Springboard

My experience with Springboard’s UX Design Career Track provided me with a thorough understanding of the foundations of UX. The course provides a great framework of UX design and the resources to build upon it. I enjoyed working with a mentor and receiving feedback on my projects from people in the industry. Even though the program was online, I felt like I was part of a community and built a network of other students for support. Springboard gave me the confidence to pursue a job in the UX Design industry. 

I chose the Springboard Data Science Career Track because it had great reviews, a job offer guarantee, and it had the most in-depth training program with over 500 hours of training material and 14 projects including 3 capstone projects to share with potential employers.  They also provide significant career coaching which really helps with finding great jobs and getting interviews.  In my opinion, the most valuable part is the mentorship.  Springboard assigns a mentor that you meet with on a weekly basis.  My mentor is fantastic and helped me to get a job with his company.  The training is self-paced and all remote, so I was able to complete most of it while traveling the country in my RV.  The program is a bit expensive compared to some others, but all the benefits are definitely worth the cost especially considering that they will give you your money back if you don't get a job offer in the Data Science field.

Make sure you sign up with REALISTIC expectations!
For reference, yes I graduated, and yes, I got hired. I see so many 5 star reviews on here, but what percentage of these students actually got hired after 6 months? I'll be as honest as I can.
The sales reps at Bootcamps like Springboard commit a serious crime in how they set unrealistic and ridiculous expectations. The job market for UX designers is tough. It can take years to break in, and many starting salaries for entry level in-person positions are under 60k /yr. NOT six figures, (like the “selective”* sales rep at Springboard would have you believe).  *(Selective as they claim to only accept 20% of applicants. Not true. what they really mean is: only 20% of applicants accept them)
The following claim is not true:“Yes, it will cost you $10,000 dollars, but you will make that all back within 3 weeks after you get hired!” - My Springboard sales rep 
If they were truthful, they would have said: “Yes, it will cost you $10,000 dollars, and then you will job search for a full-time job for up to 12 months. You can get a job guarantee, but we really would hate to give you that money back, so we will extend the 6 months as long as possible, and use any excuse possible to disqualify you from it. Finally, IF you actually end up getting a job, you will make the $10,000 back in three months because the starting rate for entry-level is only 60k. - Oh, and that’s not counting all of the money you spent trying to support yourself while you search for jobs full time or the money you could have made during the time spent in the Bootcamp working a second job.”
_ 
As if transitioning to a new career wasn’t financially stressful enough, Springboard would have you PAY them thousands of dollars, and in the end, there is a high chance you will have no job to show for it a year later. It’s all over my LinkedIn feed. If you sign up, make sure you are aware of this issue and the gamble you are taking. 
The only valuable part of Springboard is the mentorship. The hiring manager reviews are not great and are subjective, with little actionable advice beyond a “well done!”, or “you are missing this thing from the rubric that hiring managers could care less about…” In general, for the “Hiring manager reviews,” I’d estimate that they spend as little as 5 minutes on each case study, and give hardly any input. Meanwhile, an actual hiring manager looks at that Case study they passed as “would interview,” rolls their eyes, and thinks:
“Oh, another fictitious, recycled, bootcamp project, NEXT.” - *Deletes you from the list* -
The projects for your final portfolio are not impressive in the slightest to hiring managers unless you go well above and beyond the SpringBoard curriculum. Even the IDP is not impressive on your portfolio. I had to find my own “real” internship and go far above and beyond SpringBoard to land a job. I also got severely lucky in that I got paired with a mentor who could push me to go above and beyond Springboard and make an impressive portfolio, something most students won’t get but does speak volumes about the potentiality of getting a high-quality mentor. 
The percentage of Springboard UI/UX track graduates who get hired after 6 months is embarrassingly low because getting hired after 6 months with three fake projects and one two-week real-world project on your portfolio is unrealistic.
The curriculum itself is merely a collection of links to web pages you could google and find yourself. Also, the quality of the articles is very poor, and grammatical errors can be found everywhere in some articles.
Let’s summarize. You’re paying $1300+ a month for:

• a short 30 minute weekly mentor call
• on demand mentor calls that are so booked you need to schedule them 30 days in advance (and are not that helpful)
• Career advisors who are helpful overall but not necessarily experts about what makes a good portfolio, (the most important aspect)
• A bunch of community advisors and managers who you will never talk to or need help from, but you are still paying for
• An “industry design project” that is so short, that you have next to nothing to show for it (unless you get lucky)
• A sketchy job guarantee with a thousand words of fine details, which according to students I’ve spoken to, will take any opportunity to disqualify you from it or extend it for months
• And, again, the curriculum can be found by google searching for it all yourself

