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Product School is an online technical training provider that offers part-time product management courses. These certification courses are taught live online in small cohorts, and the schedule is designed to fit around a work schedule. Product School’s methodology features the hands-on experience members need to build digital products and lead cross-functional teams. Instructors for the courses are Product Leaders working at top Silicon Valley companies including Google, Meta, Netflix, Airbnb, Uber, and Amazon. Product School offers a community of over two million product professionals.
Product School’s career coaching is designed to get members a product management job or promotion. Product School has published the Amazon bestseller, The Product Book, and hosts over 1,000 free events per year, The Proddy Awards, and ProductCon, the largest multi-city conference in the world for product managers.
After over 15 years in the technology industry as a front end developer / web application engineer, I wanted to make a change — to tack to starboard and sail on a different course. I wanted to have a much more significant impact on the things I work on. I love building things on the web for a wide variety of customers, in a huge spectrum of languages. After some investigation, I decided that product management was a good direction to explore. As a product ...
After over 15 years in the technology industry as a front end developer / web application engineer, I wanted to make a change — to tack to starboard and sail on a different course. I wanted to have a much more significant impact on the things I work on. I love building things on the web for a wide variety of customers, in a huge spectrum of languages. After some investigation, I decided that product management was a good direction to explore. As a product manager, I'll be able leverage my experience, passion, and talents, while learning and applying entirely new skills.
To make this course change, I investigated various options until I discovered San Francisco's Product School. I applied for their eight-week product management course. My cohort started in September and met on Saturday mornings until early November. We were taught by Teo, a senior product manager at a health care startup.
The course is well-crafted and has no expectation of specific prior experience (many people are engineers, but some had other backgrounds). The exercises proved relevant and directly applicable to product development work. In fact, after my primary project for Product School, I'm using the homework assignment templates to frame my thinking on a couple of side projects that I'm working on.
I enjoyed the course, got a lot out of it, and would recommend it to others.
What I really enjoyed about the course:Product School is a great concept but badly implemented. While the overall curriculum was quite easy to grasp, technical aspects were very poor. My cohort in Santa Clara was not given any opportunity to attend Wednesday meetup sessions since our classes were changed last minute from Tues - Thurs to Mon - Wed, nor were we told about Balsamiq login options in class. The instructor Greg was very wordy and had poor technical experience since he comes from filmmaking background and gave very po...
Product School is a great concept but badly implemented. While the overall curriculum was quite easy to grasp, technical aspects were very poor. My cohort in Santa Clara was not given any opportunity to attend Wednesday meetup sessions since our classes were changed last minute from Tues - Thurs to Mon - Wed, nor were we told about Balsamiq login options in class. The instructor Greg was very wordy and had poor technical experience since he comes from filmmaking background and gave very poor feedback on presentations. His own presentations were not very inspiring. Product School needs to include technical UX sessions as well as more cases. The only case we used was Udemy which was not of much help, especially for technical software product managers. Most of my classmates have had no luck finding jobs after the course. Another very unethical move by Product School is that they offer Accredible certificates which can be linked on LinkedIn, if you provide positive reviews on social media.
Product School is a solid overview of Product Management and is ideally suited to people who have relevant experience looking to make a transition into Product Management.
I'd recommend Product School to people who want to transition into software product management. The program provides industry knowledge, hands-on project experience and a product manager network.
The Product Management course was a good experience especially, learning from an instructor with real life examples. Working with other people and going through the process together was very encouraging. The course was so informative that I wish it lasted longer.
Product School is an excellent introduction to product management for those wanting to break into the field.
The course encompasses the core functionalities of a successful PM - understanding design, marketing, A/B testing, metrics, and the product development cycle. You'll be exposed to both the higher level theory as well as practical, hands-on examples. Outside of class, you can sharpen the skills you've learn...Product School is an excellent introduction to product management for those wanting to break into the field.
The course encompasses the core functionalities of a successful PM - understanding design, marketing, A/B testing, metrics, and the product development cycle. You'll be exposed to both the higher level theory as well as practical, hands-on examples. Outside of class, you can sharpen the skills you've learned by working on your own personal project. The class highlights exactly what it takes to become a great PM, helping you figure out what strengths and experiences you can leverage in a product position -- as well as the areas where you need the most improvement. The value you get out of the class reflects the work you put into it. If you're willing to hustle, Product School will give you the knowledge, support, and tools you need to kick off your career in product. Other Perks:I enrolled in The Product School in July 2016 for an 8-week course on Product Development. I started the course with some apprehension because of my lack of software skills. It was relatively a small class size of 12-14 very diverse students from all walks of life. As the classes progressed, I was overwhelmed by new concepts and terminology- MVP, UX, frameworks, personas. I decided to speak to my instructor, Adam S about my difficulties/limitations. Adam was very helpful and encouraged me...
