NYC Data Science Academy

The bootcamp program of NYCDSA is designed to take the skillset of every student to the next level regardless of the preliminary expertise.  Covering basics of R and Python during the pre-work and first month of the bootcamp follows by a deep dive into the essence of every popular machine learning algorithm, as well as implementation details and caveats in both, R and Python.  The understanding of these caveats combined with more common knowledge will facilitate and ease the continuous learning and career advancement for years to come.  It is important to note that to get most out of this bootcamp, full dedication is required.

Anyone who is serious about having career in data science and willing to do the hard work to make it happen should seriously consider this 3-month program. The materials of the courses are superb, and the instructors are world-class, willing to take the time to answer every question with enough attention to ensure that understanding of students progresses.  Finally, the academy’s professional networking events and job search-related workshops give a great boost to the job finding opportunities.  I enjoyed my time at the academy and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

NYC Data Science Academy was essential in helping me to make the transition from a career in academia to the field of data science.  It is a very intensive course that is filled with statistics, coding, machine learning, natural language processing, big data, and other topics.  Frankly, there were too many topics for me to apprehend while the bootcamp was running, but one of the great features of the course is that you are able to go back and review key lectures - which I periodically do as my understanding of the field deepens.  Another great strength of the curriculum is that you are exposed to a variety of instructors who have different backgrounds and approaches.  I can think of distinctive strengths for Drace, Aiko, Luke, and Zeyu in their presentation and shared perspective.  Vivian and Chris gave terrific seminars on seeking employment and how to interview.  Finally outside lecturers such as Bernard Ong held court and imparted their wisdom and that comes from a wealth of experience in the field.  

    One other strength of the program is in the variety of lecturing styles and the mix of labs, guided activities, and more conventional lectures. I think this allows people with a variety of learning styles to flourish and speaks to the thoughtfulness in constructing the curriculum. The projects are essential to applying the concepts and give you an opportunity to sharpen your coding and analysis skills.

    In the end, as I said previously, it was all a bit much for me to take in during the bootcamp, but there are a series of materials - such as Jupyter notebooks, pdf slides, and videos that I continue to refer back to as I progress in the field.  For me, the challenge was less about the difficulty of the material but the sheer volume.  I tend to get interested in something and don’t want to hear much else until I feel like I have a deeper understanding.  Only then do I like to move on. Were I to do it over, I would be a little more disciplined about indulging my curiosity and pay a little more attention to the flow of material and presentation because they really know what they’re doing and what you need as you progress.

tl,dr:

    I highly recommend this Bootcamp, it was of tremendous value to me.  12 weeks of instruction from deeply knowledgeable instructors who possess keen business acumen and know how to help people get jobs. It was a very enjoyable experience for me to be surrounded by interesting and smart people from all types of backgrounds and each with something unique to contribute to the cohort.

I had a truly rewarding experience at NYCDSA. The staff is approachable and friendly, and the material is relevant for a wide range of data professions.

The program opened doors to several opportunities for me and the staff sets time aside to help you position and present yourself well for job interviews. I accepted a job from one of NYCDSA's hiring partners, and felt very well prepared for the interview process. Five stars!

Side note: One recommendation I have for those less familiar with coding (which I was), is to embrace the "have you tried googling that?" culture within Data Science and programming as a whole. While the tendency at a supportive bootcamp is to ask your instructors how to debug a line of code or build an ML template, more often than not the answer is a google search away, and there are TONS of excellent resources out there. Patience and getting comfortable with the process of finding the answers to your questions online is absolutely essential.

I highly recommend NYC Data Science Academy to folks driven to pursue a data science, analysis, or engineering career. I participated in the 12-week onsite bootcamp with the Spring 2018 cohort and can attest to NYCDSA helping graduates land roles in each of these areas.

There are two reasons that NYCDSA was the right fit for me to jumpstart my career.

First, I was attracted to the academy’s strong regional network and job placement support. Vivian and the NYCDSA staff are responsive to your career interests and will put you in touch with relevant folks in the field. In addition, the NYCDSA curriculum is continuously re-evaluated for relevance. While NYCDSA helps bridge a career transition, the challenging task of skill acquisition and evaluation is on you!

Second, I wanted to participate in a program with diverse learners. Bootcamp attendees range from STEM PhDs like myself to folks with BA/BS with professional experience in analytical fields. It was an exciting process to learn from each other as we worked on group projects or talked about homework challenges. Exposure to working on teams with divergent backgrounds is extremely valuable in a practical sense and reflects how some data science teams are structured.

Overall, NYCDSA has established a process that works and is committed to continuous improvement. It was a pleasure to participate in this program with friendly students and supportive staff. NYCDSA helped me expand my technical skillset and secure a full-time data scientist role.

I was part of the full-time spring 2018 cohort, coming with a BA in social sciences and a previous business analyst role. I had down prior intro python/R/maching learning classes on Coursera and they proved a good starting point.

The bootcamp mainly involves buidling a portfolio of projects, each utilizing a new skill taught through the weeks, using mainly first R followed by Python. Also time is spend on SQL in the beginning and intro neural networks and big data architecture. 

The program is legit and skills gained are real.

While instructors and management were always friendly and making efforts to assist when asked, everyone was very busy and there was not an intense structure. As a bootcamp, the progam focuses more on flexibilty and less on structure than a traditional graduate program and thus you must be humble, self-motivated, and vocal to succeed. There is a good broad strategy in the cirriculem but the various instructors could be better in tune with eachother in this goal. Management always asked our feedback and have itineratively improved the bootcamp each cohort.

