Springboard Reviews
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PaJai Vang Verified via LinkedIn
Springboard helped me gain confidence as I made a career transition.
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After the program, I felt more confident going out and applying for UX design jobs. My favorite part would be the Industry Design project. I find myself referencing that project multiple times in interviews and interviewees receive the experience well too. I just finished the program yesterday, I'm now entering the job search phase with a career coach. This part of the program was what really sold me into committing. -
Paul Verified via LinkedIn
So-so
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If your goal in going to Springboard is to get a job, as was mine, then you may be in good hands. I scored 3 job offers within 3 months of starting the program. That's about all I can say positively about the program, and the success in landing a job came more from the psychological impact of the program name than it did from the program itself.
Unfortunately, the curriculum is one of the laziest curriculums I have ever seen in my education experience.
Most of the useful parts of the curriculum are outsourced entirely to third-party resources that you can get for a very affordable membership outside of Springboard. I did not learn Python or SQL from Springboard. I learned it from Datacamp, as part of the Springboard program. Springboard charged over $6,000 for the program, while Datacamp charges $25 per month. You do the math.
Everything that isn't outsourced is subpar. YouTube is superior - literally.
You are given a very introductory glance to a lot of topics, then forced to plod through busy work that you clearly don't need to be doing. Springboard instructions are clear and off-putting in this regard - "This entire unit is mandatory, even if you are already familiar with the content."
For nearly every assignment, the instructions are incredibly unclear, requiring huge amounts of student time just to understand what they are actually being asked to do. The time is not spent to ensure that assignments provide a good educational experience. Instructions are literally given in very-poorly formatted Excel documents, with students being expected to go a Slack chat just to discuss with other students what is being asked. So you don't really spend time learning data science skills. You spend time learning how to interpret Springboard's odd approach to education, and then slap a Data Analytics certificate on top of it.
Overall I am glad I got some job offers. Looking back, however, I don't think Springboard helped me as much as they would claim they did.
Sadly, still a much better option than college! But the world can, and must, do much better.
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Ulku Kurt Verified via LinkedIn
Data Science Career Track
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First of all, course advisors, mentors, and career coaches were great. I really liked the support from advisors, because I was working from home and taking care of my children while doing homeschooling because of the Covid19, they really helped me by understanding the situation and gave me the necessary time and courage to finish the program. Career coaches were great. They gave so strong advice for the career path. Mentors were very good and gave very strong technical feedbacks and advice for projects and make you think about what can be next. I have some negative opinions with course sources but positive opinions are higher than negatives. Overall I am very pleased about attending the course. I could have not learned the data science subjects in this kind of limited time by myself. I am glad I participated. -
Dana Nichols Verified via LinkedIn
UI/UX Design
I loved this program - I learned a lot about UX/UI Design, I have four case studies for my portfolio, I learned a ton about networking and career prep, and I'm waking away with a new sense of confidence to be an official designer. It's self-paced you so you have to be a self-starter and self-motivated! -
Christiane Harris Verified via LinkedIn
UX Design Career Track
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It was very helpful to learn skills hands-on by starting the capstone project so early in the course, then slowly working on it for a couple months as each skill is learned. My mentor was particularly amazing (gave thoughtful, expert, challenging, and encouraging feedback), which made every penny worth the course. I hear most mentors are great, though I'm sure experiences can vary a bit.
My main small complaint about the course is that most sub-projects are still fairly large/involved, but there's not much bite-sized practice beforehand. Everything (for the most part) goes straight into the capstone (until the next big project). Since the capstone will be displayed in the portfolio, it can be easy to spend inordinate amounts of time working on (and stressing about) making the very first attempt at each assignment "perfect," or "impressive."
Recommendation: schedule at least one extra mentor call each week, whether you have questions or not. Extra mentor calls can help you stay on track and know when your work is "good enough" to move on. -
Anna Poruks Verified via LinkedIn
UI/UX Career Track - Great Foundation!
