Horizons School of Technology?

Student Lounge College Life
1

First, I posted this a few days ago in another forum but got not bites and few looks so I wanted to put it in a forum that I know many posters work in the field.

This program was started at UPenn a few years ago and is now branching out, including Boston. It is a summer coding program for college students. D’s career office sent her information about a fellowship for this summer but I can find very little information about the program, including where it will take place in Boston, dates, etc.

Has anyone heard of the program? Do those of you in the field, especially those who hire, think a coding program trumps an internship? She was on board for spending the summer doing an internship but is interested in learning more about this program. I’m inclined to think its too new, not enough information out there, and too specific.

Would love to hear your comments if you are familiar with this program or similar ones out there.

2

Right now there’s not enough info to be able to give a good answer to your question. What’s your daughter’s major, and can you describe the internship? Has she had a programming class before?

I’ve never heard of Horizons School of Technolgy, although that doesn’t mean much. It looks like a coding bootcamp started by Penn alumni, rather than being associated with the university.

It’s always good to know a bit of programming, but coding bootcamps don’t have a good reputation here in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area. They were a fad a few years ago, but quickly fell out of favor because it was found they were too expensive and over-promised. From looking at the Horizons website, it looks like one of those types of bootcamps. You can get a taste of programming in 12 weeks, but you won’t become a competent programmer. There’s no way I’d pay $9000 for a 12-week bootcamp.

3

I was looking a little further into the fellowships for Horizons, and if your daughter can get into the summer long bootcamp for free, that might actually be worth it. Can’t say I’m crazy about the hours. The one scheduled for San Francisco next summer goes from 9 AM to 10 PM daily, which is awfully grueling.

4

@simba9, thanks for your input. She would only attend if she got a fellowship. She is a Math/CS double with minimal experience with programming but will be taking another class this semester and then attending AIT Budapest in the Spring where she will take another, along with three other CS/Software Engineer classes. I wasn’t able to find specific information about any of the programs, could you point me to where you found the SF info?

5

The SF schedule was at the very bottom of the following page

http://www.joinhorizons.com/

6

Thank you. I emailed them for information about Boston. I welcome more input from others in the field.

7

I would generally highly advise against bootcamps for many of the reasons above. Taking a few extra CS courses would be much more useful. A bootcamp will likely teach a lot of the basics she already knows, even if it’s minimal.

The entire bootcamp is focused on web development and then interview prep. The interview prep focuses on algorithms because that’s what interviews often focus on, but focusing on that area specifically for interviews raises a red flag for me about if they’re going to teach memorizing certain algorithms or actual good information about algorithms as a field, where one can generally apply that information later.

As with many like it, it looks like it’s focused on teaching languages/frameworks, not CS concepts. A CS student who has taken more than 3-4 courses should be able to pick up those in no time on the job or on their own. I would focus on taking as many CS courses in school as possible - they won’t be directly applicable to daily work in the same way, but it’s going to be very helpful to have core concepts down. If she’s already doing this, great!

Courses to look for after basics considering your daughter’s situation:
An algorithms course
A systems / OS course
A networks course
A databases course

8

Thank you for your comments @PengsPhils . She is currently taking programming languages and algorithms as well as dynamical systems (math I believe). I will forward this info to her as she needs to pick her classes at AIT, 3 of which will be CS/Engineering, one math, and one cultural studies of sorts.

9

No problem! It sounds like she would be far above this bootcamp. It’s great she’s taking a PL course already too. I would highly emphasize Systems/OS and Networks. If she can take those, she will be in a great position.

10

College CS tends to lean heavily on theory rather than practicality. The good thing I saw about the bootcamp was that the daughter would get some practical development experience. Most employers who have a choice between someone who knows theory and someone with practical experience, will go with the latter. But again, I would only go to the bootcamp if it was free.

11

If it’s bootcamp for free or nothing in terms of practical, sure, but I think there are easier ways to get practical experience by taking on a side project or doing an internship before graduation. A bootcamp might also be a red flag for many employers - “Why is this college CS student enrolling in a bootcamp?”

Some may filter out bootcamp applicants regardless of age/skill level as well.

12

@NEPatsGirl I was a student in the Horizons Semester Immersive program in SF and I can tell you that it is a great coding bootcamp. I studied CS at a target school and contrary to @PengsPhils point that bootcamps are red flags for employers, attending Horizons only helped me in the recruiting/networking/interview process. Yes it is true that technical interviews cover fundamental CS concepts/theory but anyone can pick up a copy of Cracking the Coding Interview or complete practice coding questions on one of many websites (Leetcode, HackerRank, etc.) and ace a technical interview. Having attended a bootcamp that covers web and mobile app development demonstrates genuine interest in the field and initiative to explore areas generally not covered in-depth in the classroom and employers/recruiters love that. In my experiences, having projects that I completed during and after Horizons that I was passionate about served as great topics of conversation during the recruiting process. I truly believe a coding bootcamp like Horizons, which tends to have many undergraduate students, is the perfect complement to a CS degree.