I enrolled in The Product School in July 2016 for an 8-week course on Product Development. I started the course with some apprehension because of my lack of software skills. It was relatively a small class size of 12-14 very diverse students from all walks of life. As the classes progressed, I was overwhelmed by new concepts and terminology- MVP, UX, frameworks, personas. I decided to speak to my instructor, Adam S about my difficulties/limitations. Adam was very helpful and encouraged me to keep coming to classes, ask questions, read books & articles online. He was always ready to answer any questions or concerns I had, and that was what did it for me! The weekly assignments culminated in a final project that turned out to be a good learning experience. The last two classes were devoted to speaking with product managers from various fields, getting resume feedback and answering questions. Overall a good “crash course” I recommend to anyone interested in Product Development.
As a recent graduate of the Product School product management certification course, I can say confidently that it was a great experience! If you're already in the software industry and looking to transition into product or if you're looking to break into it from the outside like myself, there's a lot here for you.
Pros:
Lots of really informative content.
Knowledgable and helpful instructors.
Useful projects and exercises to build your knowledge and ...
As a recent graduate of the Product School product management certification course, I can say confidently that it was a great experience! If you're already in the software industry and looking to transition into product or if you're looking to break into it from the outside like myself, there's a lot here for you.
Pros:
Lots of really informative content.
Knowledgable and helpful instructors.
Useful projects and exercises to build your knowledge and confidence in real-world product management.
You work on a project that gives you something to show to potential employers, building your product experience before you even get your first job!
Resume workshops and mock interviews to prepare you for the job search.
Cons:
Lots of material and exercises but not always enough time to cover it. Some topics get rushed through and you have to look over them on your own later.
Most of the focus on how to actually get the PM job comes towards the end of the course. Considering this is the trickiest part, it would be good to have more material or practice on this.
Overall, Product School is a great resource for anyone who wants to learn more about product management to see if it's the right role for him or her, as well as those who know they want to break into it but just don't know how!!
Looking to hone my unofficial product management skills, I enrolled in the Product Manager course at Product School. The course was well structured and delivered a concise plan to get students to the next step in becoming a PM. Through a combination of lectures and class exercises we learned and actually used techniques applicable to a job in product.
Shendi Wang was a great instructor. She was knowledgeable and passionate about product management and delivere...
Looking to hone my unofficial product management skills, I enrolled in the Product Manager course at Product School. The course was well structured and delivered a concise plan to get students to the next step in becoming a PM. Through a combination of lectures and class exercises we learned and actually used techniques applicable to a job in product.
Shendi Wang was a great instructor. She was knowledgeable and passionate about product management and delivered the material in an easily digestible manner. Shendi leveraged her vast experience as a PM to give the class examples of what we can expect to encounter and how to approach challenges. Her classroom environment was encouraging and made you feel ok to venture out of your comfort zone.
I’m excited to now have the tools to take the next step in my career!
I'm reviewing for the SF Jan 2016 course.
Pros:
Product School has only one training course, which is Product Manager training, so they have to get it right, otherwise they fail. And I think they got it right. I come from a background of 9 years in IT Consulting, of which software development is a huge part and I believe that this course does a good job of breaking down that process into logical parts that someone without the backgroun...
I'm reviewing for the SF Jan 2016 course.
Pros:
Product School has only one training course, which is Product Manager training, so they have to get it right, otherwise they fail. And I think they got it right. I come from a background of 9 years in IT Consulting, of which software development is a huge part and I believe that this course does a good job of breaking down that process into logical parts that someone without the background can grasp. Even though I've been thru software development lifecycle time and again, I still enjoyed this portion of the course and refreshing on the various methods that can be used.
Like any course you get out what you put in, and who your instructor is will be key. We had a fantastic instructor, Ji Kim, who brought a wide breadth of experiences from many years of doing product management. Most people will be reading this review because they are trying to figure out if they should go to Product School or General Assembly, and here is how I made my decision: I looked at the profiles of the instructors. Ji had a solid track record in Product Management, the instructor at GA had a great resume, but only 2 years in a PdM Role....so who do I want to learn from? Ji Kim.
