Metis

Metis was overall an amazing experience. From the application through graduation the staff and instructors were supportive and responsive! The course content was well designed and mostly clear. The most valuable part of the Metis experience was the peer... Read More support and 1:1 instructor/TA meetings. My peers and I still keep in contact for job searching job and networking. Additionally, the 1:1 feedback from TAs and instructors was pivotal to my learning. I also really appreciated the post-bootcamp careers support. This was importance to get advice/feedback throughout the job search process.

I had an incredible experience at Metis. The program is a rewarding experience if you are up for the challenge. Admissions: It will require you to have a bit of python experience (Metis offers an Intro Course that is perfect for beginners) so be sure... Read More to practice coding on one of the many resources out there and to brush up on basic statistics and probability. And if you feel like you need more practice, Metis lays out pre work to cover any areas you may need a bit of reinforcement in. The admissions team is extremely responsive and will work with you to make sure you are in the right program and have a great experience. Program: The topics were broken up into digestible modules that start with exploratory data analysis and build into more complicated data science and machine learning content. The teachers are world class. Some with PHDs and others with elite educational and/or professional experience, many of the teachers having nearly a decade of data science background. Each week includes pair programming challenges to continue to refine your python skills, engaging lectures with quizzes to reinforce learnings, office hours and time to work on module project deliverables. Both the teachers and the teaching assistants are extremely helpful at working with you to instill concepts and help apply concepts to your personal projects. In addition, your classmates, Metis faculty, the careers team and admin teams become your second family. Make no doubt, the program is challenging and requires hard work, but you can be successful whether your fresh out of college or an experienced professional looking to pivot into a data science career. The diversity in experience within my cohort and the teaching staff made for a well rounded experience that opened my mind to different view points, ideas and solutions both in programming and professional situations. Career Services: A+ ... Jen and Ashley are truly incredible as career advisers. As part of your program we had nearly one speaker every two weeks, all former Metis alumni working in finance, sports, government, entertainment, consulting and information technology to name a few. The careers teams also has a couple of introductory sessions to help plant the seed on how to begin working on your resume, networking and use the Metis network. After the bootcamp, you have an entire week of workshops with career teams including mock interviews both technical and personal, resume polishing and advice on how to attack the job search. The Metis Alumni community is truly incredible and almost always willing to lend you an ear whether it be for things like interview advice or looking for a role. Many of my job leads came from Metis Alumni either posting or referring me to roles. Jen was instrumental in helping me get more "cold call" resume submissions into interviews than I had ever had previous to Metis. Not to mention, there are firms where I knew what questions were coming from the preparation I had done with the careers team. There were even some places where I skipped a round of interviews because I went to Metis and the company knew the standards the program has for itself and its students abilities. Jen helped me negotiate multiple offers which resulted in higher pay and getting a fantastic role, all within two months of graduating the bootcamp.