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I really enjoyed Springboard's UI/UX Career Track program! It is a hefty curriculum, but easy to follow and left me confident that I gained a solid foundation in the field. I also really enjoyed the UI exercises added throughout the curriculum to help me learn and refine my design skills! I studied full-time and completed it in about 9 months (so this is not a quick-fix course, especially coming from a non-design background). I would recommend it to anyone looking to commit to a career change! -
Ben Verified via LinkedIn
Legit Bootcamp
I had a fantastic experience at Springboard. The mentor and career coach relationships proved to be invaluable to my job search. I was able to land an offer before I even graduated! -
Jon Kim Verified via LinkedIn
Great Program! Great Value!
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I did a lot of research before finally deciding on Springboard's UI/UX Design Career Track. The deciding factors for me were the flexibility of the self-paced curriculum, mini internship (industry design project), and the reasonable tuition.
Overall, the program was paced well and covered a lot of material (both theory and practice). I finished the course with four projects on my portfolio website and tons of practical advice from career coaches (salary negotiation, portfolio/resume critique, networking, LinkedIn help and more). The required mock interviews also gave me a sense of how "real" UX interviews would be conducted.
As with any new experience, it is what you make of it! Put in the work and utilize all the available resources!
If you decide to apply, here is a referral link for a nice discount!
https://www.springboard.com/invite/BFH8M -
Caitlin Jansson Verified via LinkedIn
A good prep
Was a good prep course, just a quick taste of data science. Was a little light on code and too heavy on basic statistics. Would have prefered more statistical concepts and less math forumlas. -
Jason McGinty Verified via LinkedIn
Great program for self-motivated individuals
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The biggest pro for me was the self-paced, very independent curriculum. I was working full time when I started the program, so it was nice to be able to work through the curriculum at my own pace rather than having a set schedule.
Weekly calls with a mentor are very helpful in checking up on progress and making sure any questions you have along the way get addressed. My mentor was very knowledgeable and thorough in his explanations of any questions I had.
I found the projects and assignments more helpful than the videos. I typically learn things best by doing them rather than hearing about them, so often I would still be lost at the end of the videos and then figure things out while doing the assignments. -
Jay-Ce Heisig Verified via LinkedIn
Former English Teacher, Humanities Undergrad, Now Employed in Data Role
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I enrolled in Springboard’s Data Analytics Career Track upon completing a two-year contract with Teach For America. I always had an interest in data but never felt confident in acting on it until I had to figure out my next step after teaching. I studied international relations and communication/writing in my undergraduate career so had no formal quantitative experience upon applying. From the moment I applied to Springboard, everything was incredibly professional and straightforward. In fact, after submitting my application, a recruiter called me within 5 minutes to talk about my interest - completely opposite of another boot camp I was considering who didn’t even contact me despite confirming an appointment. This quickness made me think they were desperate, but the recruiter wasn’t pushy but friendly and even gave me an informal interview to make sure I was someone who really wanted to sign up. After that call, I was required to take a roughly one-hour long quantitative aptitude test to further verify that data analytics was a path I could reasonably pursue. I mention this because I was worried that I would fall trap to simply enrolling into a program that took anyone and everyone who signed up. In truth, I’m not sure if they decline students from enrolling either way, but I felt confident that this interview and assessment were evidence that they were at least slightly selective in their admissions process. Curriculum The curriculum is mostly a curation of online resources. These resources come from YouTube videos, articles, and other websites related to business and data analytics. A couple of units are specifically dedicated to business education like economics, financial analysis, statistics, accounting, and other business fundamentals. The cycle of the projects also follows that of a typical data analyst workflow, somewhat similar to the scientific method in crafting a hypothesis, gathering data, exploration, etc. I found these concepts helpful as I was someone who steered away from anything business-related up to that point; I simply had no interest back then. Most of the projects simulate a real-world project utilizing the things you learned earlier in the unit. These are not typically from online resources and are created by Springboard. Given that I don’t have real-world experience with these kinds of projects, it’s hard for me to stack them up against practicality, but they tended to help structure my capstone projects which require you to make up your own project and find the data for it, so it was helpful in