Rene Markovits Hoopii Graduate • Data Science Bootcamp (part-time) • Online
Jan 05, 2023
Right in front I want to say something on my overall experience: I'm so happy I chose WBS Coding School to help me make the transition in the field of data. Not once during this heavy load bootcamp I had the feeling to be in the wrong place or that this was not what I wanted, quite the opposite. I felt challenged and at the same time empowered and self-confident about all the new stuff we were learning and applying and I really was looking forward to (almost ) every learning session we h...
Right in front I want to say something on my overall experience: I'm so happy I chose WBS Coding School to help me make the transition in the field of data. Not once during this heavy load bootcamp I had the feeling to be in the wrong place or that this was not what I wanted, quite the opposite. I felt challenged and at the same time empowered and self-confident about all the new stuff we were learning and applying and I really was looking forward to (almost ) every learning session we had. And this whole experience was a result of all the smaller parts that contributed to this experience. The curriculum and its structure, learning resources, projects and its difficulty. Our instructor/teacher and the teaching style. The classmates and the interaction, the learning athmosphere. The staff. The career support.
Curriculum and teaching approach: The project-based and hands-on teaching method is very good and I think the only way to deliver all the skills and techniques and concepts in a feasible and time effective way. I was always surprised how much we were able to do in a comparable short time frame of some weeks, like putting together a machine learning model for the first time, without understanding every detail of it but not without having a good understanding of the overall concepts. I found the learning material to be very very good. I don't have the comparison with other bootcamps, but I really think that the people who put together the course really understand what it needs to learn something new in a fast and effective way without getting stuck in details. One of the main reasons why this bootcamp was such a success for me, was, that it prestructured my learning roadmap. I didn't have to care about what I have to learn in which order and how deep my knowledge have to be in Python, in SQL, or which projects I should conduct. They did this already for me. And they really do a great job.
Teacher/Instructor and learning athmosphere: I can't talk for all of the instructors but I believe that the school favours instructors/teachers that have a thrill for teaching and learning and show dedication for their subject. What really contributed to a good learning athmosphere in all of our sessions we took together as a learning group was, that nobody wanted to show off or something like that. Everybody wanted to learn something and ask questions, everybody was very supportive in helping each other, everybody respected each other and our instructor assisted all of this asking, being curious and supportive behavior. Learning in a group can be both, really inspiring and comforting, but also annoying sometimes. For me it was definitely both.
The level of difficulty: This is hard to say, actually. I did make the experience that those students that don't have any background in data or coding have to put in more effort than students with some preknowledge. Some of us really got pushed to their personal limits. But nobody got lost completely because our instructor really showed some good patience in revising, explaining again and again. And there is help if you need:
Staff and (Career)Support: Even though I personally didn't have to make use of it a lot, I can say for sure that a lot of the energy in this school goes into forming a supporting net for all the students. You won't only have your instructor to ask questions, they also have junior instructors, mentors and several channels in the chat where you can discuss things and ask questions. And everybody is really eager to help. The sruples to ask for help if you need it are extremely low. If you ever get overstressed there are people who talk to you in person and take their time, go through the code with again etc. Also the Career Service is really a big asset of this School. They got a Career Program you can work through and get personal feedback on CV, LinkedIn Profile and Cover Letter. Also you get get in touch with the Career Support in personal. The information and feedback I got was very very helpful for me.
Downsides:
- In the part-time course there is no individual final project you can work on your own or in a team for some weeks like in the full-time course. Your portfolio at the end of the bootcamp consists of all the projects you did during the bootcamp. Those are prescribed by the curriculum though and leave not so much room for individual experimentation I would say.
- Also no stay at the campus is provided for the part-time course. Which makes sense because the reason why people chose part-time courses are also the reasons because they can't just go to Berlin for three weeks in a row. But still, I got the feeling that we missed something there, because the campus looks great, getting to know all the classmates in person would and meeting the staff would also have been great.
- Group work when no need for it: In a bootcamp there is limited time for everything. In my opinion the focus of a bootcamp cannot be to teach and learn working in groups. I know that this is an important skill. But I shouldn't have to learn it in the bootcamp, because the time is limited. When group works helps to finish a complex project in a limited time than yes, go for it. But I definitely feel that we lost a lot of time talking through the same things over and over again. Sometimes It felt like all the bad group work I've done at school. But I don't think that this reflects all of the data science bootcamps. I think this was a special case of our group and my personal perspective on it. Because not everybody thought like that.
- One or maybe two of the sections we worked through seemed to be still work in progress. The learning notebooks were not aligned with the other learning material on the learning platform and not just once there was some confusion about the instructions on the learning platfrorm.