Springboard

I took Springboard's UX Design Career Track from October 2021 through March 2022. I took it as a way to accelerate my career transition and be prepared to start a career in UX. There are plenty of bootcamps to choose from I'll highlight why I chose this... Read More particular camp over the others. Why I chose Springboard The features that were most attractive to me were the mentorship with someone who has been in industry for a long time, the career coaching, a legitimate job guarantee clause, and the ability to self pace. Another very important feature was the curriculum of course, as it was something that gave me the accurate information in an industry with a lot of misinformation circulating. Mentorship It is important to have mentorship, as a good experienced designer's expertise empowered me to know I was achieving real success in my work throughout the course as all assignments were graded and reviewed. I also loved the weekly meetings with my mentor to discuss my work and any questions. Career Coaching Before the course I never had a good picture of how to network, job search or interview effectively. This was all covered and explained in the course and it was great to give me increased confidence in job search, which I always found intimidating before. Job Guarantee I did not need to use the job guarantee, as I got a job before the time period ended. I did review it and find it acceptable, especially because their requirements were designed to increase your chances of getting a job. You're required to continue building your network and required to apply to jobs. If you are a chrome user there is an extension that makes submitting the connections and job applications easy enough that it doesn't add too much work in addition to the job search its self. Self Paced I did this course while working a full time job, and it was quite a full schedule. The ability to time things on my own within the total course time requirement made me able to get ahead some weeks and have slack weeks when I simply didn't have time or availability. A Couple Challenges It's important to require excellence from yourself in your work. If you really want to do UX Design put your back into your work, as it doesn't do its self. While this may seem like a non-statement, I want to point out that for a junior role there are often HUNDEREDS of applicants. This level of competition requires working hard to get things done. A second challenge is there is little education in the course for quantitative data gathering, which is very important in the actual field. A third challenge is I found out that they expect the course to take 8 months rather than the advertised 6. I don't appreciate the bait and switch feeling this gave me. That being said I put my back into it and almost completed it in 6 months. Springboard is not perfect, but it had what I needed to learn and make my career transition!

Excellent syllabus, very much complete! High quality videos from a high quality instructor, Colt Steele taking you step by step from 0 to 100 in each unit. I would say that Colt and my Mentor were my major motivators during this journey. My mentor was... Read More an industry expert, with very deep knowledge in full stack development and always eager to assist me when needed. I also enjoyed the flexibility I had with this online course to follow my own pace without ever feeling struggling alone out there. Teaching assistants, "on-demand mentors" and peers community on slack were available at any time. However, I have to mention that the material to cover is endless and additionally there are various optional units that I found necessary to study. This means that in order to finish and get the maximum, the student needs to be very well organised and self-motivated. Otherwise it might take much more time than anticipated. But overall a great course! I would definitely recommend it!

I am a teacher transitioning to data analytics. I chose Springboard's Data Analyst track because I wanted to pivot quickly. I chose the program because 1. I knew I wanted something paced with curriculum provided (I didn't want to have to figure what I... Read More needed to know and then figure out where to learn it) and 2. I wanted something that was career track focused. I wanted to pivot from teaching to Data Analyst and the job guarantee sold me. They also provide more data if you request like completion rates. Other bootcamps did not provide this. I'm satisfied with my experience, and I feel prepared to enter the data analytics profession. Cons: ->HOWEVER, I am not yet employed as a data analyst. So, I can't say yet if my investment paid off! Hopefully I will never have to say if they will make good on their job guarantee. I completed the program about 1 week ago, it's too soon to say on this subject. ->About 1/2 the curriculum is sourced from other websites & Youtube. As a professional educator, this DOES NOT bother me. Like any teacher will tell you, if someone else made a kick ass lesson plan there is no reason to re-create it, just use it! (It is not stolen content, Springboard either pays for you to use it or it is already free, and they give credit to source) Tips: Take the free Excel course they offer to see how it feels. That is a good indicator if the pacing and style will work for you. Go into this knowing that YOU are the deciding factor on success. That means YOU have to want to do this work, YOU have to make the connections with the mentor and fellows, YOU have to practice daily. They give you the tools, but YOU have to use them. The career coaches are amazing, USE THEIR SERVICES! Take every tip they give you even if they are sometimes harsh or it feels like you don't need help with the soft skills, just do it anyway! Believe me, I am/was a teacher, my communication skills are 10/10 but after a practice interview and feedback my confidence and interview skills are now 12/10 lol Lastly, don't be discouraged. I don't have a math background, but I learned statistics. Am I the best? NO. Did I get it in 2 weeks? NO. But did I learn it? YES! My referral is: https://www.springboard.com/invite/OXVVV

Pros - great curated flow of material that builds upon each prior lesson. Good opportunities to go above and beyond the "regular" path and really stretch your learning. Great flexibility. Good resources outside of the content (mentors, career, support)... Read More Cons - (more my situation) I was working full time when in the course. So I just wasn't disciplined enough to do all the further studies I wanted to. Still great course for my situation.