that regard. Otherwise, sometimes the projects were poorly worded and it could be slightly cumbersome in finding out exactly what you were supposed to do. But these were usually minor and you could always clarify with your mentor or other students about the assignments and get clarification. They also release new versions of the curriculum to improve a particular assignment, section, or even whole unit based on student feedback so they really try to be responsive to what’s working and what’s not for students. Towards the final stages of the curriculum, you’re required to do a series of interviews that would mimic a real interview you would get. For example, you do a behavioral interview, a presentation interview in which you create a presentation from a project in the course and give that presentation as if you were “working” for the organization, and a technical interview in which they ask you questions about statistics, business, SQL, or whatever else might come up in a real technical interview. Your career coach helps you prepare for these, mostly the behavioral ones as they aren’t data specialists themselves but you can also do preparation with your mentor to prepare for these. They are pass/fail. You’re given a couple of opportunities to pass it but if you fail too many times then you have to redo a couple of units I believe. At first, I found this kind of scary, but the pressure it adds to those interviews is really helpful in simulating what it will be like when you’re doing real interviews. They tend to be anxiety-inducing, you’ll be nervous, and the stakes are higher. The fact that they try to build this pressure into these mock interviews was pretty cool now that I reflect on it. At the time I didn’t think it was that cool! But if you’re someone who struggles with interviews, these mock runs are helpful not only in getting practice but also feedback from those interviewers. They go into detail about how you could do better or other things to think about when you get to a real interview. Mentors and Community Each student is assigned a mentor who is a data analyst/scientist in the field. You have weekly calls with them and they’re mostly there to guide you through the curriculum but you can always talk to them about other things like job searching or how they use tools/techniques in their own jobs, etc; at least my mentor was open to talking about whatever. I hadn’t ever come across anyone who had a bad experience with their mentor, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. My mentor was incredibly relaxed, easy to talk to, and helpful when I needed help in the curriculum or needed encouragement on something I found difficult. One thing that made me like my mentor more was also his ability to sometimes question minor details in the curriculum. I appreciate someone who can point out weaknesses in something even though they’re part of the organization itself. It let me know that this person I was assigned to by Springboard wasn’t necessarily a 100% kool-aid drinking member of the club, but an independent person who, though still agreed the curriculum was a good one, was capable of sometimes saying “well I’m not sure I would do it that way but it’s valid.” Upon being accepted into the program, you are also invited to the Slack channel for your specific course. This is where you can communicate with other students in the course who are all at different stages of the curriculum, though you do have a channel for people who are in your specific cohort. There are also Springboard faculty in the channel as well, including a person who helped write the curriculum. They are really helpful in clarifying kinks in assignments or helping students who are having a difficult time on something. There are also various channels for different types of things like job searching, motivation, resources, recorded lectures, and all types of things. Throughout the curriculum, you also have career units in which you learn strategies about job searching. You’re also allowed to choose a career coach, who appears to be contracted with Springboard (I could be wrong about this) to provide 30-minute coaching sessions. These range from resume critiques, to mock interviews, to general strategies, to sharing resources, and really anything that they feel would be helpful to you. You also aren’t required to stick with one career coach, you can always select from a whole list of people at any point and they have descriptions of their background to give you a sense of what to expect. I stuck with the same one the entire time because I didn’t feel the need to talk to a different coach. The Job Search The job search process was not a totally pleasant one, as anyone who has gone through it can attest. But my career coach and the Springboard community in Slack were really helpful. You could see where other people were struggling as well and my career coach would always give helpful suggestions or resources to help in my search. I applied to a little over 90 jobs and had 3 total interviews. Again, I don’t have any kind of formal background in data, business, or STEM besides the Springboard certificate and some projects to showcase my aptitude, so I felt that that was a bit of a barrier for me. Despite this, I did get a job! A friend of my partner referred me to a role at her company which landed me the interview. My career coach did a mock interview with me, reviewed Google Docs that I drafted interview responses to, and answered any other questions I had during the process. I can honestly say