Springboard

I'd been wanting to learn data science for years, and finally managed to do so thanks to Springboard. In a past life, I was both a web analyst for an e-tailer and a management consultant with a top firm, and had always wanted to get more sophisticated in my modelling work. I was also very keen to hone my skills in machine learning, and be able to build great predictive models. Fast forward a few months with Springboard and I've achieved all of these objectives. The mentorship was stellar, the project work excellent, and the student support top-notch. I can't recommend Springboard enough -- if you truly want to build your data science muscle, don't go to a cheap online library or an expensive in-person bootcamp. Go with Springboard.

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Springboard helped me ultimately transition from a career in academia to one where I applied my knowledge of research and the scientific method to industry problems in data science. My weekly mentor calls helped me contextualize my online training (which I could do completely on my own, about 10-12 hours each week on my own time) and also helped me understand how best to market my projects to appeal when I applied for jobs. While some can afford to quit their jobs and attend trainings like this full-time, Springboard allowed me to continue to support myself while gaining the training I needed to re-tailor my resume for a data science career.

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Springboard's UX Design course provides a quick start to finish option to go through a structured UX project and the experience of taking a project through all the stages of research and design. The payment option of a monthly subscription helps keep the cost low and the support staff was very helpful and quick to respond whenever I had to reach out to them.

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I'd say the best parts of the Digital Marketing Career Track were the direct experience running Facebook Ads and Google Ads campaigns. You get hands-on experience using $100 budgets and up to $10,000 if you participate in the Google Marketing Challenge where you work with a real non-profit which is invaluable. In addition, you can talk to your mentor each week and they'll help answer any questions you have regarding these projects. I also appreciated the career  services, especially since you have access to the career coaches for 6 months after you complete the course to help you find your perfect job. 

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I had a great experience in the Digital Marketing for Professionals course. It has great content that prepares you for today's demanding industry. Valuable mentor calls on a weekly basis. I learned a lot and feel comfortable creating digital campaigns in different platforms from scratch. 

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This program has many great resources to help you advance your skills as well as a curriculum that keeps you focused and scheduled in completing your work. There is a community of people looking to help you including career coaches, weekly mentor calls, which I used to discuss the projects I was working on as well as specific questions about coding. And an online forum of students asking questions pertaining to the same types of projects you are working on. The main focus of the course is completing two main capstone projects which are geared towards building your portfolio and are exemplary of work one may do in a data science career. While there are many smaller mini projects included in the course that are also good practice to improving python and sql skills, there could be created content designed for learning the code and applications needed in these types of assignments. A significant portion of the curriculum was just courses on DataCamp and video lectures, while informative, are not particularly useful in grasping the concepts needed. For an expensive course, I was expecting more specialized resources focused on learning the skills needed, rather than just projects that force you to know the material and go out and use it, which is difficult at first and slowed my progress throughout the beginning of the course. I viewed this as being both a good and bad thing, because although I began working on these projects without all the necessary knowledge and skills, it forced me to pick them up as I went along.

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Pros:
- dedicated mentor
- can schedule calls with random mentors for problems your having with very open times to choose (super helpful)
- access to datacamp and linkedinlearning (my favorite platform to learn data is from datacamp personally)
- Excellent administrative team
- Excellent career support team with advice well in line with reality, always super friendly
- Show you how to network properly
- Annual springboard rise event
- Involved student community

Cons: 
- too much use of videos and not enough use of reading for many of the subjects. Many of the topics could have been better explained from a book or article than watching many of the webinars from Harvard or pycon in my opinion. Those videos were often very lengthy and hard to follow along with and I found myself skimming through them. They didnt have decent background information before the these videos that would delve into complex subjects sometimes. This is my biggest complaint to be honest. 
- Some of the assignments needed better instructions such as the databricks miniproject. I know trying to figure something out yourself is the best way to learn but when you dont have the 
preknowledge on something so new to you it could be frustrating

Summary:
Springboard was exactly what I needed as someone coming from a background in business and who had next to zero technical skills such as coding. I landed a role as a  contingent worker  at Facebook as a business data analyst. Without a masters degree or more extensive work experience in tech working with data, i still havent been well suited for a data scientist position, so I'm supplementing this with starting a masters degree program in data scientist, but I believe if you already have a masters in any field and or have remotely relevant experience working with data, a masters degree wont be needed to land a data scientist position like I think is needed for me. Springboard is overall an excellent program to learn. 

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After getting my Ph.D. last year, I started to study about data science and get some online certificates. However since I had a full-time job as an Electrical Engineer, it was pretty hard to find the right materials to study or build my portfolio in Github. I got lost after a few months, and there was no support and feedback.  When I found the Springboard career track program, I found it a matching base on my interest and my background. The  1:1 mentor calls every week, was excellent support and pushed for me. The other advantages were about the four mock interviews that Springboard provide to get us ready for the real interviews. 
I recommend this course to people who have a good background in coding and have some knowledge about machine learning since it is an intense program and you have to invest proper time and effort in 6-8 months. 

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I just completed Springboards Data Science Career Track Bootcamp. Overall I was very satisfied with the experience. The skills I learned are super useful, and make me much more marketable as a job applicant. The 1-on-1 technical mentoring was great, helping me overcome obstacles and prioritize my time. The career coaching was also very valuable, helping me improve my resume, cover letter, etc.