To answer your question about whether a coding program trumps an internship, I don’t think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive. Enrolling in the program will 100% open doors for so many internships that D would not be qualified for otherwise and could likely land her a better internship a summer or semester after the program given her CS background. I believe that my classmates and other Horizons alumni would definitely agree that this program has brightened career prospects for them and has also vastly increased their pool of potential career paths.

13

@NEPatsGirl TLDR: Yay or nay to Horizons? NAY.

Hi, a little late to game, but I got an email from the Horizons School of Technology about this thread asking past students to give some insight. Horizons are super saavy about marketing and in my opinion sometimes misrepresent themselves. Some things for people to think about before applying:

  1. Horizons is NOT an accredited institution. So that means you can’t get a degree or get any federal loans (think FAFSA) to help pay for the tuition. It also means that it’s not a traditional school (both good and bad). Some of the instructors are smart but none of them have PhDs (if you care about PhDs, one guy was working on it but then dropped out).

  2. Horizons is NOT a nonprofit. They are for profit. This is important because a lot of accredited colleges/ universities are nonprofit… which alludes to their mission: to educate (while covering expenses like providing living wages for your teachers and stuff). Horizons is for profit and their goal is to make money off of you (while hopefully teaching you coding along the way).

  3. Their relationship to UPenn is misleading. They like to use this Ivy League’s name in all of their marketing plans but they aren’t sponsored in anyway by the university. So to say this program “started at UPenn” is misleading and wrong. UPenn faculty and staff didn’t come together to make Horizons. It’s just that 2 of the founders went to UPenn and they rented some UPenn dorms for a summer to use as housing for their first class of students.

  4. They call (almost) everything a fellowship because they know it looks/ sounds prestigious. In fact, the founders cold emailed every one of their target schools (roughly any school that has a name brand which they can add to their website) the same message about offering a fellowship opportunity for their students. Why? They want teachers/ department heads to pass it along to their students. I got a fellowship and all of my classmates I talked to at Horizons got a fellowship (I don’t know one student who had to pay full price). Did all of the Horizons students actually get fellowships? I don’t know but the founders held resume building workshops where they told all of us to put “Horizon Fellow” on our resumes anyway.

  5. They have a lot of kinks to work on (like any startup, right?). I identify as male but a few of my close friends at Horizons were female. I kid you not, one of them was solicited for sex by one of the founders’ friends (whom they let visit the school/ office whenever). It was late at night and she was the only student in the classroom. The sleazy founders’ friend invited her up to the office under the pretense of mentorship and started making moves on her. He touched her leg, made unwanted advances, and generally made her feel uncomfortable. How did the Horizons’ founders deal with it? I think they asked the friend to stop visiting the office but they still hang out with him according to their snapchat stories (a lot of the students are friends with the founders on social media). There are tons of other stories about sexism, discrimination, and playing favorites but I guess you can just chalk it up to boys being boys and Horizons being such a young company? (That was sarcasm. I have a sister. I like some people I met through Horizons but I would never let her take classes here…).

  6. Horizons is based in San Francisco which is awesome but more accurately they’re based in SoMa (South of Market) which is kind of unsafe. Maybe you looked up SoMa and saw that it’s an up and coming development but if you actually visited you would see that used syringes, human poop (from the homeless people who make their home on every street corner), and broken glass better describes SoMa or at least the walk from the dorms to the classrooms. Read more about the Tenderloin district because SoMa is awfully close to it. To some people, SoMa is just rough around the edges and to some people it’s home… judge for yourself.

My last notes about Horizons: I regret going to Horizons. I wish I had spent the summer doing an internship or attending a more reputable bootcamp (if I wanted to learn about application development and work on projects) with a stronger curriculum (they gave us tons of free time to do what we wanted but I interpreted that as they didn’t know what to do with us). I wasn’t happy paying for an experience when I could have learned a lot of the same things AND worked in a real engineering team to learn best practices AND get paid at the same time.

Places I would recommend anyone thinking about Horizons to look at too/instead:

A) Grace Hopper Program at Fullstack Academy (ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RE A GIRL), Fullstack Academy, Iron School (just google best coding bootcamps… unfortunately Horizons isn’t one of them according to most lists)
B) Etsy Recurse Center
C) Coding apprenticeship programs

14

@somatechie -

It sounds like your experience from Horizons does not match up with almost every other graduate of the program (including myself).

I took one of Horizon’s first ever classes, so it was probably the one with the “most kinks” (I assume by now, things are running even more smoothly).

I can tell all of you here that Horizons was single handedly the MOST rewarding experience of my life. I’m not the type of person to say things that likely. I attend a top 20 university. I have been to other programs before that have claimed to be the Be-All and End-All. Horizons is something else.

