Springboard

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. 

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.

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. 

 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. 

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

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.

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.

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

 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. 

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!

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! 

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

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.

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.

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.  

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.

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 

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.

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. 

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!