I appreciated that Ji always taught the importance of data/metrics. When deciding what to build - you better have data to back it up, you also better know how you are going to measure success and when you ship, you better be looking at those KPI's! It couldn't be stressed enough, and I think this course taught us how to analyze data as a Product Manager from inception to delivery of a product or feature.
Last note..here in SF, I wish we had less of "get users, worry about making money later", to Ji's school of thought, which is product market fit is not "you have a product that has users", it's "you have a product, for which users are willing to pay, and if you take that product away from them then they would be begging you to bring it back - that is true product-market fit" If this was taught more often, I think we'd be challenging ourselves the right way and we'd see some really promising products out there.
Cons:
As with any product, always room for improvement :) I felt there could have been some more guidance around the final project, perhaps instead of us finding a company ourselves to do a new feature for - just assign us a company. I also felt some of the group activities were too rushed and, therefore, didn't get much value out of them, so either a better schedule for them or remove them. Last - the mentor session was great, but a bit disorganized for our group, so a little more guidance to the mentors and the class would be good for the future classes.
Thanks Product School and Ji Kim for a great learning experience!
I took the 8-week Product Management course at Product School and have very positive feedback for anyone looking to take the course. When I took the course I was Technical Director at Realsec, Inc and wasn’t really looking for a new job but I wanted to improve my Product Management skills. I was doing my job but I couldn’t help to feel that I wasn’t performing at 100%. The course greatly exceeded my expectations mostly because I wasn’t looking for a techn...
I took the 8-week Product Management course at Product School and have very positive feedback for anyone looking to take the course. When I took the course I was Technical Director at Realsec, Inc and wasn’t really looking for a new job but I wanted to improve my Product Management skills. I was doing my job but I couldn’t help to feel that I wasn’t performing at 100%. The course greatly exceeded my expectations mostly because I wasn’t looking for a technical training or tons of literature on the subject of Product Management (I can google that myself.) I was more interested in all the other (soft) skills required to become a great PM, I also really liked how everyone in class had a technical background.
After the course, I co-Founded Twister Labs, the company behind GoProover.com, a platform that helps people improve their lives while overcoming fun challenges in a variety of fields, no matter what their goals are.
This is definitely not a traditional course where you are overwhelmed with piles of mostly pointless literature. It is instead a course where you learn best practices for any aspiring PM from actual PMs. It’s not the kind of course where the instructor tells you exactly what to do in every situation, but a course where you get guidelines, general rules and tricks that you only obtain through years of experience. It’s a very practical course, plenty of group activities.
About the course itself, here are some facts:
- The network that you have access to is really amazing. In my class (I took the Weekend course) there were engineers from Google, Cisco, Symantec, PwC and Microsoft among other companies. At least half of the class drove every weekend all the way from Silicon Valley to San Francisco just for the course and we all made it to the end. No dropouts.
- The instructors and guest speakers were all experienced professional in their own fields and work for some of the best companies in their area. For example:
- Carlos, taught most of the course. He has co-founded at least 3 companies related to education. One of them got into 500Startups and won the best startup prize at Startup Chile. He was also an instructor at General Assembly.
- AB Testing was taught by a Product Manager at Optimizely
- Online Marketing was taught by a Product Manager at ReTargeter
- Our resume was personally reviewed by a Senior Recruiter at Linkedin
- We did mockup interviews with recruiters from at least 3 companies looking for PMs at that time
- The Demo Day was hosted by Riviera Partners (recruiting firm in SoMa) and they invited several companies looking to hire PMs
- We were asked to provide a few names of companies that we’d like to work for and the Product School team helped with personal introductions to these companies
- We all got our resumes reviewed by Hired.com and were offered to publish them in their site
- We got access to a platform called PerkHub where you find hundreds of discounts and free versions of apps like JustInMind or Balsamiq (Prototyping)
- You get access to the weekly meetups where Product School brings experts in different fields to discuss hot-topics in the Product Management area. I absolutely recommend this meetups, not only for the guest speakers that are always relevant (Founder of Do.com, Nir Eyal author of Hooked, etc), but for the networking.
- We receive every week - even after the course is over- the PM ToolKit, an email with job offers, news, tools and other resources to keep us up to date in the trends in Product Management.
