Feb 3rd, 2022
What is the ABCS program?
The Facebook Above and Beyond Computer Science (ABCS) program is a 10-week workshop series with FB engineers from around the US. These workshops are designed to help students prepare for the technical interviews in industry. The series focuses on both soft and technical skills required to ace an interview.
I virtually participated in this program during the fall of 2021. Below is the compilation of my thoughts and experiences that might help the future applicants.
The Application Process
The application comes out around the end of July-August ish and has 3 essay questions. They ask about your interest, how you plan to pay it forward and what your extracurriculars look like (and if you hold leadership roles).
A good approach to take for the essays is to talk about what you uniquely will gain from the program and how you can pay it forward.
Program Structure
I was placed into a cohort of 50 students with 3 mentors from Facebook. Every week, we are given Hackerranks to practice one aspect of interview prep. Here is the schedule:
Workshop 1: Kickoff
Workshop 2: Arrays and Strings
Workshop 3: Recursion
Workshop 4: Trees and BSTs
Workshop 5: Linked Lists
Workshop 6: Stacks and Queues
Workshop 7: Heaps
Workshop 8: Hash Tables
Workshop 9: Graphs
My mentors are super kind and have been great at explaining every question I throw at them. Additionally, I’ve really enjoyed getting to know other talented students from other universities and bonding with them.
Making the most of ABCS
If you happen to get accepted into the programs, here’s what I recommend doing to make the most of it.
- Network! Connect with your mentors and peers in the program. Find like minded individuals and keep each other accountable in the interview process.
- Practice! Take advantage of the Hackerranks and try to finish all of them prior to each workshop.
- Ask questions! Make sure to get all your doubts cleared so that you can be successful after that.