An excellent challenge that sticks with you The Metis DS bootcamp was life-transforming, in the best sense. Perhaps no other three-month period in my life was so distinctive. It was tons of hard work, which I always felt glad to do, all day, late into... Read More the night, and most of the weekends too. (If there were more than 7 days in the week or more than 24 hours in the day, I would have spent the additional ones on the bootcamp work.) Ok, so I’m already unusually inclined and motivated to learn (I had a PhD already) and I’ve been keenly focused on learning situations for years (taught college for a decade) but I believe my perspective is relevant to anyone contemplating diving into a Data Science bootcamp.  I carefully chose Metis because of its curriculum, standards, and reputation, as well as the fact it has a careers team (to help with the job search). I was not disappointed in the least. First of all, the best thing about bootcamp generally—which probably can’t be replicated any other way—is the variety of events, activities, and tasks that center around and circle around the subject (actually each subtopic). This was ideal for learning. For instance, often in the morning there would be a relatively small-scale one-on-one problem to work on for 45-minutes or so to build up a toy version of an algorithm from scratch (these “pair-programming” exercises nearly every day were _great_—so much so that some of us continued doing it a few times a week even after bootcamp was over, where one person would type code and another other would decide and explain what to coding strategy to try); then a couple of hours later the same day (or sometimes the day before) there would be a one- or two- hour lecture on that same Machine Learning approach, and then later a workshop-ish lecture to get your hands dirty using the scaled-up industrial-strength pre-packaged (not from scratch) version of that algorithm. This meant that we learned how the engine under the hood actually works so we would become skilled enough to tune it. The lectures themselves were of various styles by various instructors, which again was a bonus. (A uniform or cookie-cutter approach, or having only one instructor, would have been disastrous.) Although doing a bootcamp online (via zoom) might seem like a disadvantage, we turned it into an advantage, by intermittently having on-topic side chats, sometimes with apropos hyperlinks and diagrams posted, questions asked and answered (by the instructor, the TA, or other boot-campers) and the occasional witty nonsequitur for levity to keep the mood light—given the intensity of the material! There were many times when it was surprisingly thrilling. One of the reasons for this also is that people are coming into the bootcamp with such varied backgrounds, so the kinds of questions asked were all over the map; and some bootcampers came with their own expertise (in math, stats, comp-sci, probability, etc.) so they could sometimes contribute added nuances to the instructor’s already expert explanations. The mood and tone was always respectful and collegial—which can’t be taken for granted. The project-based structure of the course was also ideal because we were grasping to master the lecture/workshop material in order to be able to implement it right away in the individual project we were working on for the given two-three week period, with that deadline looming. I got a taste of all the steps, from locating and acquiring data, to wrangling/cleaning it, modeling, testing, interpreting, and building up a presentation that would be scrutinized by my instructors and peers. The day-to-day flow of the Metis bootcamp meant becoming fairly fluent with professional tools like git and fluent in installing and learning unfamiliar python packages needed to complete your own particular project. Learning DS and ML is complex enough that it entails the potential for obstacles at nearly every step. (You better be brave. LOL !) Nevertheless, it was completely possible to always push forward because of the Metis setup: an incredibly active Slack channel (for posing and answering questions and sharing code and hyperlinks), the availability of TAs (for help via screen sharing), and an increasing sense, as the bootcamp progressed, of where and how one could seek and find (or build) solutions on one’s own. One of the highlights of bootcamp was when the architect of Metis’s curriculum (the Metis mastermind herself) Sophie Searcy came in to guest-teach us on the topic of Singular Value Decomposition (a subtle topic of Linear Algebra that happens to be important for certain aspects of Data Science/Machine Learning). Another highlight was when Kimberly Fessel (who was _not_ one of my cohort’s instructors) came in at the end to give us (four at a time) a mock-technical interview, gently quizzing us on how to create from scratch a classification algorithm we had learned two months prior. The variety of instructors had different emphases, different strengths, and sometimes didn’t completely agree, which is realistic, and gives a better sense of the actual kinds of divergence you’ll encounter out there in the DS world. The instructors were great:: intense and serious about the subject matter, but also capable of being light-hearted at the right times. My main instructors were Vinny Sanguttuvan and Leon Johnson.  Leon’s lectures were clear, with a definite sense of priorities distinguishing the overarching point from the supporting detail.  