Data Science Career Track Reviews

Springboard's Data Science Career Track includes an extensive curated course plan made credible by expert mentors - but be prepared to be frustrated.. Springboard's Data Science Career Track is comprehensive, including: paid and free interactive courses, lectures, multiple assignments to submit and a great administrative staff. It is not only Python, but some UNIX, some Git, some SQL, some Pyspark, sort of everything you need to operate as a data scientist. This is a double edged sword because you learned how to do something, applied it for the next segment, but would go weeks without having practiced it. I spent a lot of time referring back which was frustrating.  The most frustrating aspect for me was for most of the mini-projects, the assignments would ask you to use either new concepts/code or use functions/methods/attributes that were not emphasized in the interactive lessons. I again spent a lot of time referring back, combing through my notes, only to discover, it was not covered or not sufficiently. Perhaps, this would not be an issue if you had some previous skill with Python or a lower level language. (My previous language was R.) I spent far more time than the curriculum said – either taking notes or referring back to them. The one thing that can make or break your experience is your assigned mentor. (And by the way, I would have never persisted through the frustration without a good mentor.) I spent the first 5-6 weeks with a mentor who was not a good fit. This set me back for the first half of the course. I ended up changing my data set for the first capstone project after I had been working on it for three months. Luckily, my second mentor was extremely helpful, accessible and an expert. When I changed data sets, things started to come together. I also started to use more of the resources that Springboard provides - the on-call mentor and the TAs.  I could not get much out of the community chat because even within my cohort there was a different pace. The career track means data science as a career. The career mentors were focused on getting jobs for data scientist or data analyst titles. I found out a few months into the track that I didn't really want to be an entry level data scientist. I have had 20 years of experience in public policy. I still want to craft and implement policy while having the skills to describe, predict with and visualize the data.

When I was in University, I studied computer science but I did not know how I wanted to apply it. I first heard about data science through some friends who were in the field, and I was interested in changing career paths. The thing I really wanted in a bootcamp was a thorough curriculum, which is what I got through Springboard. Not only did I feel like I learned a lot, but the selling point for me was the one-on-one mentorship I received each week and the capstone projects that I got to create through Springboard. The relationship I developed with an expert in the field along with the consistent guidance I received when I needed help understanding difficult concepts helped me succeed, and I would highly recommend Springboard to anyone looking to start their career in data science.

This course is great for the independent learner. Lessons are completed online at your own pace.You have weekly 1:1 skype calls with a mentor who is a data scientist. They provide advice and technical assistance, and this is extremely helpful throughout the course.There is also a community page where you can post and connect with other students and discuss your projects, technical questions, or career search opportunities.You have career coaching calls to plan networking, work on your resume, and provide 4 mock interviews to practice, and these really help prepare you to find a job.This course is highly recommended, especially with the money back job guarantee!

Springboard is well though-out, but there can be some improvements in the overall curriculum (which are being made). Pros:- Good support system. Curriculum has a good set of professionals that are able to communicate terms very well. - Mock interview are a good idea and do give you insight of what to expect. They also booster your confidence with the overall process.- Capstone projects can be challenging if you decide to put the extra work and do help improve you portfolio to showcase it to potential employees.Cons:- Some courses need a revamp, for example the statistics part of it. While I was working through it, this specific course got updated and I really like the new version. I see that they are putting work on it, but I also think that some other aspects need to get updated sooner than later.- No course regarding big data or cloud computing. The 2nd project we have to use Deep Learning components where we might have to handle 100K+ rows of data. For a normal computer, training a model can take a couple of hours (in my case 37 hours). Leaning how to use AWS or Azure is a requirement now a days.- Better guidelines for at least the first Capstone project. It is very intimidating to start typing in a blank notebook. Getting a guideline to have an overall idea on how to start will help the student.

I always wanted to enter the data world, but lacked the technical skills to do so. I didn't want to go back to school nor did I want to go to a 9-5 bootcamp which basically was like school and super expensive. To the rescue came Springboard, providing an affordable, yet flexible plan to learn Data Science. They have amazing content and the power to connect online with so many people around the world. I was able to meet course mates from around the US and the Bay Area to link up with and work on my projects with together. Through this passion of learning I was finally able to land my first job and I have never been more excited to use something I learned in a school environment and take it to the real world.I do have to admit at times I felt overwhelmed with the course since it is online and you don't really interact with people regularly like you'd do in a school setting, just know you have resources and Springboard continues to supply additional ones as they deem it necessary or essential to help their students.

My experience with Springboard is exceptional and I found the staff super helpful. The curriculum has a wide variety of collections (Videos from Harvard, exercise from Datacamp, etc) towards each topic. Mini projects alongside each chapter gave me hands-on experience on certain topics which I found super helpful. Career coaches and on-demand mentors are knowledgable and patient. If there is one thing I have to be picky about is the quality of the assigned mentor, some of them can be more passionate about our work.

I highly recommend Springboard's Data Science Career Track for anyone who is looking to pivot careers into data science. I learned a lot through my mentors and connecting with other students. The staff at Springboard are extremely dedicated to their students and do all they can to help you prepare for networking, interviewing, and eventually being a successful data scientist.  The curriculum is largely datacamp courses, but you are also required to complete 2 capstone projects. This is where you do much of your learning. 

Springboard gets it! 

I had an extremely great experience with the Data Scientist career track and put had multiple jobs offers before I completed my curriculum with Springboard. The curriculum is complete and takes a significant amount of focus and coding work. The online format is very convenient and the help sessions along with the mentors are world-class. I particularly appreciated the weekly calls with my mentor who was/is an industry specialist in Data Science. It was beneficial having a mentor to seek feedback on exercises, questions about the curriculum, and or about insight about the role of Data Science in industry. The calls with career coaches were also constructive to guide in job search efforts, including mock interviews. 