my experience in the boot camp really gave me a leg up. They loved that I had that experience and projects to show for it. During the final round of interviews for this role, I had a technical assessment and didn’t do too hot on it, but I was able to redeem myself by talking intelligently about my projects in the course. I think this made me come across as someone who understood general concepts and use cases for specific things and even if I lagged on the technical assessment, I was someone who could get better quickly. My title isn’t “data analyst” but “marketing specialist.” Much of the role is data related though and even though some of it isn’t, it allows me to use skills that I’ve built over the years in undergrad and as a teacher so I’m not 100% shifted into a totally new technical profession. The other roles I interviewed for were pure data analyst jobs though. I made it to either the final or next to final rounds in those interviews and made some mistakes that I think cost me the job. You learn from these though, and your career coach will help you diagnose what happened and how you can do better the next time. I finished the course in mid-November and just recently got a job offer on March 29, so a little over 4 months after completing the course. Another cool thing that Springboard offers is post-completion assistance. You’re allowed to meet with another mentor who can help you be accountable for keeping your skills alive and building more projects to showcase to prospective employers. You have access to this mentor until you get a job and can be really helpful when you complete the course and then start to find that your skills are slipping. A Potential Downside One potential downside to this track might be the curriculum. Though this downside is innate in the way the course is structured. It’s set up as a part-time, 6-month learning experience. They want you to get familiar with a wide range of tools that you could potentially use in a data analyst job, mostly the more popular ones as there are TONS of tools that you could potentially use in the field. In this regard, there’s more breadth than depth in the things you’ll learn. They are still helpful. After a unit and a project, you can honestly say that you’re proficient in that tool or concept. You’ll also learn that each tool could be its own 6-month course. If you haven’t used Microsoft Excel professionally before, or maybe you have, you find out that Excel is more powerful than what you were familiar with. This was the case for me anyway. I’m not sure that any boot camp can really overcome this downside though when the curriculum itself is designed to be completed in a relatively short period of time. You might become interested in diving deeper into a tool after completing a unit on it, but have to move on to the next tool introduced in the next unit. This is just part of being in tech. I recommend seeking other online resources if you become really interested in getting better at a particular tool. However, I still believe, along with many other practitioners, that the curriculum is still helpful in allowing you to understand the essentials and then get a job with them. In Conclusion I think the number one thing that you get out of the course is structure and community. Of course, you could learn everything in any boot camp online for free, but you to be someone who can muster the discipline and structure to stick to it long-term. I have a habit of constantly looking for new resources to learn from, even after finding what seems like a good one, I’ll complete half of it and then start looking for something else. Springboard’s curriculum allowed me to stay on course and I trusted that what they put in front of me was going to be helpful in learning and ultimately getting a job. The frequent connection with my mentors, career coach, and other students was really helpful in knowing that I wasn’t alone. It gave me a psychological edge in that someone I was meeting with at the end of the week was expecting me to complete assignments and be able to discuss them. This was a total career pivot for me and, so far, I’m glad that I did it. I welcome any questions about my experience and the program! -
Purevdulam Gansukh Verified via LinkedIn
Really good experience
Recent graduate of Data Analytics course. I really liked Springboard for its mentor supports, the career coaches, and also the ability to have 2 capstone projects to show and impress the potential hiring manager. -
Braden Bullock Verified via LinkedIn
UX / UI Design Career Track
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Overall I had a very good experience with Springboard. Their curriculum is very thorough and provided a great knowledge base to work with in future careers and internships. Springboard provided a company through which I was able to start an internship that has the potential of turning into a future employment opportunity which has been really nice. My mentor was very helpful and provided great feedback in our weekly calls. The curriculum was a little light on the 'UI' portion of the UX / UI Design program which was sort of disappointing. Other than that, everyone that I have interacted with at Springboard has been very helpful and knowledgeable. I completed this program with an average of around 30 hours a week in 6 months. Be aware that if you do choose to do the internship that they set you up with, that will take a month to complete so make sure to schedule that in. -
Taylor Myers Verified via LinkedIn
Fantastic program!
