Springboard

Overall, this was a really good, solid program. I am a trained graphic designer but have been UX-curious for several years. I had done a few Lynda/LinkedIn courses as well as joined the Interactive Design Foundation and felt like this course would be a piece of cake. It wasn't. 
The course plan was excellent: it covered a LOT - far more than in any of the courses I had taken until that point. My mentor was rigorous, too. I have been a designer for 20+ years and have a fantastic work ethic. But he pushed back on me and challenged my decisions (all in a good way). 
There were only 2 negatives: you will NOT complete this course in 6 months. Even if you were a full time student, there will be interviews and other logistics that you will have to set up where you are at the mercy of external factors. And, most important, because this is a *currated* course that draws mostly from other's work, it can at times lack consistency. It can be minor, but I felt that if you pay attention, you can read 2 pieces that may contradict each other. Without recognition from Springboard and guidance, it can be a little confusing. 

Overall: I will recommend if you're trying to gain an overview of the UX design process. Particularly useful if you have a graphic/visual design background.

What worked for me: Excellent support and career services. Unlimited on-demand mentor calls. Provides support beyond the curriculum (job search strategy, networking).

What could be better: The assigned mentor may not be proficient in every aspect of the program. Not a big deal since there's always on-demand mentor calls. The program takes more like 7-8 months to complete (instead of 6). Support services are very helpful and will likely grant you an extension when you write in.

I am overall very happy with my experience at Springboard. The best part by far is the fact that they pair you with a mentor. My mentor was a UX lead at a very well known company, and was incredibly helpful throughout the course. Another reason I chose this particular bootcamp was because they offer an industry design project, where you get to gain real experience through working with a real company. I feel so much better about my resume and portfolio after completing that project. I learned a lot during my capstone project, but since I was learning, I'd probably do a lot differently looking back. I'm much more proud of my industry design portfolio project, since it was done after I had basically gone through everything else in the course, and I was really able to use all of my new skills and add value to the client's product. I definitely would recommend Springboard!

The pros of this course outweigh the cons. I found having access to mentors a real token to my success. Some weeks I would meet with mentors upwards to 6 times, and even with my hectic schedule they were still extremely accommodating. I always received honest feedback, and it was never sugar-coated. I think this straightforward upfront approach is what led to my success throughout the course. Now that the course is over, I see the things from my mentors' feedbacks on what I need to continue to work on to make myself the ideal candidate. Now, I have started working with the career services department. Originally, this process seemed a bit shaky because of their new hires. However, I have found a few career advisors that I believe know how to make employers see that I do have what is capable of a data analyst. I overall recommend this course, and it will show you your strengths and weaknesses throughout the units.

A great bootcamp with the four essentials I needed for transitioning back to industry:
1. Mentoring. I had a great mentor, with broad knowledge of the industry and good attention to detail so that I was pushed in the right directions. A perfect match.
2. Up-to-date curriculum. I learned all the industry standard tools, very good
3. Capstone projects. I did one on recommender systems, showing my creativity, and a second related to the weaker side of my CV, software engineering.
4. Career support. Motivated coaches with EXCELLENT plans

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.

 I joined Spring board india Data science Career track in june 2019. here is my experience :

I joined spring board india data science career track 2019. here is my experince:

If you accept starting with Springboard be ready for
-- No job assistance(You will have to find job yourself)
-- 6 months job guarantee is a liar.
-- There are lots of unemployment Spring board alumni.
-- 30 min mentor time once a week is not sufficient and satisfying.

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it’s not worth at all, simply i can say waste of your hard-earned money and waste of time as well. So called mentors will be not available as per the schedules and they don’t spend much time with the students in explaining their doubts or explaining the concept.

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Next coming to so called office hours, coding support sessions it’s just for the name sake they fix up the sessions without even asking/discussing our availability time, i can they do as per their need.

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They force you to enrol for the course by paying 1.95 Lakhs and they also provide you easy EMI/Loan by third party finance company, after your enrolment they don’t even care/bother about you concerns related to course.

