Ask HN: Is this coding bootcamp reputable?

Hi, If this is going to be your intro into programming, codeschools may not be a good first step. They may say you don't need any prior experience, but typically they drop those people out if they aren't doing well so it doesn't mess with their metrics. Honestly, it may take a bit more time, which can be a good indicator if you want to work in this field, is to find out what a local community college is offering for courses and sign up for one programming class. You'll often find that you have time to learn the material and put it to use while being in a classroom setting where the class size is smaller and the instructor can walk you through tripping points. Plus it will be way cheaper. You'll expand your network there too and maybe get a good reference from the instructor who has industry contacts. Any career is a marathon, some people can sprint the distance, most can't. Don't set yourself up for failure from burnout.

Hi Harvey! My name is Kiren and I'm a student (and also a software engineer) at Holberton School. Just to be clear, we are NOT a bootcamp - we are a 2-year software engineering school. As downrightmike has said, any career is a marathon. There are a lot of students who come in with no prior experience and do get internships/jobs after the first year, but having had some self-taught experience creating low-fidelity iOS prototypes of an app I was working on before attending Holberton, I know that this won't be the case as we expand into other locations and markets. However, the people with no experience who have gotten jobs after the first year have consistently worked hard for that entire first year building on their basics. In addition, most people who do get jobs after the first year spend months interviewing and focusing on interview prep (algorithms, data structures, system design, etc.). Our application process has been awesome so far at accepting people who are undoubtedly smart and have a lot of grit. Even if we do have students of all ages who come in and get jobs after their first year, we firmly believe that it will take 2 years for students coming out of high school to become full-fledged software engineers. People shouldn't underestimate the work it takes to become a software engineer, and we certainly don't at Holberton.

If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with me @srinitude on every social media platform (including Github: https://github.com/srinitude). However, I'm most active on Twitter (https://twitter.com/srinitude).

Hi, I totally understand your concern. I moved from Toronto last year for Holberton school and it was a big and scary move for me since I did not know much about the school either besides a couple of articles from online research. I liked their admission process and thats what reassured me to take a leap of faith. Also, when you are making big decisions about your career everything looks like a marketing strategy or a gimmick. Thankfully, my bet for a rewarding career played really well for me. I could not have been happier going to holberton school. Little about me, I have a bachelors in Biomedical engineering and I was working in the mechanical engineering industry and absolutely hating it. I did not like the work and the people and that's why wanted a switch. During research I was considering community colleges and masters programs. My friend(Masters in Software engineering, works at Cruise Automation) suggested that I should go to a bootcamp instead. They are shorter and teach you on the job skills (unlike colleges and universities), teach you major skills like networking, resume building, selling your story, interviewing skills etc. So, I started researching and came across bootcamps like hackreactor, hackbright, general assembly and Holberton School. After a lot of deliberation I decided I wanted to pursue Holberton school. My reasons included 1. the school does not charge upfront so they have a vested interest in my future and me getting a job 2. Having not much coding experience I wanted to learn from the basics and take some time to actually have strong foundation and fundamentals. 3. I did not think that I could learning programming in like 3-5 months only 4. I wanted to learn to think like a software engineer which takes time and effort. 5. Its not a bootcamp but a college alternative Needless to say, I went through the first 9 months of the program and I am extremely happy about how this turned out. Last month I started my internship at Zume Pizza(a silicon valley startup) and I use all the skills learned in the program. One thing that I will like to point out is that Software engineering field requires life long learning and Holberton taught me how to keep on learning and how to pick up on new languages fast. Adding on to this I had to briefly attend De Anza college for my visa status (since I am canadian and cannot stay in US for more than 6 months on a visitor visa), I attended 3 classes- Intro to Bash, Intro to C++ and methodologies, Intro to SQL. Whatever I learned in those classes in a semester I actually had covered that stuff in like 2-3 weeks at Holberton. In conclusion, I would not underestimate the work that you have to put into this program. You have to put your life on hold because it is very intense but I would also not underestimate my power of learning in this model. You will be surprised how much you can learn in just 9 months. I completed the 9 months, studied/interviewed for another 3 months before I got my job. Also, if you're unsure that you can be a programmer or not, just do the application process for Holberton because its free and doesn't hurt to just try it out. Coming to your low percentage question- Holberton does not purge out people from the school just to maintain their numbers. Sometimes people don't want to work as an "engineer" but want to learn Full Stack development to complement their career. We had a guy in my cohort who was a game developer before but feeling stuck in his career so he did the program, and now works at Facebook as a Production Engineer(ofcourse his previous experience factors in). UX/UI design jobs really value people with a knowledge in full stack engineering because that helps them come up with realistic website designs. The school cannot control what career trajectory people want to pursue so it has been their own choice. There are a lot of peripheral career paths that people decide to take that don't necessarily have the job title "Software Engineer". I really hope I answered your questions ...

