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 wh

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 https://twitter.com/RobertMalmstein) if you have any more questions.