Constructor Academy

I attended the Data Science Bootcamp at Propulsion Academy to grow professionally and to give my career a new direction. I am really glad I took this step, because I probably learned more in the last few months than ever before within such a short timespan. The course covers everything from statistics to python programming, machine learning, deep learning and natural language processing, and includes also an introduction to SQL and machine learning engineering.

The curriculum is well-structured and the instructors are very competent. The Propulsion team has managed to move the teaching, group work and all the contents to an entirely online version to avoid interruptions of the courses when physical presence in the class room is not possible due to the pandemic. During the last month of the course, I worked on a real-world problem for a database provider, which was also relevant to my previous professional background. Propulsion goes to great lengths to maintain a broad network of companies and to link up students for suitable final projects.

In some cases, these projects lead to jobs after the end of the course. Propulsion also offers coaching for the job search and support in terms of interview preparation and making contact with employers. I'm starting in my new position next week, where I will be working with text data for a really cool organization (just two weeks after finishing the course).

Considering you have never worked in IT before, what do you imagine when you hear "Fullstack Web Developer"? Well, I can tell you that for me it just sounded very sophisticated. I always thought that this field of expertise would be too difficult to learn. During Covid however, I decided to do a career change, cause I wanted a new challenge. I heard about Propulsion Academy from a friend. What caught my eye, was the short duration of the course and the material that would be covered. In my head I thought, if the promise of learning Python, Javascript, Django, React etc... in 3 months is true, I have to grab this opportunity. What surprised me as well, was the fact that any person could start this course even without any prior experience in coding. I think this offers a great opportunity for all the people like me that need a "loophole" to get into a new business. The past 3 months were, exciting, intense and mind-challenging at the same time. That's why one needs a lot of self discipline, especially because the working days are quite long. What I liked a lot, was working in a team and exchanging study content. I feel this was a major factor that contributed in staying motivated. Furthermore, I cherished the help from the instructors a lot. Their patience made me always feel welcomed to ask any questions I had in mind. Something that was missing in my opinion, was the face to face contact with the students, which wasn't possible because of Covid. Despite that, the used communication tools were very helpful. I would recommend this class for any person that is motivated to do a quick career change in a short period of time, with not necessarily being experienced in IT, but in the end having the benefit of learning a lot. Definitely a great opportunity!

Taking the Full-Stack Web Development course in Propulsion Academy was the best choice I made since coming to Switzerland. I can say that I learned a lot about web development in the three months I spent at Propulsion Academy. Propulsion Academy is also one of the major factors that helped me jump start my developer career here in Switzerland.

If you are planning to learn more about Web Development or Data Science then I suggest you to check out Propulsion Academy.

Cheers!

When I was prospective student I didn't find Course Report particularly helpful or trust worthy since all the ratings were basically 5 stars. Seemed suspicious. Anyway, now that I've finished the program I'll give my honest review.
Overall, I felt that the program was extremely supportive of students and the teaching assistants were fantastic. The curriculum was great and well thought out. 12 weeks is not much time to learn Data Science and I felt like they did a good job of optimising the topics for the course length.

Sometimes for machine learning or challenging topics like neural networks you would have to suffer through for a couple hours before one of the teaching assistants was available to help you since they were attending other students. I understand that part of the program is putting the time in and grinding through the hard bits, but sometimes I felt that an extra teaching assistant would have been greatly appreciated by our class. 

I think the fact that most of the people find jobs afterwards is more indicative of the types of people that do the course rather than the academy doing an exceptional job of helping people find jobs. Sure, they do try and send you a few job openings they find that might be of interest to you, and they do have some connections that might help you bypass some company 1st level screenings, but overall it's pretty much 100% on you to find a job afterwards. To be fair, the CEO Laurent did give a really helpful 1hr lesson on optimising your cover letter and preparing for interviews.

Will this course help you get a job as a Data Scientist as soon as you finnish? My experience so far is that it's hard to get a job as a DS right out the camp unless you have a pHD for the big companies. Your best bet is to find startup companies  for DS positions.

I did quite a bit research before investing in this option for my career change. My main focus was on the return on investment. There are many ways you can measure the value of a bootcamp. Can you learn what they teach for cheaper? yes. Can you learn it faster? no. Can you get a broad understanding of the software landscape in as short of a time? no. You could do the same technical tasks on your own, yes, but what you don't get is immersion in the industry, confidence in your skills, a team of people who have been in the profession who can act as consultants on your path. This support system is invaluable. You are paying for expertise, and insider knowledge as well as what you get in the classroom. I believe that the personnel at Propulsion Academy are top notch and they are invested in your success. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I have a job in industry, got an 80% raise from my previous position, and am really enjoying the challenge and it is all due to Propulsion Academy. 

When I was applying for bootcamps, I was interested in finding something that would have a high calbre of teaching and cover the groundwork in statistics and data analysis rather than just jumping straight into machine learning magic. I applied for Propulsion because it ticked these boxes, and was small enough to provide a personal experience, rather than feeling like a data scientist factory.

The Propulsion staff are really outstanding. Nitin, who was at the time managing the course and teaching a fair section of the curriculum, is extremely knowledgable and an excellent teacher. The TAs that we had at the time were patient and helpful, striking the right balance between allowing students to solve problems on their own and not leaving people to get frustrated for too long. 