Hi, harveyspec! My name is Robert and I actually went to Holberton School (Cohort 4) with no prior coding experience. I also felt like the school was sketchy when I first heard of it too, because who offers no tuition until you get a job? After attending, I can guarantee you it's not sketchy.

Honestly, I don't know who those people are that you're linking to. I've never seen or met anyone at school with those names, so I don't know what that's about. Every students code is actually on Github, so I'm not sure where you were looking. We host all of our code on GitHub publicly so anyone can see them. A lot of the reason that people who started in 2017 don't have tech jobs (I started in Sept 2017) is because we finished the first 9 months recently and are in the process of interviewing OR decided to move on to the 2nd year of the curriculum.

As for my experience: I had a wonderful time. I started in, as I said earlier, September 2017 with a class size of 35. I ended up graduating the first 9 months at the end of June with a class size of 25. Some of these people went down a Cohort to Cohort 5, and some of them dropped out due to personal reasons. No one was actually dropped from my Cohort due to bad performance. I put in my time and worked roughly 12 hours a day (sometimes shorter, sometimes longer) during the first 9 months at school. This allowed me to learn everything, use it, and commit it to knowledge. I then started preparing for interviews and actively applying during the 3 month break between the first 9 months and the last year. I ended up getting an offer letter before year 2 started, so I took it. Now I have a full-time software engineering job at my current company!

Benefits: I've met CEO's at big companies like LinkedIn and Docker, and I have friends in all of the major companies. I've also met the celebrities that you are referring to, which was nice. I genuinely just find it really exciting to be here at this time and to have such a huge network after going to Holberton.

I do agree with downrightmike though on 1 case: burnout. Holberton will take up LITERALLY all your time for 9 months, so be prepared for that if you decide to attend, but it was totally worth it. It's one giant stamina race, and you are always doing something. And when there aren't any projects to work on, you should be going to meetups and networking. That's what allowed me to get where I am.

Overall, Holberton is amazing (in my opinion) and I realize I am falling into your "long-winded answer" stereotype, but it's just because I like it so much. My suggestion: go through the application process and see if you enjoy it. If you enjoy it, then I think it would be a good fit. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/RobertMalmstein) if you have any more questions.

These existing positive comments who's accounts only have comments on this post are a little eerie.

The only thing sketchier than the stuff you linked is the fact that 3 karmaless HN accounts came out of the woodwork almost immediately to defend the school.

if there is any doubt, there is no doubt

Holberton is not a bootcamp, it’s a 2-year engineering school. I’ve worked with alumni and they were excellent entry-level developers, they learn fast and work great in teams.

Bottom line, it’s a solid school and I recommend it.

I wouldn’t read too much into the tone-deaf positive comments from karmaless accounts in this thread. I think it’s just Holberton students eager to defend their school, and creating their first hn account for the occasion. To me it comes across as clumsy, but sincere.

Ok, I just found another quora marketer while researching bootcamps... https://www.quora.com/profile/Shaikh-Bilal-Mehmood

Same answer format, very strange. Now I'm sure they pay people to market online.