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I just completed the Springboard course and have to say, I have never made a better decision in my life! 9 months ago I was laid off from my service industry job, wondering what direction I wanted to take my life. Now, I have a full-time position as a UX/UI Designer making almost three times the amount I did previously. I use the skills that I acquired from Springboard daily (in addition to all the great resources they provide.) The curriculum is fantastic, the mentors are top-notch, and the community support is second to none. I will say that if you do not have professional experience working on teams, giving demos, networking, and doing a lot of writing, it could be a bit challenging. Overall, I could not recommend this program enough! -
Hillary N Verified via LinkedIn
Overall Great Program
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The data analytics career track was a great program. Overall the curriculum is well designed it is easy to keep track of your progress. I loved that it was a self-paced program, but that it needed to be completed within 6 months, kept more accountability on it. The 1:1 mentor component was why I chose this program, and it was definitely one of the key factors in making the program so valuable. Having a student advisor that you could also schedule meetings with and email was very helpful in keeping motivated through the course. They have a slack community and office hours that makes it feel like you're not working alone even in a remote environment. The inclusion of a career curriculum helps to set you up for the best possible job prospects after the program. Overall great value and I feel prepared to begin job searching! -
Duy Dao Verified via LinkedIn
Data Analyst
This was a really great course! I learned a lot about Advanced Excel Functions, Data Visualization, SQL and Python. The mentors were really helpful and provided unlimited mentor calls whenever you need help or are stuck on the course. I would recommend this course. -
Zoe Verified via LinkedIn
UI/UX Design Track
Great experience! I finished with a portfolio of 4 projects, 1 with a real-world business. 1:1 calls with my mentors were a big help, everyone is very supportive. -
Miwa Couweleers Verified via LinkedIn
Amazing bootcamp! Especially the mentoring.
Springboard was such a great investment into my future. The mentoring aspect of it was the most helpful for me. I really felt supported and empowered by the mentors, coaches, and staff, and got such high quality education and personalized feedback from them. I highly recommend Springboard for anyone looking to transition into UX design! -
Suvam Patel Verified via LinkedIn
Data Science
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To sum it all up, this is a great program to enter/transition into the Data Science field. You will get all the necessary tools to succeed in completing the program as well as finding a job. You get an industry expert as your mentor and have weekly meeting with him. You have a career coach to look over your resume, linkedin profile, and motivate you. And last but not least you have amazing counselors who look out for you and make sure you are on track to finishing the course. -
Laura Cruz Verified via LinkedIn
Amazing mentors !
