BrainStation

Instructors were highly engaging, passionate, and knowledgeable, which made all the difference. Curriculum strikes the right balance between foundational theory, hard skill development, and industry application. For my purpose of up-skilling and differentiating myself within my current field (digital product design + strategy), I couldn't have asked for a better course. 

I had a great experience learning at BrainStation. I found curriculum very relevant because of the concepts and real world examples that were integrated all through. The faculties were very helpful and were very committed to us getting the concepts. The course project was also a great addition. We got to develop real ideas and that was really cool. I'll definitely recommend BrainStation to anyone who is looking to pivot/grow their careers in any of the fields they currently offer.

This program was definitely a challenging one, but it sufficiently provides the necessary fundamentals for a career transition into the complicated field of UX. If you have little to no experience within the field, then you would come out of it learning a LOT and be able to lean on your peers and instructors in a really supportive environment, at least during the duration of the program. It was fast-paced with a lot of projects to work on, but one of the main benefits of this is to be able to put some of these projects onto a working portfolio to showcase to future employers. You'll go through the whole process off researching a problem space, brainstorming ideas, testing, and developing a fully functional high fidelity prototype that addresses a problem space YOU want to address.

Overall, I get as much from the program as I wanted, however I was already somewhat experienced in the field and was looking to further improve my skills and obtain certification to jumpstart my career into the field. If I was never really exposed to this, then I would definitely rate my experience as higher. However, this program does give you the necessary resources to do well both in the program and outside, but it is still up to you to decide how much additional effort you want to put into the course.

I found that while the company does keep in touch with you after the program and helps you to develop your job application assets with some networking added in, it is ultimately up to you to find a job afterwards. Thankfully, I set up some one on one time with people on the team to get more personalized advice and guidance, so I would highly recommend doing this for anyone who enrolls into the program!

The lead educator was knowledgeable and a strong teacher. The curriculum provided a solid foundation to UX Design, and I felt confident to be able to apply for junior UX design roles upon program completion.  The teachers provide great support throughout the program, and a positive learning atmosphere. There is a career support program as well that provided valuable knowledge and guidance to the job hunt process. 

BrainStation was the perfect start for my career change, they have great lectures and even better instructors. Instructors were always ready to answer any questions and provide tools to make a great challenge seem a little bit more manageable, their passion for teaching and their true desire to see us succeed is the reason that sets apart BrainStation from any other Bootcamp.

The course was beyond my expectation. I had previous self learned knowledge going into the program, however I was able to strengthen and develop my skills even further from this course! The instructors were extremely supportive and knowledgable, and the lectures were engaging and helpful. The assignments were very successful in preparing us for industry work. BrainStations has a really strong job assistance team, the career success sessions really supported students throughout and after the course! 10/10 would recommend!

I completed the digital marketing diploma at BrainStation in 2020. I loved the program overall. Mel, our instructor was very patient and experience in the field. She answered all the questions and made sure she had enough office hours for more assistance. The program was nice and provided me adequate knowledge. It's good to give you an overview of everything but it would really help if some areas such as data and SEO was a little bit more detailed. Something that would tremendously help the process could've been working on real projects in collaboration with businesses to get a grasp of how exactly things work. I got into the course with almost 20-30% knowledge and left with 85-90%. 

Really enjoyed the bootcamp and their career support after graduation. 

TL;DR: Brainstation offers a good curriculum and a great way to spend 12 weeks. With enough effort in your coursework and projects after graduation, Brainstation's bootcamp can be a good way to make the jump into an entry level data analyst role. It is probably not a silver bullet which will instantly get you into a data science role at a top company however.

My Background:
I began my bootcamp search when I was an IT risk consultant at a big four advisory firm with about 2 years of experience post-university (Bachelors Degree - Business). I was unhappy at work and needed a change so I decided to pursue a data analyst role because data analysis had always interested me in my university courses and work projects. Towards this end, I interviewed for several data analyst positions but found that I just did not have the experience or skills needed to obtain an offer. In an effort to bridge the gap in my skills I decided to leave my job and attend Brainstation's Data Science Bootcamp online. 

Before beginning the bootcamp I had worked with sql and python to a limited extent in university courses as well as work projects. I was not a beginner but was not an expert either. That being said there were others in my cohort with essentially zero experience with data analysis tools and they were able to complete the bootcamp, albeit with slightly more difficulty in the early weeks when the learning curve is steepest. 