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Most imp thing is, they state you like 100%per job guarantee after the successful completion of your course in 6 months but the hard fact is you can’t complete the course within the stipulated time as they mentioned since you don’t get proper support from mentors/support team after your enrolment in any manner and course is not easy at all as they state you while enrolling.

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Whenever you try to reach support team/student adviser to discuss your concerns they don’t pick your call many times and if they receive the call they just say will come back to you in few min/EOD or will solve within EOD but you don’t get any solutions on time or they try to convince you as per their needs.

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whenever you try to raise your concerns regarding the course, you will get only one statement/answer like you are not attending sessions properly, not following the mentor instructions or you are not spending your time. They will never ever agree their mistakes and listen you concerns as well.

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Most pathetic part - When you say i am not satisfied with the course or if you ask for the cancellation and your money back, they simply say we don’t have refund policy at all and they will again try to convince you to the fullest with the flashy words/statements. It’s like mental harassment.

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My suggestions please don’t waste your hard money and time as well.

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if you are interested to learn data science and to make career transition, we have many institute in Bangalore who offer data science course, ML, AI course with very minimum fee ranges like 15–45k with excellent course structure so please don’t get fool y enrolling Springboard.

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All the videos/materials provided by springboard are available for free in YouTube.

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When the entire course material is free resources why they are charging 1.95 Lakhs I don’t understand

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Mentor ship (mentor call) is something they make as a star of the program. But you will get to interact with your mentor once in a week only for half an hour.

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I never got a chance to discuss in detail with my mentor as there was a time constraint (mentor is be not available after 30min)

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Springboard is not helpful at all, all they are doing now, are blaming the students.

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Whatever the things/words which i explained above, it’s my pathetic experience and wasted money as well.

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Now for the curriculum. This was sadly most dissappointing. The course mainly revolves around data camp courses. And then these are supplemented by youtube lectures from Harvard or other institutions that would talk about the subject with the impression that you have intermediate knowledge of the subject matter, despite it being a beginners intro video to a concept. I have had much better success with the self study resources available on the internet, such as youtube tutorials etc. There was no feel of an actual boot camp teaching you, they basically link you to external sources that aren’t theirs.

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The whole curriculum is just stuff taken off of the internet or LinkedIn learning. Very little original content. A lot of the content can be found by just doing a basic Google search. Overall this course did not live up to its hype.

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I was told that these things do not matter and that you can easily land a job after you get both your projects done. I had done very detailed projects and posted them on github and did everything the career coaches suggested I do. Unfortunately, not a single data science position had reached out to me.

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The program is a complete waste of money and time, one more thing, right after I completed my course, got the certification, In certification also they made blunder mistakes they added advanced ML track concepts like time series Analysis and Recommendation systems which is not an part of my NLP track.

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They dont know how to deal with students in a cordial way, I will not recommend this to anyone who is serious about learning Datascience, you can find their course on youtube for free

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Frankly, I wish that I could get my money back.

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I recommend staying away from wasting your money with them.

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Don’t fall for false advertising. 

Six months ago when I was researching online programs in Machine Learning, I stumbled across ML career track from Springboard and the curated curriculum and the 1:1 mentor support really stood out and made my decision to enroll. After completing the course now, I can say I am very proud of the person I have become in this six months journey and it really put me five years ahead in life. Excellent projects, curriculum and mentors who are very passionate about their subjects and helping others reach their potential makes it a very rewarding experience. 

I am an alum of Springboard DSC, I have gone through the course content and to be frank it was really disappointing.The course content is completely available free on YouTube and datacamp.It is not springboard's own material! 
The 1:1 mentorship that I had was horrible.My mentor was neither assisting with the project work nor helping to understand concepts well.I dont think it was worth the money I paid.
Onto the career coaching section: Career coaches copy job posts from linked in , put them in a PDF/word document and send us via mail and tell us to apply for it.(P.S I can do it without their help too).It was lame.i regret for choosing springboard.I only hope other aspiring data scientists don't opt for this course.This is my honest review