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Although I was a little hesitant at the beginning because I wanted to take a course with a renowned University, Springboard gave me the flexibility of working at any time, which I needed, cause I could not commit to night time classes. They also had both Tableau and Power BI in their curriculum which usually for other programs is just one of them, and the thing that I liked the most was the 1 on 1 mentor training, besides unlimited mentoring from very smart people who actually work in the industry. The course is very organized, it has great content, projects give you a lot of knowledge, and I feel from the point I started, until now, I've learnt so much and I will be able to put all that knowledge into practice. And you also get the job career help from very knowledgeable people who really care about your job search and want you to obtain the best job. I definitely recommend Springboard for anyone looking to learn the Data Analytics Track! -
Vanessa Tang Verified via LinkedIn
Data Analytics career track
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Started the course on July 2019 and just completed the course today. Great course, I especially appreciated the support by mentor and career coaches. There were times when I could not see the end of the course but with their encouragement and positivity I made it. I feel that I am more confident tackling the technical skillsets necessary for my future job in this area and it has also made me a more creative and flexible person. -
Pooja Verified via LinkedIn
UX Career Track
I really enjoyed my experience at Springboard - they really give you the tools to succeed, especially when shifting career paths. I thought the weekly mentors calls, open communication with my student advisor, and career coaching really empowered the students to reach their goals. -
Paymon Wang-Lotfi Verified via GitHub
Software Engineering Immersive
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As somebody who has already worked as a Java Backend Engineer, I wasn't sure if I was going to learn much/ The course content was in depth and great (on javascript and python stack in contrast to J2EE), and my mentor was incredible. He legitimately cared about helping me improve my career. The job assistance at the end is a little lacking, especially because most of the career coaches are always booked, so you might need to show some initiative in that area. -
Taylor Verified via LinkedIn
Worth the Money
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Springboard was a great program for me. I did the UX/UI Career Track Course. Before this I had absolutely no UX experience and very little design experience. Throughout the course I learned everything I needed to become a UX designer and I feel confident in my skills now. The curriculum is very thorough and all of the projects I worked on allowed me to demonstrate my skills in each step of the UX design process. I would highly recommend this course for anyone making a career change or wanting to learn about UX. -
Pedro Perez Verified via LinkedIn
Awesome experience
Pros: Superbly crafted course materials, amazing mentor program, constant support, great flexibility with the completion timeline, extremely relevant projects that translate into a portfolio well
Cons: Very focused on web development, no deep foray into lower level programming -
Dat Nguyen Verified via LinkedIn
Recommended for transitioning careers
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I'm on my transitioning career from academic researcher to data engineer that needs to fill the gap with hands-on experience and practice skills. I found Data Engineering Career Track at Springboard is the best fit. The program has shown me what I missed and where I should go. If you are a self-learner, keen on working with data, and are looking for new opportunities in changing your career then the Data Engineering Career track is highly recommended. -
Tristan Trosvig Verified via LinkedIn
Great Curriculum and Support
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I was genuinely pleased with my online experience in Springboard's Software Engineering Career Track. Even though people are potentially working in different time zones, the support is quick and reliable. The curriculum is of high quality and taught by an inspiring instructor who makes difficult concepts easy to understand. The only issue I ran into was communication within project guidelines and "commonly asked questions." By the time I emailed my student advisor to verify my understanding, a month and a half had passed. In other words, if you have questions, ask immediately. I would highly recommend this curriculum to anybody looking for a high quality software engineering bootcamp. -
Khalil Aleed Verified via LinkedIn
Great customer service, fair deal and fairly good curriculum
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The customer services are awesome. My student advisor was amazing. He supported me all the way. They offer unlimited mentor calls which is a golden treasure, those mentors will help you and explain anything not clear. The curriculum covered a variety of important topics and skills. My only cons are the curriculum can be a bit deeper. Their course is good but they teach the essential skills so you can't expect to be an expert in Python for example after the course but you will be familiar with the environment and you will have enough skills to survive -
Mike Zaengle Verified via LinkedIn
UX Career Track
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Overall, I had a terrific experience and would highly recommend Springboard to others looking at UX programs! The job guarantee, the price, and the 1o1 Mentorship were what led me to choose Springboard. Pros - Job Guarantee - Real world projects and a 1 month internship with a company - The price is definitely more affordable than other bootcamps I looked at - The mentorship was great! I learned a lot and all of the mentors are UX professionals themselves so they are full of wonderful insight into the process and profession Cons - Easy to get a bit off track with their timeline especially when you get to the design portions. Prepare to spend more time on certain project assignments to really make it stand out. Their recommended number of hours to complete units is based on what an average student would spend (roughly C+/B- work in my opinion) - Since your mentor will most likely be a working professional, they aren't always as responsive with replying to emails and also they most likely have up to 4 other mentees. So being able to self-direct and make design decisions is important. Plus, if you want to finish the course earlier than your track, your mentor might not be able to go over all of your assignments in the weekly 30 min call. Just something to think about. -
Sara Jelenffy Verified via LinkedIn
Data Analyst Career Track helped me pivot in a pandemic
5 Stars! Perfectly currated (you learn two visualization tools/ two programming languages + economics, statistics, finances, job search strategies, all aided by mentors and career coaches). I don't come from a tech background but this program was a timely and affordable way for me to make that move. Highly recommend! -
Robert Malka Verified via LinkedIn
The mentors are wonderful, and make the program.
