Full-Stack | Project-based curriculum

I am currently a student at Holberton School, in the middle of my first year (foundations).

I already loved the innovative concept of the Income Share Agreement (ISA) before starting because I couldn't afford going to college or paying for a super-expensive bootcamp. Now I can focus on studying, and pay 17% of my salary for 3 years and a half once I land a job! Also, this makes the school super inclusive, and you can really feel that they're trying their best to bring more minorities in tech and I love it. The space we share is super safe, and absolutely everybody has the same chances of success.

The culture at Holberton is what I like the best. Since the program is project-based and peer-learning based, we are constantly push to collaborate, help each other out and move forward together. I love this because in other schools I've been, the focus was always on obtaining the best grades and it made the atmosphere toxic. At Holberton, I have a real community I can rely on: peers, staff, alumni, mentors. Everybody will go out of their way to try and help you if you put the effort in.

The curriculum is tough, so it might not be a one-size-fits-all type of school. There is a lot of material we cover, and we move quite fast. This is awesome for me because I really feel the progress on a day to day basis and I can tell I've gotten more confident on a variety of skills, both technical and soft. But it takes a lot of hard work and you have to be prepared for long, tiring weeks. Although I have to say it's been really rewarding and satisfying so far!

In any case I would recommend giving the application a try because you have nothing to loose, and you get to learn how to build your first web page (yes, during the application process). And the application is totally free!

I'm writing as a student halfway into the program.
Coming from a background of studying Computer Science's in high school and one year of communal college, I was in awe after coming here. I always felt the way I was learning wasn't very efficient. Starring at a professor hours at a time while he goes line through line of code - I was processing 10% of the information coming in. I took multiple online courses on my own and was already learning more than I did in months in school.
But I wanted to take this one step further - I wanted a place that realized how to free ones full potential, and I think I found it. One thing that's extremely important to realize, it's not going to be easy. There's no 'easy' way of becoming a software engineer. You are going to have to work hours every single day and most weekends. You might feel at certain points that you can't do it, but you will get through those times.
There are no formal teachers or classes at Holberton School. Everything you learn is through projects you do on a daily basis (sometimes more than a day). If you come across a problem you can't seem to figure out on your own, you will always have ~30 other friends around you who are going through the exact same thing. Of course not everything is self taught, and multiple days a week are mandatory to be on campus, in which you will go over the projects from the past few days in groups of peers. 
If you're wondering if this is the best place for you, I think you have to know exactly what you want. If you're looking for some similar college experience (parties, less intense studies, etc.), this is not what you will find here. All of the students in this school are extremely motivated and focused, and thus are capable of working together in the best way. We all have one goal in common - to become software engineers. 
Feel free to ask me any more questions - DM me on twitter @eitanmayer57

Figured this would be a wonderful platform in which to speak on my current school Holberton. Personally I identify as someone who always loved to learn but was never a fan of rote memorization in classrooms simply for the sake of test taking or sitting in a lecturn for an hour without the chance for discusson. At Holberton they focus on peer learning and self accountability in your work, which for the last 4 months has made for the best learning environments I have found the privilege of being a part of. The school's curriculum is geared towards teaching us how to think and introducing us to the various tools/languages we would use in order to lay the foundation of being a full stack engineer or for some going into more minute detail of an industry they have already been a part of for years. Students in my group range from all different career backgrounds, ages, identities and experience and everyone is able to get something out of it. I would definitely check out the school's model if you find yourself wanting to start anew and have a true grasp of the functionality of programming for any tech carreer you want. 

I am from cohort 0 from Bogota Colombia and I just can say. if you are a person who wants to learn/improve your tech skills Holberton is the perfect place for you, therefore, you have to be willing to learn from scratch in a high-level. 
Honestly, I learned more in three months here than a year in a traditional school. 
Holberton has a disruptive method is not centralized only en tech skills also the program make you improve your social skills and make you learn how to work into a team. 
They have an amazing curriculum you will learn about low-level programming, algorithms, high-level programming, Devops and more. 
highly recommended

I've been at Holberton School three months and a few weeks at cohort 8 and I'm glad to be here. We're the first cohort in Bogotá, also, and my impressions of Holberton School are mostly positive. The routine here helps to catch up with the common workflow for coding, and this is specially useful if this is your first encounter with any programming language. 

For most of my friends who works in the tech field, facing C the three first months was weird because of its complexity, but our project forces us to think in a variety of options to solve some tasks (I even see them as quests sometimes). The work environment here is great and you can find people really skilled at programming and people who is newbie on this field. 

I really enjoyed all the Unix commands component and, despite all my struggles with C, I think it was amazing for my problem-solving skills. It's hard, that's true, but it has been an amazing ride. We don't have formal instructors and maybe for people more used to formal education, this can be a deal breaker. Instead of teachers, we have support of other fellow students, our mentor or students of the same cohort but in other locations and most of the times, we get the help we need and we understand as the tasks goes.

I think we've received support from all the staff, even in personal situations which affects our performance. Holberton is home for a lot of students here and I'm glad to be here. 

