BrainStation

I thoroughly enjoyed the Data Science Certificate  at BrainStation. Being online, I thought perhaps the course delivery might be less than exceptional but BrainStation has certainly lived up to all the hype. Not only was the learning experience invaluable, it was also delivered smoothly and in a manner that my learning feel like a priority.

My instructor was attentive and extremely knowledgable, and also was able to help me outside of class hours on questions and guidance for my final project. I highly recommend this course to anybody looking to expand their knowledge of Data Science and Machine Learning, and how it can be applied to their current role. Read less

10/10 I would recommend. I appreciate how genuine and supportive the staff is, they truly want to help you succeed in your career. I had the privilege to learn from Gessica (our head instructor for UX|UI), she is extremely knowledgeable in this field. Even though our course ended up being 100% remote due to COVID, Gessica was able to keep us all motivated and engaged. During the course, we completed 3 projects to showcase on our portfolio. We also collaborated with the web dev students on our project; which is great because you get to experience what it’s like when you’re working in the field. We learned a variety of tools such as Sketch, Adobe XD, inVision, Overflow, Miro, and Keynote. The course is definitely challenging, but I’m a firm believer that the amount of effort you put in is directly related to the amount of gains you’ll make. Wyncode does an amazing job of preparing you with the knowledge and tools you’ll need to succeed in this field.  Read less

I took BrainStation’s Digital Marketing Certificate course in 2020 to refresh my knowledge, and to upgrade my skills to be leading edge. As someone in branding and marketing, I like a fast-paced environment with lots to explore and learn about, so BrainStation’s course was perfect for me. The classes were 3 hours, once a week, during which I would digest the equivalent of 2 days of learning at a college. The more you make notes and pay attention, the more you’ll get out of the courses. 

Pros: The professor and assistant are big industry pros, which is a make-or-breaker for whom I will invest time and money into learning from. I don’t want to simply learn from any old industry professional. They need to be top-tier so I can learn the tips, tricks, and tactics to get a leading edge. I got this during the course.

The learning system is fantastic: the education portal is easy to use and interactive, the overall ux is lovely, the staff use Slack to communicate, share ideas and inspiration, and answer any questions. It’s really the ideal way to upgrade skills and learn during COVID.

Cons: There were rarely any breaks during the 3 hours, which makes for discomfort by the end. The 20—min break-out sessions with other students were often awkward as there wasn’t enough instruction on how to work together, so we often would simply sit in silence and type until going back to class. These break-outs could be entirely removed and it wouldn’t have impacted me negatively.

Read less

I’ve been working as a designer for the last 12 years, I got my start as an intern at a design firm where I went on to work as Sr Graphic Design, this gave me a great foundation for visual design before moving on to focus solely on User Experience and Product design. My career was mostly self-started and I felt like I reached a stage in my career where I wanted some fundamental training in User Experience design to address some areas where I thought I could improve. 
As a designer it's very important to have strong instincts that will help guide you through the design process. Knowing what steps to take next could sometimes mean researching, sketching, gathering feedback, iterating or handing off designs to be implemented. It is crucial for a designer to be able to see projects through by knowing when to move into certain phases of the design cycle. On the job these learnings would come at a great cost to both the company and the designer, not knowing what to do next can really put you at a disadvantage when your team is looking at you to decide next steps. 
Brainstations curriculum shows the learner how to move a project from ideation to implementation. The course is focused on the design thinking process and how that relates to User Experience design. Empathizing with the user as the first step in the UX design process helps the designer define what the problem looks like. Then using UX design principles like information architecture, sketching, wireframing, and prototyping to build on those insights. Finally testing, presenting and gathering feedback are all used to help the designer communicate their ideas in a way that allows them to iterate and push the designs further.
Additionally Brainstation’s User Experience design course helps you speak the language of user experience design so you can communicate design decisions with your product team. Vocabulary is such an important part of understanding the design industry and when you finish this course you will have an intimate knowledge of terminology used daily by ux design professionals. 
My cohort features 2 instructors, one who worked at an e-commerce giant and the other who worked at a well known design agency. They were extremely engaging with the course material offering plenty of opportunities to work with the class and try out the techniques that were covered. They both gave the students a lot of room to ask questions and even stayed on after the class to answer more questions.
The class project will leave you with work that you could put in your portfolio if you are just starting off. These will make great conversation pieces in interviews because you will be able to speak about the entire process of design whereas some work that designers get when they are just starting off will be mostly visual and not include the important research steps that interviews want to hear about. 
Overall the course covers a lot of material in a very short amount of time, I recommend taking lots of notes that you can refer back to. Each lesson also comes with some resources and demos of products that you can use to help you as a designer. Lastly the course is a great networking opportunity, I was able to meet a lot of passionate design learners as well as the 2 instructors and being part of the Brainstation alum community gets you access to even more networking events, which is valuable in itself.  
Read less