Leon also provided excellent practical critique on bootcampers’ presentations, things that I still contemplate and consider vividly five months after bootcamp ended. Based on the particulars I had achieved with/through a given project, Leon was unique in suggesting next steps built on these and directions I could take that would further burnish my portfolio. Leon obviously has a firm overview of the DS landscape, is a clear communicator, and an encouraging mentor. Vinnie Sanguttuvan is one of the most dynamic and insightful teachers I’ve ever had (comparing to dozens of other great teachers I’ve had in college, grad school, as well as tech training courses). His teaching kept me and other bootcampers on our toes from start to finish. Nothing was ever routine or rote, but rather presented us challenges we had to carefully consider. Sometimes Vinny did this through Socratic-method, where he would pose a series of questions (or mini-problems) that would interactively lead from one insight to the next, which therefore would stick. Other times he would relate mathematical/algorithmic/statistical principles to observations he had personally made about well-known tech industry products and services.  When Vinny was teaching, often you really had to think through mathematical or algorithmic concepts, and problem-solve on the fly. He is also very open minded about what types of problems might be tackled with algorithmic methods.  Vinny’s teaching presents a distinctive synthesis of creativity and precision that epitomizes what is most exciting about the Data Science field.  I want to emphasize that while Metis’s excellent curriculum is one of the reasons I’m glad I chose it, the most important learning events for me were the moments when the instructor cooked up his/her own problems or reflections for us to consider; these complemented the pre-cooked curricular material. That is to say, there was a mixture of very carefully planned out lessons and more spontaneous ones originating from the instructor’s creativity. It made for an exciting and engaging bootcamp, when you could sense that what and how you were learning was unique to that moment and context. (This was especially true with approaches to the pair-programming problems). I hope that Metis continues to allow seasoned instructors latitude in how they teach, including creating their own material from time to time. Another instructor I want to mention is Dimitri Theoharatos, who taught the Python-and-Math course which I took a year before the bootcamp.  Dimitri moved quickly and efficiently, while also overflowing with a wealth of practical tips and laser-like precision. He peppered his teaching with astonishingly apropos industry insights of his own, giving me perspectives that sill condition my thinking a year later. I learned as much from carefully observing how Dimitri navigated the nuts-and-bolts of the python programming interface (jupyter notebook) as from what he verbally articulated.  All the Metis instructors listened carefully to students’ questions.  They seemed to appreciate they were dealing with many intelligent and motivated bootcampers, so they calibrated their responses accordingly, never resorting to generalized rote answers (as some less sensitive/seasoned teachers might be prone to do). The camaraderie among bootcampers was inspiring and encouraging. We bootcampers bonded with each other. One thing that was incredibly clear after bootcamp ended:  Metis alumni help other Metis alumni, especially Metis alumni from subsequent cohorts. In the brutally frigid world out there of cold applications to jobs, the Metis alumni network is indispensable; it’s how I got most of my interviews, including the ones that led to me landing two simultaneous job offers. Especially if you’re coming from an academic career, or this is your first job search, the Metis careers team (I worked mostly with Ashley) can be helpful in steering you through what might be unfamiliar terrain of the corporate career landscape. Before bootcamp: To make the most out of this experience, I recommend you prepare extensively.  Try to use Codecademy and Dataquest to learn Python and SQL before the bootcamp. Use Brilliant.org to hone and polish the basics of linear algebra, probability, statistics, and calculus. (If you’re going to splurge on the bootcamp you might as well purchase memberships to these so that you begin the bootcamp with your best self. I used these further again _after_ bootcamp as well.)  As many others mention in their reviews (of Metis and other bootcamps) the amount of material coming at you in during the bootcamp is like a firehose to your mind, which you can absorb better to the extent you prepare in advance. If you get your feet wet with Brilliang.org, Codecademy, DataQuest, and the Metis python-and-math course, you will certainly be ready even if you don’t come from a thoroughly STEM background. During bootcamp, expect to spend all evening every weekday as well as a large chunk of weekends working on your bootcamp projects. Make the most of this opportunity. Metis DS bootcamp is not a casual side activity; it’s rigorous a life-changing process. 

I found my time in Metis to be challenging but incredibly rewarding. Prior to Metis, I worked in management consulting so I had very little background in data science. The skills I gained through the programme enabled me to get a data science role a month... Read More after graduating from the bootcamp. ADMISSIONS: Rigorous process but the Admissions team was supportive throughout the process. They provide guidance on what to expect for the testing / interview process as well as materials to help you prepare. PROGRAMME: The curriculum was robust and well structured. Each module built on top of skills learned in the previous module to deliver a strong, incremental learning process. The instructors were amazing - I thoroughly enjoyed learning from and engaging with Vinny and Leon. Fortunately, you were able to book 1:1 time with instructors for as much as you needed, which really helps the learning process. The Teaching Assistants were also incredibly engaged and supportive. The peer element in the programme is also so important! Because of the programme's focus on skill level and cultural fit (collaborative, not competitive), you really feel like you are a part of an awesome community of smart, kind and supportive people! CAREERS / POST BOOTCAMP: Engaging with Careers for input on my CV, interviews, and negotiating process was so helpful! Ashley provided a lot of advice and insight on what to expect as I progressed through my job search until I received the offer.

