Metis

Overview: Metis exceeding my expectation. The program is designed to provide a holistic understanding of data science including machine learning, programming, statistical analysis, and data communication. Through five end-to-end machine learning projects,... Read More I developed skills in data acquisition, database management, exploratory data analysis, supervised and unsupervised learning, data visualization, natural language processing, and much more. The program set me up for a successful career and I received a job offer very quickly after graduating.

Instructors/support:
* The instructors are eager to teach and help you understand the material. They offer instruction through classroom lectures, daily coding challenges, and one-on-one projects support. They are always available to dive deeper into a subject in one-one-one or small group conversations as needed and provided ample support to each student.
* The career advisors ensure you are prepared for your job hunt with workshops, resume support, and one-on-one advising. Throughout the job application and interview process, they help you understand your strengths and provide coaching and opportunities to practice skills that you aren't as strong in.
* The managing team is very helpful and curates the space for each cohort. With a large open area, ample tables and monitors, and a full kitchen, the space has everything you could need to be successful in bootcamp.

Preparation: From day one the program is intense and exciting. Prior to bootcamp, I participated in the pre-bootcamp training course to learn python and get a feel for machine learning and statistics. The pre course prepared me great for the bootcamp and set me up for a successful 12 weeks. Additional bonus, the $750 cost for that course is then deducted from the tuition of the bootcamp!

I strongly recommend Metis for anyone interested in transitioning to a career in data science.

I had a great experience at Metis’s Chicago campus. I currently work as a Data Management Associate and can credit Metis for helping me land this opportunity in so many different ways. The course itself gave me great preparation for interviews, but I... Read More think I owe even more credit to the incredible support I received from Metis’s staff.

Metis’s entire staff is so incredibly
dedicated to the success of their students. This not only allows for fulfilling learning experiences during the actual course, but also ensures further support and guidance after the course ends. I’ve kept in touch with Metis’s staff after the program and am always impressed with how welcoming they are to alumni visits. This welcoming culture has also introduced me to several students who took Metis’s bootcamp during a different session than me.

You are sure to receive great instruction during the Metis’s bootcamp. What really sets Metis apart though is that the entire staff loves helping students realize their full potential.

Having worked as a data scientist for a little over a year, I can say with full confidence that Metis has been an extremely valuable experience.

I came into Metis without any technical work experience. I graduated with a BA in Economics and worked in... Read More a nontechnical role for 2 years immediately after graduating college. I was super unengaged at my first job and started taking classes in programming and data science in my free time. After a year of taking these classes part-time, I decided I wanted to make the career switch to data science. Metis stood out the most to me since you get the opportunity to work on 5 different projects under the guidance of data science professionals, along with receiving career support.

Though the program is only 12 weeks long, you definitely learn a lot. The instructors are very involved and really care about your learning. I was super lucky to have such sharp and collaborative cohort mates, which made the program even more rewarding. You also receive excellent career support during and after the bootcamp until you land a job. Since I was coming from a nontechnical background, I made sure to follow the advice from our career advisor as much as possible (Thank you, Andrew!). I eventually got my current role through a referral from a Metis alum. Even though it's been more than a year since I completed the program, I still refer to some of the material from class and keep in touch with the Metis community.

Tips:
- Complete the pre-work before starting the bootcamp
- Take a class on Python before the bootcamp if you do not have a computer science background (I recommend the Introduction to Python Programming edX courses from Georgia Tech)
- Follow the career advice and network as much as you can
- Collaborate with your cohort mates
- Continue to sharpen your skills even after the bootcamp

I came to Metis directly out of undergrad, having done a computer science and math minor, along with some econometrics. I knew that I wanted to be a data analyst or data scientist, but was disappointed with the responsibilities and salary of jobs that... Read More I was getting offered right out of college. I came to Metis looking to find a way to break into the data science industry (use machine learning rather than being an entry level data analyst),a nd to up my earning potential. One year later, I am working as a data scientist at a place I love to work, and can say that Metis has more than paid for itself within a year. Additionally, every single person associated with Metis from the instructors, to my colleagues at the bootcamp, to the career coaches, to the founder (who still personally checks in on students during your time there) was great at what they do, an absolute pleasure to be around, and really make Metis feel like a second home and somewhere that you enjoy coming in to work despite the intensity of the courses offered.

