Springboard

I had an arts degree, basic skills from the free codecademy python, and some experience in customer service. I did not think this would be successful, and thought that at best I'd get a job and at minimum I would get my money back and a bunch of new skills.... Read More Now, 4 days after I completed the course, I'm being hired at a dream company making almost double what I was making before. This may or may not happen to you. All I can say is, you have nothing to lose. You either do it and get the job, or you get all your money back. It has the potential to change your life, or you've learned an incredible amount of tech skills for free. The support system you will receive is unbelievably good. the career coaches I've talked to have all been amazing, I was assigned to a mentor that talked an hour with me every week, and I love the work that I do now. I have my constructive curriculum for the course, but overall they continue to update it and listen to student feedback, so if you're reading this a month, a year, or even further from now, I imagine it's an even better course than I got. There's nothing to lose and everthing to gain from this course.

Finishing up the Springboard Software Engineering Career Track Prep and I loved it! There's definitely a lot of info and a lot of work to do, but put in the time and effort and you'll be rewarded. My advice would be to really go over the material and... Read More make sure it sticks. The quicker you move through each section (HTML, CSS, JS,) the more they jumble together in your head since you're writing them all in the same program. Also, I recommend double checking with your mentor to see if the scheduled times are good. I had to switch mentors because our schedules never matched up. That was through no fault of the mentor, it was me, I live in Hawaii so I rarely interact online with people on my time. Anyways, I highly recommend the career prep and to put a lot of hours into it to set yourself up for success for the full track!

The UX/UI Design track is great for learning the ins and outs of human centered design. The mentorship is the highlight of the program; I loved working with Todd once a week to stay on track and receive feedback. When I was diagnosed with ADHD a few months... Read More after starting the course, I asked for and promptly received an extension that let me finish strong. I recommend Springboard to anyone interested in jumping into a new career in design.

There's so much to be said about how Springboard does an amazing job with the Data Science Career Track! 1)The curriculum is so thoughtfully and expertly designed. It manages to cover a wide range of topics, but in a manner that flows naturally both in... Read More terms of progressive difficulty and logical continuity. This to me, is so important for sustaining motivation to complete the program. 2)It is highly hands-on and project oriented. This is a good thing, always a good thing, and Springboard recognizes that. Almost every unit has at least one mini-project to explore the content covered in that unit within an implementation context. You also need to complete two Capstone projects of your choice in any areas of your interest as part of the curriculum, and these projects are great for your Github or your resume. Clearly, Springboard appreciates that project-oriented learning is essential to drive certain concepts home and again, sustain motivation by seeing the fruits of your labor. 3)The quality of the resources. Data Science experts on the Springboard Team have put in efforts to create high quality resources - both technical and career-oriented. These are usually well-drafted informational documents or videos. They also handpick a good selection of public articles/videos (and even one wonderful book) to supplement your learning, and their partnership with DataCamp (shoutout!) gives you access to a rich library of also high quality content. 4)Flexibility Look, Springboard gets that life happens, and they've got your back. There is an option to take a 2-3 week pause from the course ANYTIME to perhaps catch up on other responsibilities or to maybe just *recharge*. Also, they offer a free 2 month extension to finish the program if you don't finish within the original 6 months, which can also turn out to be quite a blessing. I'm a full-time CS student at UCLA, so when I ran into a difficult quarter, I could still manage because of their flexible options. 5)Community You're assigned a Student Advisor and Mentor as part of the program, and in my experience, they were both wonderful. The Student Advisor regularly checks in on you if you need help making goals, being productive, planning a schedule, tackling burnout, and more! They really help keep you afloat during your journey. You meet with your mentor on a weekly basis so they can guide you with projects and difficult material, or tell you more about the industry and their type of work, which is always interesting to hear! My mentor was super helpful with his feedback on my projects and helped me shape them into something I was proud of. I should also mention that support on their Slack is pretty good too for Q/A related things, their customer support team is extremely friendly and helpful, and their cohort of career coaches are also excellent, so be sure to make regular appointments with them because they give extremely valuable and insightful advice about the industry and building the professional profile you want for yourself. All-in-all, a great program designed by a talented team of industry professionals. The amount of knowledge and learning you get out of the program is priceless (and you get lifetime access to the curriculum!). If you've got the time and you want to, as they call it, "future-proof" your career, I highly recommend their program :)

I recently completed the UI/UX Design program at Springboard and accepted a job as a UX Researcher shortly before graduating. The number one pro is the mentorship aspect. I got so much out the one-on-one instruction time with my mentor. He was so great... Read More at tailoring the projects and my portfolio to have more of a focus on UX Research which put me in a much better position when I started job seeking. The career coaches and mock interviews were also great. I was able to take advantage of the unlimited mentor calls to prepare for job interviews as well which helped so much. The only downside for me was the lack of group or classroom learning. This is a program that requires a kind of hustle and internal motivation which I sometimes struggle with. Some of the students put together an online study group which is helpful but mostly you have to be accountable to yourself. If you're good at making your own structure and working independently, this program is for you.

