Alternative Programs To A CS Degree

These are all programs that are at least 2 years long and act as alternatives to a typical CS degree.

Originally planned for release on April 10th, 2017 but stuff happens.

After interviewing with a few of the new and upcoming alternative long-term programs for CS education, I wanted to provide others a brief overview of how they operate differently.

Most coding bootcamps are 2 to 4 months (8 to 12 weeks) long.

These programs instead act as alternative options to a CS degree which is usually 4 years long.

Common Patterns Found

gamification
thorough admissions process
all these programs will accept someone who is at least 18 years but some of them have upper age limits

Alternative Programs

Make School

2 years
18+
San Francisco, CA
coach/advisor – switch maybe
2 core courses – twice a week for an hour
2 classes – 3 times a week – 2 hours – advisor projects
- 25 hours of work/week for courses
- teach core courses
5 6-week sessions per year
2 sprints this fall vs 3 sprints this spring
two 15 weeks semester
fall shorter than spring
technical education
web/mobile development – 10 courses
fullstack web – 10 courses
devops/AWS
front-end web-dev
data science/ml/ai
gaming/VR – club
devices in IoT
gen. courses
- design, economics, product dev

Holberton School

Syllabus for the 1st year of their program
2 years
18+
San Francisco, CA
internet projects with deadlines – always released at midnight
no formal lectures/teachers
access to resources that have more experience and knowledge
overlapping batches
staff here on-site who write most of the projects anyways
mentors who are available in a number of different channels (emails, slack, meetups (fireside chats), in-person)
no formal teacher – just uses mentor to provide up to date knowledge on whatever they’re working on
i.e. mentor who is a man who works in cyber-security in SF (Dave) – look over my resume
networking really important component of those who come in
constant feedback on program and how it is relevant in industry
we cannot implement things that we think are important – so whatever we’re teaching here – they have to be relevant for industry
mentors critique curriculum and provide feedback in different roles/companies
huge sense of comraderie and teamwork and collaboration –> important for us too
current student interviewing me
help other students –> status quo
focuses community, collaboration, and helping others, sharing knowledge
1st 9 months –> 60 hours a week –> on-site intensive learning
- first 3 months
  - theories, fundamentals
  - C programming languages
  - projects build up
    - last one is “building a shell”
- next 3 months
  - front-end
  - back-end
  - APIs
  - databases
  - uses Python
  - not about learning Python but about understanding methods/routes and understanding OOP fundamental concepts so you could easily translate that syntax
  - C projects don’t stop
- next 3 months
  - systems administration
  - devops
- next 6 months
  - full-time internship
    - this can turn into job
  - full-time job
next 9 months
- full-time specialization
- part-time
- if a bunch of people in your cohort are interested in something specific – then that is a specialization that is created – has to be at least 4 people in a specialization
- no set group of specializations because industry changes every year
- specializations now: low-level algorithms, back-end engineering, system administration/devops/SRE (site reliability engineer)
- specialization can be done part-time –> meant with full-time job
- others are back full-time with specialization b/c they didn’t get full-time job after 6 months or they choose hiatus/quit
- majority choose part-time
cohort demographics (January 2017)
- 50% female, 30 or 40%
- 50% POC
average age range
- most of students are in mid-20s to 30s
- right out of high school
- at least 18
- 40’s, 50’s, 58 is oldest we’ve gotten
are any of projects given by a contract
- all are created by staff here
- staff members are not experts in front-end/UX/UI field
- so some you can collaborate with mentors
can you give me examples of jobs folks from your cohort have gotten
- systems administration/devops roles
- 2 people with Apple doing SRE
- 2 people with Dropbox doing SRE
- 1 with Docker as SWE
- 1 with LinkedIn as SWE
- 2 people with medical tech company as SWE intern
- full-time jobs right after Holberton but it’s definitely not the expectation
- 3 with scality as junior SWE

42

I would recommend using the game Lightbot to prepare.
- A bulk of their admissions process to getting into a piscine involves solving puzzles exactly like ones you would find playing Lightbot but a bit more complicated.
- There are also videos online…
3-5 years
San Francisco
Free
ages 18-30
certain time of life
very competitive
difficult
isolating
referral bonus – headhunting fee

Ada Developers Academy

Turing School

Galvanize

Horizons One

Horizons School of Technology

The Horizons School of Technology bridges traditional education and the world of technology. We give high-potential students the skills of an engineer and perspective of an entrepreneur.

The world’s first tuition-free technology co-op program

[pdf-embedder url=”https://francescoronel.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Horizons_Immersive.pdf”%5D

[pdf-embedder url=”https://francescoronel.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/HorizonsOne-ProgramOverview.pdf” title=”Horizons+One+-+Program+Overview”]

MissionU

MissionU

Data Analytics + Business Intelligence

If you are interested in something other than Computer Science, MissionU offers a one year program in Data Analytics + Business Intelligence.
It has a tuition deferral model which means you only pay once you get a salary of at least $50K.