One of the things that stuck out to me was the two comprehensive capstone projects. I thought these were important in solidifying your work and expressing what we learned to more significant audiences. I utilized my capstone projects to answer real-world problems at work that were met with much praise and helped to solve and or better under pressing business problems!

I highly recommend this impactful bootcamp!

My Experience with Springboard .

I joined the springboard course in the month of Aug,2019 and I left/discontinued the course in the month of Jan,2020

It’s not worth at all, simply i can say waste of your hard earned money and waste of time as well.

So called mentors will be not available as per the schedules and they don’t spend much time with the students in explaining their doubts or explaining the concept.

Next coming to so called office hours , coding support sessions it’s just for the name sake they fix up the sessions without even asking/discussing our availability time, i can they do as per their need.

They force you to enroll for the course by paying 1.9 Lakhs and they also provide you easy EMI/Loan by third party finance company, after your enrollment they don’t even care/bother about you concerns related to course .

Most imp thing is, they state you like 100%per job guarantee after the successful completion of your course in 6 months but the hard fact is you can’t complete the course within the stipulated time as they mentioned since you don’t get proper support from mentors/support team after your enrollment in any manner and course is not easy at all as they state you while enrolling.

Whenever you try to reach support team/student adviser to discuss your concerns they don’t pick your call many times and if they receive the call they just say will come back to you in few min/EOD or will solve within EOD but you don’t get any solutions on time or they try to convince you as per their needs.

whenever you try to raise your concerns regarding the course, you will get only one statement/answer like you are not attending sessions properly, not following the mentor instructions or you are not spending your time. They will never ever agree their mistakes and listen you concerns as well.

Most pathetic part - When you say i am not satisfied with the course or if you ask for the cancellation and your money back, they simply say we don’t have refund policy at all and they will again try to convince you to the fullest with the flashy words/statements. It’s like mental harassment .

My suggestions please don’t waste your hard money and time as well.

if you are interested to learn data science and to make career transition , we have many institute in Bangalore who offer data science course, ML , AI course with very minimum fee ranges like 15–45k with excellent course structure so please don’t get fool y enrolling Springboard.

All the videos/materials provided by springboard are available for free in YouTube .

When the entire course material is free resources why they are charging 1.95 Lakhs I don’t understand

Mentor ship(mentor call) is something they make as a star of the program. But you will get to interact with your mentor once in a week only for half an hour.

I never got a chance to discuss in detail with my mentor as there was a time constraints (mentor is be not available after 30min )

Whatever the things/words which i explained above, it’s my pathetic experience and wasted money as well.

I definitely made a wrong decision by joining Springboard.

I had a good experience learning the Data Scientist job with Springboard. The curriculum is very complete and takes a lot of work. The online format is very convenient. I particularly appreciated the weekly calls with a mentor in Data Science. It was really helpful for feedbacks on exercises, for questions about the curriculum or about the job but also to guide us in the development of 2 capstones projects. The calls with career coaches was also very helpful to guide us in our job search, including mock interviews. I haven't found a job yet but based on my experience so far, I recommend this bootcamp. 

I had an amazing experience with the Data Science Career Track. The 1:1 weekly mentor calls really helped me stay on track with course materials as well as help with any questions I had with anything related to data science and applying for jobs. I received help with resume review, cover letters, job search, and interview questions, on top of Capstone Project help. 

One slight negative I experienced was the career coaches. I would have preferred to have the same career coach throughout my Springboard experience, but the first coach I signed up with ended up getting transferred to a different career track. So I signed up for a second career coach, and she ended up getting transferred as well. The third career coach I signed up for ended up being my favorite of the three anyway, so things worked out. 

Finally, I was on the deferred tuition plan with a job guarantee, which means I paid nothing until I landed a job. Which Springboard helped me with! In under a year, I was able to switch professions and land a role as a Data Analyst in a tech start up.

I entered the Springboard program (DS career track) in early 2019 after struggling to get a decent job in data science after graduating from college in the spring of 2018, despite having a statistics degree from a reputable university. After graduating from Springboard, I found an extremely satisfying job within a month. The difference in my job hunt pre- and post-Springboard was pretty much that, while this program certainly didn't transform me into a 10X data scientist, I was exposed to so many aspects of the data science world that I not only built a solid foundation in data science but I was able to "speak the language" pretty well when I was interviewing afterword. You obviously could try and learn everything on your own, but the great thing about Springboard for me was the mentor they pair you with. Reading a textbook/website is one thing, but having someone help you develop an intuition for solving data-centric problems is something else. Completely. 

I obviously can't speak for anyone else, but the mentor I was paired with, AJ Sanchez, was worth the price of admission alone. Throughout the many months I was in this program, there wasn't a single question he couldn't answer. Not only that, but he's extremely personable, he's a role model both as a person and a data scientist, and speaking with him was something I looked forward to every week. You'd think someone as smart as him would be intimidating or impatient, but that was not the case whatsoever.

My only issue with Springboard was that I frequently found myself needed to reference many materials and textbooks that weren't in the curriculm. However, I've also needed to do this in pretty much every other math-related class I've ever taken, so this 'issue' I guess isn't really an issue with Springboard at all because it just was not reasonable to expect them to somehow predict and curate the best curriculm for me before the fact. You obviously have to put the work in, and for me that meant doing a little extra digging on concepts that weren't immediately intuitive to me based on the provided materials. 

Anyway, I hope this helps for whoever is reading. I assume you're also doing research on other data science academys/bootcamps, like I did, and while I can only talk about Springboard, I was not disappointed with my choice. Definitley wouldn't have taken the time to write this out if I didn't think it would help someone else.