I highly appreciate and value my experience with Springboard! I decided to take the Springboard Data Analytics career track certification program to get back to work after a 5 years career break with goals to refresh and upgrade my skills, gain confident... Read More in using UpToDate tools and got a job - all were achieved. The curriculum is comprehensive, well structured, and has a good amount of practice and materials to grasp the concepts. I liked the abundance of learning resources. I felt well supported: weekly mentorship, monthly career coaching, office hours and webinars, peer community - I found it all helpful! The student advisor and tech support were welcoming and quickly helped with all requests. I valued that it is a self-pace and remote program! Also, the program allows some extensions and breaks. I recommend it!

I’m so glad that I was introduced to Springboard to gain new skill and grow in my career. I changed my career from accounting to web designing and this all happened because of Springboard. They helped me in every step. I was able to understand the curriculum... Read More easily. Thank you Springboard Team.

Joined the Springboard Data Analytics Career track back in Jan 2022. I am not from analytics background and I had a good experience overall. Some of the pros and con are below. Pros- 1. The skills taught were relevant to the industry and provided me with... Read More additional confidence. 2. The curriculum was solid and covered a lot great topics. 3. The mentor and career coach are great and important part of the bootcamp. Cons 1. Can be more economical and felt it to be on expensive side. 2. Can provide more information on how to best use the time with industry mentors and extract maximum value. Overall I would definitely recommend this bootcamp for someone looking to transition into Data Analytics career. I did my google data analytics certification before starting this bootcamp which helped me as well and would recommend doing any kind of basic certification or courses of the tools which would be used in the bootcamp before hand to help you not get overwhelmed during the whole process and make it smoother.

Overall, I loved my experience with Springboard! Well designed curriculum, very thorough yet flexible. My Mentor was outstanding, very professional, knowledgeable and encouraging. The Student Advisor was also excellent, super supportive and very attentive... Read More to students needs. I liked the flexibility of the learning pace. It allowed me to work full-time and still learn well. Of course, there were challenges along the way, but Springboard is very good with their support system. Now I am working with the Career Coach, and she is also great! I like how Springboard's post completion support with the job search.

I had a pretty fulfilling experience with Springboard. At first, I was assigned an unprofessional mentor who rarely showed up, and when the mentor did, it was 20 mins late and our call would last 5 minutes. This lasted for a month and as a result - i... Read More learned incorrectly. This was a HUGE bummer, especially because I was paying $1,300 a month for stellar mentorship. I was paired with a new one who was great, but eventually ended up leaving months later due to a massive pay cut. My third, and last, mentor was absolutely fantastic. I truly wish i had been assigned her from the start. She was patient with me while also challenging and holding me accountable. I relearned missed concepts from my first mentor. I realized I hadn't come up with the strongest solutions for my 2 capstones so I went back and my mentor was proud and cheered me on the whole way. I wished i would've had my mentor from the beginning, she truly made the experience amazing. Regarding content, i'd say cirruculum is good, but you can really learn it all on your own. i personally love how its laid out, its a better set up for me personally. just know that most of the material is Medium articles. The career support is awesome and i'm really excited to utilize it more. i do wish it was more of a requirement to meet with career coaches throughout the program.

If you are looking for a self-paced online study program for data science at an affordable cost, Springboard is the right pick for you! Springboard's 500+ hour online self-paced technical curriculum leans heavily on a combination of DataCamp coursework,... Read More online articles, and self-created exercises and materials to teach students the necessary skills to be a data science professional. Their technical coursework is supplemented by additional career and technical resources, including regular call opportunities with an industry expert to assist you in your projects and a career coaching team ready to help you dress up your resume and experience and tackle your job hunt. However, because there are no deadlines in this course (except for the 6-mo Course-End date) you really have to stay on top of yourself. There are no mechanisms built into the coursework for advisors or mentors to track your progress and help push you along, if needed, so you, like I, may find yourself getting behind on the material and ending up at risk of not completing by Course-End and losing access to the course without certification. But, if you are good at pacing yourself and staying committed over a long timeline, you will find Springboard is quite accommodating and flexible. They boast a 'mentorship' program, with weekly 1:1 calls with an industry expert that I found to more closely resembles a one-way 'human Google' relationship than a proper mentor relationship. The burden of creating value from the calls falls entirely on the student and the 'mentor' does not bring anything to the table. While they do a very good job of providing feedback and advise on specific questions and topics, when prompted, I feel like their mentor program could be so much better if the 'mentors' actually mentored the students actively. That said, they cultivate a nice community amongst the students via their Slack channels and weekly 'fireside discussions' where are optional live 'lectures' around some relevant topic. I found the Slack community to be quite helpful in guiding me through many obstacles I encountered, particularly a small group of student alums which frequent the channels and are eager to help. I also found the Career services and learning units to be very helpful and it changed my perspective on how to market myself and my skills to be more successful in my career. I anticipate using these resources and knowledge I gained there to help me in my career well beyond my 'first data science job'. I found Springboard's cost to be cheaper than most competitors and their job guarantee was a nice hook, and you get what you pay for. There's no live lectures or other resource that simulates a 'classroom' environment, and some of the materials are a bit outdated, but considering everything above, I think the value is very good overall.