I recently graduated from the full-time online user experience diploma program at BrainStation (Toronto). I was taught by Jonathan Lee, Jason Kogan and Joel MacLeod over the course of 12 weeks. The educators are always online and ever ready to help out when needed. This is an extremely challenging yet rewarding course. The course material was relevant to the industry. The pace of the course was fast however, the learning outcomes after 12 weeks are vast and strong enough to make one feel job-ready. I highly recommend this course to anyone who is serious about transitioning or upskilling to become a UX/UI/Product designer.  Read less

I took the 5 week part time Data Science Online Live course at BrainStation. Overall it was a great experience and I definitely completed the course feeling more knowledgeable about python and the data science field. I went into the course with 0 python knowledge, just some brief computer science introduction courses from the past. It was definitely a challenging course, but the instructors were really helpful in my learning experience. 

The final project really tested your knowledge on what you have learned and definitely helped me with the learning process. Python and data science requires a lot of practice and I really enjoyed all of the exercises that were provided.

BrainStation’s program was also really organized and I enjoyed having the different workbooks in advance so we can do some pre-reading prior to the class. Communication through Slack with the instructors and program coordinators was also really helpful! Read less

Overall, it was a very well design course for five weeks. I never had a UX designing experience; this course taught me a different type of software and tips that can be very helpful in a professional career. The instructors were experienced and available on slack to help us with our projects. Thank you, Jenna and Sarah, for equipping me with new skills.  Read less

This course is 3 month part- time Data Science course . Class is once a week so it fits my work schedule however, it has been a challenging for me to study and learn mathematical and statistical business approach at the same time as coding in Python during my spare time. I highly suggest to those who think of taking this program studying prior to the course at least how to use Python or basic statistics or mathematics. After all, I have achieved to learn many new things and obtained confidence for further study to be Data Scientist. This program might give you to be a Data analysts but not Data Scientist if you never worked for IT industry in your past.    Read less

Wow, what a great value taking this course has been!

I am a seasoned product designer with a background in UX/UI but my roles recently have required more product thinking, vision and strategy. I was looking to expand my knowledge about product management and decided to enroll in the 10-week online course at Brainstation.

Throughout the class, there were so many insights and I acquired through the course content and exercises. I also created a personal product project that defined vision, strategy, success metrics, go-to-market, an MVP and a prototype for my product idea. Going through the real-world examples which included lots of relevant professional experience from the instructors really helped me think about product development from a different viewpoint. Overall I've added some great skillsets to my experience as a designer.

One of the best parts of the program was connecting with other students across Canada and the U.S. and learning about and seeing their product visions come to life. It's been a great way to connect with new people outside of my circle and be inspired by their ideas. I really appreciate everyone in our class for making it such a memorable and valuable experience and to the instructors who made learning new things engaging and fun. Read less

A 3-month course built to highlight the foundations of UX Design and its role in the industry. The classes are 3-hours long for once a week. This class is a great starting point for individuals looking to jumpstart a career in UX or gain more perspective in this area of design for fellow peers in the tech and creative industry.  Read less

Thrilled to have completed their intensive Data Analytics course. I’m now much more confident in my SQL skills and have experienced Tableau’s power.

How does this course add value to professionals?