At Metis the main things I gained were:
1. Knowledge of all the core Machine Learning algorithms and data science concepts. This is the minimum that every bootcamp you are looking at hopefully offers to you. Metis's instructors are exceptional, care deeply about the success of their students, and are experienced in the industry so you are getting the best instruction.
2. Access to a tightly-knit network of alumni. The alumni network is very active and its easy to get in touch with the vast majority of people. This is invaluable when it comes time to search for that job. My current job I landed due to a connection with another Metis graduate. I can confirm that our program has a very good reputation within the industry as well.
3. Something to put on my resume that separated me from the rest of applicants looking to get into the industry. Most people that are looking to break into that entry level position really only have experience in school, as I did when I was first looking for a role. Being able to provide proof that I did complete data science projects, talk about what I did, and how that can transfer over to a company, is invaluable in making yourself stand out from the crowd.
4. Interview preparedness, resume, and networking skills. This is perhaps the most undervalued part of a program like this. Like it or hate it, interviewing is basically a skill set unto itself that will highly determine your salary and whether or not you get offered roles in the first place. Interviewing is all about communication skills, which is the top thing that employers are looking for in the industry today (many data scientists are awful communicators), so it is a vital skill to your career.

So that is the main benefits of Metis. In my personal experience, I have found that people who opt for online bootcamps or ML courses are generally not nearly as successful in every aspect from learning the material, to lacking that oomph factor on a resume (as it is easy to claim doing something online), to being able to communicate what they've done in an interview, to lacking the network that a physical bootcamp brings you. For all those reasons I would never reccomend an online ML bootcamp to anyone.

In terms of physical bootcamps, I can definitely say that from my experience, Metis is the leader in the space right now. It's program is very, very intensive for all twelve weeks. Be prepared to work. Every morning, you will learn from your instructors about the ML algorithms and other data science concepts. In the afternoons, you will complete a data science project led by you that implements the algorithms you are learning. Every day you take what you learn and go and apply it immediately without hesitation. The cost is a hefty investment, but in my personal experience and in the experience of every person I have asked about it, the program pays for itself within two years, and often times within one. The interviewing skills alone are probably worth 10k if you have no experience with that like I had. Additionally, you will be working in the hottest industry on the planet right now, with AI and ML seeing hefty investments all across the globe, so there is no lack of opportunity in the field.

Overall, Metis was an amazing experience. The people there are incredible, and it a hyper focused and collaborative learning environment unlike any i have ever been in. I would sincerely recommend Metis to everyone who wants to become a data scientist but doesn't have a pathway based on their current situation.

Pros:
I was looking for an intense, well-run program that would help me get a job as a data scientist, and Metis absolutely delivered. I left my previous career in a completely unrelated field, 3D animation, in March, started the Metis bootcamp in April,... Read More and accepted a job offer as a data scientist in September. I chose Metis because its lengthy track record, stringent admissions process, and overall professionalism gave me confidence that the course woud be worthwhile. The bootcamp was organized and efficient: rarely if ever was there any unnecessary downtime or logistical snafu. Lessons and assignments were well-formulated and tested without being stale or filled with obsolete information. My instructors were knowledgeable, experienced, and good at simplifying and communicating complicated ideas. Teaching Assistants, all Metis alumni, were capable and accessible enough that I frequently went to them with questions or for advice. The Metis Admissions team did a great job of assembling the group of motivated and interesting students who made up my close-knit cohort. After the bootcamp, career advisors were available for consultation and interview practice, both in-person and online. I loved my time at Metis and got exactly what I wanted out of the program.

Cons:
I have no substantial complaints about Metis so I'm mostly nitpicking or mentioning general bootcamp issues here. Twelve weeks is a really short time to turn someone into a data scientist, so don't expect to acquire a deep understanding of every topic covered. Some lessons are merely a cursory introduction to a topic that you can choose to explore in-depth outside of lecture time. Metis has a job board to connect alumni with hiring partners, but I didn't find many posts for jobs in NYC. This isn't really a negative, but bootcamps can only do so much to help you get a job; you'll have to do most of the work of finding appropriate job posts and networking on your own. Career advisors are there to help you along the way but they can't just gift you a job.

