The Holberton School is a new hybrid of trade and higher-education institution that offers a unique approach to real-world software engineering training. Unlike a four-year education, learning at Holberton is completely focused around project-based learning with an emphasis on peer-to-peer collaboration and mentoring.

“Even within my own cohort, there’s different levels of knowledge, so I’m always going to be able to help somebody, and somebody’s always going to be able to help me,” said Holberton scholar and teaching assistant Kristen Loyd (pictured).

Loyd spoke with Lisa Martin (@luccazara), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the CloudNow Top 10 Women in Cloud Innovation Awards on the Google Campus in Mountain View, California. She talked about the model of learning at Holberton and her takeaways from the annual awards show.

Real-world education

After completing her first year at Holberton, Loyd mentioned she is currently looking for an internship. When she returns to school, the program allows her to choose a specialization for the second half of her hands-on education.  

“There is one of three tracks you can choose from, so there’s low-level, web stack debugging [and] a couple other tracks are available to students, and so … you go really in depth and have this specialization part,” Loyd explained.

At the CloudNOW awards show, Loyd was inspired by the diversity and inclusion panel that emphasized leading a change by example and bringing a positive energy into all situations. She was excited to bring her experiences from the show back into Holberton’s peer-to-peer learning environment.

“We have a responsibility to represent and to mentor others, and I really take that to heart. So I’m excited to be able to bring maybe some of my knowledge I got here today back to my classmates,” Loyd concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the CloudNOW 6th Annual Top 10 Women in Cloud Innovation Awards.

Photo: SiliconANGLE