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In searching for the right Data Science bootcamp, mentorship was the most important element to me: I needed to connect with someone who was able to help me master coding, thinking in data science, and the cutting-edge innovations happening in the field, while bearing in mind my background in philosophy and interest in AI Ethics: Rigor in the field, plus a way to tie it to the mental model I already had about the world. I was lucky to have found a mentor (Ben!) who did exactly that in my time at Springboard. Especially great, too, is their unlimited mentors option -- a half hour/day, every day, for the entire time you're part of the program. I used that liberally to cover the gaps, ask deeper questions, and find resources that were off-curriculum.
Springboard's curriculum is mostly public-domain, and I appreciated most of the resources they provided. DataCamp isn't very helpful to learning to code, in the end (try learning French only by being given full sentences, with a single word missing in each sentence you have to fill in -- not gonna happen). The notebooks they provided were mostly good. Sometimes they were unhelpful to learning this or that concept, although the team was rapid to help out. Here's my recommendation to Springboard: Give the option for students to do e.g. four capstones after Unit 6 (the guided capstone they have us do), rather than walk through the whole curriculum. If they opt to do four capstones, make the rest of the curriculum optional -- they'd simply be resources to help students out on their capstones. The capstones would then have to be approach-specific, e.g. do a capstone that works with a time series, or NLP, in order to get credit for the capstone. I suggest this because I find that I learned a LOT when I worked on my capstones, because they related to topics I cared about, and sincerely wanted to understand -- more, in fact, than I ever did plodding through DataCamp or lectures that didn't necessarily interest me. I think that'd also be better for student portfolios -- it shows they're self-motivated and can actively produce multiple projects on a diverse array of subjects/problems within Data Science. Just my two cents. IMO it's an idea worth piloting.
I didn't graduate through their job guarantee (or get a job ultimately related to data science), so I've left the "Job Support" section blank.
Overall, extremely grateful to have gone through the program. I learned a lot and I know I'll apply my knowledge in unexpected places & ways. Thanks to Ben Bell, DJ Sarkar, and Kenneth Gil-Pasquel! -
Stefanie Porcaro Verified via LinkedIn
Springboard Data Science Career Track
PROs: mentor program, career coaches were very encouraging, topics covered, website layout
CONs: the stats book recommended, guided capstone could have used more explanation, you could do a ton of the courses on datacamp first for a lot less money, could add in more broad picture explanations -
Parker Konz Verified via LinkedIn
Feel Ready to start a new job!
I began this program with no experience in UX/UI and now that I have completed it I feel ready and confident in my skills to begin a new job! I loved my mentor, enjoyed the curriculum and I also love my career coach. I think it's a great way to enter into UX/UI. The star of the program is really the mentor, they correct your work and tell you about the real world industry! It's very helpful. -
Marx Ojemudia Verified via LinkedIn
Vigorous course that teaches all the HOW-TO's to UI/UX Design
This is a great course that teaches you all the steps with UI/UX (Product Design) with guided mentorship from a UX professional which is more important than most understand. It is even prepares you for the intangibles you must have for the professional field through articles and the Industry Design Project. -
Yang Liu Kunz Verified via LinkedIn
Great program and great support
Great 1:1 mentoring experience. Thanks to that I could finish two great capstones related to machine learning. Also, the support from my student advisor and other springboard staff is definitely the additional value of this course. -
David Pence Verified via LinkedIn
Researcher
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I had a good experience with Springboard overall. The main takeaways are:
-Jobs: I ended up landing a job that I had applied for just before joining the program, so I have limited experience with the job materials. From what I did, though, the prep felt pretty thorough.
