After using the hype of Springboard in USA, SPRINGBOARD managed to get easy start in India. They got many applicants even at a high price point considering many other MOOCs are way cheaper here. But little did we know that we were going into a sea with no shores. It has been more than a year when they have started functioning in India with a new batch coming in every month. They threw every heavy word to make us see Gold everywhere when there was only rustic iron. A hope brimmed among Data Science aspirants that (as springboard was saying we were among 20% aspirants they selected) we were going to be successful. Even I was told that they will focus more on us as I was among the initial batches. (Note: They didn't even took a puzzle test that they put up on website. They even lied that my prep course will start immediately just for me to make the payment and then no response for few days. Their marketing guy says any lie he/she can to make you sign up.) At first the course seemed good. Many of us were blinded by the shine Springboard was manufacturing. But mist started to clear after a month. It was all curated content from the internet which was not made clear from the start. I let it go. Their main USP was weekly half hour call with the mentor. Here it comes to Luck which mentor a student get. They didn't had much mentors here to use algorithm to match with mentee, so they just matched as they hired a mentor with no particular reason that why we were matched with that expert. The mentor is someone who has Industry experience yet how can they impart such knowledge in half hour in week. Even if they can guide us, are they really prepared for it or going with the flow? Did Springboard gave any training how their course structure is or what they require from mentor to do for mentee? A Big No. It seemed every mentor was handling their mentee as they could. As feedback from many fellow students, some turned out good and some not so. Thus for many it felt like a gamble of a very large amount. Due to ambition of becoming data scientist and already taking the decision, I moved on. Now we cannot ask every question in half hour with the mentor. So we have Teaching Assistant. They had one who recently graduated from a prestigious engineering college in India. After some of my interaction, my concern was that he was not a good fit for this role as he doesn't have any teaching experience, smart doesn't mean you have the ability to teach or help someone. Many of my questions to him came back to me as another question. Mostly why do you wanna know or in which part of course this question refers too, when the answer could be simple. I raised my concern but in vain. I simply stopped asking questions but googling it myself thus spending more time for answers. Also, their office hours seemed more of a formality. Then there was student advisor who interacts with students and solve their concerns. At start she seemed good, listening to the concerns and trying to solve them. But there were very few students, as the numbers began to increase every month, her response time increased further to a point when it took a month and a half for the my certificate to rectify. But the course went on. There were many parts in the course which seemed very distracted from the course. The difficulty level of a part was sometimes low and then jumped high as we were doing a doctorate on that particular topic. The main part which was Machine learning felt like a game walkthrough than we actually playing the game. Few parts were rushed and few repetitive. But I did not complain, even to myself and used search engine.(Note: According to them we can find everything on the internet so learn to use it.) Their cost was not justified yet I did not squeal. The point where came the breaking point, is their Career services. They give 100% Job Guarantee but all I can see is throwing someone in a deep sea after showing them a video of someone swimming and then asking for the person to swim. I think they are giving this guarantee considering the demand in market and effort by an educated and employed student themselves. It worked in USA but it failed miserably in India. It was all due to lack of vision and effort by the management. The management felt immature, incompetent at first. Then at the course end the management felt even more immature and more incompetent. They did not consider the feedback regarding course being not suited for Indian Market and did not update it. They did not consider so many students who were unsatisfied with the career services. Their career calls ran in a loop and as a pre-recorded tape convincing us that they are working on helping us. This convincing started to feel like manipulation when after 5 months and multiple calls even with career services leads ( Yes lead(s), as their lead changed within a year. Might be fed up with overall management itself), I felt I was where I started from. It seemed they didn't even knew what they were doing. It was at the point when their marketing part was working very very hard to get more numbers in. It was a memorable journey which I wish to forget. If anyone wants to feel the same, then please join Springboard India and I assure you it will be a bumpy ride with a big black hole at the end. | 