Tasks go quickly and it's hard to be up to date but most workflow on the tech field goes at that rhythm, it's exhausting but it fills you with energy at the same time. Be aware of how far you've learned in three months is gratifying. At this moment we're facing Python and it's cool how your problem solving skills gets stronger every day, a little bit. If you're in Bogota and you want to study a really intensive coding programming, Holberton can be your option. 

I have been here for two months (first cohort in Colombia) and all I have to say is that I consider a precious gem all the knowledge I have acquired. It is a really hard and intensive program, there is no doubt of it. Since first day, you will be told that projects won't be easy and it will get harder and harder over the time. However, the knowledge and skills you receive in exchange make the hard work worth. In this program you will have to read a lot and develop the self-learning skill. You will be challenged to develop the team work skill as well. Finally, after two months, I can take a look back at the beginning and I can say I learned a lot from C and GNU/Linux besides the soft-skills I have developed. Best decision if you want to become a software engineer who also knows how to work in teams, share your ideas, etc.

My experience at Holberton has been mostly positive. I will say that it is a commitment, and that I had to cut out various social aspects of my life to finish projects, but if you go into the program with the mindset of devoting large portions of your time to it, you'll be good to go.

The content and projects were challenging and covered a wide spectrum in the realm of software engineering. I've attended one other coding bootcamp in SF and found it to be lacking in content and depth compared to Holberton. Even my college degree felt like a cakewalk compared to some of the projects I had to work through during the program.

Another great aspect of the program is that it's okay to fail at something or not meet a deadline because you have the ability to resubmit the project after meeting with your peers and discussing the project. Peer learning is a huge aspect of the program, and it really helps to learn from your peers / see different methods of thinking and problem solving.

Overall, I recommend this program to anyone who has the time and drive to really dedicate themselves to it. It can be difficult, time consuming, and exhausting, but ultimately worth it.

I love the self-training, learn the number of things I could find in reputable sources, I tried really hard to find something good enough to take as my professional route when I was close to taking my decision to be an entire autodidact. I meet Holberton, read the syllabus and feel secure that I finally could say, I find it, I found what I was looking for, the best way to learn the best technical abilities and engineer thinking, adding the possibility to interact with other extraordinary people in the tech industry, until the sun of today I still think the same, based on my experience I recommend Holberton School.

Having gone through traditional university at NYU as an econ major, worked in the tech industry, and started my own startup, it was not easy to get an interview for any junior/intern developer position in tech. However, I was eventually able to get an iOS contract job at an early stage startup that took a chance on me for 3-4 months.

It was after this iOS contract job that I started evaluating possible options for 1-2 year long coding schools (not a bootcamp, but not a traditional university) where I can grok foundational CS concepts (and their practical applications), build my own professional network, prepare for interviews, and, most importantly, learn how to learn. When trying to find a school that fit these criteria, I happened upon Holberton. It not only satisfied these criteria, but they were free upfront and would only charge me once I got a high-paying software engineering job through the ISA model. After doing my due diligence about the program and the people behind it, I was convinced and moved my life from NYC to SF.

Year 1 was really tough, but I couldn’t have built those programming/CS muscles without the continuous cycle of “struggling, getting into a good rhythm, and drastically ratcheting up the difficulty.” Having been in the tech industry for a little while before Holberton, my favorite parts of the program were that it: incorporated peer-learning in a way that properly simulates what it’s actually like to work on a team, made everything project-based so that you were able to apply concepts in relevant scenarios, and did not have any formal teachers spoon-feed you knowledge.

That being said, Holberton staff and TAs are always available if you do need help. However, as a student, you’re expected to use the resources that are given on projects, your peers around you, and Google to try to solve the problem at hand before “moving up the ladder.” If you’re asking your boss (technical or non-technical) a question that you can easily figure out through Google, you’re wasting her time. If you’re asking your boss a very-well framed, specific question that you’ve racked your brain over and thoroughly researched through Google and your peers, but couldn’t find the answer you were looking for, then you’re saving everyone’s time by asking the person high enough on the chain who probably does know what issues you’re having.

I loved how Holberton approached education so much that, even after having ~10 interviews, I decided to immediately take the full-time offer at Holberton as their newest software engineer at the time. It’s almost been a year that I’ve been working here at Holberton and I’ve been learning at that same insane pace as I was as a student.

If you have any questions about the program, feel free to tweet me @srinitude!

I have been loving my experience at Holberton and their commitment to making software engineering accessible for everyone. I am deaf, so when I was accepted and requested accommodations, they immediately went to work making sure I would have an equal experience with other students. This showed me that Holberton truly does have a commitment to educating different types of software engineers, and isn't just in it for lip service.

I entered the program knowing almost nothing about programming/computer science. I just knew some HTML/CSS and VERY basic bash commands. Now, 5 months later, I have a strong knowledge of C and have built some pretty cool and robust programs. I love how the projects by nature encourage us to implement best practices for each language and really understand what we're doing instead of just writing code that works. The project based model enables us to be self-reliant and try to figure stuff out on our own before turning to the staff, which is a skill future managers will really appreciate. Peer learning also helps us gain the skill of leaning on our peers (which will be co-workers in the future) and the group projects replicate what it's like to actually work as a software engineer with others. There is also an emphasis on practice interviews, which is known as the toughest part of getting a job in the industry, which makes me even more confident in my ability to find a job once all is said and done.