The Result:
I was able to leverage my experience in my previous role in combination with my experience at Brainstation to successfully transition into a full time data analyst job with a pay raise. The role and firm are desirable and I am happy with them, but they are not the absolute top tier. Additionally, my role is as a data analyst where I am primarily working on data analysis and presentation rather than working on ML/AI modeling that experienced data scientists would be more focused on. With some years of experience I have no doubt I will be able to move into a true data science role if I desire, but as of right now I would say those roles are out of reach for me. This is something to be aware of, it is unlikely you will jump straight into a true data science role after a bootcamp unless you have significant analytical experience from another area such as academia (many PhDs are able to make the aforementioned jump). I wouldn't say this is an inditement of Brainstation or other bootcamps however, many people with Masters Degrees in statistics or data science similarly have trouble making this jump. I only mention this because salespeople will sometimes sell you on that possibility which I think is unlikely for most people. 

If you are reading this you are probably interested in how likely this bootcamp is to get you a job. The answer is: it depends on your prior experience before the bootcamp, as well as the amount of effort you put into the bootcamp and job search. Also there is some luck involved. Of the members of my cohort, the majority (60-70%) currently have jobs in data analyst or data engineer roles there are one or two who have jumped into data science internships as well. Per LinkedIn, the remaining 30-40 percent are still looking.

The Course
A typical week was Monday-Friday with code along classes from 9:30am-12:00pm and 1:00pm-3:30pm. These lectures would have several sessions where we would need to apply what we had learned to exercises on our own. Before and after lectures for about 2 hours TAs would be available to assist you with understanding the lectures or working on the project for that week. Most lectures were done in Jupyter notebooks. This is helpful because I still have the files from my lectures and can easily refer back if needed. This helped me with several of my projects that I have created post graduation. 

The coursework went something like this:
-2 weeks of sql and tableau with weekly independent projects.
-2 weeks of python with numpy and pandas practice and 1 project focused on data cleaning and exploratory data analysis. 
-2 weeks of Statistics applied using python libraries with 1 project focused on statistical analysis and modeling
-3 weeks of machine learning modeling practice with 1 project focused on modeling and model optimization
- 1 week focused on neural networks 
- 1 week of Big data analysis using AWS, hadoop, spark and etc. 
- 1 week to focus on your Capstone project with assistance from the education team.

Capstone projects are expected to be completed outside of class time over the course of the 12 week program. In the final week of the program projects are presented to the group. Optionally, you are able to present your capstone project at Demo day to prospective employers and recruiters. 

Coursework Verdict.
In general the coursework is interesting and you feel that you learn a lot from the process. I genuinely believe there is not a better way to spend 12 weeks if you objective is learning the subject matter. As with all bootcamps however, it is impossible to learn most of the subject matter in very great depth within such a short period of time. Generally you are learning enough about the the languages, tools and methodologies to be functional and have a foundation for further growth but not deep enough to be much of an expert.
My biggest complain with Brainstation specifically was that sometimes there were not enough hands on assignments outside of class. Brainstation is pretty lecture/code-along heavy which can at times be hard to retain long term. I would have appreciated more mandatory practice assignments to make the coursework stick better. This may be a general issue with bootcamps however as there is only so much time in a week.
In the weeks since beginning my role (at the time of writing this I am about 5 weeks into my new role) I have found that the skills I learned at Brainstation have definitely been valuable. Additionally I feel that I built a foundation of advanced skills that I will be able to develop more with time and experience. While I had experience prior to my bootcamp there were others that with little to no work experience in data analysis that were successfully able to obtain data analyst/data scientist roles at desirable companies. 

Online vs In-Person
The covid-19 pandemic forced me to attend the program online. The Brainstation team did a great job managing the online course and keeping us engaged so I don't have any complaints. That being said if you have a chance to do the bootcamp in person I would recommend it. In a virtual setting it is sometimes more difficult build relationships with members of your cohort or education team and at times it can be easy to lose focus in class when you are not physically in a classroom. Others may disagree with this opinion however. 

Career Services:
I've heard that the Brainstation job search assistance is good but I personally did not make use of it so I have chosen not to leave a review in that category. 

My overall experience with the bootcamp is positive, but there were certain elements that were disappointing. I'm not sure if it was because everything was online, but the teaching was outrageously bad. The head instructor spent the majority of his time debugging and not teaching, which led a lot of the students to not trust the instructor and do research on their own after lectures. The curriculum is fast paced so it made everything worse with improper instruction.

You learn HTML/CSS basics then move into JavaScript and React. The JavaScript portion I'd say is the most important and good understanding of the language is what gets you hired but they don't go deep into it as much, esp in regards to async/await functions. For React, for some nonsensical reason they do not teach hooks. Every single job I've applied for utilizes hooks and requires knowledge of them. Other bootcamps my friends have attended teach hooks. If you want to learn hooks during BrainStation, you have to learn them on your own at your own time.

The collaborative 'hackathon' is a complete waste of time. It is NOT how hackathons are normally run and you end up wasting time with other disciplines that have no idea what they are doing. The only positive things that came out of BrainStation were the people in my cohort and the TA's who understand your pain and help you work around the course material.