Very impressed by the calibre, competency, and professionalism of their instructors. You also get free student access to Tableau which is a major plus as well as help setting up MySQL and Tableau which can be a pain if you try to do it on your own.

As well, there is a student Slack channel where you can post questions which are answered within 8-12hours - super valuable if you are a working professional and don't have time to go digging in Stackoverflow, google, etc. for answers, troubleshooting, and techniques.

After spending 2 days of my own time researching, investigating, and detective work trying to sove a problem, my instructor solved it in just 5min – that is the true power and value add of instructor led training. Read less

I chose to do the full-time online Product Management course to better understand and communicate with the different stakeholders about new ideas and software products at my work.
I was really impressed by the amount of knowledge the course offered, the way it was all organized and most importantly, the way it was delivered. The instructors were very knowledgeable and experienced in the field and had a ton of useful insights and real-world examples to offer on every subject covered. The class environment was great and truly engaging, with a lot of active discussions and a lot of group activities. The assignments and final project really helped turn those key concepts into practice and was also a good opportunity to work with a group of outstanding students from different industries. 
This was my second course at BrainStation and would totally go back for more.  Read less

Review for: Brain Station Search Engine Marketing Course (10 Weeks - Zoom)

This is my second course at Brain Station, and I had another great experience. To anyone who has not taken a course at Brain Station, I would highly recommend it. The culture is completely different from a regular academic experience. The courses are laid-back, relevant, and designed for the real world. The instructors are working in the industry, which is important for digital skill-sets where the field is continually changing, and the latest and greatest of yesterday, can be out of date today. 

Our weekly Thursday evening classes, shared the likeness of jumping on a zoom call with some of your best friends; and with one of those friends just happening to be a passionate SEM expert, wanting to share their insider tips and tricks with the group. 

The course is also designed perfectly for working professionals. There is a final project, but more than enough time is provided to complete this during the course in class; so there is no worries about needing to carve out extra time for home work. 

Would highly recommend Brain Station to anyone! Read less

I took the Data Analytics Online Live course at BrainStation for 10 weeks. In this course you get to learn Excel formats, SQL and Tableau. If you’re more of an advanced user of SQL then this may not be the best suited course for you. This course is geared towards those with little to know experience with SQL or Tableau. I found the course to be a really great intro to these tools, but it would’ve been great to maybe have some more classes focused on SQL. Still I great course though, and I do recommend it.  Read less

I just finished the Social Media Marketing course. I previously took Brainstation's Digital Marketing course and this was a great supplement. We took a deeper dive into the relevant platforms of today (FB, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest) and even touched on the newcomers like Tik Tok. My instructor Yuraimi was awesome and very flexible with time outside of scheduled office hours. I definitely feel like I have the tools to hit the ground running in the social media marketing space. I highly recommend both courses. Read less

As a digital marketer a user’s experience has always been important to me. I have always worked closely with designers and developers, but decided to formalize my knowledge and understanding of UX. 

Brainstation’s UX Design course is a comprehensive, hands-on look into the User Experience process. In ten weeks, you take a project from theory, to research, planning, testing and designing a solution including functional prototypes. Because you are taken through the various steps, you can also experience and determine which part of UX Design excites you most - is it the research phase? design? testing? - which will help you decide which direction to take your career in. 

Alternatively, for those already working with UX Design teams, it provides you with the skills to better understand the process and places you in a better position to work with those teams collaboratively going forward. 

The instructors themselves work in the field and have hands on experience as UX Designers. In my class, we had two instructors - one working at a start-up who is responsible for the entire UX process including research, the other working at a large corporation who works with a team of designers and focused on the design aspect only. They shared real-life examples and experiences, and also suggestions of how to prepare a portfolio and interviews. They were collaborative and took the time to work with each student to brainstorm and work through design solutions to ensure what the student is creating is the best user experience. 

This course provides you with all the tools needed to take a project from beginning to end, and then work on your own after the course to repeat the cycle and develop a portfolio. 

Your fellow students come from all backgrounds, experiences and career levels and you create a whole new network of people to tap into.  Read less