Students were from a variety of backgrounds, all well-educated and friendly. Many international students. 

From early on, management was focused on helping us gain employment after the bootcamp and have remained so after the program ended.

Now 2 months later, I just recently received a full time entry-level data science consulting position. I am very excited and credit my time at the bootcamp in opening up the new opportunity. 

I attended the 12 week in-person immersive bootcamp and am very happy I did.  I have a PhD in pure math (no computers, no numbers, so my coding experience was limited to "having fun" with Python) and spent my first 2 years post graduate school working at a hedge fund (in a non-technology role) and wanted to get into data science and engineering.  I genuinely believe that with enough personal motivation and drive a bootcamp is the most effective and efficient way to go from 0 to 60 in this field (note that "attending" and "absorbing" at the bootcamp alone is not enough - the drive, time, and energy ultimately must come from you - they can only set you up for success).

At the bootcamp I learned the essentials of SQL, R, and Python - not just the important packages like Numpy, SKL, etc. but how to pick up a new package and learn how to use it (a more important skill than learning any particular package).  The project work was also extremely valuable. The scopes of the projects (there's 4 of them) get wider as the program progresses (from basic visualization and RShiny app construction to open-ended real-life consulting for companies at the end of the course).

During my interviews after the bootcamp I was certainly tested on my coding and ML knowledge, but I spent a lot of time discussing my project work and results - again, the bootcamp presents you with opportunities and resources, it can't do it all for you.

If you plan on enrolling (which you should think seriously about, it's a large investment of both your time and money) I would say you should prepare as much as possible as you'll leave the bootcamp with what you bring to the table (in terms of skills, abilities, drive, and preparation) - I've seen people who leave the bootcamp ready to be "senior data scientists" as well as people who leave knowing how to code and how to use some ML packages (a big difference).

If you're looking for a bootcamp, I highly recommend NYCDSA as they truly care about the students, have a LOT to offer curriculum-wise, project-wise, and importantly their network in NYC data science jobs is EXTENSIVE (and very valuable).

The curriculum of NYCDSA bootcamp is great and well-designed. In the first four weeks, you will learn Python, R and SQL which will lay a solid foundation for your data science learning. In the next four weeks, you will learn a variety of machine learning models. In addition, they will teach big data tools and deep learning.

The instructors at NYCDSA bootcamp are excellent as they all have deep knowledge and significant experience in data science. They make complex concepts and skills easy to understand and master. The instructors teach classes in a good pace and often pause to answer any questions that students ask in class. After class, if you have any questions, they will also try their best to answer them.

During NYCDSA bootcamp, four projects will be offered not only to improve your data science skills but also to enrich your resume. The projects are really interesting and challenging. When you are working on the projects, you will be able to learn and apply data visualization, web scraping, machine learning theories and skills, big data tools and deep learning. For the capstone project, various corporations and non-profit organizations will come to the bootcamp and pitched their real data science problems to the students, which will gave the students the experience of solving real data science problems.

For the job assistance, the hiring team at NYCDSA will work very hard to get you jobs. During the bootcamp, job placement lectures will be given to teach you how to prepare for interviews. In addition, they will have several guest speakers and alumni give lectures about the current job market and suggestions on how to get a data scientist position. Before you graduate, they will help you polish your resumes to make them stand out. Right after the bootcamp ends, they will hold a hiring partner event where you will be able to network with employers from a lot of companies.

The bootcamp at NYCDSA offered us an opportunity not only to obtain significant experience and expertise in data science but also to expand our career options. After going through the bootcamp, people with various backgrounds can apply the skills they learned from the bootcamp and their domain knowledge to start their new career and explore their interest in the field of data science, which I think is the most important benefit NYCDSA bootcamp offers

I am extremely happy with my decision to attend this boot camp. Before this, I was very uncertain about what I wanted to do as a career path and never thought I would want a job that involved coding. With the excellent teaching, support, and guidance of NYCDSA staff and teachers, I found my passion. Within 3 months I gained skills in Python, R, Github, and SQL. Not many boot camps teach both R and Python, therefore this gave me a leg up against other people in the job market.

I graduated college with my Bachelors of Science in May of 2017, while many of my cohort-mates had a Master's or Ph.D. and had been working for numerous years. For this reason, I did not believe the boot camp was for me. It is not an easy course, but with hard work and dedication, it can definitely be done. I felt prepared for the job market once the bootcamp ended and really appreciated the job support provided by NYCDSA staff. They are extremely committed to getting you a job and do everything they can to help you and guide you. Because of the tools and knowledge I've gained from this boot camp, I've landed my dream job as a Data Analyst for MoveOn.org.

I took the intensive 12-weeks bootcamp at NYC Data Science Academy. I am a postdoc in India. I had been writing graph algorithms for social network analysis, analyzing data using MS-Excel and mining data using graph theory. I decided to make a transition to industry. 

I researched for about six months to choose a proper academy to learn data science. I came up with a decision to join NYC Data Science Academy so that I could learn both R and Python within three months. But, I learnt more than I thought. I gained hands-on experience in Python, R, SQL, Spark, deep learning, Hadoop and Hive.

The materials are technically sound for job interviews. Many experienced professors and industry professionals design and teach the materials. The course laid a solid foundation in data science. The people in the academy show keen interest in every student to understand the concept, in resume writing and above all, to get a job.

With their continuous guidance, I got hired as a data scientist in New Delhi, India. My decision to join the academy to learn both R and Python simultaneously, has been proved to be a wise decision. I wanted to 'eat, live and breathe' data science and I do it today because of the academy. Thanks to the academy.