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Holberton School is a two-year software engineering school with campuses in San Juan, Bogotá, Medellin, Cali, Barranquilla, Montevideo, Lima, Quito, Beirut, Lille, Laval, Toulouse, and Tunis that trains individuals to become Full Stack Software Engineers. The school's mission is to train the next generation of software developers through 100% hands-on learning. The bootcamp is broken into three different components. Students complete the 9-month Foundations school then a 6-month internship follwed by a 9-month Specializations course.
The curriculum adopts a project-based, peer learning approach. As an alternative to college and in lieu of formal classes, students solve increasingly complicated programming challenges with minimal instruction. Students will develop resourcefulness as they search for the tools they need to solve these challenges while working with their peers. Rather than focusing on tools and frameworks, students at Holberton "learn to learn" and develop problem-solving skills. Throughout the course of the program, students work on industry-level projects and build their own applications.
Holberton School is free until students find a job and is open to anyone over 18 years old. No programming experience is required. Admission to Holberton School is based only on talent and motivation, with no consideration given to gender, nationality, ethnicity, age or social status. Holberton School mentors ensure that the Holberton curriculum stays up to date. Holberton mentors work for rising startups and top-tier Silicon Valley companies such as Google, Apple, LinkedIn, Tesla and Airbnb.
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 en...
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.
Holberton School of Holberton School
Community Manager
Apr 19, 2021
Is the best school of software because you have learn a lot of things and you used every concept in the next project, and you start with C and learnt from the basis to the advanced topics in order to use that concepts in posterior python knowdledge
It's a great experience from every aspect, helps you grow personally and professionally, not only teach you programming also teach you soft skills to have a better performance in real life, create very strong ties with your peers, can make friends for life, as far as academics has a good management of the content they offer and encourage you to take out all the mental potential that one has, in general has been a great experience, maybe one thing that is against it is that many people do n...
It's a great experience from every aspect, helps you grow personally and professionally, not only teach you programming also teach you soft skills to have a better performance in real life, create very strong ties with your peers, can make friends for life, as far as academics has a good management of the content they offer and encourage you to take out all the mental potential that one has, in general has been a great experience, maybe one thing that is against it is that many people do not have the ability to devote 100% to this program because of its hourly intensity, before entering the program many people have to save a large amount of money to be able to devote to study, I also feel that they should manage all the sites in the same way, because there are very significant differences in infrastructure and other administrative and academic issues of each site.
Is a really good program to develop all your endemic an non-endemic skills .The projects are designed to feed and boost your hungry for knowledge. The framework is a remarkable way to polish your knowledge by teching othes and letting others help you.
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 minori...
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.
...
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
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 ...
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
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 de...
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 p...
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 traditiona...
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!
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 an...
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.
How much does Holberton School cost?
The average bootcamp costs $14,142, but Holberton School does not share pricing information. You can read a cost-comparison of other popular bootcamps!
What courses does Holberton School teach?
Holberton School offers courses like Augmented Reality / Virtual Reality | Project-Based Curriculum, Full-Stack | Project-based curriculum , Full Stack with Living Assistance and Reduced ISA, Low Level & Algorithms | Project-Based Curriculum and 1 more.
Where does Holberton School have campuses?
Holberton School has in-person campuses in Barranquilla, Beirut, Bogotá, Cali, Laval, Lille, Lima, Medellín, Montevideo, New Haven, Quito, San Juan, and Tunis.
Is Holberton School worth it?
Holberton School hasn't shared alumni outcomes yet, but one way to determine if a bootcamp is worth it is by reading alumni reviews. 80 Holberton School alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Holberton School on Course Report - you should start there!
Is Holberton School legit?
We let alumni answer that question. 80 Holberton School alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Holberton School and rate their overall experience a 4.27 out of 5.
Does Holberton School offer scholarships or accept the GI Bill?
Right now, it doesn't look like Holberton School offers scholarships or accepts the GI Bill. We're always adding to the list of schools that do offer Exclusive Course Report Scholarships and a list of the bootcamps that accept the GI Bill.
Can I read Holberton School reviews?
You can read 80 reviews of Holberton School on Course Report! Holberton School alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Holberton School and rate their overall experience a 4.27 out of 5.
Is Holberton School accredited?
Yes Licensed in the state of CA by the BPPE. Licensed in the state of CT by OHE. No licensing requirements in Colombia.
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