This program is really tough and requires a lot of your time/attention but I can honestly say I've never had so much learning. I was an accountant with no passion for what I was doing and now Holberton has reignited my passion for learning. I'm so excited to start working as a software engineer when the time comes.

I was part of the first batch student of Holberton school. I picked Holberton school as an alternative to a regular four year college education. I had this thirst to learn more about technology and building software. I thought Holberton was a good option for me as it was a two year program that would give me the proper time to really get a good grasp on what a career as a software engineer would involve and allow me the space and time to grow as young professional. Holberton school did not disappoint! I had an overall great experience. The content was fun and challenging. I had a good sense of community there, learning along side my peers. I loved that I also got to gain experience during the internship phase. I got an internship at a small medical tech company (where I am still currently working). I would definitely recommend Holberton to anyone who wants a strong foundation and be able to develop a good network to build  a software engineer career on top of.

Hi I'm Spencer. I was in Cohort 5 at Holberton School SF and I started in Jan 2018. Before starting I was a chef, and before that a Navy vet.  I got a job at a startup called Naborly 2 months before I finished year 1. Holberton School was one of the best experiences that I've had at a school as well as being one of the most difficult points in my life. I'm a major fan of the project and peer based learning. I don't really do well in traditional learning enviornments. I don't want to sit and have someone tell me how it works, I want to get my hands dirtry and learn through experience. This is a major tenant of Holberton. There are no instructors. You have to rely on your research skills, but more importantly you have to develop your communication skills. Your biggest resource at Holberton are your peers. Somewhere in the building is someone who has encountered the same problem that you're possibly facing and I guarantee you that the same person will be more than happy to give you the answer. 

All that being said Holberton is not easy. We start of with C and at first it can be difficult to understand, but learning C also provides a lot of benefits. A lot of programming languages are heavily influenced by C and it's the perfect language to learn strong programming fundamentals. Once you learn C languages like Python, Javascript, etc become very easy to pickup.

I really enjoyed my time at the school. I learned a lot about being a good team player, communication, and networking. The most important thing I learned though was that being able to write beautiful code is the smallest part of it. I'll leave you with some advice that Julian, cofounder of Holberton,  gave me: "You can write the most amazing code the world has ever seen, but if you can't communicate what it does or teach someone how it works then you're not a very good engineer." If you want to be a great engineer, then I recommend 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:

Low-Level Engineering in: C
Higher-Level Programming in: Python
Pointers, Linked Lists, Data Structures, and Search Algorithms
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:

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.


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.  


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!

Pros:

In 7 months, I've become proficient in C and Python, and currently am gaining a ground-up understanding of web infrastructure and web based applications (Nginx, Haproxy, MySQL, HTML/CSS, Flask, etc.). The program doesn't take shortcuts, and emphasizes a foundation of core concepts before delving into specific applications, coding languages, frameworks, etc. Learning C before Python probably isn't the fastest way to get started coding, but offers a much deeper understanding of what exactly happens under the hood, but you'll be be able to pick up new concepts and languages much faster in the future. I've been happy with the curriculum, and I feel like the pacing and progression have been well thought out. It's been intense, but I've never felt legitimately overloaded.

The peer learning model has been productive for me, but you also have to be ready to break out of your shell, ask questions, and make it work for you. This is not a traditional classroom environment, nor a traditonal academic teaching model. Just getting the "right" answers for "good" grades (a la college) will ultimately not be productive or helpful (afterall, nobody is going to ask what your "grades" were at Holberton).  This isn't a program you can expect to skate by on by just showing up and checking the right boxes. The program is intensive, and you will only take what you put into it.

Cons:

Peer learning is partially dependent on quality of peers. The school needs to ensure applicants are ready to succeed in the program and buy into the leanring model. Old habits die hard, and changing peoples' mentality of how school and learning works doesn't happen overnight. 

The SF campus is cool and offers alot of options for workspaces, but noise and disruptions from people hanging out and laughing are too common.

Holberton School is in a league of its own when it comes to providing students with the necessary skills to go into software engineering. Not only do you learn computer science fundamentals that most other 'bootcamps' gloss over, but you learn key work environment skills such as public speaking, project planning, and teamwork. The program is not for the faint of heart. You must truly be ready to work your ass off, because the curriculum moves fast and hard. But if your goal is to become a software engineer in a relatively short period of time, Holberton offers the tools that you need to learn, and to learn how to learn.

Holberton allowed me to transition from working in the public education sector to my current role as jr. software engineer intern. It also allowed me to discover my passion for machine learning. While ML is not offered in the first year of the curriculum, I chose to pursue a final project that was entirely machine learning based. With the time-management and research skills I acquired at Holberton, I was able to have a functioning ML model to present at the end of my first year.

Highly recommend!

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.