Author: Amrita Hemdev

Batch One – Year One complete and it rocked our socks!

Posted by Amrita Hemdev

Our batch 01 students have graced the halls of Holberton and as their first year winds to a close, we have some exceptional success numbers!

80% of batch 01 students are already working in the tech industry as software engineers. WOOT!

 

 

Students have landed jobs and internships in companies like Tesla, Apple, NVIDIA, Scality, Dropbox, Docker, Shopkick and so many more exciting startups. Our program lasts a period of 2 years, but many of our students already have jobs within the first year! How cool is that?

If you haven’t checked out the video of our students story yet, take a few minutes and watch it here.

Hear what some of our students have to say about their current roles in the tech industry:

 

 

Swati Gupta, Software Engineer at NVIDIA says,

 

“Holberton prepared me with tons of useful skills that are needed for a fast paced tech job, not just technical skills but soft skills too. I learned how to navigate, how to find the right tools and when to seek help. It made me a constant self learner, always adapting and accommodating to new information. The projects I did at Holberton were targeted at exposing all stacks of an application and based on latest technology, for instance the exposure to use docker containers. Because of the training I received at Holberton I feel more confident and prepared for my work life at NVIDIA“

 

         

 

Anne Cognet, Software Engineer at TESLA says,

 

“Holberton helped me get my internship at TESLA in so many ways. The school curriculum constantly pushed me to go deeper and do better. My classmates were very supportive, their approaches and questions helped me understand new concepts and gave me new ideas for solving problems. The school network helped me polish my resume as well. At my workplace, I am understanding & implementing the topics that I learned at Holberton. I believe the school gave me a strong foundation I can rely upon, and that makes me learn faster.”

Before we look ahead to accomplishing anything further, we wanted to thank our community of mentors, students and team who helped make this year such a success.

Applications are now open for the January 2018 batch, you can learn more about it here.

Summer 2017 | Holberton Coding Camp

Posted by Amrita Hemdev

 This Summer, we introduced our very first Holberton Summer Coding Camp!

Eight shining stars from multiple different high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area went from no programming experience to web development rock stars in 3 short weeks.

 

 

Our campers were high school students aged 15-18 years old with no previous web development experience. They joined our camp wanting to discover new skills and explore the tech industry.

Over the course of 3 weeks, students learned the fundamentals of web development (HTML, CSS, JS), and then took their new found skills to build their own multi-paged websites from A to Z. They even added some extra pixel dust to their websites with super cool CSS animations, embedded links, menu bar and web content. An impressive feat for any software engineer, let alone beginners! 

Technical skills were the focus over the three weeks, but their soft skills were sharpened as well, especially public speaking! Our campers learned how to present in front of people and explore the art of networking with professionals.


 

Every week, students visited some of the hottest tech companies in the SF Bay Area namely Salesforce, Trinity Ventures and exciting startups like Scality and Twitch. They discovered what working in a tech company looks like and realized the value and importance of having a professional network. More than that, they understood what it takes to be a software engineer!


 

At Holberton we have no formal teachers, students learn by helping each other in the projects and our Coding Camp was no different. Our campers went through the sweet journey of practicing peer learning while working hard to code their websites, but were also well supported with current Holberton students and mentors, who are professionals working in the Tech industry.

 

         

 

Our amazing mentors held workshops for our campers to build new skills. Ayesha Mazumdar, UX Engineer at Salesforce, led our campers through an animation workshop. Jennie Chu, a Holberton student, now Software Engineer at SeeSaw, taught our campers how to solder to make keyboards from scratch. The cherry on the top was when NE-YO personally called our campers to talk about their goals in life and how they could achieve them after breaking the programming-ice with Holberton!

 

 

Every day was about having fun while learning with mentors, peers, staff and of course eating a whole lot of french brie & baguette (After all we are a french led startup)! 

The students had the motivation and drive within, all they needed was an eye opener like our camp to empower them to discover their capabilities in software engineering.

