.

I am a student from batch 5 at Holberton School’s San Francisco campus. Our batch started in January of 2018, and finished the 9 months on-site intensive training in October 2018. By the end of November, I was accepted to have the opportunity to be employed as a software engineer intern at Holberton School.

In less than one year of training, I went from being an individual who has never written code on a whiteboard, to a professional being entrusted to maintain and develop features for the very web applications which were the conduit for my education. My experience at Holberton has been very fruitful, and I believe it has been and will be fruitful for others. I hope to share a bit about the model of Holberton to help prospective students make a more informed decision to determine if Holberton is a good fit for them.

Holberton’s education program is based on a project-based peer learning model. In order to facilitate the students’ education, Holberton implemented several practices/systems: the Framework, the automated Checker, Peer Learning Days (PLD), and Refineries.

During project completion, you are presented the learning Framework to follow as a guideline in your learning. It is the methodology that is taught as a means to find solutions to technical issues in completing projects.

The majority of the projects are graded automatically by Holberton’s Checker system, which tests the efficacy of your scripts/programs, as well as programming style.

Upon project completion, there are mandatory days where you are required to come on-site to participate in the Peer Learning Days, where you spend the entire work-day discussing the project with your peers, and Refineries, where students conduct mock interviews with each other, usually quizzing each other the topics that have been covered thus far.

All these practices serve to facilitate the peer learning aspects of the program. They are under continuous development and reinforce Holberton School’s other main objectives which are to teach students how to learn, and to aid in soft skill development.

When completing the projects, there is often a minimum of resources provided. This is usually intentional -- over the course of 9 months, the projects are structured so that students will spend a lot of time trying to learn how to learn new materials. Once Googling has failed to yield clues toward solutions, asking a fellow peer is the next option. Being able to articulate issues and programming concepts to different persons, and being able to listen and diagnose some else’s codebase, are all real-world skills that I feel like Holberton School facilitates much more effectively than is possible in online programs.

Learning in a peer environment can be uncomfortable at times. Because one has to strive for solution by oneself first, it can be daunting sometimes to determine when is the appropriate time to ask for assistance. With a project assigned, and a deadline quickly approaching, in a work environment, it is sometimes more responsible to ask for assistance rather than try to spend the time to learn. However, with learning being the objective, one has the weigh if she needs to spend more time learning how to learn (i.e. reading and Googling more), or if one should try to ask for assistance to overcome a mental block. Also, since there is no central authority such as an instructor, peer learning sometimes skews the learning towards groupthink. I’ve seen whole batches of students attempt a task in a sub-optimal way seemingly because that is what everyone else is doing. These effects of the peer learning model can slow the rate at which a student learns the technical aspects of software engineering.

However, uncomfortable it may be, these are the very circumstances that a peer learning environment creates which allow for the individuals to further develop one’s soft skills. All these situations: discerning when to ask for help, trying to intuit the optimal solution amidst the crowd that is doing the opposite, remaining humble to listen to another’s methodology that may be contrary to your own, etc. These are all positions that one will find herself in any workplace. Peer learning places students together where unsupervised interpersonal interaction is required, and disagreements are bound to happen. It’s difficult to observe and measure growth in these soft skills, but the opportunities to practice appropriately responding to these situations in a low-risk setting are ample at Holberton.

Correspondingly, Holberton School’s strength is in its community. Students rely upon and interact with their batch-mates to learn from, and to learn through teaching. There are students to encounter from all different backgrounds within one’s own batch, and from other batches. Through regular required interaction with each other, through laughter and sometimes tears, you will have the opportunity to develop lasting professional relationships and friendships.

Holberton itself is a startup -- not everything and everyone is completely polished. Like all startups, the ambition is great, but yet the available resources to achieve them are strained. There are typos in the curriculum, and policies and products are being continually revisited and revamped. However, the curriculum works. Students are being educated, and many are getting employment. The staff is completely behind their work of creating high-quality education to the many -- I am inspired by the amount of effort that is put forth by all the staff to create the systems, resources, environment and procedures to facilitate the learning process and to expand to reach more students.