I, like many here, made the decision to pursue a career in a new field. When I decided that Web Development was going to be the path of choice, I had read about the many bootcamps available. It was quite daunting to decide on which bootcamp was going to be the best fit for me and my future career in this field! However, through research of the curriculum, common industry tech stacks and reviews of each particular school, I landed on BrainStation as being the best choice. I am definitely glad I did because BrainStation was excellent! The course material was great and relevant to the current industry in many cases, the Instructors and TAs were top notch and always willing to help, and the Career Success team was there the whole way to help prep you for the inevitable job hunt. A bootcamp is definitely a path that you only get out as much as you put in. It is hard work but if you come ready to apply yourself and be successful, BrainStation will provide you with the tools and education necessary to help accelerate you into your career of choice. Overall, I am very happy with my decision to attend BrainStation!

A 10-week part-time program that covers the fundamentals of digital marketing. 

Overall my experience was good! The instructors were knowledgeable, friendly, and available. They are very invested in your success. The course load is heavy and will require a lot of your time.

The course in UX and UI Certificate Course in BrainStation has been super great to set up my base in UX/UI Design and really apply them in a short amount of time. The instructors are always ready to help you and keep you engaged.
Would really recommend if you want to learn the base of UX/UI and put it into immediate practice (its especially helpful getting feedback from your peers and instructors in the course!)

Its all online as well, so super easy to get to and make sure its a time that works for you! 

It's a good class but stressful. The only thing I can say is keep going you got it

I really enjoyed my time here. I have come from a field where I thought I wouldn't have any applicable skills. The TA's and Educators helped changed my perspective on this, they helped me understand that is my journey, that I am only applying my skills differently. 

The course content moves fast, what do you expect? it is a 12 week program and you are coming from 0 - don't expect depth into everything, take notes on what interests you, dive into that before class, ask questions in open studio, YOU have to put something in. This course is not made for someone who wants their handheld throughout, if you don't understand something what have you done to try and understand? do you stand their and just ask for help saying you can't do it? I don't think this program is for you then. 

I think coming into this program with a good work ethic; if you are so privileged to be able to focus solely on this course and not need to work during, I would highly suggest telling anyone you know that you are unavailable for 3 months. Put your time in, when class is over, try and do what they said. Take time to learn the programs, make up ways to do things, there is no right answer, your process is the answer. did it work? great did it fail? great how did you do it, explain that. 

I think they could do a better job connecting students to working professionals for small group sessions being able to ask about transitions etc - early on in the course. This would help allow students to begin to structure their time around building better portfolios or starting to reach out to recruiters or whatever earlier.

I think I'm rambling, the program is a lot of work. I am privileged, I did not work during the course. I spent 3-4 hours before class everyday working on assignments, reading about course content that I struggled with, I read a lot and I made a lot of bad work. But I did learn from it. I would have made a bad project by the time class started, then during a lab in class where you'd have time to work on something, I could make something that was 1% better, guess what? after 3 months I can make something that is 1% better than that now. Yes the course has some shortcomings, but you can't get access to this sort of content, I've done Udemy courses, I've done youtube courses, nothing holds you to it like a big cheque does to this school. I think the mentality has to be - how bad do you want a job upon graduation? 

This 10 week data analytics course covered all the right topics and tools, taking you through key Excel skills, SQL and Tableau. The curriculum was great, I wish a little less time was spent on Excel and more time on the features of Tableau. The instructors were knowledgeable and helpful, though I wish there was more opportunity to collaborate with other students rather than it being lecture style due to taking the class online. Would of appreciated more guidance on the assignment structure, but understand it wasn't graded, so it was fun to see how everyone interpreted it and got creative.

Full stack web development - React and Node.js

When BrainStation said they had cutting edge education, I expected cutting edge content AND pedagogy. However, it just felt like a university class with less students. It is already well known that teachers should be considering different learning styles, but only the ones who can sit in 8 hours of lecture with sometimes no exercises learned much. BrainStation also said that we would have a practice interview with a real recruiter, but this did not happen at all... Another thing is that the Vancouver program got less support than the Toronto program which had more activities and teaching assistants who add to student support especially in troubleshooting. Apparently, there are tools that the Vancouver cohort was not taught, but should have been... I don't really think there is much care for students who do not have a specific learning style. Like sometimes it was better for me to use other internet sources than listen to the instructor...they literally read the slides sometimes!! The scheduling of the students workload was also very bad. It was very backloaded, while the 1st week had content that we already knew because we were required to learn it for the assessment exam to get accepted into the course. BrainStation has also rapidly increased their tuition fee significantly despite the job market becoming more and more saturated. Even though it is getting harder for graduates to find a job because of higher competition, BrainStation still raises their prices. What they do not tell you is that even if the course is just 3 months, you will still have to study completely on your own for at least 3 months more, and that the hiring process for data scientists is actually much harder. The only preparation help my cohort received to prepare for technical exams and questions was not enough at all. And for a field that is focused on problem-solving, they did not give us much problems to solve, and many of my classmates felt like robots expected to memorize formulas and deliver assignments as if we understood the formulas in depth even though the teaching was not great at all. If you still want to go to BrainStation, make sure you ask to be in the cohort of their most experienced and engaging teacher! Because this is what really makes or breaks the course.