The caliber of students you are surrounded by is unlike anything else - it’s like ALL the most driven, motivated, techies from around the country.

The caliber of the instructors and TAs is equally as impressive - they have instructors who come from big brand-name tech companies and their TAs (I think they call them junior instructors) are some of the smartest young people I have ever met.

Also @somatechie - I don’t remember having any free time whatsoever haha! If anything, you work TOO hard. I hear they are easing up on the gas pedal though to avoid burnout (smart).

The area in San Francisco they are in, SOMA, also is the business center with all the major startups - yes, it kinda sucks sometimes to be around homeless people, but that’s SF. You gotta live with it or perhaps SF and tech isn’t for you (in which case you should change your username).

I think your post seems weirdly biased against Horizons. I know the founders, I know many of the instructors - it is a fantastic program. For those of you looking into Horizons who want REAL feedback - go look at CourseReport reviews.

15

Hey There~

TLDR; Horizons is awesome if you’re a motivated individual. You get what you put in.

Horizons Summer Immersive 17’ Alumni here, also a recent high school graduate. I’ve been an intern for Chicago’s best and biggest incubators (1871 and MATTER), and Horizons was undoubtedly one of the best hands-on learning experiences I’ve had.

Horizons isn’t accredited, but it runs so smoothly that it could easily compete an accredited institution any day. Individualized help when a student is struggling, amazing speakers every week, and if you’re a high school student, the founders will even uber you back to your apartment for your safety and convenience. It has a no-BS curriculum, where students learn the latest tech that’s actually used in startups and established companies alike. It’s application based, so you learn how to build Facebook, Amazon, Trello, etc. instead of learning theoretical computer science. I’ve made web apps, mobile apps, and could easily get a startup idea off the ground.

Although Horizons is a for-profit institution, it’s well worth the money. It looks pricey for a summer program, but it’s an investment in yourself because the jobs I got only a few months after graduating from the program that have already paid for the tuition I paid and then some. The Horizons network is INSANELY awesome. I’m still in touch with the founders and fellow alumni, and I could easily find an internship or job through them if I asked.

NO, Horizons isn’t located in paradise, but the environment isn’t that bad either. SOMA is where the biggest tech headquarters are located and there’s tons of hackathons, tech networking workshops, and so many of the brightest minds work there. My dorm was located right across from Twitter HQ on a main street, and the walk to class wasn’t far or unsafe either. As for the homeless people there, I’ve never had any problems with them. They mind their own business as long as you mind yours.

Regarding safety for female students, nobody has ever acted inappropriately towards me during my time at Horizons (including visitors), even if I was the last student in the classroom late at night. In fact, the founders made sure I got to my apartment safely every time it was late at night, providing ubers if needed. There’s even a group called HERizons where there’s support and opportunities for female coders! We had access to networking events with female CEOs (or she-e-o’s as I like to call them) and even hackathons and mentoring that help women in STEM, and I loved all the support.

If you need a real former student’s opinion, ask Horizons to talk to spinachandcode or any other alumni of Horizons.

16

Hey there @spinachandcode. I’m considering applying to Horizons. How difficult is it to get into the program? Do they weigh things like GPA and CS-related work experience heavily? I’d really appreciate any tips or advice for applying.

17

TLDR; Horizons founder clearing up misinformation in the thread

Hi folks -

My name is Abhi, and I’m one of the founders of the Horizons School of Technology.

I think there’s quite a bit of misinformation on this thread (especially in the post above by somatechie), so I thought I’d clear a few things up. If anyone has questions about these points or Horizons in general, feel free to shoot me a note at abhi@joinhorizons.com.

1.) Horizons is indeed NOT an accredited, degree-granting institution, nor have we ever claimed to be. We are a non-traditional school and our mission is to build the modern technology university. Yes, that does mean you can’t use federal student loans to pay for Horizons programs. But it also means, Horizons can do things like:

a.) Build industry-focused programs faster than traditional universities
b.) Offer outcome-based pricing for programs (our 2-year Horizons One program costs $0 upfront and students pay through future earnings)
c.) We are not tied to the traditional 4-year college timeline - we can offer programs that span 12 weeks or 12 months and don’t have to take a one-size-fits-all approach to higher education.

There is a path towards accreditation, and it’s something we’re looking at for the future, but for now, I’d say our nontraditional nature has been a blessing in disguise - our programs cost less, are focused on career outcomes, and deliver more value than many traditional universities.

2.) Again, Horizons is NOT a nonprofit. Correct. But it’s very misleading to say that makes our mission any less noble than a that of a traditional nonprofit university. Our summer program costs a fraction of a semester at many colleges. Our Horizons One program is entirely upfront tuition-free. We guarantee our graduates jobs. In fact, being a for-profit company has allowed us to move so much more quickly - we’re able to attract and pay for the BEST instructor talent - top engineers from places like Salesforce, Ticketmaster, Khan Academy, D.E. Shaw, and more. Being for-profit has allowed us to partner with venture capital firms like Social Capital and build job pipelines with their portfolio companies.