In the end, here are my recommendations for prospective students: If your goal is to be employed as quickly as possible, and you know what specialization you wish to have, then it makes more sense to attend a bootcamp that will familiarize one with specific technologies and projects to showcase that particular proficiency so that one can become marketable more quickly than Holberton’s timeline.

If your goals are to work in academic environments, a more rigorous understanding of computer science theory and degrees are necessary. Obtaining a traditional education at a university will be a more suitable means for that.

I was looking for a program that would help prepare me for a lifelong career in the tech industry. I was interested in programs that would allow me to have face-to-face interactions with peers to develop accountability because, even though it is the most economical option, I knew that I could not succeed with a self-study program since I lacked the intrinsic discipline. But even if I could, I’m still not sure I would have chosen a self-paced solo study program. With all the information out there, it’s difficult to cut through the noise and determine what is important to learn, and I also wanted to improve my learning and soft skills. I was fortunate to find Holberton School, as it was a program that is bold enough to take the time to instruct foundational technical concepts common to all programming environments, and it was a place that allowed me to immerse myself in the collaborative environment and develop the teamwork skills that I feel are necessary to succeed in the workplace.

If you also want to spend the next chapter of your life learning how to learn in a place that will allow you to learn how to work with others as you practice the craft of software engineering, then I hope you consider Holberton School.

P.S.

A question I often encounter when talking to prospective students is: can I work while going to school? The answer is yes, you can, but I advise against it. It is possible to work around the mandatory days, days when you are required to be a school from 9-3 PM. I have batch-mates who worked nights and/or weekends. But as a rule, the 9-months on-site is designed to be embarked as a sole commitment. The classmates I know who held full-time or part-time jobs while working generally wish they could have had more time and energy to study. I understand that the one of the greatest barriers to entry for prospective students is developing a financial situation where one can live for at minimum 9 months (usually more) without employment. There has been progress in the development of scholarship programs, but at the time of writing, there is not enough supply to meet all the need. If you are very interested in the program, but are struggling to figure out the financials, I would then ask one to be very honest with themselves: Have you been very successful at maintaining two or more full-time commitments in the past? If so, then it could be an option worth considering. But every account I heard from students went through the 9-month on-site training while working stated that it was difficult.

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 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. 

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 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.

I'm a student from Batch 1, which is the second batch from Holberton (since we go by zero index in programming). Also, I'm currently in the second phase of the program, where you get 6 months to either find a job/internship to work in the industry or you can self-study. So I have not completed the program, and am sharing my experiences so far.

The general timeline of the program is:

-> 9 months of intensive study in 3 general topics: low level programming with C, high level programming with Python and a little Javascript, and devops with bash and using the Linux environment

-> 6 months of self-study or finding an internship/job

-> 9 months of part-time or full-time study in a topic of your choice

 

Holberton school utilizes a peer learning approach where students learn together and really learn from each other. There are no real instructors, however the staff will often jump in and help out or provide a deeper dive into certain topics. Also, the school has a ton of mentors who you can get in contact with to ask questions, whether it be related to the curriculum or not. This is a very great resource as you'll find that throughout the program, you will come to realize more what you wish to focus on. Since the first 9 months of the curriculum is heavily based on the 3 general topics mentioned above, you don't get a lot of leeway to really focus on what you want to learn. However, knowing the 3 general topics above (I think) is essential to becoming a solid developer.

Depending on how deep you want to dive into the curriculum topics (and the daily exercises/projects), there should be time on the side to study your own things if you wish. 

I believe the more you put into the program, the more you get out of it. Just attending the program and participating in it is oftentimes not enough to succeed in the industry. So if you're prepared to dive into the program, and are committed to finding a career in tech, I highly encourage you to constantly challenge yourself, always look to improve your understanding, be open to changes, and adapt to the type of information you receive and don't be stringent in your understandings.

My overall experience was positive. I don't think I would be where I'm at today without my experience at Holberton. I do believe the curriculum and culture of the school could be improved, but as I was only the second batch through the program, they were still improving upon the school.

Another great thing about the school is if you want to improve the curriculum, you can do so. As each new batch goes through the program, the curriculum will likely be improved and iterated upon.

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 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!

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 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.