Hi
Not so long ago, in an advertisement, I learned about the miracle school School 21. The first impression of everything I read was wonderful. No one touches you, they give you tasks, you calmly do everything. There is team work, interesting acquaintances, and 2 internships in the largest it companies in the country, plus everything is free with accommodation in a hostel (Kazan). All in all, this was my chance! I myself have been developing for a long time, I work in a small it company, I do both front and back, in other words, I know what a function is. But at the moment there is a certain barrier. Sometimes there is a lot of work, sometimes there is so much to study that it is difficult to take on something. Yes, it would be nice to have useful contacts. I firmly decided that I had to do it.
Passed online testing, invited to a meeting. I'll tell you about everything in order.
There were a few steps to go through to get in:
First stage: testing
At first I thought this was the hardest part (except for the pool), because after that there is a video interview (more on that later) and a pool. The best must pass (no).
There are 2 tasks in testing: the first for short-term memory (cells change color on the screen, you click on them after they go out), duration 10 minutes. The second is for logic. No instructions, a minimum of letters, you yourself think what to do. I figured it out in 7-10 minutes. In general, you don’t need to have high intelligence to solve it, but what is useful is the ability to think for a long time on a task and not give up if it doesn’t work out. Duration 2 hours.
I think this: if you can read articles of more than 5k characters (not just skim through your eyes, but read thoughtfully), you will pass. If your destiny is to flip through memes with captions for 3 letters, maybe it will work for you, judging by the team sitting at the meeting and the speaker (more on that later), everyone has a chance.
Second stage: video interview
After all this, in about a day you will be sent information about whether you passed.
I want to step back for a minute. Tell me, are there those who did not pass the first stage? Could you tell us what you did there? How many tasks were you able to complete? I'm really interested to know.
You will be invited to a video interview. I was hoping they would take time for each student and ask really interesting questions about what you can do, what you want to learn. What is in fact? In fact, you should record 6 videos with answers to the most clichéd questions that you could think of. You can go both on PC and on the phone, which is a plus. Of the minuses: You cannot overwrite the answer, a limited time is given to read and think about the question (20-40 seconds, I don’t remember exactly). Because of what, a situation may arise in which you did not understand the question, could not come up with anything adequate for the answer, you were distracted, or your pet pterodactyl dropped the iron. Whatever, you can't reread the question, rewrite the answer, or just pause the interview. But you can see your answers after. So you can notably neigh about how terrible you turned out, what nonsense you were talking about and what stupid questions there are, and here they are (I don’t know if they can be uploaded, but if you don’t want to, don’t leave access to them):
Please introduce yourself. How old are you, what and where are you doing now?
What are your plans for 20**?
Why School 21? What are your expectations from the School?
The next question has been changed for universality, but the meaning is conveyed correctly.
Education at school 21 will be held according to your personal schedule, but before the start you will have to go through a 4-week intensive ("pool") in the N city to learn programming. It will take place during Z full-time or X. Which pool will you choose and how does it fit in with your personal plans?
What do you plan to do after studying at School 21?
How did you hear about School 21?
Draw your own conclusions if that's what they want to know about you.
Questions may differ, the “interview” took place in the fall of 2019.
I do not understand all these restrictions, but they are, and there are, I think, for show. If there is a practical meaning in them, explain it.
And again, if someone did not go through this, what did you do on the video there?
Third stage: Meeting
There is nothing to be afraid of. You are already one of the billion "chosen ones" that have gone through all these "circles of hell". You will be invited to the city of your choice at the time and date specified by you (given from the list), you need to sign up 2 weeks in advance, places quickly disperse. If you do not live in the city where the meeting will be held, no one will pay for your trip, let alone an apartment or a hotel. I, personally, spent a lot of money because I had to go for 3x9 lands, and for life I had to rent an apartment for a day (the hotel will be the same price, but the apartment is many times better in terms of convenience).
Attention! Everything that I will write further relates specifically to my meeting, at your meeting they could distribute donuts, but ride a pony. I had it like that.
So, you have come, a very arrogant and unpleasant person (I had it) will be waiting for you, who will show you where to go. No one will explain anything to you, think for yourself.
You are given 3 documents to sign: 2 copies of the admission agreement, 1 confidentiality agreement (I don’t remember exactly what it is called, but the essence is clear). The last one surprised me. The contract contains a clause on the transfer of your personal data (name, phone number, date of birth and some other information) to third parties without your knowledge. And, of course, they can do it. So it will be interesting to see when they start calling me from banks with offers of loans and promotions. Also, they will have the right to use at their discretion the recordings from the cameras in the hall, without prior notice to you. Is this all critical? It depends. For me personally, it's not pleasant.
But with the first contract, everything is quite fun. In addition to the banality, it seems, do not break computers, study, do not walk, there is a set of rules, here are those that amused me a lot:
Especially places where they can distribute your things and food.
There is also a clause: "Everything that is clearly not allowed is prohibited on the territory."
Now about the presentation itself. The presentation consists of: 89% about how cool they are (water), 10% answering questions, 1% about what we should expect.
Judging by the channel into which the presenter led, it would be more pleasant for them to see completely zero gentlemen there, his phrase made me laugh a lot: “It is usually difficult for self-taught people, they come thinking that they know everything and waste time in vain. I came here, knowing nothing, and passed. The first question that came to my mind was: are you not self-taught cooking there?
They are proud of the number of 25% of girls (I don’t know what’s special here).
Now about the training, it takes place entirely in the C language, for me this is not a plus, rather a minus, it would be nice if they were given the opportunity to choose a language for solving problems, but for some reason students are again limited. They promise to write other projects in other languages, not a word was said in detail about this. They also keep the entire training plan secret (maybe it just doesn’t exist), which is strange. That's about all I can say, as I said, about training will be ~ 1%.
They really promise practice, serious companies like Yandex and Sberbank hung on the screen, but I was confused by one story of the speaker: in practice, several guys were put into sorting papers, and not working with code, which prompted me to think that companies do not take graduates / students of the school seriously, although Sber articles promised a queue of employers. And they are accepted for practice because Gref asked (IMHO).
Audience. As I understood from the questions, 90% consists of those that Hello world was not displayed, the narrator himself asked the question to check the tasks of the audience: What is a terminal? (I have no words). I can’t find the reason why they are recruiting completely zero, now there are enough guys who can do something, want to study, but don’t want to go to university.
Dormitory! This is an important point that should be read by those who wish to apply from other cities/countries. The attitude towards the inhabitants of the hostel is special. You will have to go through all the tests many times faster (this is a mandatory condition that was announced), no one wants to keep you there for a long time. There will be no hostel at the pool, which I will pass, at the moment it is being built, there is no way to see the plans of the hostel, to look at the hall for work. And again, everything is very strange and doubtful.
As you can understand, after all this, my enthusiasm for this institution was gone. There is no information about education, increased requirements for visitors, recruitment not according to knowledge, but just like that, all this betrays the desire of some people to earn money or points of praise from the state (I am not saying anything), they are not going to train anyone there, and these courses will not exist for long. Will I go to this pool? I'm going, I won't lose anything, but if I'm wrong, I'll gain. If the post gains positive reviews, I will write another article about the pool after the visit.
Don't forget to ask questions, I'll try to answer them all. Thank you.
And yes, this is my first article 🙂
Update: Found tasks from different pools (you can roughly estimate what will be waiting): , as well as on request: . Recommended by one of the pool members, thanks to him for that.
Source: habr.com