-General Curriculum: I liked the technical curriculum a lot, and while the course had more of a business focus than I might have preferred, this probably reflects where the jobs are (and they tell you upfront). A sufficiently motivated person could piece together the curriculum independently, but working through things as part of a boot-camp serves as a helpful accountability mechanism.
-Projects: The Capstone projects were awesome. You have a lot of flexibility when it comes to topic and methods, so you can find something that really interests you. This is where the biggest part of my learning and confidence-building took place.
-Support: I had a great experience with my mentor. I was able to get clear project/curriculum guidance on a weekly basis and really came away with a good picture of what day to day life as a data analyst looks like. The program has tons of other resources if you ever get stuck. -
Lydia Ngai Verified via LinkedIn
Great curriculum with supportive online community
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Pros:
- virtual - it's flexible and won't cost an arm and a leg to complete. The virtual platform also allows you to connect with people all over the country and all over the world and allows you to choose your hours, so you don't have to quit your day job (but you always can if you want to!)
- career services available throughout the course, not just at the end when you've finished everything. There are actionable career- related projects to work on alongside coding projects and homework
- TAs are available online via chat and email, it helps with going through a virtual course so you don't get stuck forever
- I personally really enjoyed the curriculum. The videos explained concepts well and the assignments, while challenging, would implement recently learned concepts. Video lectures are also pretty short and it's nice to be able to watch a concept get broken down into 10 5-minute videos vs. 1-2 20-30-minute videos. I appreciated that a lot of the homework built off of existing infrastructure (e.g. if you're doing a back-end assignment, front-end files would be ready to import). There were plenty of handouts summarizing concepts as well.
- mock interviews are conducted throughout and at the end of the course with other mentors/industry professionals. It's great to get critical feedback from others in the industry.
- job support post-course-completion includes career coach calls to keep you on task and improving.
Cons:
- virtual. No classroom so you better be motivated or find ways to keep going.
- there could be more curriculum coverage on Data Structures & Algorithms, but the curriculum does have a good basic introduction to those. It's something I'll continue to study -
Anitha Pissay Verified via LinkedIn
Data Analytics Career Track
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I had previously done an online Introduction to Data Science Course through springboard and my experience with them led me to continue with more insights and direction to pursue a career in Data Analytics. The course was well structured with a balance of all aspects required from a Data Analytics perspective. It had great course materials links articles and advise from Industry experts. The curriculum has been curated from different resources by their Subject matter experts and PhD level Educators that advise on what materials are best right now based on the trending market demand. The mentor led course has a one on one guidance with a experienced industry expert who throws in real life wisdom and practices. This further enforces confidence and skill building not only in a student like me who wants to switch careers but anyone who wants a fresh start.
Student support and admin support is excellent and my student advisor went to great lengths in understanding my personal shortcomings during difficult times and provided the flexibility in completing this course.
Overall I would rate this experience as excellent and highly recommend anyone contemplating to start with Springboard. -
Oliver Reyes Verified via LinkedIn
UX/UI Design Track: Gave me the confidence I needed
The best part about Springboard's UX/UI Design track was the Industry Design Project. Working with other people on a real-world project gave me more confidence than any other self-taught course work could. 1 on 1 weekly mentorship along with a career coach I could have asked for at any given time was incredibly helpful. -
Zach Summy Verified via LinkedIn
Data Analytics Course
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I would highly recommend Springboard for its course content, mentor support, mentor availability, and positive community support and vibes. For context, I completed the course while working full time and traveling for work, and while it was difficult to complete in the original goal of 6 months, with some course breaks and focused sessions with my mentor I was able to complete a large chunk quickly focusing on not being a perfectionist. I would also say SB is very open to anything you need or questions you have, and the mentors have a lot of availability. Their goal is to help you finish the course as well, so you don't have to feel like anything is holding you back. The content was varied from Economics and Finance to Python coding so it continued to be interesting content. I would highly recommend if you are considering a career change or to just add to your current professional skills!
