Data Science Career Track Reviews

Let me categorize my experience with Springboard in 2 ways: 

 1. What I liked about this course

 2. What I didn't like
 

Like: 

1. Covers a lot of areas in Data Analysis, Visualization Techniques and Machine Learning

2. Mentor Support 

3. Introduces  some really cool soft skills like networking, writing cold emails, etc. which I personally really appreciate

4. Opportunity to work on 2 Capstone Projects to use the concepts learned in the curriculum and some mini exercises to practice 

Did Not like:

1. The time provided for each section of the curriculum is not very realistic

2. Students may lose interest and get bored after some time

3. Career coaches are helpful if you can get hold of them. But it was challenging to book a time. I think they need to hire more career coaches.

Overall, I would say, I had a good experience with Springboard.

Great program to learn data science by applying what you learn, and building your own portfolio. You will work along with industry experts, who will guide you through the entire process end-to-end. There will be times when you will feel lost, struggling with the unknowns. I think that is the beauty of the program which prepares you to solve the real world problems as well as deal with ambiguity.     

After completing the program and securing a job, I wanted to come back and review Springboard again after experiencing their job search program.

In terms of curriculum, I overall enjoyed Springboard’s curriculum and learned a lot. The Harvard lectures are very informative and good for understanding machine learning theory. I do feel that their SQL curriculum is not very strong and could be improved, my SQL skills were poor when I finished the bootcamp. I also feel like there should be more information about basic Python coding - I had coding interviews that I was not prepared for.

The two capstone projects are definitely the strongest aspect of Springboard and the aspect that got me the furthest in the interview process. Having projects to talk about really helped me in my initial interviews. My mentor who helped me with my projects was really nice and helpful!

One thing that is a little sketchy that you should be aware of before you join: as part of the job guarantee, you are required to pass several mock interviews, and you only get two chances to pass each one. This did not impact me, but it is not something that is disclosed before you start the bootcamp.

I was pretty satisfied with Springboard’s curriculum, but what I was completely unprepared for was the competitiveness of the job market. It’s tough to get interviews with no experience, and when you do get interviews, you have to be perfect or they will just find someone more qualified than you. I struggled with technical interviews, particularly coding interviews and business interviews (business is not my background). The mentors that they have to help you prepare for technical interviews are not super helpful.

The job guarantee makes it so that they have a reason to help you get a job, but I honestly didn’t find them that helpful - my career coach was nice and was good emotional support but didn’t help me get referrals and didn’t help me with technical interviews. Part of the issue is that I feel like there’s only so much they can do - the data science interview process is really like the Wild West, every company does the interview process differently and it’s tough to prepare. It felt like every company was looking for something different and it was impossible to be prepared for everything because there is just so much to know.

About four months into my job search process the pandemic hit, and Springboard made a couple of major improvements to the job search program. The most important improvement they made is they created a Placements team that spend their time specifically looking for referrals and “ins” at companies for you. This was extremely helpful for me, and though the job I accepted was one that I found on my own and got through networking on my own, I got a few good referrals from this team.

The second major improvement that they made was getting new mentors to help you with technical interviews. I got a job soon after I started speaking with my mentor, but I felt like he was very good and better than the mentor I had worked with in the past.

Overall, a mixed experience with Springboard. I appreciate that they have the job guarantee program because they do try to help you, but I wish there had been more help sooner and not just because of the pandemic.

Pros:
Nice and organized curriculum, with mini hands-on projects.
Continuous help from the mentor (real Data Scientist working in industry)
Remote and part-time. So you can maintain your present job while working on this.
Opportunity to work on two capstone projects with the help and support from your mentor.
Career coaches are there to help with your resume/LinkedIn profile, networking, and soft skills.
Mock interviews to prepare.

Cons:
No in house lectures/ they are tied up with Data camp/Khan Academy/ LinkedIn learning mostly for all lectures.
Everything is remote, so you might lose motivation sometimes, where in-person boot camps are like a real school.
Not all the mentors are equally caring and helpful.

