Springboard

I took the Springboard UX course early in 2017 when I had gotten laid off unexpectedly. I had planned to take it, but it just gave me a bit more time to focus on the course and since it was a pay by the month situation, I figured it was a really good time to dive in. The course itself is quite thorough in a lot of ways. I have a graphic design background, but you really don't need any background to go through it. Since I had read some books, did some reading online and took a few high-level UX courses, it was a bit easier at the start for me than maybe it would be for others. I enjoyed the set your own pace aspect and devoted 4-5 hours a day toward it, but it could easily be worked on part-time and be effective. I do think that the more immersed in the hands-on work you get, the better understanding you'll have. I found the projects and the mentor sessions to be arguably more valuable than some of the articles and videos you watch, but it's partially because I learn better by doing than observing. Overall, I really enjoyed the learning and came out of the course with a good portfolio piece as well as a solid understanding of how to do UX generally. I didn't utilize the job search assistance because I was able to get another graphic design job before I finished the course. I think if you go through the course you might be able to get an entry-level UX job if you did a solid job of thinking about your portfolio as you went through the course, otherwise, expect some work at the end to make your work presentable to prospective employers. I suggest Springboard for anyone who likes to get through a bootcamp fairly quickly and in the comfort of your own home.

For me it was either springboard or GA. I chose Springboard because I was able to get it done for more than 10,000 cheeper. I feel the quality was just as good and it suited my learning style and especially pace cause I'm working another job.

I live in a major metropolitan city so I can make all the connections I need by going to tech meetups and through friends so GA really didn't really sell me on the connection element. And again, I don't feel that I had any less quality of an education and my mentor Fabio Muniz (whom I strongly recommend) was very insightful and just as good or probably better than anyone I could have worked with at GA or elsewhere. And with Springboard during your mentor calls you will have their full attention whereas in a class if there's something really specific you need to get after you can get the full undivided attention without worrying about slowing a class or other students down.

In this case I'm giving the job support a 5 star as it may be not the same as some of the others it's 5 stars for the value. And your mentor will be able to tell you everything you need to know about finding your first career in UX.

Good Luck! And if you have any questions about the program feel free to email me @ whereisjeffrey@gmail

My experience with Springboard's Data Analytics course was very valuable as it provided a clear and logical framework that has helped me think of data analysis and insights more holistically than I was doing earlier. Also, I have been able to apply some of the tools and techniques I learned to my job. Though I joined thr workshop with the intent to understand and apply data analytics techniques to my current job, going thru this workshop also helped me think how I can use my passion for data to make a career switch.

Two aspects of the workshop I liked best:

1. The course content focused on real-life examples, skills, and practices supported by excellent feedback from my mentor.

2. My mentor was very knowledgeable and was able to give me not only feedback on my assignments but also pointers to additional information and reading materials that he knew would be applicable to my job. 

I signed up for the course for a career change; starting in marketing and then software consulting. The user experience was extremely interesting to me and it's one of the fastest growing career paths, still being defined. 

This course was comprehensive, I had an industry expert as my mentor at every step of the way and in the end had built a full portfolio to show potential employers. The UX field has many different specified roles or can be for the generalists, no matter your interest or level of knowledge, this course touches all of them. 

Highly recommend this course for those wanting to break into the industry or want a refresher on the principles of UX. 

I took the UX design course with springboard and I've learned a lot.

The course was comprehensive. Eventually I was able to understand how the design process actually works.

Adding to that, the mentor was very helpful and resourceful. The best thing was the weekly one on one calls with the mentor; that kept me motivated and I was able to address and solve the problems i had in my project.

Also, The advisor was very responsive and helpful.

I highly recommend taking courses with springboard.

I just completed my 12-week data analysis for business program and am I glad that I got on board with this one!

It stretched me mentaly; which was frustrating sometimes, however, I came out the better for it.

My mentor (Paras Doshi) is extremely knowledgeable, patient and kind. He was always all about my interest, which was to learn as much as was possible.

I am not sure it there will be an advance business analytics program in the future; and if there happens to be one in the pipeline, I'd sign up in a heart beat.

I recently completed the  Foundations of Data Science course. It took me a little less than 3 months to complete the curriculum and  capstone project. 

The best part about Springboard is the mentoring. I loved my mentor--she was extremely generous with her time and knowledge and her interests and mine aligned very well. She was always quick to respond and really encouraged me to push forward with coding and analytics that I felt usure about. I really miss my mentor!

I came to Springboard with no coding background , but with a graduate degree and some knowledge of statistics. Springboard does not make ANY of their own curriculum and they don't craft any tie-ins or connections between the different lessons. A large part of the curriculum is based off of Data Camp to learn R. Learning through Data Camp has it's own set of challenges and none of these are addressed by Springboard. Other components of the course include the EdX Analytics series and dplyr videos through Data School. Many of these resources are good on their own, but none is complete enough to give the student (or at least one w/o a coding background) sufficient foundation to tackle the assignments. Often the assignments are so disconnected from the curriculum, that they are difficult to complete w/o help for your mentor--which is OK to a degree, but given that each mentor session is 30 minutes--often time runs out before addressing the capstone and other project concerns. I really feel that more attention should be paid to the curriculum---it is certainly OK to use resources from other sites, but there should be reinforcement of key concepts like..writing functions...through either supplemental videos created by Springboard, or focus lessons during the office hours.

With regard to job assistance--there is none and the career materials provided, again are brief You Tube video clips or books that are not presented in any kind of way to give the student a view of the field, options for careers or even guidance in terms of moving forward with skills, once one completes the course. In fact, after completing the course, there is zero follow up or transition. I never received any certificate or any kind of "next steps  if you want to keep learning" email. Once I finished and got my rubric from my mentor (and stopped paying the monthly fee), Springboard went off the radar.

Compared to other online data science training programs, the best part of the SpringBoard is the mentor system in which they assigned a prominent Data Scientist working in the industry as your mentor. Using google search, everyone can easily find thousands websites for the data science courses. However, for the people without data science background, like me, it is very hard to know what kind of knowledge and skills for the data science in the real world. This training equipped with both theoretical and practical skills to solve industry problems. With the mentor system, I was assigned a mentor to learn first hand how to think like and solve problems like a data scientist. At the end of the training, I finished a project to solve a data science issue in the real world. The feedback from the expert is extremely important for those people want to find a data science job but have no experience on that. The only one thing to complain is my mentor knows too much, it is hard for me to digest all of them in a short time. Except for the mentor system, I also enjoyed the data science community. In the community, you can post questions or share experience with others. I always learned a lot of update information about data science there even after finished the training program.

Springboard's Data Science Intensive is a great blend of self paced study, practical coursework, and mentor led training. As part of my mid-career self improvement, I had begun looking at post graduate data science programs at nearby universities. During my research I came across Springboard which was offering a course of training that covered all the same topics as the university programs with better cost and schedule, and complete with access to a data science mentor currently working in the industry.

Having completed the program in early 2017, I feel I came out with a solid technical foundation in data science techniques and tools. On top of that, the practical advice from my awesome mentors was highly valuable with insights into day to day responsibilities and expectations. And, while the sense of community may not have been directly integrated into the course, Springboard does provide the infrastructure of slack channels and office hours for support and communication among students.