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 technical interviews in the industry. The series focuses on the soft and technical skills required to ace an interview. I participated virtually in this program during the fall of 2021. Below is a compilation of my thoughts and experiences that might help future applicants.
The Application Process
The application comes out around the end of July or August and has three essay questions. It asks about your interest, how you plan to pay it forward, and your extracurriculars (and if you hold leadership roles).
A good approach for the essays is to discuss what you will uniquely gain from the program and how you can pay it forward.
Program Structure
I was placed into a cohort of 50 students with three 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’ve asked. Additionally, I’ve enjoyed getting to know other talented students from different universities and bonding with them.
Making the most of ABCS
If you are 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 hold each other accountable in the interview process.
- Practice! Please take advantage of the Hackerranks and try to finish them before each workshop.
- Ask questions! Clear all your doubts so that you can be successful after that.