I honestly can't say enough great things about my experience with Springboard! The curriculum is thorough and in depth, my advisor was extremely helpful and understanding, the career coaches know their stuff and by far the most valuable aspect was my... Read More amazing, encouraging mentor who helped me develop as a designer throughout the course. I was so nervous to tackle a career change in my late 20s, and I was insecure about my design skills at first, but I can confidently say that I can see from where I started to now how much I have grown and improved. I have to say, it is challenging and rigorous, so if you're looking for something easy breezy this might not be for you, but if you're willing to put in the time and effort, this course will set you up for success in UI / UX design!

I was an accountant for 6 years and decided I was unhappy in it so I pursued Software Engineering for better work/life balance (among other things). I did Springboard from March 2020 - May 2021 (took multiple breaks). I started applying to jobs on May... Read More 30, 2021 and only interviewed with 1 company (1 phone screen and 1 virtual onsite) and received/accepted an offer yesterday, June 17, 2021, as a Software Engineer I. What convinced me to choose Springboard (in order of importance to me): 1. Flexibility - While I would rather go to an in-person classroom style bootcamp, I didn't want to do those 3-month intensive bootcamps where I had no time for anything else. Springboard provides remote learning and therefore, this teaching model wasn't affected by COVID (I applied in Feb 2020 and started in March 2020) and even prepares you for a remote job afterward, if that's your goal. 2. Instructor is good - If you want to see if you like his style, take Colt Steele's Udemy Web Developer Bootcamp course or check out his Youtube channel. 3. Job guarantee - if you don't get a job within 6 months (I think with COVID, it's now a year) of graduating the course, you get a full refund. Be aware there are still requirements to follow in order to qualify to get the refund. 4. Accountability - weekly 1:1s with a paired mentor who is a professional in the industry 5. The topics the bootcamp covers are pretty extensive 6. Price - Given the amount of material, support, and timeframe, the price is way better than those 3 month intensive bootcamps. I chose the month to month payment plan, but if you can afford it, just pay upfront. After taking the course, here are my pros/cons: Pros: - Flexibility (see above) - Accountability - I had a really great and supportive mentor throughout the entire course. However, you can switch mentors if you want. - Multiple Break Options - Pause(s)/Freeze for when life gets abnormally busy or you need a break from the course. Both options push your deadline date. - 2 Live Code Reviews with mentors who are not your regular mentor - Really supportive student advisers, who can be an extra accountability point - Semi-weekly office hours (curriculum-related and general questions for student advisers as well) - recorded so you can reference whenever - There's a lot of material and you get so much practice with tons of projects and exercises with "further study" sections - 10 assessments that are reviewed by your mentor + 2 capstone projects - TAs are available via chat during normal business hours - Career office hours (go over topics related to resume, Linkedin, networking, etc.) - recorded so you can reference whenever - 8 career coach calls/check-ins - Placements team to help send job opportunities to your inbox closer to when you are completing the course (I believe this team was created in 2021) - They care a lot about their students - They ask for a lot of feedback from students and will make changes or improvements that make sense. - Everyone is so nice and supportive Cons: - Interview readiness: Interviewing was probably what I felt least prepared for at the end of the curriculum. If you are making the switch into software engineering, you need to know now that interviewing is a whole different ballgame than the actual job itself. Some software engineers go to interviewing bootcamps JUST to prepare for interviewing. It's one thing to know how to code and problem solve, but to also be able to talk through your thought process AND have your code work or have to figure out bugs in your code while someone is watching -- interviewing can be really stressful. I was super lucky because I have a software engineer friend that practiced with me every night for 1.5 months to help me prep for the MOCK interviews, and I ended up still not passing my first attempt at the coding mock interview (I think I had been practicing with my friend for a month already at that point). In addition to practicing with my friend, I even scheduled 1 practice mock interview with Springboard before attempting and ultimately passing my second official coding mock interview. FYI if you don't pass within 2 tries, you no longer qualify for the job guarantee - so at the time, it felt like high stakes to me. However, this shouldn't have been the focus (see Tips below). I also understand that not everyone has a friend that they can practice with every night and get valuable feedback (yes, I know she's a very good friend), so I think Springboard needs more support in this area where students can choose to practice with a live person however many times they want, in advance, to prepare for the coding and white-boarding mock interviews. - Pretty new curriculum, including policies and procedures: At least at the time that I started, they were still figuring out kinks/bugs in the curriculum so the exercises could change shortly after you do them (this happened to me) but there wouldn't be any notification about it. Now that they have hired more people, the communication is better about this sort of thing. While the changes can be annoying, this is also a good thing because that means they care about their curriculum and students and are always looking for ways to improve. They have also made a lot of updates and come out with new documentation around their policies and procedures. You as a student just need to go with the flow. - Every time you have a question or have a bug that you can't figure out, uploading your code to Google Drive or GitHub and then having to type out your issues/questions to the TA in a little chat box can be really annoying but this also gives you training on what it's like to work remotely - Although, I think in work settings, it's more likely that you would be able to have a quick meeting and share your screen. I know Springboard is trying to work on a solution to this, but this also isn't the end of the world. I can see that it's probably much easier to ask a question in person/be in a class setting for when you do have questions. - No new friends (at least for me): You don't really get to know your cohort that well unless you take initiative and be really social online - but to put it bluntly, I'm older and I'm not doing this to make friends haha. Everyone in my cohort/online did seem really nice and I knew people in my cohort who made individual study groups or paired up, but this just wasn't my thing ONLY because I already had a friend who was taking the UI/UX bootcamp with Springboard (she was probably ahead of me by 6 months) and we were each other's accountability buddies, and that was really helpful. Even after she graduated, we could keep each other accountable on her job search and my progress with Springboard. I understand that this is rare though so if you want to socialize and make study groups with your cohort, by all means, do that. Tips: - I'm not sure if this is still the case, but when I enrolled they let us access the curriculum 2 weeks before our cohort start date, and the deadline to decide if you want a refund is 2 weeks after the cohort start date. This is basically 1 full month where you get access to the curriculum to try it out. If you're on the fence about choosing Springboard and you're not in a rush to do the bootcamp, enroll in a cohort date late enough so that you get this 1 month trial. - Keep in mind that the point is to NOT get a refund, the point is to get a job with your new awesome skills. - With self-pacing learning, it's important to stay disciplined but stay healthy. Stick to a schedule. Turn off distractions. Make sure to eat well, drink water, exercise, and get plenty of sleep. You can't perform your best if your health goes down the drain. This is for your mental health too. - Take breaks if you need them! - If you don't think the weekly 1:1 mentor calls are enough, get an accountability buddy - could be from your cohort or could be a friend. - Reach out to your student advisor because they are super helpful and can keep you accountable too. - Career changes are DIFFICULT! Find your "why" and remind yourself of it when you're feeling unmotivated. Or better yet, look at it every day or week. - Do your best. Don't give up. Keep a positive attitude. It's a marathon, not a sprint. If you fall down, get back up again.