Let’s be honest. All you really need to pay for is the mentor, and maybe a resume expert /career coach who has lots of experience working with UI/UX designers.
My advice? Find a mentor on your own (from your personal network, or just cold message sr. UX designers on LinkedIn). Pay them directly. Something nice, like 500$+ a month (or hire 3 mentors, and pay them all 200$ a month). That would be a great incentive to have them spend more time on calls with you and answer more questions. Then find the curriculum yourself, read UI/UX books, and have your mentor guide you… And during the job search, hire an actual resume expert who has tons of experience in the UI/UX field. Also, you can always find your own “real” client projects. Just email the CEO of small companies and offer to work for free… They won’t turn you down. Springboard will have you work for a client, but you have to pay for an extra month, $1300, for the opportunity to do so… Additionally, not doing Bootcamp projects will set you apart from a large number of Bootcamp grads and give you a competitive edge in the hiring process because your projects would be unique. 
To recap, finding your own client, mentor, and career advisors would be far cheaper and far more effective. Yes, SpringBoard does the legwork of finding them all for you, but is that worth 1300$ a month when you could simply hire them yourself? (And get a cheap google UX certification if you really want a cert). Further still, you can also make sure to pay the truly valuable people, (the mentors and career experts), a lot more money than they would get from Springboard, and also get a lot more help from them.
Take control of your transition to UX yourself. Hire the right mentor and resume expert for the job and pay them well. Never trust a capitalist corporation with your hard-earned money unless it’s absolutely necessary.
If I could do it over, that’s what I would do. 
If at least one person found this transparent review helpful, I would feel very happy 🙂

My experience with Springboard's Software Engineering Career Track Prep was very positive. The lessons are structured well, and typically comprise of downloading the code used during the lesson, watching instructional videos, and then completing exercises at the end of each section. The videos were entertaining, easy to follow, and didn't waste time (they were the best coding tutorial videos I've seen). The exercises were not overly challenging, with the exception of only one that did not align well (the final CSS exercises). At the very end of the course, plenty of practice problems were provided for the Technical Skills Survey (TSS) that were extremely helpful in passing it.

The prep course offers weekly mentor calls and a Slack community, where people will actually respond if you post. Both my mentor and the community were great resources when I got stuck on something. The TSS and the practice TSS questions were challenging, and did require me to use resources outside of Springboard to be able to figure out. If you have no prior coding experience at all, I do think you might need to spend extra time studying for the TSS than what the course suggests.

The prep course's goal is not to get you going with a career, but to get accepted into the main Software Engineering Career Track that Springboard offers. It covers extremely basic HTML, CSS, and Javascript, but only Javascript matters for passing the TSS. If you put in the time and effort, you will be able to pass the TSS and get accepted into the full course by going through their prep course.

I really enjoyed my time with Springboard.  I felt like I have learned a lot.  The support provided by mentors and career coaches was invaluable.  They were really flexible with course extensions, which was important for me as I was working full time while studying.

I had a very positive experience w/ Springboard's Data Analytics Career Track. 

Biggest pro for me was the curriculum. The work provided was crucial in developing skills. Another pro is that, for a completely remote program, they've organized the social aspects well (mentor calls, career services, coach calls) in a way that makes it feel less isolated.  

Cons - it's expensive for most people. In my experience it's worth the money though.

Springboard gives students a thorough foundation of UX/UI Design through a mix of online articles, videos, and projects. There is a lot to learn and to really absorb it all does take a long time. So making the time commitment of 4-5 hours a day is the biggest challenge, but the course work itself is not too difficult. You also meet with a mentor once a week, which is the best part. It really helps to have the professional feedback on your work and someone to answer design questions. If you think you'll really love UX then I'd absolutely recommend this course for helping you start your career. 

Springboard's cybersecurity program is self-paced encompassing videos, mini-projects, and labs within a virtual environment. Yet, if you have no IT background be prepared for extensive Googling and research to complete your assigned projects.  What is helpful for successful completion of the course, though, is the support system provided to you. Springboard offers an advisor along with a mentor who both provide guidance and direction. Additionally, a Slack channel is available for cohort communication and quick answers to any questions you may have. Even though you control the pace there is plenty of support such that there is never a sense of being lost or losing focus.

I looked at a lot of different programs when deciding to switch careers into user experience. What I liked best about Springboard was that they offered UI/UX in a single program, 1:1 mentorship, job guarantee, career coaching, and flexibility in schedule and pricing. Springboard has made my career change as seamless as possible. I am so happy I made this change!

