Springboard

I really enjoyed my time being enrolled with Springboard. 

Strong points: 
- One-on-one time with your mentor (this is the strongest point of the course imo. My mentor was wonderful about getting back to me outside of the time he was required to by Springboard. I could not have learned what I did in this course without his help)
- Additional mentor calls if necessary (these aren't with your mentor, but with a different mentor assigned by Springboard. I still found them helpful)
- The structure of the course helps you really understand the basics and have a good foundation for the fundamentals of UX design
- The Industry Design Project! Huge strong point. This will give you real-world experience which you can put on your resume and highlight on your portfolio
- If you take the job guarantee, you're required to pass mock interviews at the end of the course: whiteboarding, portfolio walkthrough, and a behavioral interview. You get two chances to pass, but I passed them all on my first try and so did the other students I spoke with. As long as you prepare and practice you should be able to pass, but this is a strong point because it prepares you for the real-world interview process. I was really nervous for these but I'm very glad they're embedded into the structure of the course
- I have just applied to complete with Springboard, so I haven't begun my job search yet, but if you take the job guarantee you will also have access to career coaches 6 months post-graduation, which will be incredibly valuable
- My student advisor (Molly) was incredible - quick response from her when I reached out, and she went above and beyond to address my concerns and make sure I was taken care of 

Sticking points (for me personally):
- The course ran a lot longer than I expected it to. The projected time to complete is within 6 months if you spend 20-25 hours a week on the course. It took me about 11 months to complete, and I think this is more due to the course structure than anything else. Projects build on other projects, so sometimes I had to revise certain projects before moving onto the next stage. For the lengthier projects, I had to revise multiple times and it took a few weeks to get the go ahead from my mentor to continue. Like I said, he was incredibly helpful to me outside of the normal hours we met and I don't blame him for this at all - I think it made me a much better designer and helped me to go into the material in more depth. My sticking point here is just wishing that Springboard projected closer to a year rather than 6 months (for part-time students like me), but this could be something that's unique to my experience
- I understand why the career coaching sections are built into the structure of the course, but I have to admit I really did just want to focus on the hard skills of the course and found it a little jarring that there were career coaching sections in the beginning/middle of the course rather than just the end. The reason for this is networking and building up your LinkedIn profile/connections during the course, so the reasoning is good. I just struggled with feeling like I really wanted to focus on the skills themselves before doing the networking

Overall, I had a really positive experience with Springboard and found that they were really helpful and responsive when I needed them to be. I haven't started my job search, but if I'm able to update this review later, I will when I have a better understanding of how that will look. 

If you're looking for a boot camp program for UX design, I think Springboard is an excellent option. 

I enjoyed very much my time at Springboard. The curriculum is very project-oriented, which means you'll get several chances to practice your newly acquired skills with real datasets. It's an online course, which concerned me initially. However, every student has an advisor and a mentor that follow their work closely, which is very helpful. How closely they follow your work depends on you, and how much you ask for advice and feedback. My advisor was instrumental in helping me set and stick with daily goals, balancing course-work and time to relax, and was simply there every time I had an issue related with the workings of the course.

I got the recommendation through my linkedin network and I have to say this is the best investment of 2020. I joined this community because I heard great things about their curriculum and mentorship program. Great communication, fast response, very flexible, and I now have mentors that are willing to guide me through my career. 

 My favorite part of Springboard is the ability to learn at your own pace.  I was able to schedule when I was going to go through the curriculum and take as much time as I found necessary. There were weeks when I really immersed myself in the course work, while there were other weeks when I took it easy. Likewise, career coaching truly made the course more than just a skills bootcamp. It really transformed how I view job searching, and the best strategies to get into the industry. 

Springboard met my expectations and even more. Special Thanks to my mentor who was always encouraging of my progress. 

I am a career changer going from healthcare/medicine into data science and the information sector. I completed Springboard's Data Science Prep Course in anticipation of continuing on with their main Data Science Career Track. Coming from a place of limited coding experience, the Prep Course was definitely a great way to get my hands dirty in some of the technical aspects of coding and what the role of a data scientist may be. There are small projects sprinkled throughout to help build your understanding and comfort with the content. Some of the resources are a bit irrelevant in their applicability to real world problem solving, and are not easily translated to a professional setting. However, this is fine overall because their main goal is to get you prepped for their 6-month career track.
The best part about this experience is definitely the mentorship. My mentor was incredibly helpful throughout my 4 weeks in the course. He was always engaged during our weekly meetings, and was very open to offering me advice outside of that time via fast email response. The mentorship is by far the highlight of the course, and got me excited to continue on with the Career Track.
Overall, I'd recommend this course to anyone with a limited coding background considering doing a bootcamp, as it gives you those basic tools to pass the technical skills assessment and gives you the confidence to endure a 6 month bootcamp. The course is affordable and your tuition gets applied as a credit towards the already-affordable price of the full Springboard Career Tracks.

Springboard's data analytics program was a great introduction into data analysis using Excel, SQL, Python, PowerBI and Tableau. Depending on your background, some units may be review and others may be more challenging. The program does a good job of covering the data analyst skills while also preparing you for a data analyst career. I would definitely recommend Springboard to anyone looking to advance then skills and career.

This course takes you through many UX-relevant topics and you get to work on projects that likely mimic UX work in the real world (including a real world industry lab project). Robust mentor program where you don't get just your own mentor, but to tap into a network of Springboard mentors as well. Good preparation for starting a UX career. 

Very comprehensive program, would recommend to anyone making a career change!