After several years in finance, I wanted to pivot my career towards data and decided a bootcamp would be the fastest and most direct path to that goal. I think the core benefits of a program like this are (a) outsourcing the time and decision-making of... Read More curating a curriculum, (b) cultivating a data science community, and (c) making a commitment in terms of time and finance to learning the material, getting hands on practice, and finding that next job. While evaluating different programs, Metis really stood out from the others. Here's an unordered list of things I learned throughout my experience that may help you decide if this program is right for you: - Admissions process was the most rigorous, which means you'll spend more time in the program learning and implementing advanced concepts. - Similarly, your cohort will be filled with highly intelligent, driven students to collaborate with. Metis is highly selective and prefers collaborative over competitive. I found my fellow students to be extremely generous with their time and ideas - we formed study groups outside of class hours, and supported each other in any way we could during the job search after. - The faculty is truly amazing - the teachers, program managers, and career advisors are all invested in your progress. - The capstone projects really stood out to me when I was comparing different programs. There are some really exceptional projects all around, but those from Metis students were on average more captivating . - You'll get access to a large network of alumni and hiring partners. I found alumni to be very supportive -- reach out to folks on slack or linkedin, have a conversation, they'll often make referrals. Again, it's a very collaborative community! - While I was evaluating different programs, I reached out to alumni from each. Look at their career progression, ask about their experiences. I found Metis folks on average to be more enthusiastic about their bootcamp experiences than those at other programs. There's plenty more I could say, but I think this captures the main ideas. I found Metis to be an integral part of my career transition and would highly recommend it to those with the means. Please feel free to reach out via linkedin if you want to chat more or have any questions!

I enrolled in Metis data science bootcamp in January 2021, to expand my skillsets in predictive modeling and to build a portfolio for job searching after I graduated with a master’s degree in Biostatistics. The curriculum of the bootcamp was very thoughtfully... Read More designed so that students would end up with a portfolio with five projects upon graduation. Each project focused on different machine learning techniques, from exploratory data analysis, linear regression, classification, natural language processing, to potentially deep learning depending on what the students decided to do in their final/passion project. Instructors taught the concepts in the morning, and students would spend the afternoon to apply what they learned on the projects they designed. The instructors and teaching assistants were knowledgeable and supportive, so if students had questions about lectures or projects, they could schedule meetings with the instructors or the TAs. What I liked most about the bootcamp experience were my peers. We came from very different backgrounds (from college graduate to mid-career switcher, from biologist to physicist, etc.), it’s an invaluable experience to learn from different perspectives. Our cohort even formed a post bootcamp group to work on job searching together. We shared our interview experiences with each other and practiced technical interview problems together. The Metis alumni were amazingly helpful—not only that they posted jobs in the alum slack channel, but they were also willing to spend their time to guide us on interview preparation with their experiences. With all that said, the bootcamp covered a lot of materials and it required a tremendous amount of work to learn, review, and solidify what you learned by applying them in projects. If you are determined and are ready to do the hard work, Metis is the right choice for you!

