Springboard

I can't say enough good things about my experience in the Springboard Digital Marketing certificate program. After researching multiple programs, I decided to join Springboard for several reasons: 

1. Because I couldn't find a single negative review about their programs (and I did search for them)

2. Because of the mentorship part of the program

The material Springboard offers is superb and their team is incredible. Every single person I've interacted with from my student advisor to the community manager to my career coach and all the other students have been amazing. Everyone is incredibly friendly and helpful, the material is excellent and the course is very well structured. My favorite part has been the mentorship. Before I joined the program, I figured that the mentorship alone was worth the price of admission and I was soooo right. I actually think the mentorship is worth the price of admission several times over. My weekly calls with my mentor have been incredibly helpful. She really is an expert in her field and with her guidance through the program, I know I'm getting the most out of it.  The real-life projects are incredibly helpful and really build confidence because when you move into the job market, you already have real-world experience under your belt and a portfolio to share with potential employers.  I can't recommend this program enough. It's awesome! 

My overall experience with the DS career track was very positive and provided me with a very useful skillset. The curriculum is very good, though it would not hurt to include a bit more of tools such as TensorFlorw. By far the most useful portion to me was the support and insight provided by the mentor program. This is one of the main reasons I chose SB over others programs and I was not disappointed. The career coaching was also very helpful and consistent feedback was provided throughout the course. My only comment here would be for more help on the insustry connections/ referrals front. However, this is only a minor critique the continued job search support will likely help on this front. 

I found the Data Science Career Track program very useful for anyone who decides to start a Data Science career regardless of the background. The amount of material necessary to master is quite large but everything in the topics offered is important. The structure of the program itself is well organized and allows to build up solid skills. I really liked interaction with my mentor who gave me a lot of useful advices that broadened my views on all aspects of Data Science. Communications with career coaches were extremely helpful and informative as well. To summarize, my experience with Springboard's Data Science Career Track was overwhelmingly positive.

I took this course with minimal programming experience. I found it challenging, but I learned a lot. The best part of the course is the projects as they are extremely relevant and useful. I recently graduated from business school and this course helped me land my first job. It is comforting to know that I can refer back to the course curriculum and projects when necessary. I would highly recommend Springboard to anyone that is looking to broaden their skillset.

Overall, my experience with Springboard's User Experience design course was overwhelmingly positive. The content and mentor calls do a fantastic job of introducing and reinforcing concepts with hands-on project work that ultimately builds into a polished portfolio case study.

Content

One of the things I like most about Springboard is that the content is [mostly] non-proprietary. The course is essentially a curation of the internet's best free and paid resources on UX design, which makes the course very accessible and true to the lean UX concept. Why remake already great content? 

At some points the content does seem to be a bit overkill (I think there were ~6 different resources on building paper prototypes) but overall it was well-rounded and very helpful.

Mentors

If I'm being honest, having a mentor is the biggest factor in me completing the course. Had it not been for my weekly meetings with Andre it would have been far more difficult to find the motivation to complete. Every week we had insightful discussions about my submissions, and more generally about the UX process.

Main Takeaways

If you're debating whether or not to take the course – do it. This course was by far the most economical option I came across with the level of content and engagement. Would highly recommend jumping in!

I had a phenomenal experience with Springboard.  As a remote learner,  I was initially skeptical of the value an online course, but I am glad to be wrong.

The structure of the course is very intentional to bring people up to speed quickly.  The real value in the class is in the support team and mentors.  Having the opportunity to have dedicated conversations with my mentor about data science concepts, my coursework, and some tangential learning set my experience apart from some of the other online courses I have taken.  

The effort of the support and career services staff were equally essential to help bring the course together.  Having a dedicated professional sit and discuss job search strategies, review resumes, and conduct mock interviews provided additional confidence to communicate my data science knowledge and find that next role using my new skills.

I’m a current student in Data Science Career Track Program. It’s been a month in this course and I’m fully satisfied with the course curriculum and support from the mentor and the student advisor.

I have Master’s in Physics. And I am from Mathematics background. I do not have experience in programming or computer science. I just learnt Basic Python before joining the course. Now I am confident that I can definitely move forward in this field as I already know many tools and techniques to dive into the Data Science world. 

I will update here as soon as I finish the course and after landing into my dream job.

Thanks for taking time to read my review. Good luck.

I enrolled in Springboard's Online Data Science Career Program in August 2017 and completed the course in March 2018. I started the course with no programming skills. While this was difficult for me at the start, I became comfortable with python in the first two months.  My favorite part about Springboard is the connection with my mentor.   My mentor helped me tremendously with my capstone projects and gave me great advice in the workplace. The one thing that I had hoped for from Springboard is referrals. It is very difficult to build connections in a short period of time and then ask for referrals when applying for jobs. Hearing back from companies after applying and reaching out via Linkedin has been a struggle for me.  It would be nice to receive a little more help in the job search.  I am still looking for a job.  In the end, the skills that you learn are invaluable. I definitely recommend Springboard to someone who is looking to get into Data Science or just wants to learn a new skill. 

The Springboard Data Science Career track has been an amazing investment for me. Even though I had studied data science online for 6 months on my own before starting the course, the they the course content has been curated and laid out helped me to build a much stronger foundation. There is also a wealth of resources from counselors and a mentor that I was matched up with who had a similar academic background to my own which really helped me to build out my technical and professional skills for a career in data science. Overall, I'm pretty sure that this Springboard course is the best personal investment I have ever made. I highly recommend it to anyone thinking of starting out a career or transferring their current skill set to the field of data science!