Coming from a healthcare background this course was a great introduction to python. I was expecting some video tutorials however there were none, besides some random youtube videos related to the chapter. The mentor is a nice part of this course but even for beginners I don't think you really need a mentor and pay that price.  I paid around $500 which is not worth the price and ended up getting data camp subscription which is structured way better with videos and more interactive exercises. Also much cheaper than this prep program. Goodluck

I am happy with my overall experience in this course. I received helpful and constructive feedback on all my assignments and capstone projects from the mentors. The slack community was really helpful in discussing any bottlenecks. The support team was always prompt in responding to my queries and concerns.

I signed up for the UI/UX Design Career Track and received more than what I hoped for. The course provides a lot of knowledge in a way that is really easy to understand and that motivates you to actually do your work. I could also work at my own pace and if I needed a week or two to relax, Springboard allows for pause weeks which helped me not feel so stressed. My favorite part of Springboard was having my own personal mentor though. She worked in the design field and provided me with a lot of great knowledge and directions to help me improve my skills. I 100% recommend Springboard!

In terms of Business Intelligence (BI) and outcomes, the course is helpful with analyzing data and decision-make and offering consulting advice to help others.  The course equips students with foundational skills on how-to to create models & analyze data.

I had been a software engineer for over 20 years, mostly backend and database.  I have always had an affinity towards data driven software.  I came across some reviews on various data science programs and machine learning programs but the course with Springboard had such strong reviews and awards for several years (I watched the school for about a year and a half before signing up).  The curriculum, project based structure and access to the schools staff and professional mentors is top notch.  I really enjoyed going through the course work and was able to bring my own projects in as my capstone projects which makes the learning more personal and beneficial as you also get the final solution to your projects as output.  Learning everything from classical machine learning (linear regression, ridge, random forest) to deep learning with neural networks (computer vision, nlp) as well as quality visualizations with python.

I was a visual designer for 10years and was looking for transitioning my career to UX. 
I googled and I found Springboard has a job guarantee. The course seemed very expensive but after I learned about job guarantees I thought It was worth trying it. I planned to finish the course in 6month. But the course was pretty intense, so it took about 1.5year to finish it. Whenever you need your help with finance or any obstacle the student advisor helps as much they can on your side. Also, they give you experience working with real industry professionals at the end of the course which is really beneficial for transitioning your career. When you finish the program you work with a career coach. They really care for you and help you land a job. I recommend Springboard if you really want to have the best full package of the UX BootCamp experience. 

I really enjoyed the curriculum and teach along with the one on one mentoring. I felt the student to student engagement could definitely use improvement and would have gone a long way to improve the program 

It was a difficult journey to manage my time on an online, 'open-ended' course (although there still are deadlines), but I learned a lot about how UX and UI Design is applied. Through the projects and group Industry Design Project, I was really able to apply all of the learnings in the course. I will say it would be nice for Springboard to add more emphasis on how to set metrics to measure in our projects early on, and possibly a unit on how to develop products that are not just user-focused, but also take into account how to incorporate business goals while creating a user-centric product.

Overall, I am happy I took this course and learned lots through the process - especially because of my mentor. I learned so much because of being connected with someone in the industry who could provide direct feedback on all my works.

Springboard's career coaches are quite helpful too, I learned so much about job hunting that I wasn't taught in university. I am eager to apply those techniques in my job search and am optimistic in landing a job in this field now.

The Springboard support staff are quite understanding and supporting as well with any issues I ran into. They were quick to respond and help me out.

I was so thankful to have chosen Springboard: Grad school is far more expensive and it is nearly impossible to work full time while keeping up with the pace of in-person learning. Springboard offered me the opportunity to learn at my own pace, be paired with a wonderful mentor, and have resources such as career coaches, webinars, and an externship. The cons are that it's nearly impossible to finish the curriculum within their estimate to meet the job guarantee unless you are not currently working full time.

The Data Analytics career track course is very intense and helps you along every step of the way. They even help you six months after you graduate to find a position. So it's not just teaching you how to do the job of a data analyst but also how to go about networking, find your best fit for a job and how to negotiate the best benefits as well. Well rounded course.

Be prepared to work, especially if you don't come from a design background like me! The best part of the course was the admin, support teams, as well as the mentors. You get paired up with a student advisor, a mentor, and have 7 career coaches during the course. You also get unlimited mentor calls with other mentors. Furthermore, you get career coach support after completing the course.

Pros: 
-Student advisor, and the support team were understanding of life's ups and down and were willing to help me out when they could
- The mentors who shared invaluable support and advice
- The career coaches shared some good insights
- Getting feedback from hiring managers
-Doing mock interviews

Cons:
- Mentors are not always available in a timely manner
- Career strategies mentioned too early in the course when maybe there should be more focus on just getting UX and UI skills up to par