I started off my journey through Springboard during the cusp of the COVID pandemic. Although that lead to many hardships I could never have predicted, I always knew that I had the support of my mentor and the Springboard Team. My student advisor(s) were... Read More always very easy to talk to and get ahold of during these hardships. They allow for a couple of pauses that I definitely took advantage of as they allowed me to collect myself, take breaks, and be easy on myself. During these times, taking care of yourself first is of utmost importance. Some things that I wish I did more: -The Unlimited Mentor Calls. Specifically while completing my capstone project, there are so many aspects to starting and completing a whole UX Design for the first time. While my mentor provided so much feedback that allowed me to complete my projects with grace, a little more help would have been useful. Be prepared to find a lot of the curriculum to be easy "searchable" from google. While the content may not be hard to get access to, the way they organize it is beneficial for those who want an extra hand at learning UX from the comfort of their own home. Overall I enjoyed my experience and would recommend this Bootcamp for someone who wants to not feel as rushed throughout the program. You are able to truly consume all the knowledge at a healthy pace.

I liked how Springboard gave a great hands on learning experience through case studies and practice work like DataCamp. On top of this data analysis tools they also have you do weekly meetings with a mentor, giving you real world examples of their job... Read More and how data analysts operate. On top of all the great curriculum you get unlimited support! From 24/7 extra help calls to office hours and career coaches you can learn the tools for data analysis while also being part of a greater community making new connections.

The cost of this bootcamp definitely deterred me in the beginning. And while I was in the middle of my bootcamp during quarantine, Google came out with a free UX course. But I thought about it and I realized there are a lot of free resources online to... Read More learn UI/UX skills. However, I think the 1:1 mentor calls, career coaching, projects that you get to put in your portfolio are worth it. And it's not easy to figure out what you don't know, Springboard hires mentors and teaches you things you couldn't learn in a class or on your own. You have people with real world experience to give you an edge over the plethora of people graduating with design majors. Pros -teaches you all the latest skills you need -gives you access to resources during the bootcamp that you normally couldn't get -1:1 mentoring -Career coaching -works with your situation -Peer reviews, Mentor review, and hiring manager review for all of your work -mentor is genuinely there to help you Cons -cost -more intense than your average bootcamp