The staff are very well-connected to the community in Zürich, which means that they have an ear to the ground with upcoming jobs. They are invested in your success, and pull out all the stops in helping you find positions.

I learned a huge amount in the 3 months, especially from the project phase. Propulsion finds students interesting projects from local companies, so we were able to work on real-life problems and meet people from local industries.

Since graduating from the course, I have been working as a data scientist for a local start-up. Propulsion provided the ground-work that I needed to get started in this industry, so that I had a starting point to learn and grow on-the-job.

Absolutely no regrets in taking this course. I would say, the more effort you put into Python and statistics before you arrive, the more you will get out of it. There is a huge amount to learn, and having the basics in place means that you can concentrate more easily on the higher level concepts. 

Going through the Data Science Intensive Program at Propulsion Academy was an amazing experience. The 12 weeks of intensive work is very well structured starting from the basics of programming languages and data preparation to advanced topics like NLP, TensorFlow, Neural Networks, Deep Learning. The hands-on exercise every day and data challenges once every week keeps reminding how much you learned in such a short time. The instructors having amazing backgrounds in academia and/or in big and famous companies. The Propulsion team should be appreciated the most - super friendly, always available and great mentors. The fellow participants with their diverse backgrounds also add to the richness of the program. Perhaps the most rewarding of all was the Project Phase being able to work with real data and seeing the results implemented.

The Full-Stack Development at Propulsion Academy has represented my oportunity to move to Switzerland, become a full stack developer and get employed... all of this in just 4 months!

The program is challenging and the preparation starts even before the official beginning, but the support from the school and the highly skilled teachers is constant. Hard work is rewarded when realizing that you can build your own bricks game at the end of the first week of this bootcamp. It's jsut amazing how much is possible to learn in such short period of time.

Merits go to the team of Propulsion, every topic is explained by a different teacher that are able to share their knowledge, experience and answer all the questions. Also, material that is available for the students is well structured, complete and continuosly updated. Exercises can break your head but they are thought in a manner that they teach you how to solve logic problems and apply this mindset across different programming languages.

Finally, Propulsion is very committed to find us a job. They often organize events and invite speakers from the web development world to share their experience and suggestion on how to integrate in the job market. They really encourage us to connect with them and with the rest of their contacts. Also, there is a dedicated session on career development, on how to send applications and CV. For someone like me that was new to the Swiss job market, it has been fundamental to be exposed to this networking and receive all their suggestions.

The motto of Propulsion Academy is "Everybody can learn to code". And that's definitely true! I had NO prior coding experience before I enrolled in full-stack development programme. Moreover - I came with absolutely non-technical background (I have MA in linguistics and literature). But after 3 months of intensive studies and hundreds hours of hard work I was able to create my first working web-applications. And today I am a software development intern at a very cool company.

The programme of bootcamp is very well-structured and is very practical-oriented: every day after half-a-day lectures you code for minimum 4-5 hours. Sometimes the amount of new infromation is overwhelming, but teachers and teaching assistants are great - very friendly, helpful and competent. One of the most valuable things - the programme covers many hot technologies (e.g. Docker or React). I also liked the international atmosphere of the bootcamp and I found there a lot of like-minded people. 

The Propulsion Team takes care about every student and helps a lot in application process (networking, CV review, mock interviews , etc.) 

I am very happy that I graduated from this bootcamp - this changed my career as well as my life ;)

The Data Science Intensive program at Propulsion Academy was on point. Every day was an opportunity to learn new skills and get our hands dirty with coding. The lecturers were extremely knowledgable and came from a variety of backgrounds - from biostatisticians to applied mathematicians and physicists. In terms of content, there was so much coverage that it felt overwhelming and really pushed me to my limits. I was so glad to push through it, and I was rewarded with a new career for a start-up which I absolutely love. There was nothing like this available in Australia - short and to the point - and it was worth it to travel all the way to Switzerland to do this course. Doing an 18 month Masters course was out of the question due to the cost and amount of time I'd be out of the work force, whilst trying to support a family. I'm so thankful that I got accepted into the course. It really changed my life for the better.

I was looking for a job in Zürich for some time after career break, trying to find something close to Science since I finished Ph.D. in tech field. After thorough consideration of different ways to join Swiss job market I chose Propulsion Academy Bootcamp (Data Science Program) to achieve my goal as fast as possible and this was the right decision.

There was a lot of work, the pace is quite intense: in one day we learned one important topic for the field. Starting from basics (programming languages, tools, data preparation) to really advanced (neural networks, deep learning, TensorFlow, NLP). So after finishing the course we knew all the buzzwords and knew where to look for the solution if we have a problem.

However the curriculum is very well structured, you use the knowledge you got in previous days, teachers are helpful as well as TAs so it is doable.

You learn a lot, but What is also important - opportunity to meet people from the field and potential employers, talk to them. The final projects are also provided mostly by companies and are real-life issues so you can work on something valuable.
 
Overall, the school has an atmosphere of support and inspiration, which really helps to perform better and to gain your goals.

I met a lot of great people, totally changed my lifestyle and mindset, got a job, and I continue developing myself - that is exactly what I wanted from this Bootcamp.