They are one of the crooked so-called educational institutions. I took their course which ensures money back guarantee if I am unable to secure a job within a time frame. I did everything according to their guideline, and now, they are making false accusations to grab my money. I will not let this organization cheat students like this, and I will take every legal actions against them. All the good reviews on internet are simply generated by their robots. They even pay some employers, so that the employers can do fake advertisement of recruiting their students after the completion of the Springboard career-track program. This is such a deceptive and fishy institution ripping off many innocent students in North America. I would never recommend them.

A little background: I'm currently about 25% through Springboard's Data Science Career Track program. My professional background is in higher education. I recently completed a PhD in philosophy and have experience teaching undergraduate philosophy courses. I have minimal background in math beyond the high school level, but my philosophy degrees have prepared me for the sort of technical and critical thinking skills used in data science. I'm doing the Springboard program to make a career change. I completed most of Springboard's Data Science Prep Course, which I found helpful, before being accepted into the Career Track program.
Review: Overall, my experience in the Career Track program has been pretty good so far. My impression is that the quality of one's experience with the program depends largely on the quality of one's mentor. My mentor was initially pretty poor, and I had a difficult time understanding his accent. But I reached out to Springboard early in the program, and they helped reassign me to a new mentor. Thankfully, my new mentor is excellent and has dramatically improved my experience. I'm in a study group with other students, and I've gotten the impression that their mentors are so-so. I have learned a lot so far in the program, and I've been especially happy with Springboard's "customer support" (very friendly and helpful) and career support (they get you started on job stuff early on in the program). A fair portion of the data science curriculum (so far) has consisted of Datacamp exercises. Springboard partners with Datacamp, and students get free access to Datacamp courses. Honestly, I haven't been that impressed with the Datacamp courses. They are helpful for gaining superficial exposure to tools and skills used in data science, but they don't cultivate a deep understanding. I will say that the time estimates Springboard gives (completion in 6 months, working 15-20 hrs a week) are pretty unrealistic. Most of my study group (including me) is working on the course full time, and we are all on track to finish in 5 months (at the earliest), and probably more like 6 months. Unless you already have significant data science experience, don't expect to finish the program in under 5 months, and possibly even under 6 months.
Overall, given my experience so far, I would probably recommend (pretty highly) Springboard's program to people (depending on their circumstances). I'm happy to discuss my experience with people if anyone would like to know more, especially people with an academic background in the humanities. You can find me on LinkedIn and around the web if you look (e.g. philpeople.org). Feel free to reach out.

Springboard is a great bootcamp with amazing mentors and ongoing career support. It consistently builds technical and professional competencies to be able to transition smoothly into a data science career. The job guarantee is a great incentive for studying hard and completing the course! Springboard has an active community that encourages students to attend conferences and local meetups. Personally it helped me to effectively transition into a data science role, coming from a chemical engineering background. 

The Springboard Data Science Career Track 6-month course has taught me a lot.  The curriculum is set up very well.  You start by learning Python basics, then go into inferential statistics, machine learning, software engineering, etc.  Throughout the course there are 2 major capstones that you build from scratch.  The links to my projects are below.  I've learned so much but please do not think that you can spend 10 hours a week on the course and complete it.  I spent 3-4 hours every night during the week and some weekend days working on the course.  And I will mention that I did not do the job guarantee since I already enjoy working at my current company so you will need to add more time to do the job guarantee sections.

Overall I highly recommend the Springboard Data Science Career Track.   It is kind of pricy but they do have payment plans.  I personally did not pay for the course as my company picked up the cost but just remember that you get what you paid for.  

I can't wait to start applying my knowledge to the real-world!

Capstone 1: https://github.com/brocknosbisch/Springboard_Capstone_1
Capstone 2: https://github.com/brocknosbisch/Springboard_Capstone_2
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brocknosbisch/

As a former clinical lab technician who enrolled in this course, I'd say it is a great learning experience. The inclusion of one-on-one mentoring was very helpful for me since I can quickly contact someone for help and advice on the cirriculum. The emphasis on practical applications makes the material more approachable for newcomers. Overall a great choice for anyone interested in data science careers.