Education has been a space that has not had real innovation in centuries - despite rapidly changing job markets and student preferences. Horizons has a shot at changing that.

Saying our “goal” is to just make money because we are for profit is like saying Tesla’s goal is to make money rather than to “modernize energy and transportation.” It’s like saying UnitedHealth Group’s goal is to make money rather than to “offer affordable health insurance to the world.”

3.) We actually make a very conscious effort to make sure people understand we are not affiliated with UPenn formally. 2 members of the founding team (myself included) are UPenn/Wharton alumni. We started our program on Penn’s campus. We’ve had over 50 UPenn/Wharton students go through our programs to date. I actually help craft most of our marketing material, and there is not a single one that says we are a UPenn program.

4.) To clarify - someone who receives the Horizons Fellowship receives a full scholarship into our program (tuition and housing costs are 100% paid for). Our Fellowship program is our attempt to make our program even more financially accessible. We award the Fellowship to 5-7% of students who get into the program, so it is a competitive process. If there is any further confusion about what the Horizons Fellowship is, feel free to reach out to me directly!

5.) We take situations like these (and comments about them) VERY seriously. Due to student privacy issues, I am not at liberty to disclose details. What I will say, however, is that this was an isolated incidence that was dealt with IMMEDIATELY. Despite the unfortunate nature of the circumstances, the female in particular expressed gratitude for the swift resolution. Our program deals with high school and college students - we are very deliberate about setting the right expectations and rules with them during every cohort.

6.) Horizons is indeed based in SOMA, San Francisco. SOMA has it’s fair share of issues. San Francisco has the largest population of homeless people of any city in the country. As much as we wish we could do something about it, our powers are limited. The reason we are in SOMA is because it is the business center of San Francisco. We are within 3 blocks of Uber, Square, Airbnb, Pinterest, Twitter, and other major tech companies. They are all located in SOMA.

We take every precaution to make sure our students are safe, and to date, there have been no major issues related to student safety. For our previous high school cohorts, we actually paid for high schoolers to take Ubers back to their dorms in the evenings. Dorm buildings have front desk security and high school students all have an RA on their floor.

The final point I’ll make is about internships / other bootcamps. There are definitely other bootcamp programs out there. Each one has it’s pros and cons. If you’re looking for a “more rigorous” curriculum, I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find one better than Horizons. All bootcamp curricula are project-based and many of them are actually significantly more “free-form” than ours.

Yes - a great software engineering internship will teach you quite a few of the things you learn at Horizons. But, not all internships are created equal. Horizons gives students more depth and breadth in terms of software engineering content than many traditional internships. In addition, not all students can get great software engineering internships without Horizons (many students take Horizons in order to open up internship opportunity doors).

Finally if, anyone would like to read raw feedback from our past students - check out the link below. These are anonymous feedback results from our “end of class” survey after the summer program (over 130 students).

https://perspectives.joinhorizons.com/over-100-horizons-school-of-technology-reviews-directly-from-the-source%E2%80%8A-%E2%80%8Aend-of-class-surveys/

Feel free to also reach out to me if you’d like to discuss any of this further - happy to chat!

18

Hi everyone -

This is Darwish, one of the Founders at Horizons. Here is a link to a blog post I wrote about that shares some anonymized direct feedback results from a survey given to over 100 horizonites! I think this should give a good sense of the experience that we created at Horizons.

https://perspectives.joinhorizons.com/over-100-horizons-school-of-technology-reviews-directly-from-the-source - end-of-class-surveys/

I also recommend looking on page 2 of this this thread. My co-founder Abhi made a post about the following:

  • Benefits of being accredited vs. not at this stage (we move way faster, build industry focused curriclum)
  • Hiring advantages of being for profit (top engineers from industry, partnerships with leading investors)
  • Our relationship to Penn (We’ve been transparent from day 1 about this)
  • Student life at Horizons
  • Pro’s and con’s of being located in SOMA, less than 3 blocks from Airbnb and Uber. My blog post also talks about this. I recommend reading it
  • and more.

Edit: It looks like I have also been moved to page 2. I hope everyone is able to find and read this!

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@horizonstech @dg123 I’m the OP here. My D opted for an internship because we could not find any information about the Boston location and never got a reply to any emails about it. Could you enlighten us?

20

Hi @NEPatsGirl -

Sorry to hear you never got a reply to any emails - did you email admissions@joinhorizons.com? Normally we are quick about responding, but perhaps your emails got lost.

We actually consolidated our locations all in San Francisco last summer, so we do not have a location in Boston.

Hope this helps!