Most of the reviews on here give great detail about the actual bootcamp experience, so I’m going to focus a bit more on my reasoning for choosing Metis and how they met my expectations. There are a ton of bootcamps out there, and I definitely did thorough... Read More research on my fair share of programs. I eliminated options based on what I was looking for in terms of support, rigor, and post-graduation success of alumni. After graduating Metis’ bootcamp and landing a job, I can say without a doubt that Metis was the best choice for me. My background for reference: I got a degree in Math but struggled to find a job due to my lack of “industry” skills. I tried self-studying data science before ultimately deciding to go the bootcamp route (which was 1000% the right move). In no particular order, I chose Metis over other bootcamps for these reasons: I liked that you get career support until you find a job. There’s no “you only get job search support for X months after bootcamp,” or “if you don’t find a job in Y months you get your money back.” I didn’t want to go through a bootcamp and be left with no support if I couldn’t find a job within a certain amount of time. Career support was amazing, and luckily, I landed a job offer, that was a good fit for me, approximately 4 months after graduation. My career advisor helped me navigate every part of the job search process, from reviewing cover letters, to offer negotiation (I was able to successfully negotiate a 7% increase on the initial base salary). In terms of rigor, I wanted a bootcamp that was going to challenge me, and really help me grow. Metis definitely exceeded my expectations here. The number of projects alone was more than any other bootcamp I saw, and the premise of each project was something I never would have thought of on my own. As someone who tried self-studying before enrolling in a bootcamp, I can say without a doubt, I never would have accomplished the same without Metis, especially not within the same time frame. I talked in detail about my projects in every interview I had during my job search, and every single one of my projects came up in at least one interview. Another thing that led me to choose Metis, was the success I saw Metis alumni have post-bootcamp, short and long-term. When researching bootcamps, I did some creeping on LinkedIn profiles of alumni from each program I was considering. Metis alumni impressed me the most, by far. Each Metis alumnus I saw on LinkedIn had landed a (subjectively) desirable role shortly after bootcamp and had strong long-term career progression as well. This was also consistent for my cohort. Many of my colleagues also landed roles at companies that they are excited about within 4 months after bootcamp. One additional thing that led me to choose Metis, was the transparency when it came to the stats for job placement post-bootcamp. When researching programs, I saw multiple bootcamps claiming up to 99% placement rates without making the details of how they calculated that number available. I liked that Metis explicitly told me what is included in their stats. I’m paraphrasing a bit but only grads that went into data adjacent roles within 6 months of completing bootcamp are counted as "successful" placement. Also, big bonus points for Metis’ $3,000 scholarship for people traditionally underrepresented in DS! Anyway, I am beyond happy that I made the choice to enroll in Metis! Of course, bootcamp wasn’t easy, as others pointed out in their reviews, Metis is extremely demanding. However, you will have a ton of support from your instructors, TAs, and your colleagues. I cannot recommend Metis enough, it quite literally changed my life.

Metis delivered on all my expectations. I decided to explore making a career transition to Data Science after working as a postdoc for 3 years after completing my PhD in Political Science at Cornell and feeling less than satisfied with my academic career... Read More prospects. After teaching myself some basic Python and brushing up on my linear algebra, probability and statistics (I had done a minor in Math in undergrad just for fun but that was over a decade ago and all my Poli Sci research was super qualitative) I decided to enroll in the Intro to Data Science course in June 2020 to get a better sense of my aptitude and whether or not I would like this kind of work. The Intro to DS course provided me with a nice overview of the field and the opportunity to complete an end to end project which gave me the confidence to apply to the full-time 12 week bootcamp starting September 2020. Metis was the only program I applied to as I was most impressed by the fact that they are the only accredited DS bootcamp, have very high quality instructors, a robust alumni network, and career support until you land your first job-and even after! I found the program both incredibly rigorous and wonderfully supportive. Honestly, the coursework was as demanding as my busiest times in grad school, however, two things were really different about bootcamp. One was the number of opportunities I had for 1:1 support. I had at least one weekly meeting with an instructor (often twice a week!) plus another with a TA. This definitely exceeded my expectations and left me reassured that even if I felt in over my head at the deep end of the swimming pool, there was always someone there to help me refine my project ideas, better understand a new library or just reassure me that I was on the right track. The second was that the breakneck pace actually protected my from going into perfectionist mode. Metis really drives home the concept of the MVP (minimum viable product) which was something I had not previously been familiar with and totally revolutionized the way I thought