- Independent of your background, you can finish this program, on your way and with all the mentoring support that you need. The program encourages you to be creative to face challenging capstone projects. 
- Opportunity to work in topics where you really feel passion, using the newly learned skills.
- Excellent professional coaching and final interviews to prepare yourself for the next steps and to build networking.
- The program might include more content and mini-projects related to PySpark and a sense of programming at scale.
- Some tutorials on the curriculum are little longs. They could be shorter (including just the essential content). The curriculum has a couple of own videos -introducing the chapters and coaching advice-. Maybe they could work in their own technical videos. 
- Some people could need a little more support about datasets and available tools for capstone projects. Maybe in the first chapter, the curriculum could include links to datasets and examples of projects to guide them. 

I have just finished the Data Science Career track program at Springboard. I picked Springboard over the other data science course because of two main reasons:

1. I was able to work my current job and complete the coursework in the evenings and the weekends

2. My mentor was extremely helpful and guided to build a good foundation in machine learning and neural networks

3.  The staff is great, understanding and respectful and my student advisor was really prompt in replying to any queries

4. The career courches are very passionate and experienced which matters especially when you are on verge of making a career change and you need someone to keep you motivated

Completing a couple well thought-out projects is really valuable, especially for someone who doesn't have any work experience in data science. Doing these types of projects would have been very difficult on my own. Additionally, having a mentor to consult with every step of the way provided reassurance more than once. You always knew you had help if you got stuck. Lastly, I really enjoyed the community aspect of the course. It provided a forum for Q/A, and often my question had already been asked by another student, so I was able to get an answer immediately. This was great for those moments when you're stuck on an assignment and don't want to wait for your mentor's email or call.

Advice for those considering the course:

1. Keep a steady pace. Plan out in advance how much you will work on the course each day.

2. Work hard on all the assignments, but especially the projects. What you put in is what you get out.

The Springboard Data Science Career Track course provides more resources than I expected.  These include the weekly calls with a professional for mentoring, career calls to talk about aspects of applying and making contacts and refining a resume and LinkedIn profile, mock interviews that were a great motivation to prepare for, and individuals who can review projects and code.  I was impressed by the number of resources and their quality.  My mentor helped me understand a solid strategy for making contacts with individuals at companies for referrals.  Another resource is the free access to DataCamp during and after the course, which is effective at teaching concepts and code.  The main suggestion I would make to improve the course is providing supplemental resources to deepen knowledge of a topic if one wanted to increase understanding.  Overall, I feel that I advanced a lot from studying the course materials but, of course, expect that I will need to study independently to be effective in my new job.

I'm so thankful I enrolled in this bootcamp.  The curriculum was very comprehensive, delving into statistical concepts, data wrangling, and Python with machine learning applications (and more).  The mini projects and 2 capstone reports really allowed me to hone my Python and analytical skills.  Moreover, the career support and the mentor support were invaluable. Having weekly calls with my mentor  really helped in terms of direction for my projects and with any miscellaneous curriculum questions.  Interviewing skills and networking is part of the curriculum, so you're set up for success from the beginning.  I was able to get a Data Science job (albeit with prior data experience) after 3 months of the the bootcamp; the portfolio I've created through Springboard was a major asset in my interviewing process.

I had a statistics degree and moved to the US from a 3rd world country.  My skill set wasn't a good match for the data science community in the States. I needed a boost and found Springboard.

Unlimited mentoring is a gem. Thanks to all the mentors I have bothered.

You can ask your questions to  TA's. They say they will return in 24 hrs. It takes more than that but they return for sure.

Weekly mentor calls feel unnecessary at first but they are almost not enough towards to the end.

Got my job offer before finishing the course. Definitely, suggest it.

Enrolling at Springboard was one of the best decisions I've ever made. I decided I wanted to be a data scientist while I was working on my Mechanical Engineering degree. A couple of months before graduating, I searched for Data Science bootcamps that could offer me a pathway to attaining a data science position. I found Springboard during my search and was really impressed by how intensive and rich the program was. Needless to say, enrolling has been one of the best decisions of my life. The assignments, reading and projects really help prepare you to be a data scientist and the career support is world class.  I would highly encourage anyone looking to get the skills to be a data scientist, to really consider enrolling in Springboard.  

The curriculum is well structured and the mentors are a great deal of support for the price. The only thing that I had trouble with was completing the program in the advertised amount of time. I think in total I averaged about 25-30 hours a week over the course of 7 months, but that could have been due to the complexity of my capstone projects. I definitely learned a ton in that time period though and they were very supportive the whole time!