Springboard

I've been working as a creative (visual) designer and director for the past 18 years, but wanted to learn more about the initial UX process (research, wireframes, prototypes, etc). Aside from being able to learn at your own pace, Springboard pairs you with an experienced mentor. My mentor was my absolute favorite part about this course. He was kind, patient and very knowledgeable about all aspects of user experience design. I have learned so much over the last couple of months, and have started incorporating my new knowledge in various projects already. Highly recommend!

This course is a nice fit between 'learn on your own' and 'get a Masters' for people looking to work as data scientists. I tried learning Python on my own but it was only getting me so far, and I didn't want to do a full Masters because of time and money. This specific course gives an excellent Primer to all of the major data science subdomains. Python, Statistics, NLP, Classification, Time Series, Network Analysis, Spark, and more. Data Science is a Deep Field, this course gives you the skills needed to navigate that Random Forest, including a wise guide in the form of a mentor. The mentor to me was the most invaluable part of this, I could solve a problem in a 5min conversion what might have taken 3hours, if ever, by Googling. By the end, I was able to 'Read the Docs' and apply methods that were not even covered in the official curriculum (Survival Analysis, PyTorch, PyHive), something I was NOT able to do prior to this course.

It is, as the name suggests, a springboard, which worked well in my case.

I took the UX Design Certificate Program at Springboard and learned a great deal!!

Because I was working fulltime - the program did last longer than 3 months - but, that was ok - because I really believe this is something you can't and don't want to rush through - the more you are willing to learn and take the time to do that, the more I believe you will get out of it and not only should you leave with a great portfolio piece -- but you will have the knowledge to talk about what you did in an interview. The whole process.

I had a great mentor - who is a working UX professional that I met with once a week and could email or/and post in the forum if I got stuck.

I recommend this program! 

I'm really happy I took this course. After working for almost 10 years in marketing & sales in the New York media world, I moved to the Silicon Valley area and found my job skills weren't transferring to my new location. Springboard gave me the skills I need to pivot my career from traditional to new media. I'm proud of what I've accomplished in this course and am grateful to the mentors and team at Springboard for all their help.

I'm really excited about this new direction and to see what the future holds for me and it's all thanks to Springboard!

I can't say enough good things about my experience in the Springboard Digital Marketing certificate program. After researching multiple programs, I decided to join Springboard for several reasons: 

1. Because I couldn't find a single negative review about their programs (and I did search for them)

2. Because of the mentorship part of the program

The material Springboard offers is superb and their team is incredible. Every single person I've interacted with from my student advisor to the community manager to my career coach and all the other students have been amazing. Everyone is incredibly friendly and helpful, the material is excellent and the course is very well structured. My favorite part has been the mentorship. Before I joined the program, I figured that the mentorship alone was worth the price of admission and I was soooo right. I actually think the mentorship is worth the price of admission several times over. My weekly calls with my mentor have been incredibly helpful. She really is an expert in her field and with her guidance through the program, I know I'm getting the most out of it.  The real-life projects are incredibly helpful and really build confidence because when you move into the job market, you already have real-world experience under your belt and a portfolio to share with potential employers.  I can't recommend this program enough. It's awesome! 

My overall experience with the DS career track was very positive and provided me with a very useful skillset. The curriculum is very good, though it would not hurt to include a bit more of tools such as TensorFlorw. By far the most useful portion to me was the support and insight provided by the mentor program. This is one of the main reasons I chose SB over others programs and I was not disappointed. The career coaching was also very helpful and consistent feedback was provided throughout the course. My only comment here would be for more help on the insustry connections/ referrals front. However, this is only a minor critique the continued job search support will likely help on this front. 

I found the Data Science Career Track program very useful for anyone who decides to start a Data Science career regardless of the background. The amount of material necessary to master is quite large but everything in the topics offered is important. The structure of the program itself is well organized and allows to build up solid skills. I really liked interaction with my mentor who gave me a lot of useful advices that broadened my views on all aspects of Data Science. Communications with career coaches were extremely helpful and informative as well. To summarize, my experience with Springboard's Data Science Career Track was overwhelmingly positive.

I took this course with minimal programming experience. I found it challenging, but I learned a lot. The best part of the course is the projects as they are extremely relevant and useful. I recently graduated from business school and this course helped me land my first job. It is comforting to know that I can refer back to the course curriculum and projects when necessary. I would highly recommend Springboard to anyone that is looking to broaden their skillset.

Overall, my experience with Springboard's User Experience design course was overwhelmingly positive. The content and mentor calls do a fantastic job of introducing and reinforcing concepts with hands-on project work that ultimately builds into a polished portfolio case study.

Content

One of the things I like most about Springboard is that the content is [mostly] non-proprietary. The course is essentially a curation of the internet's best free and paid resources on UX design, which makes the course very accessible and true to the lean UX concept. Why remake already great content? 

At some points the content does seem to be a bit overkill (I think there were ~6 different resources on building paper prototypes) but overall it was well-rounded and very helpful.

Mentors

If I'm being honest, having a mentor is the biggest factor in me completing the course. Had it not been for my weekly meetings with Andre it would have been far more difficult to find the motivation to complete. Every week we had insightful discussions about my submissions, and more generally about the UX process.

Main Takeaways

If you're debating whether or not to take the course – do it. This course was by far the most economical option I came across with the level of content and engagement. Would highly recommend jumping in!

I had a phenomenal experience with Springboard.  As a remote learner,  I was initially skeptical of the value an online course, but I am glad to be wrong.

The structure of the course is very intentional to bring people up to speed quickly.  The real value in the class is in the support team and mentors.  Having the opportunity to have dedicated conversations with my mentor about data science concepts, my coursework, and some tangential learning set my experience apart from some of the other online courses I have taken.  

The effort of the support and career services staff were equally essential to help bring the course together.  Having a dedicated professional sit and discuss job search strategies, review resumes, and conduct mock interviews provided additional confidence to communicate my data science knowledge and find that next role using my new skills.