I decided to attend Propulsion Academy in the winter of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. I chose this boot camp because of its location in Zurich, and because they seemed to screen the applicants well before accepting them into the program. I had been looking for a position as a data engineer in Zurich for most of 2020 without much success., After completing Propulsion I was able to land a job through Propulsion’s professional network. I have a background working in the data industry, and I have a master’s degree in Information Science. I was hesitant to join the program because of my background, but I ended up learning so much and I came out of the program as a better engineer. This course is for you if you have a background in a science or engineering related field. My cohort was a group of 12, and everyone had a graduate degree from a diverse range of backgrounds. The bootcamp consists of a lot of collaborative group projects, and since our backgrounds were so different, everyone solved problems with a different perspective. Collaborative group projects were one of my favorite parts about this program -- it was such a confidence booster and skill building exercise. (Nothing like college group projects :-) The coursework itself is very demanding, and you will not have time to do much else. Due to the pandemic, our classes were 100% online; everyone was disappointed about this, but you know, that kind of sums up 2020. All things considered, I really enjoyed the online format. I have taken a lot of online college classes and was never a fan, but Propulsion managed to keep all of us engaged through active participation during lectures and interesting slides. I felt like I got to know my peers and instructors personally, despite never meeting them in person. At the end of the course there is a 3 week capstone project that is often in collaboration with an organization. It was really cool to see how much the class had learned in the last 12 weeks. I would absolutely recommend Propulsion Data Science to anyone with the appropriate background. You will come out with more technical skills, a better ability to perform technical interviews, and the opportunity to become involved in Zurich’s data technology professional network. |