Full-Stack | Project-based curriculum

The Holberton School offers anyone who's excited about software engineering (and willing to work really hard) a chance to reinvent their life for the better. Before attending the Holberton School, I completed my freshman year at Santa Clara University. I was frustrated by the lack of hands on and experimental learning. It felt like high school - where students where more focused on absorbing information quickly for high stakes exams than actually understanding things. The Holberton School is the opposite. It's a unique space where all your peers are there because they want to learn. You get to solve problems together, build cool things, and ultimately be the master of your own education. For me, overall, the first four months have been great. My advice to you is - don't wait. If you want to apply - dive in. Go for it. It's worth it 100%.

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.

Curriculum: Bash, C, Python, DevOps, and webdev. I give curriculum rating a 3 because it was helpful to learn about low level before moving on to high level programming. Also getting to work on soft skills is a good thing. But the webdev part seemed rushed and we only worked on one big project in bits and pieces at a time. I don't remember any CSS, JS, or other things like SQLalchemy since it was rushed. On the big project: I don't really understand all the parts or the "big picture" because they don't explain anything. The instructions are like this: task 1: do this. task 2: do that, without explaining why we're doing these things. So this was lazy on their part. It would've helped to do smaller webdev projects so that I could actually remember something.

On assignments - I have mixed feelings on this because some things we only had a day or two of experience, like using awk, puppet, bash programming. After not doing it again, I don't remember any of it, so it was like those days didn't make me any better at programming.

Peer learning days - very disorganized. It's the same thing as friends getting together to do an online course, but we're only talking about things we've already done. It would make more sense if we got together everyday for organized group activities like other bootcamps rather than talk about the homework we've already done. Other bootcamps seem to be far more organized.

Instructors: my rating is a 1. There are no teachers, so our only in person help is other students. I would give a better rating if they at least had good explanations or a wiki to go along with the tasks, but the instruction is literally: "here's a task! read this link I found from the front page of a google search to learn more!" This is extremely lazy and is an insult to me as a student as it seems they're not investing in making helpful resources, and more invested in raising money and making tools. App Academy's online course is far more professional and resourceful, and it's now FREE.

Cost: 17% of salary for 3.5 years if you make over $40k. This turns out to be expensive even if you don't get a software dev job. There are circumstances that allow them to extend the payment period, such as if you don't make over $40k, are unemployed, or go to another school after finishing Holberton. Can be extended for another 2 years.

Overall: I'm glad to meet good people, but I feel like the education is very lazy. I don't feel prepared to get a software job and I think most students aren't prepared after a year. The majority of students haven't gotten a software job after 1 year in, check linkedin if you don't believe me. A lot of students end up in DevOps, which is not really software development and more about writing scripts and learning different tools.

By far the worst place to go.  No lectures, they don’t teach you shit and you end up in a income shared agreement without learning jack shit.  You are better off using Udemy, LinkedIn learning,Lynda, YouTube and just books on coding.  Again emphasis on THEY DONT TEACH YOU SHIT. they want you to research everything and do it on your own. You can do that from the comfort of your home.  This is the biggest scam out there. Avoid this so called “school”.. I left in the middle of it all and I wish I left sooner instead of waisting my time at this shit hole.  

The worst admission process, I have tried. I thought it's a rumor that, schools and boot camps admit new students and drop them to keep their acceptance rate low. It helps their prestige. I have made several websites and have CS degree, in the admission process, they asked to make a simple website, which I did but they rejected my application. when I called and asked for feedback, they said they will look into my application and give me a feedback in few days. It has been 2 weeks and they didn't respond. I called them again and they said there is nothing they can do. But I was just asking for feedback!!!!!!

Holberton is simply the best school for learning how to learn. The approach they take to teach you is the right one. They don't hold your hand and they don't tell you what to do. You have to manage your own time and decide what you want to learn. They have their main curriculum you complete and mandatory exercises you have to do and from there the world is your oyster. There are many different ways to solve a problem and many different approaches, they will make you find the edge cases yourself and ask your peers for help more often than you might think. Setting up an environment where everyone feels like they are a part of something great. Every day you learn something new and on the day that you don't you get to learn more about your batch peers and spend time in SF surrounded by tech and conferences you can attend to for free (Holberton gives free passes to lots of them). From Fireside chats with senior engineers working at Netflix and Instacart coming to speak to students about their experiences all the way to the knowledgeable Guillaume that is there to challenge you and answer all the abstract questions you might have. Its one of the best places ever to learn anything tech related and I cannot commend it enough. One of the best decisions I have ever made.