One thing I would give BrainStation though, their career success program is really good and updated. Their tips were very helpful and actually helped land me interviews.

 My initial form of contact occurred in early December. I spoke with an advisor to discuss my background and interest in the program. Within that conversation, I discussed my economic status at that time and became attracted to Brainstation because scholarships were offered to applicants. I made certain to clearly articulate that I would need full coverage offered in a scholarship in order to pursue a course such as web development since I was not employed. 

The advisor then expressed that they admired my interest and drive in order to understand the program. The advisor also discussed previous instances where a promising candidate had a financial need and was offered more assistance financially. Overall, the conversation was very positive and the advisor invited me to apply for the web development program on their site.I submitted all parts of my application by mid December. An important part of the application included an assessment challenge,  which I spent a considerable amount of time on. I went as far as scheduling a phone call with the advisor at the end of the assessment challenge just to make sure that my assessment was well done. Once I  submitted my assessment challenge, I received an email invite for a virtual interview; this occurred three days after I was affirmed of completing the assessment challenge successfully. The interview also went positively well. I recall even discussing ways that I would improve my assessment even further, using real world scenarios. 

Overall, I was extremely passionate and excited to have found a Boot camp that seemed to have accepted my situation as it refers to my economic and employment status. That same week, I received an email congratulating me on my acceptance into the web development program and quickly shared the good news with my family. My consistency and hard work had paid off and I was on my way to becoming a software engineer. At this time I awaited my official agreement to be drafted and updated on my online application for my review.
Two weeks from my approval I emailed Brainstation as I was yet to see a drafted agreement update on my application. The New Year arrived and there was still no reply to my follow up. I became a bit concerned since I looked forward to knowing the details of my agreement and needed to make informed decisions financially ahead of time to pursue the program. Still I remained patient and hopeful. A week prior to the start of the program, I was yet to receive any form of contact or update from my advisor and/or Brainstation. Still I remained patient. Finally, I decided to contact my advisor regarding the matter. The program was to start that Monday and I had not seen any updates on my online application.

The advisor reached back to me a few hours later. The conversation opened up with a general hello. The advisor then followed up by asking me if I have considered other boot camp programs, to which I replied “no.” At the moment, I was confused as to why I was asked this, being that Brainstation was the only boot camp of my interest based upon thorough review of the coding program. The advisor stated that I certainly was more than capable based on my successful completion of the application. I followed up the conversation stating that I had emailed Brainstation weeks in advance since I did not see updates to my agreement on my application. I continued to explain my growing concerns on whether the program was still active since no one reached out to me. The advisor confirmed that Brainstation had over 100 successful applicants and that the boot camp was set to begin next week. At this point, I was offended and felt cheated out of an opportunity. The advisor then began a slew of apologies and mentioned that they failed to communicate with their co workers during the time they were away from the office due to sickness.

From a professional standpoint, I expected Brainstation  to meet me halfway since on numerous attempts, I followed up with the organization. The advisor apologized once more, as he knew I was coming from a good place of heart, but told me that Brainstation could only offer a scholarship of $3,000 as a result. I was asked to consider applying for their February cohort. Quite frankly, this did not suffice as the cost of the boot camp is $15,000. It also demonstrated that he did not truly consider my financial situation through his lack of communication. The advisor lastly stated he will update my agreement for my review at that moment. When I made the decision to pursue Brainstation, I rearranged my schedule and strategically planned to join the January Cohort as I knew that the following cohort in February would not work out for me. I was clear, thorough and consistent in explaining my economic status through communication. Brainstation showed itself to be very unprofessional and quite frankly offensive in several respects. I decided to write and share my experience for several reasons. Firstly, I have been unable to contact anyone in the corporate office via (800) 903-5159. Secondly, I want those of you who are reading and interested in the program to experience what I went through. Lastly, I hope that Brainstation reads my story and improves their communication and professionalism overall. 

Thank you. 

The instructors show and tell you about the content instead of teach it. You're instructed to learn it independently outside of class hours which I could have done on my own without investing thousands to have a live class and instructor. Since the instructors didn't know how to actually teach SQL from the basics the class was lost for 3 to 4 weeks and time was lost to keep trying to go over it and content was skipped. There is no career support like they promised on the call when I signed up. They just ask if you have questions about working in the field. You will not be prepared for an entry level data analyst position upon completion, it will take a lot of outside work during and after the course to get to that level.