Hear what our campers had to say about their experience at Holberton:

“ Anyone considering being a software engineer would benefit extremely from this camp. What really sets the camp apart is that you get a taste of how the real world works in tech. The project of building your own website can be compared to doing a project in a company where you ask your peers/co-workers for help.”

“This camp offers great opportunities, and the experience is amazing. They also teach very important skills that don’t only apply to the tech industry but life in general (ex. learning how to learn).”

“I had no idea how to code coming into the camp, and after 3 weeks I understand code and technology way better. It was a great experience overall. Also, the opportunity to visit big companies in the city is hard to find anywhere else.”

Our first summer camp was a success, and we will keep taking initiatives to give the world the talent it deserves. If you’re interested in enrolling for our next coding camp, please fill out this form and we will keep you posted on future camps!

New York Times features Holberton, now this is BIG!

Posted by Amrita Hemdev

Today we are super happy and we feel PUMPED! **insertmoonwalk**

We have smiles all around while we share this exciting news with you…  This morning, Holberton got covered in the  The New York Times, the source the world goes to for the facts!

 

“The main thing we’re learning is how to learn,” said Dora Korpar, Holberton student, who recently accepted a job offer from Scality, a Silicon Valley company.

In this article, ‘Holberton, a Two-Year Tech School, Emphasizes Diversity’, Katie Benner delves into the world of Holberton, while capturing the very essence of what makes Holberton different from other schools and bootcamps.

The article also touches on how Holberton is removing barriers and motivating people from diverse backgrounds come and build a career in tech. With proven records of getting students jobs at Apple, NASA and LinkedIn, even though they have not yet graduated.

 

 

“We want to remove any barrier to a high-quality education,” said Sylvain, Co-founder, Holberton School. “No matter your age, gender, ethnicity or past professional life, you can come.”

“I was attracted to Holberton because my school is also about social justice and teaching populations that are frozen out of the information age, meaning people of color, women and people who are not wealthy,” said Vito Ferrante, A Director of educational technology at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory in San Francisco.

Thanks Katie Benner for interviewing our team and curating the fantastic story.

We feel honored and want to share our happiness with all of you – Thank you for being a part of our journey. We all are thrilled to go further and make our school even better.

Looking forward to more exciting times!

Click here to read the full article.

Show us some love, Share the article 🙂

Spot. Click. Share. Contest

Posted by Amrita Hemdev

Hello Friends, while you read this blog on your phone in BART, one of our students may be journeying with you! No, like SERIOUSLY! Our dear students are traveling with you in the subway trains every day… Haven’t you noticed them yet?

 

Holberton students are riding along with you in San Francisco Bay Area public transport BART on posters… Our students started to have some fun by taking cool selfies with the posters, so we thought of sharing the fun with you too!

 

We decided to organize a contest for all of you! Isn’t that a mega-exciting Llama farm fun news?

Ready…. Set…. ARDUINO….

If you have a passion for Arduino or you tinker, hack, make or create cool stuff, then this contest is for you! Tinkerers, rejoice! We are excited to announce the “Spot. Click. Share” contest that sponsors an Arduino Starter Kit for the winner.

Simple steps to enter the contest:

  1. SPOT: Find Holberton school’s poster in Bart while traveling.
  2. CLICK: Click a selfie with the poster.
  3. SHARE: Share it on social media (Facebook, Instagram or Twitter) with #YouCanToo and tag us @holbertonschool.

 

Rules for the contest:

  • Open to all BART travelers in the SF Bay Area.
  • The most creative picture with a caption wins.
  • The post must have the hashtag #YouCanToo.
  • The contest ends on June 22nd, 2017.
  • The results will be announced on June 26th, 2017.

To improve your odds of winning, you can make sure your picture receives more reposts/retweets/shares and likes. So put your creative caps on, share your picture with us in the most creative way you can.

The thought of winning this cool Arduino Starter Kit should alone be enough to make you break out your soldering iron!

Good luck and happy spotting, clicking & sharing!