Additional Advice:
Do your research before committing to a specific bootcamp or the immersive course route in general as it may not be the right fit for you. Reading alumni reviews is a good start but I recommend going to an open house or private tour of each prospective bootcamp if you're able to do so to make sure you like both the instructors and the classroom environment. Finally, read a diversity of opinions as any one reviewer's situation may not closely resemble yours. If you'd like to read more about my experience at Metis, check out my blog posts on the subject: https://wadya.com/blog/2019/05/21/metis-pre-bootcamp-and-week-1/.

I came to Metis with a strong existing background in artificial intelligence, but having been in one job for a number of years, feeling the need to upgrade my skills and rebrand a bit as a data scientist. The 12 week course was intense and with just the... Read More right balance of theory and practice. A great deal of emphasis is placed on learning current tools in data science and on a series of five data science projects. Much of the course was structured around these projects, many of which had a particular focus such as classification or natural language. Doing the projects provided an opportunity to learn both practical skills and presentation skills. Most of the projects had practice presentations before the final presentation, giving the opportunity to get feedback on presentations of varying formality. All three instructors--Jonathan, Kelly, and Adam--did a great job both in formal lectures and in making time available for more informal feedback. In addition, considerable support was provided both during the bootcamp and afterwards in the job search. Technically, the work focused on Python with instruction in related technologies such as NumPy, Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, Seaborn, Matplotlib, VGG16, Keras, and many others. Despite the intensity of the coursework, this was not an "all work and no play" environment. For example, my cohort celebrated the completion of the bootcamp with a weekend at a cabin on Lake Tahoe, which most of us were able to get to. If you'd like to discuss Metis in more detail I'm available at https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-w-ash/ .

I recently graduated from Data Science full-time Bootcamp. The Bootcamp opened my eyes to learning what is state of the art of Machine Learning and Deep Learning. I had a great experience with career coaches and instructors. Everyone deeply cares about... Read More the student's learning experience. I gained a good understanding of stats and all the machine learning models. I graduated two weeks ago and I got three requests for on-site interviews. Definitely open a lot of doors for me. It is sad that they are closing Seattle Metis office. Everyone there did a tremendous job.

The Decision

Deciding to transition my career from mechanical engineering and robotics to pursue data science was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made. Attending Metis made that process worlds easier than it could have been, however, and I haven't... Read More regretted it for a second.

Research

Before enrolling in Metis, I spent months considering all of the options available to me. I researched other local data science bootcamps like Galvanize and General Assembly, as well as online platforms like DataCamp, Dataquest, Udemy, Udacity, and others. I studied, I toured campuses and talked with instructors, career advisors, current and former data science students. I did my best to weigh all the options and make an informed decision, and the process led me to select Metis as the best option available to me to help me successfully transition from where I'd been to where I wanted to be.

Preparation

For personal reasons, I actually deferred starting at Metis by about 6 months after I applied, and in the grand scheme I'm glad that I did. Metis allows students enrolled in the full time data science immersive program to also take a part time online course of their choice for free, so during those 6 months I also took their Statistics for Data Scientists course, which was a great warm up for the challenges to come. I also used this time to complete the Data Scientist curriculum offered by dataquest.io, which I found to be an overall well designed and nicely presented overview of just about every topic that's covered by the Metis DS immersive (this took me about 5 months to complete, dedicating ~10 hours a week to the study on nights and weekends). This was a lot of upfront work, but quitting my job to move off in an uncertain direction seemed like a big risk so I took it seriously. This allowed me to gain a nice foundation of knowledge to build off of while still saving up for an extended period of unemployment, and definitely paid dividends once the bootcamp started.

To anybody thinking about enrolling in a DS bootcamp down the line, I strongly recommend completing an online course first, both to make sure you actually like the work and also to familiarize yourself with the content so you'll be even more successful in the bootcamp experience.