As a current student of Holberton School I can't rave enough about this place. The founders have established an almost perfect environment to learn how to be a software engineer. The school is located blocks away from Yahoo, Slack, LinkedIn, Salesforce, and many many more of some of the best tech companies. It truly feels like a tech startup when you enter the building with all types of seating/standing work spaces. Students have access to meeting rooms and plenty of whiteboards. I chose Holberton over a four year CS degree because I felt like it was the better value both money and time wise. No money upfront means the school is truly committed to making sure that every student has the real-world skills necessary to compete in today's job market. After 4 months of study I'm very pleased with my decision.

1. Holberton school's list of mentors is impressive. They represent a range of tech companies both in and out of the San Francisco area. They are accessible and active in all things Holberton. As a student I genuinely feel that Holberton's mentors care about helping students succeed. In 3 short months I've met a number of them and attended conferences, meetups, and events through mentor invites.

2. The curriculum is challenging. You will learn and be given support when extra help is needed. The peer learning model is excellent for learning how to work as a team and how to support your peers. This skill set can be used anywhere in life

3. While studying at Holberton you will be consumed with learning software engineering. In 9 short months you will learn a wealth of information. I've been told the Holberton curriculum equates to a four year CS degree and it feels like it. You will learn how to learn fast, prioritize your time, and juggle tasks in a safe environment. 

4. You will learn more than just code. You will learn about systems, best practice, business, public speaking and networking. The only bad thing about Holberton is the vast amount of information you are exposed to and expected to assimilate. It can feel overwhelming but definitely prepares you for a challenging software engineer job.

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. 

It is NOT an exaggeration when they say the program is intensive. There are tons of materials 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 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.

When people complete the 9-month foundation it seems like ~60% of students get a job after teaching themselves everything they need to know and then searching for 3 months to 2 years, while the other ~40% goes back to working the same low-wage jobs that they worked before the program. These students are then told to pay up if they make over $40k/yr.

In order to graduate you need to complete Year 2 or get a job as a Software Engineer. It seems like only a handful of people ever even completed Year 2, since it's written by students, haphazardly slapped together, and requires you to be there in-person for another 9 painful months.

They didn't provide the career coaching or mentorship that they promised at the beginning. Their whole pedagogy is "Figure it out and if you get stuck then ask someone for help". Brilliant advice. Is it worth $23,000-$85,000? That's up to you to decide. Personally, I would've just finished Freecodecamp if I knew what Holberton really was underneath the hood.

I will admit that Guillaume was a cool guy and Holberton School's only saving grace. Sylvain was chill too. Julien Cyr and Julien Barbier though were rude and aggressive in almost every interaction I had with them. They acted like they were royalty and us students were just peasant serfs coming to Holberton for salvation.

I saw Julien Barbier:

1) Threaten 4+ people(including myself) with expulsion for making unfavorable comments or not hitting their tweet quota.

2) Expel 3+ people with health conditions who couldn't keep up with their coursework. They then shake them down to pay their ISAs, even though they never got coding jobs.

3) Publicly shame 2 students on stage for not completing their end of year projects.

Also, they allegedly operated without approval to be a school for the first 2-3 years, were never fully approved to give out ISAs, and committed fraud to get approval from the gov. Here's the news story: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/02/26/san-francisco-based-holberton-coding-school-facing-fraud-accusations-from-former-students/

This is a prime example of what happens when you pump up a great idea with investment money and create the illusion of value with the sole intention of selling the company off for an inflated exit.

I wouldn't recommend Holberton School. There are so many more affordable alternatives that could get you hired much faster and actually treat you with respect in the process. Go to Thinkful, Rithm School, HackReactor, Freecodecamp. You'll be much happier.

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 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 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!

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.

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 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.

Holberton School has been a revolutionary experience in my life. I have learnt so much and have been exposed to so many people from all walks of life. The mentorship and support that students receive is unmatched.

You must be ready to make the change in your life and you must be willing to dedicate yourself to this program for the 2 years. This is especially true of the first year of schooling, before the internship. 

If you are ready to take a chance on yourself and believe that you want to be a Software Engineer, then Holberton School is the place for you. 