about my work. Yes, I still spent many a late night and weekend trying to make each of my projects the best it could be, but with only two weeks to complete each one, I was so focused on making sure that I had something complete that there was no time to waste worrying about the ways that it wasn’t perfect and in the end I am incredibly proud of the portfolio I built. I would absolutely recommend this program to anyone interested in transitioning to Data Science but you absolutely must be ready to put in the work and take ownership over your own success. Enrolling in Metis makes an incredible breadth of resources available to you, but its up to you to actually use them, sign up for 1:1’s, ask for help etc. Trust in the program! Also, the time investment is no joke, I worked about 3 additional hours a day after the day formally ended and put in time on the weekends too so do make sure that you have a good support system in place to keep on top of ‘life stuff’, making dinner etc. In my cohort I was among a small handful of people who hadn’t previously worked in *some* form of data/analytics role or STEM background. However, given Metis’s rigorous admissions standards, I knew that I had what it would take to succeed . That said, there was a learning curve and being so new to coding I never felt totally comfortable with pair programming (which is something Metis could do better to manage in the online format tbh) but I did come to better appreciate strengths of mine that I had previously taken for granted like knowing how to give a good presentation or not being afraid to ask a question during lecture. Bootcamp is often described as ‘drinking from a fire hose’ and this is apt, but, the great thing about Metis is that you still have access lecture recordings for 6 months after bootcamp if you want to review material that you didn’t fully grasp the first time around (which has been super helpful while gearing up for technical interviews) as well as lifetime access to all the course material that is on GitHub. The instructors provide such a wealth of required and supplemental materials that I have had the opportunity to further dive into as needed in the months since bootcamp and feel like I am continuing to get extra bang for my buck! My fellow students were also an incredible asset. Despite doing everything virtually, we still had the chance to really bond and after bootcamp ended I’ve stayed in touch with a number of classmates to give each other support on the job search. Likewise, I have found Metis alum to be incredibly generous, willing to take informational interviews and provide referrals for a number of job leads. I also want to give a *big* shout out to the careers team. In my first meeting with my advisor, she asked me what I wanted to get out of working with her and I said, honestly, I’m committed to doing whatever work I need to do to get a job but I’ve never applied to a non-academic job, I feel so out of my comfort zone and really just need someone to hold my hand through the process. And boy did she ever! After graduating in December and taking a little time off, once I was ready to begin searching for jobs full time we had weekly checkins over Zoom where I could ask all of my questions and felt so supported and encouraged through the inevitable ups and downs. Additionally the other careers counselor was also available to for guidance while my assigned counselor was away and she would even periodically check in to see how I was doing. Now I can proudly report that only 12 months after I first started learning Python and about 4 months of job searching post-bootcamp I landed an incredible job as a Senior Data Analyst making a salary 3 times higher that I did as a postdoc. There is no way that I could achieved these results on my own, and probably not at another bootcamp program either. The investment I made in myself enrolling in the Metis bootcamp has paid for itself many times over.

The setup of Metis was rigorous, with an accelerated, project-based curriculum. We learned data science and machine learning concepts through a sequential series of lectures accompanied by coding exercises and challenges. In concert with this material,... Read More we worked on five distinct data science projects, each exploring a different facet of the subject matter, including machine-learning algorithms, linear algebra, Python programming, version control, and a host of others. These focused, hands-on applications of the subject matter allowed us to synthesize our learning and produce a polished portfolio at the end that we could share with employers. In addition to the core subject matter, Metis provided us with a robust framework of employment resources, including resume guidance, networking best practices, rehearsal interviews (both technical and general), and, most importantly, a vast network of Metis alumni that we could leverage both for guidance and for potential job prospects and connections. This network stands out as one of the strongest reasons I would recommend Metis to anyone wishing to enter data science, and overall my experience at Metis prepared me for the data science job landscape.

If you're not sure which review to trust because you're not sure which shoes you fill out, hear me out for just a moment. I'm a bioengineering student. Coding, let alone data science, was a world away for me. I barely knew there was a science to data.... Read More But with the continuous support of the instructors, and then the diligent career advisors even well after the bootcamp had ended, I went from mean, median, mode, to creating full-fledged end-to-end projects, even in my own time. Metis is a revolutionary experience, but you'll have to put in the hard work to make the most of it.