Keziyah

Anon 4: "Technically yes I did learn how to learn. It just wasn’t in a controlled manner and included a ton of wasted time and effort that could have been avoided had someone guided me..."

Holberton Students have no guidance, except their peers. And this can be problematic if a fellow student gets something wrong. Anon 1: "In my group, it’s generally the loud confident white guy that spreads false [info] because their voice overshadows everyone else."

Anon 1 says that Holberton's solution was to pay student teachers who were a couple months ahead in the program $15 an hour to sit in group discussions about the material. But "these student teachers don’t know what they’re talking about sometimes."

My bootcamp had TAs as well. I'm not against TAs who were former students. While they were there to support us, we also had actual instructors. And you had to apply to become a TA and the interview wasn't easy (I know because I failed it lol).

Anon 6 left Holberton School for reasons that I'll get to later. They say that because students come into the program at very different levels, with some having no coding experience, but others knowing some CS, "things quickly become stratified. Ppl with resources at the top."

I'm sure many of the success stories come from people who already had experience, knowledge, or connections. It must be frustrating for someone who is a total newbie to coding, to feel left behind in class, without a way of getting help from an instructor.

I also wonder if this caused cliques to form. Maybe students banded together based on how much previous experience they had, or how well they were progressing. In a regulated classroom, there are ways to mix students up so this doesn't happen. But with no instructor...?

In fact, Anon 6 says: "Access to help is not equitable because you have to rely on peers to share knowledge (it's surprising how cliquey and protective ppl can get)."

Stay tuned for more on Holberton School and: - Racism - Emotionally unstable staff - Students kicked out - Possible illegal/unethical activity - The "Career Sprint" that is described as "torture" and "cruel and unusual" It's late and I'm going to bed. See you tomorrow.

Mentorship is supposed to be an important part of Holberton's curriculum. Anon 5 says that mentors were supposed to be resources for students, and should have also kept the curriculum up to date. But in reality, "mentors were barely engaged."

Anon 2: "Most of the [mentors] that came were there to practice their public speeches and were not even engineers. We were never given contacts or anyone to reach out to and we were discouraged to talk to them. Mentorship support was non existent. "

Anon 1 says only favorite students were given the chance to visit companies or go to special events. "These relationships are based on the cofounder’s previous professional relationship in the industry. These relationships have been exhausted by the first couple of cohorts"

Anon 4: "Even if we want to contact a mentor, we can’t, because they’ve never introduced us to the network of mentors."

Most students who finish the first 9 months will go on to the Career Sprint. This part of the program is supposed to help students get a job. As you can imagine, it doesn't.

Anon 5 says that most students struggle to find jobs and barely get any help. Anon 1 says that there's no job assistance for students. Again, this is part of the program. They are paying tens of thousands of dollars to Holberton School...to apply for jobs with no help?

Anon 4: " It is not job placement help." The career sprint consists of "things readily available for free online and at many free and public meetups (resume review, algorithm practice, mock interviews..."

During the Career Sprint at Holberton School, students have to regularly report how many jobs they apply to. Anon 1 says that if you don't apply to a certain number of jobs each week, you'll be threatened with getting kicked out.

One frustrated student sent an email to their cohort and Holberton staff, in which they described the career sprint requirements as "a violation of my human rights", and "cruel and unusual punishment" that creates "tedious and unnecessary paperwork".

This student talked about how there's no benefit to doing the Career Sprint besides not getting kicked out. They complained about how instead of actually teaching Holberton students, the staff choose to treat them like children and mentally torture them.

They ended the email by saying that while they are thankful for what they learned at Holberton School, "if you insist on enforcing this "Career Sprint" bullshit, then you can shove it up your ass and consider this my withdrawal."

In June 2018, Holberton School had a talent fair. 40 employers were supposed to show up. An anon has provided me with a screenshot of an email from Sylvain Kalache (co-founder), stating that there will be 40 employers. Only a few employers were present at the talent fair.

Anon 2: "Only 2 or 3 potential employers showed up, one of them being another bootcamp Taos"

As Anon 4 says, "most people stopped after year one and prepped for jobs on our own." Talking about "100% of grads" ignores the many people who don't even finish the program.

Holberton School has an interview prep program. It consists of "interview questions that are meant to be kept confidential." According to Anon 5, the students contributing to this repository of interview questions are probably violating NDAs.

Anon 5 says that Holberton solicits these questions from students, and they're "worried it would be reputation damaging if it got out." A screenshot of a page in the doc shows a warning in bold red font to keep the doc private, and to not even talk about it with anyone.

Confirmed by Anon 2: "There is a webpage on their intranet of all technical interviews students have done where students describe the interviews and questions given to them by interviewing companies."

Well, I'm going to bed for the night. Later on I have more info about allegations of racism and how staff would treat students.