I worked on my UX/UI track program with Springboard full-time for 4.5 months. I learned a lot and completed the course with a full portfolio with 4 case studies that I am proud of.

Excellent experience, very thorough education, mentor-led and project-driven so you really get a sense of what the job will entail. The organization was exceptional with dealing with COVID as well offering additional pauses if you needed etc. 

I highly recommend Springboard to anyone pursuing a career in UX (Design, Writing, Research, etc). If you're a self-led learner and extremely driven to get into UX, you'll get a ton of value out of the program and will feel prepared to pivot your career like I did. 

Earlier this year, I decided to pivot my career from Copywriting to UX Writing. I knew I needed to learn the UX process since it's different from the way I was used to working, so I started researching a few different programs. There are UX Writing-specific courses which sound great, but for me, I wanted to maximize my investment by not only learning the UX process, but also becoming proficient in a new marketable skill (in my case, visual design). I knew 2 people who had gone through Springboard's UX Design Career track and they had good experiences. Because of COVID, all courses were enrolling online anyways, so that made my decision a bit easier. 
 Overall, I thought that the Springboard experience was outstanding: quality curriculum; supportive and highly responsive network of mentors, coaches and advisors; ability to move at your own pace (for me: fast). I loved that the curriculum not only covered practical UX skills, but also included career-building units to help you network and improve your resume, so you're ready to apply to jobs right after you complete the course. I had a wonderful mentor who shared his real-world UX expertise during our weekly meetings, and if I ever had a question or issue, the student advisor for my cohort was always available to help. I also loved my career coach calls--valuable time with actual recruiters in the industry who help you navigate the job search from updating your LinkedIn to salary negotiation.  After I completed the portfolio unit, I immediately got traction in my job search. I presented projects from my Springboard coursework during the interviews, and felt comfortable talking about UX principles with my interviewers, based on what I had learned in the course. I ultimately accepted a senior-level role before the course ended, which was my "above and beyond" goal going into the program. 

If you are reading this, you probably know about Springboard a thing or two. So I will just go for the important stuff:

The way I see it Springboard gives you a very nice combo: you get to work on a lot of practical stuff and you get to pick brain of a professional. You can't overestimate the value of having your questions by someone who is working in the field that you are trying to get into. These 2 points (practice and mentor calls) are what is great about Springboard. What's not so good about it? I think the curriculum can be improved. But again it's coming back to mentor calls, you can always consult with your mentor what to look for and what things to pay more attention to.

Overall it's a great course as it makes the hard process of navigating the first steps in data science way easier. 

Pros:

1. Mentor Support - Weekly calls with an industry expert helps to keep you on track, gets you un-stuck on projects, and be challenged in new areas. 30 minutes every week.
2. Career Support - Interspersed with the coursework are career-focused units. So you aren't starting to network at the end of the course, but instead, you've been doing it from the beginning. Very important aspect of the online nature of Springboard.
3. Curriculum - Strong content with varied ways to learning. I'd say the course content itself (not including your projects) is 65% articles, 25% videos, 5% podcasts, and 5% hands-on software learning.

Cons:

1. Collaboration is Lacking - There are no group projects, which means you'll be entering the job market having no experience communicating with others - design decisions or timelines, etc.
2. Internship is Weak - a ~40 hour internship with a "client" who wants a student to do free work for them is not going to impress your future job prospects. This experience is lacking in helpful feedback, mentor coaching, and tangible outcomes.
3. Accelerated Timeline - You'll be working on coursework at *least* 20 hours a week. This is doable with a full time job, but you won't have any free time for those 6 months.

Pros: Great way to get your bearings navigating through the ocean of material available to learn data science. The most helpful part of the course was hands down the mentor. After the course, you will have a solid foundational understanding of programming, stats and ML as well as a good portfolio to showcase to potential employer.
Cons: There is a LOT of material so I will say I felt 6 months was a rather aggressive timeline to complete the course. Be prepared to dedicate at least 8 hours/weekly over their estimates. 

I've just completed Data Analytics Career Track. The curriculum provides tremendous technical trainings using Excel, Tableau, Power BI, Python and SQL which I found them very useful. Study cases were good enough to improve technical skills. I found access to unlimited calls with mentors and career coach services very helpful. Overall I had a great experience and suggested to any one who like to peruse a career as a Data Analyst.

Fun and engaging course. Helps you explore and learn UX tools used by industry along with projects reflecting real life experiences.

What you should know: there aren't instructors as such. It's mostly self-directed learning with weekly online mentor meetings. 

Really impressed by their industry design placement - they took my request to work on enterprise into account.  Also, so far the job search services are pretty great, which is to say while I personally despise marketing myself they are basically requiring me to do it to keep the job guarantee. This is a good thing! 

The job guarantee! It is important that the schools incentives are aligned with the students. 

I am currently a student at Springboard's UI/UX Design career Track. So far the experience has been good. There is a lot of support to guide you on your journey. I switched from the software engineering track to the UI/UX design track. I was scared that I wouldn't be able to do it since I found that I really enjoyed designing more than coding. Luckily, they were very accommodating for my situation and all my needs and questions were met. The experience has been really good that I would take Springboard again! 

It is a fully loaded course. They are very flexible about timeline and pace and they keep checking in on you. The technical resources are well structured. You will get enough practice, and the 2 capstone projects are important. I completed my course in June. The interviews I am getting have all been focussed around my capstone. 
The career coaching resources are good. Make sure you follow the guidelines, they are very helpful. Make sure to get your resume and cover letter reviewed. The career coaches and mentors all give constructive reviews on your work and skills. That really helps you work on your profile.