Some of the chapters in the curriculum simply pointed to youtube videos, which often (though not always) excellent at explaining data science concepts. Some of the chapters linked to Datacamp courses, which are often a little too easy but do explain the concepts well. Overall, the miniprojects and capstones were great, and helped me learn all the steps of being a data scientist.

Granted I don't have a job offer yet, but their job guarantee certainly provides some peace of mind. 

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I enrolled and graduated from the AI/ML course through SpringBoard.  The course was intense and covered all of the bases to take you from novice to advanced in 6 months.  The program exceeded my expectations and my PhD mentor met with me each week.  I could not have asked for more.

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The online program was great for brushing up on skills and developing a stronger foundation for UX design... I do think the price is a litte steep, but definitely less than competitors. I was able to complete the course in two months, and take a break in between. The staff was helpful and open every step of the way, and I have a great new connection in my mentor. I look forward to using my new skills to inform my visual design. 

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I started this program to brush up on my Python skills, as I had worked in financial analysis before and was looking for a data analysis position. Most of my data analysis before had been done in Excel, with some small Python projects.

The 3-month program had a curriculum consisting of mostly third-party materials - Youtube videos, academic videos, code exercises with first-party supplements, and of course a lot of coursework/projects. You also have weekly calls with a mentor who helps you navigate the materials and gives industry insights.

The curriculum definately boosted my Python skills to the next level, while giving a good introduction into Data Science concepts. In my opinion the Machine Learning segment was a little light, but it gives you a good foundation for further research and learning.

And yes, I was able to find a position in the field even before finishing the program!

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I recently finished my course. For me, it was a great experience. The curriculum, my mentor and the student advisor were always at hand to answer my questions when needed. 

My mentor was the best part of the whole experience. He provided extra resources to complete my tasks and help me understand the lessons at hand. 

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I just completed my "data science career track". This "track" took me a point which I would not be able to reach by myself. To me, the main difference of a bootcamp is mentor support. My mentor was Jeremy Cunningham. He has a high-level real-world experience and he is willing to teach what he knows. He provided guidance and constructive feedbacks, and he always motivated me to develop my own strengths. I feel myself lucky to be mentored by him. Read less

I had very little knowledge about UX going into this course, which was the perfect fit.  The Springboard UX course took me through each step of the design process, from basic overviews of what UX design is and of job opportunities in the field, to user research, prototyping and user testing.  The curriculum has a nice balance of videos and reading material, and they are good about not throwing too much at you.  Having a mentor to meet with every week was the best part, by far.  My mentor was there to keep me accountable, but never added too much pressure.  He was very understanding that I was coming from basically zero experience, and helped me create a prototype I felt good about.  In the end, I had a project I can build my portfolio with, showing a comprehensive UX design process. The Springboard support team is extremely easy to reach and was responsive when I had questions.  Overall, I'm glad I took the course and would recommend it to others. If you are diligent about making the most out of it, Springboard will serve you well. 

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The course materials weren't too difficult to grasp; some were a bit repetitive. 80% of the materials are free – with a few expections such as the Lynda/Linkedin Learning lessons. At the same time, the materials were properly divided among each core topic of UX design. The pace definitely starts off slow but picks up towards the end, with projects requiring more hours and recalling skills you learned in previous modules. It was a good pace for me, someone who didn’t have any professional design or coding background. The course doesn’t touch on any coding languages or skills – but focuses on the research, interpretation of data, and materializing the information into a prototype. Every week, I spoke to my mentor for 30 minutes to go over whatever topics I wanted; ranging from their own professional experience to my course progress. Other than a 1-on-1 mentor, there are also mentors in the community answering and providing feedback to your questions and projects; they listen and care!

 

Since this course is monthly-subscription based, there aren’t any strict deadlines. However, I suggest doing your best to complete the course over the average 2-3 months. Maybe 5 months at most. I had to take a long break (pause my access and monthly payment) due to fatigue from my full-time job. However, the break was too long and I had to revisit all of the old materials from the earlier modules.

 

I just completed the course 2 weeks ago and still looking for a job. But I knew it was going to be tough to get a job straight out of any of these ‘bootcamps’ especially since my portfolio consists of just 1 project at the moment. I’m currently working on finding new ‘mock up’ UX projects and also some ‘real’ projects from a few friends, local businesses, etc. This won’t be too bad since I’m currently unemployed. haha.

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Overall, a great experience with current course content, mentor calls, and a 6-month job guarantee. The course was organized in a way that it was very easy to learn and follow the design process and master key UX concepts. The mentor calls were extremely valuable! You're paired with the same mentor for the duration of the course and they will offer you insights on your projects, current industry standards and best practices, and help set expectations for your job search. And as an online course, it's extremely flexible, yet intensive. 

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This class taught me so much. As a graphic designer, I wanted to further my skills and grow my knowledge base. The course was interesting and compelling but the real WOW factor came from the mentors and advisors. My mentor gave me real life applicable advise to improve on my work, truly constructive critique, as well as commending me when I did things well. The advisors were so helpful as well whenever I had concerns or questions and were very responsive. I would recommend this course to anyone interested in diving into UX! Thanks for everything!

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