Summarizing, this is probably the best Product Management course you can take in the Bay Area and, at a very reasonable price for a 8-weeks course. It’s even cheap if you think of all the perks included in the tuition. Only the resume review and mock up interviews would cost hundreds of dollars. Not to mention the privileged treatment in some hiring processes at selected companies.
I would recommend this course to any engineer looking to transition from Engineering into a Product Management roll.
This review is based on my experience going through this program early last year. I was in the 2nd "cohort" or the 2nd session Product School had. Since the program was fairly new at the time, I was a bit wary going into it, but it turned out great!
These were my observations (in no particular order), but do keep in mind that they were from an earlier "iteration" of this program, so things may be different by now:
• The first 1-2 classes were pretty fast paced. The reas...
This review is based on my experience going through this program early last year. I was in the 2nd "cohort" or the 2nd session Product School had. Since the program was fairly new at the time, I was a bit wary going into it, but it turned out great!
These were my observations (in no particular order), but do keep in mind that they were from an earlier "iteration" of this program, so things may be different by now:
• The first 1-2 classes were pretty fast paced. The reason for that was that there's just a lot of information to cover in the limited time that we had. I think any newbies who were not previously familiar with some concepts of PM, MVP, UX, or marketing may have felt quite overwhelmed. Just be prepare to take the info all in, but to digest and absorb it on your own time. You can always ask the instructors to explain more if you don't understand something either during class or during the breaks. Since the class is small enough, you won't have any trouble getting the time from the instructor.
• Each instructor made up their own content and slides, so some had good visuals, some could be improved. Perhaps at least a more consistent/uniform look and feel of the slides among the different instructors would help the curriculum feel more professional and polished.
• Relevant content. Because the instructors were actual working product managers, their content was relevant and based on real experiences. They provided guidance in terms of what worked for them, what didn’t and why.
• Smaller classes. Sometimes only a few showed for the weekday course, which isn’t as great because there would be less interaction and learning among the students. However, if you were just interested in the time you get with the instructor, then you definitely will get that.
• Flexible weekday/weekend course. Those who were enrolled in the weekday course, but couldn't make it could can catch up by attending the weekend course. This was a great perk of the program, especially for those whose work schedule is a bit more demanding. Fortunately, the weekend course remained small even though the weekday students were allowed to attend. There were usually ~10 students during the weekend, which I thought was just right - just enough to get good interaction among the students, but small enough to still get attention from the instructor. Also, the small number of students makes for a great and manageable support group post program.
• Quality instructors. All of the instructors were not only knowledgeable, but passionate as well. Passion is key. They really want to help you be successful. They take the time to explain things and to be personally available. Any criticism from them is meant for you to improve, so don't take things personally.
• Food is provided. Another great perk and more importantly time saver.
• Access to various PM/UX related tools and networking opportunities.
• Unlimited opportunities during your session and after to attend interesting speaker sessions, which serves as additional networking opportunities for you.
Hope this helps give more insight. Don't forget - learning is a journey. Your enrollment in this program or any other is part of that journey. Learn, connect and enjoy!
How much does Product School cost?
Product School costs around $4,199.
What courses does Product School teach?
Product School offers courses like Artificial Intelligence Product Certification (AIPC)™, Product Leadership Certificate™, Product Manager Certificate™, Product Marketing Manager Certification (PMMC)™.
Where does Product School have campuses?
Product School has in-person campuses in Austin, Boston, Boulder, Chicago, Denver, London, Los Angeles, New York City, Orange County, San Francisco, Seattle, Silicon Valley, and Toronto. Product School also has a remote classroom so students can learn online.
Is Product School worth it?
Product School hasn't shared alumni outcomes yet, but one way to determine if a bootcamp is worth it is by reading alumni reviews. 219 Product School alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Product School on Course Report - you should start there!
Is Product School legit?
We let alumni answer that question. 219 Product School alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Product School and rate their overall experience a 4.8 out of 5.
Does Product School offer scholarships or accept the GI Bill?
Right now, it doesn't look like Product School offers scholarships or accepts the GI Bill. We're always adding to the list of schools that do offer Exclusive Course Report Scholarships and a list of the bootcamps that accept the GI Bill.
Can I read Product School reviews?
You can read 219 reviews of Product School on Course Report! Product School alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Product School and rate their overall experience a 4.8 out of 5.
Is Product School accredited?
Certification
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