The Bootcamp

The Metis Data Science Immersive was great. My cohort had a particularly small class size, only 6 students with 2 full time instructors, 2 occasional visiting instructors, and a very talented and dedicated career advisor. The staff exceeded my expectations on a regular basis. They're knowledgeable about a wide range of material and are passionate about teaching their students the skills they'll need to succeed. The program is specific to data science, but designed to be flexible enough to approachable and valuable to students coming from a wide range of backgrounds and abilities. The material is taught with a nice combination of theoretical background and practical application, and the project-based nature of the course really makes the level of challenge a function of the student's appetite and ambition. Each project is as hard as you want it to be, you get out what you put in, and your peers and the instructors are there to help and support you every step of the way.

In terms of the level of challenge--everybody's experience and background are different, so I can only speak for myself--for me, it was challenging, but manageable. More than anything, it was intense. For the 12 weeks that the course lasted, I largely put the rest of my life on hold and worked ~80 hours/week on my projects and the curriculum. I was still able to maintain at least 6 hours of sleep most nights, but I was definitely dreaming about my work. The bootcamp was an endurance marathon, for sure. Not quite as bad as the worst parts of college, but close.

But then it ended and I was on the other side. Not only had I shored up my working knowledge of supervised and unsupervised learning, Pandas and scikit-learn, the difference between CNNs and RNNs and LSTMs and more, how to detect overfitting or design a metric or select a model, how to scrape data from the web or deploy a model in a web app--I'd actually done all of these things, and had full projects complete with code, presentations, and blog posts forming a highly visible portfolio that I could use to demonstrate to future employers that I actually know how to do the things on my resume.

What Comes After

The bootcamp is only 12 weeks, and much as it's all you can focus on while you're there, it's the means, not the end. I still had to get a job. While I'd saved up enough beforehand to survive an extended job search, I didn't actually want to drain my savings, so I jumped right in. I set a goal of starting a new job within 3 months of finishing the bootcamp and thought about what it would take to get there. I'd heard it was common for it to take 4-6 weeks or more from application to offer, and the common impression I got from talking to bootcamp grads is that you may well end up submitting dozens or even hundreds of applications before you actually get an offer. In short, finding the right fit is a full time job, and even getting your foot in the door enough to have a conversation with a potential employer takes intention, persistence, and a bit of creativity.

Here, however, is where Metis shines as well. The career counselor, Marybeth, as well as the instructors, were involved and supportive every step of the way, constantly checking in and offering help with everything from resume and cover letter reviews to practice interviews to job referrals and facilitating introductions. As long as you're willing to work, they're willing to help. I took advantage of all of these things and I think they paid off. I aimed to apply to 10 new jobs per week, and though I fell short of that goal, aiming high kept me active. It was slow getting traction, but eventually the pace picked up and I found myself juggling calls with recruiters, scheduling interviews, and having to meticulously track each job application in a spreadsheet to keep it all in order.

I feel fortunate to say that, somehow, my job hunt went pretty much exactly according to plan. 7 weeks after finishing at Metis, I accepted a job offer as a data scientist with a focus in computer vision. I'm genuinely excited about both the work and the company, and the skills and support I got from Metis were instrumental in getting me here. Huge thanks to everybody at Metis for all of the help, and best of luck to everybody out there considering a path like this for yourself!

I completed Metis' data science bootcamp in April of 2017. Overall, I had a fantastic experience and learned a ton. Don't be fooled by the "bootcamp" style of learning. The curriculum is rigorous and the coursework moves quickly. You'll do well if you... Read More come prepared to put the work in. I wrote a full review of my experience at Metis on my blog: https://wellandwired.com/blog/metis-data-science-bootcamp-review

After completing the program I started a job at Amazon and have had the opportunity to be a part of some amazing and impactful projects!

Metis was life-changing and worth every penny. Great course materials on everything from absolute basics to current state-of-the-art machine learning. Committed Instructors who really care about teaching and helping you succeed. Super smart classmates... Read More to collaborate and learn with. Tons of presentation practice opportunities which helps boost confidence. Career support from a million different angles, like networking events, technical mock interviews, resume workshops, and guest speakers. At the end of the day you get out of it what you put in, but if you're willing to work hard, and you have the aptitude for the topics on their entrance exam, Metis gives you everything you need and more to land your first job as a Data Scientist. It's certainly possible to achieve this in other cheaper ways, but with Metis you can be confident you're staying on track, staying motivated, and covering all your bases in one intense, neatly packaged 12-week sprint.