Holberton School is unparalleled in it's curriculum which is focused on prepping it's students to learn the full scope of coding to fully prepare them for a career in the software engineering field. The entire program consists of a two year dual-sided commitment in which you are given the time to grasp not only writing your own code, but in addition fully understanding how the hardware of a computer is able to utilize what you have been taught how to create. The curriculum accomplishes this by starting the students with a low-level language (C)  to understand the logic of a program's inner workings. Once students have been able to grasp these concepts, a more complicated syntax of a higher level language (Python) is introduced; this enables the students to understand more thoroughly the mechanics of the web as well as the vast scope of other applications of computer programming. After my first nine months at Holberton I was able to get a job as a Software Engineer at a medical tech company, so it is personally proven that their innovative model of teaching and peer learning truly works. I would deeply recommend Holberton to anyone, regardless of their origins or experience that feels a true passion and desire for a vocation in this field; they will help you cultivate that passion into a life long career.

I love the Holberton school program for it's hands-on approach and project based curriculum. There is no theory and you start coding on day 0. What I find super valuable is that we touch a great variety of programming concepts. You start with low level language C and get familiar with Bash and then you move to higher level programming languages like Python and JavaScript. We also learn DevOps, setting up and managing our servers, deploying codes. As for a beginner like myself I find this extremely helpful to figure what aspect of programming I enjoy the most. So first 9 months of intense studying brings you to a descend level, so you can apply for interships. You need to study hard and a lot, but it's totally worth it. Especially looking at the success of previous years students you realize that the program is well designed to help you achieve your goal. That's a great motivation for me. And I am looking forward to upcoming intership and the second year specialization! 

I was a Tech Recruiter for 4 years before I decided to join Holberton. After getting BSCS  I went into recruiting but talking to engineers made me want to get back to it. I knew I probably forgot a lot from school and having no hands on experience wasn't going to help me get a job as engineer right away so I decided to sign up for one of many coding schools or bootcamps we have here in SF. I did quite a bit of research and I'm glad I chose Holberton. And here is why:

First of all, their curriculum. Comparing to many other schools it doesn't focus on just one programming language. From working in the industry I know that you have to be able to learn different languages if need be and if you do that while in school too it just gets you more prepared for once you start working. And you don't only learn how to code. You learn how debug, configure and manage servers and how to deploy applications. They don’t teach that in college. All this is part of being an engineer and if you don't have at least some idea of what any of this is, ramping up once you get a job is going to be so much longer and harder. So you learn a little bit of everything here. Puts a little perspective on what Full Stack actually means. Also the staff takes feedback on curriculum and that is how they improve it with every new batch. It's amazing.

Second: it's not just 3 months. I know myself and I know that learning things in 3 months is not for me. If you think you can learn something and be great at it in 3 months, maybe one of those other bootcamps are for you. After studying CS for 4 years I knew I wasn't going to process everything in 3 months and Holberton offering 2 yr program was exactly what I needed. But don't be fooled and think that these 2 years are going to be easy. It's intense program and you have to work really hard. Everything builds on what you learned previously so it all starts falling into pieces once you have to incorporate it with new topic. But if you don’t keep up it can get you in trouble. You have to be comfortable asking for help. It’s a must!!

Third: Peer Learning Days (PLD) and Reefinery are great. PLDs are giving you the opportunity to catch up if you are falling behind and also help others that might be struggling with something. This is great because when you're helping it makes you realize how much you understand the topic and how well you can explain it. If you can't explain it you probably don't understand it well yet and right then and there you can actually fix that by asking questions because that day is all about learning with your peers. And of course there are always students from previous batches, mentors and staff to help you. But people showing you how to find the answers is the best part about it. Reefinaries are like mock interviews you do with your peers and you go over material previously covered. So you get to check how much you learned because you have to do everything without access to internet. It's how it would be in the real interview so it prepares you for it.

Fourth is community. I have made so many friends here and I know we will be friends long after we are done with school. We work together on projects but we also travel together, run, hike, go out and have fun together. And this is not just with your batchmates but also with students that joined school before and after you.

Fifth is one that was really important to me. It's the payment structure. I know it's hard to be in school for months or years and not earn any money. It's really hard. Believe me. I know. This is where I was considering those 3 months boot camps but then I realized if I pay in advance and I don't like it or I don't get a job that money is gone. And it’s a lot of money. I know you may say that Holberton costs even more. But Holberton takes care of that in a different way. They don't take money until you make money. The way I think about it is that it’s in their interest to train you well and help you get a job. The better they train you, the better you'll get paid and therefore they get paid more and it's win-win. If I make good money I won’t even feel those 17% of my paycheck. But writing a check for thousands of dollars before I even know what I’m getting myself into was scary.

I think I can go on and on with how many things I like about this program. You can always just stop by the school and ask to talk to students in person about their experience. Everyone is super welcoming and open. So stop by and say hi!