Springboard

This program guided me in creating a strong process to follow with UX design. I really have had a transformational year that started with this program. I went from having no idea what to do with my life, to getting my first app design client one month into the program, to now working for a large AI company. My income went from about $5k a year doing random web projects to $10k a MONTH. It's really put a whole new level of direction in my life. I can't say that was to the program alone, it was also networking events and a lot of luck with finding the right connections. But my mentor has been everything to me in this process. She's been my voice of reason along the way and my secret weapon at upping my designs to a level beyond my experience. We still plan to meet even with the course being over. I really am a UX designer. This role has deeply become a part of my identity and I'm grateful for Springboard to have given me the tools necessary to be able to say that.

The Digital Marketing Career Track by Springboard is a curriculum that teaches you a general level of full stack marketing where they use blogs from real marketers as course material. You go through projects at the end of every module using a specific technical tool like Google Analytics or Facebook Ads. At the end, you can complete one big capstone project to demonstrate a specific digital marketing skill you want to develop on. I did two. One was doing a product marketing capstone where I presented my sales deck and go-to-market blog for a specific real company product and actually presented to that company's employee. The second capstone involved running Google Ads for a nonprofit client for 4 weeks. The best and most helpful of all is your mentor who is a real industry expert and will walk with you throughout your entire course giving feedback and more.

The Springboard UX Career Track was an excellent program and a great experience. I came out of it with a well-rounded, high-level education in UX best practices, and a decent portfolio with three case studies. The content is well-curated, and all the mentors I worked with were high-caliber experts in the field. The online community is helpful and students are very open to helping one another. I would highly recommended this program.

However, there were a few downsides:

• The program is advertised to be 350+ hours. I spent over 900 hours and 7 months, so plan your time wisely. Most people I know also put in this much time, not just me.
• Weekly mentor calls are short and therefore rushed. Mentors don't have time to review your work before you submit it. Yes, you technically have "unlimited" mentor calls, but those are with a different mentor who is not up to speed on your project, and they are also limited to 30 minutes. Hour-long calls would have been sufficient.
• If you do not have a background in visual design, you may struggle with this program as there is little training in visual design, however, I know Springboard now has a UX/UI career track, which I'd recommend if you need help with visual design. 
• They do not help with job placement, but do provide career coaching for 6 months after you're done the program.

I had an amazing experience with the Data Science Career Track. The 1:1 weekly mentor calls really helped me stay on track with course materials as well as help with any questions I had with anything related to data science and applying for jobs. I received help with resume review, cover letters, job search, and interview questions, on top of Capstone Project help. 

One slight negative I experienced was the career coaches. I would have preferred to have the same career coach throughout my Springboard experience, but the first coach I signed up with ended up getting transferred to a different career track. So I signed up for a second career coach, and she ended up getting transferred as well. The third career coach I signed up for ended up being my favorite of the three anyway, so things worked out. 

Finally, I was on the deferred tuition plan with a job guarantee, which means I paid nothing until I landed a job. Which Springboard helped me with! In under a year, I was able to switch professions and land a role as a Data Analyst in a tech start up.

The Data Science Career Track program at Springboard provides an in depth curriculum to gain conceptual and practical understanding of tackling data science problems. Each unit provides interactive and lecture based content that helps teach the necessary tools and topics for each step in a data science process. In addition, mentorship is provided as you will get to take lead of two capstone projects to use the skills from the curriculum, which is a huge plus for your portfolio.  Career based resources are provided throughout the program, such as resume/cover letter building, networking, and interview prep which was a huge help in the job seeking process. Overall, the program will help students understand and confidently approach all sorts of data science problems and challenges, as well as, prepare you to get a data science or analyst position. 

I was initially very nervous when I started the UX Career Track because it was so new, but the job guarantee and price made it very appealing comapred to other bootcamps. I jumped in and was incredibly surprised by the challenging coursework. 

This course leads you through creating a capstone project of your choosing, which is great because I've heard of other bootcamps giving every student the same projects (doesn't make for very interesting portfolios). They even match students up with a real company to gain some industry experience working in UX. 

Besides the great curriculum that helped me go from not fully understanding what UX is to feeling confident I can do well in a UX position, Springboard provided me with an outstanding mentor who will continue to be a helpful resource for me. They also continue to provide career support after you complete the program, so you're not just left to figure it out on your own. Overall, I think completing this Springboard course was the best thing I could have done to jumpstart my UX career and I can't wait to start my job search.