Deep Dive: A Closer Look at Silicon Valley-Based Magnimind Academy

Silicon Valley is a well-known global tech hub, home to the world’s most famous tech companies like Facebook (now Meta), Amazon, and Apple. With these lining up the area, it’s no surprise that this section of the Bay Area is automatically associated with cutting-edge innovation. That said, while Silicon Valley is brimming with developers, there’s a considerable lack of data scientists in the area, second only to New York City. 

This has led to rising demand for these professionals, opening more opportunities for those who aspire to enter the field. As Deloitte reports: “…[T]op Silicon Valley companies have ramped up their workforce aggressively, focusing on advanced analytical skills such as ML, natural language processing, data engineering, and data visualization and image processing.”  

If you want to put yourself right in the path of such opportunities, you should consider training at Magnimind Academy, a notable data bootcamp nestled right within Silicon Valley. 

There’s a lot to highlight about Magnimind Academy. First, its prime location means it’s surrounded by and has easy access to top-level companies and universities. To top it off, Magnimind Academy is also the brainchild of scientists from one of the top universities in the world, Stanford University. 

With a promising environment and beginnings, let’s take a closer look at how Magnimind Academy can be your ticket to a thriving career in data.

What Is Magnimind Academy?

Magnimind Academy is a bootcamp founded by Stanford University scientists who saw the need for more artificial intelligence (AI) and data science-related education. The founders started by organizing meetups and educating people for free. As more people learned about these meetups, the demand for them grew. The meet-ups eventually transformed into a bootcamp, and Magnimind was born.

Its founders still work with Stanford University, and their combined experience serves as a basis for Magnimind’s programs. “What we did was [we] designed our programs based on the projects we did. So, our bootcamps are based on the Stanford projects we did, plus the startups. From real-world projects, we designed the curriculum,” said Murat Baday, director and teacher at Magnimind Academy.

Magnimind Academy Programs

Magnimind’s mission is to help people improve technology, and in turn, improve the world. This mission is embodied in each of its programs designed to educate learners in leading innovation and help them launch their data science careers. 

Aspiring students must undergo a stringent application process before being accepted into Magnimind. Once they get in, students begin their training through any of Magnimind Academy’s several programs.

Full-Stack Data Science Program

The full-stack data science program is designed to meet the needs of the industry and help beginners and intermediate learners launch careers in data science. While you won’t need significant technical knowledge to qualify for the program, you are expected to have at least six months of active coding experience in common programming languages like Python, R, Java, and C++. You should also be familiar with basic probability and descriptive statistics. 

This part-time program runs for 15 weeks, with students required to commit between 15 and 20 hours of study every week to complete course requirements. 

The program’s curriculum is divided into three phases:

• Python-Statistics-SQL Phase. This phase covers the fundamental skills needed by every data scientist. Students learn to retrieve, interpret, and present data. It includes both theory and hands-on projects.

• Machine Learning Phase. In this phase, students learn about data pre-processing. This includes handling missing values, normalization, standardization, and feature scaling. Popular machine learning concepts like clustering, classification, regression, and dimensionality reduction are also discussed.

• NLP-Cloud Phase. The third phase teaches the basics and main concepts of NLP (natural language processing). Students will learn various frameworks such as NLTK, Keras, and Gensim. By the end of this phase, learners will be familiar with choosing efficient ML algorithms for NLP.

Subsequently, you’ll begin preparing for the workplace. You’ll work on real-time projects, with opportunities to work independently and with other students. Keeping you on track is a mentor who will be paired with you to oversee your progress and guide you until you land a job in tech.

This program costs $2,500 when paid in full. For those who are unable to pay upfront, Magnimind offers a deferred tuition agreement, where students don’t pay tuition until they graduate and land a job that pays at least $40,000 per year. Students must apply to be qualified for this program. 

Women and veterans are also eligible for a $500 discount. Other discounts for women are also available through Women Empowerment programs, as well as one full-ride scholarship per program to qualified woman applicants. 

ML Mentorship Program

This program is intended for intermediate and advanced learners. Many students in the ML Mentorship Program have previously attended other bootcamps and already possess in-depth technical skills. This makes it ideal for those looking to hone their skills and become more confident in what they can do before entering the job market. 

Students who enroll in this program receive additional hands-on project experience and extensive mentor support. What’s more, because the program is held part-time and stretched over 15 weeks, it will only need 15 to 20 hours worth of study per week, making it a great learning opportunity for parents and working professionals looking to upgrade their skills while juggling other commitments. 

Technical training comprises four phases, with an additional phase included for career development.

• Week 1: Bootcamp Orientation. During the orientation, students learn about the projects they will be working on, all of which are patterned from the needs of actual Silicon Valley companies. The students also meet their mentors and familiarize themselves with the course requirements.

• Weeks 2 to 5: NLP Project. Students are exposed to hands-on training as they run Twitter data through NLP processes and use machine learning algorithms to classify them. Students then determine the probability of their categories.

• Weeks 6 to 9: Distributed ML Project. Students work on a specific project during these weeks: the Capital Bike Share – Walk Through. They study the dataset generated by the project and continue to hone their ML skills. 

• Weeks 10 to 13: Deep Learning Project. During the last phase of the program, students work on Gesture Recognition using Convolutional Neural Networks. This involves working on images to map hand gestures to turn them into sign language.

• Weeks 14 and 15: Career Development. During these weeks, students undergo practice interviews and resume coaching. They also continue receiving industry insights and are connected to recruiters by Magnimind.

This ML Mentorship program equips students with the skills they’ll need to find jobs in the data science industry. While other bootcamps assign one mentor per student, Magnimind students interact with at least three mentors in their time at the school. With their guidance, students receive extensive technical interview training, resume preparation, and other crucial requirements to make them strong candidates in the job market. 

Specialized Bootcamps

Magnimind Academy also offers specialized bootcamps, which are shorter in length and focus on niche topics. Students must be enrolled in the Data Science program to join a specialized bootcamp while other students may be accepted with the instructor’s permission. Currently, Magnimind offers the following specialized bootcamps:

AI in Finance

Through this short course, students gain a better understanding of finance with the help of data science. The course teaches students how to apply data science tools when modeling financial problems. Other topics include the time value of money, modern portfolio theory, and financial APIs. This bootcamp takes 12 hours to complete, spread over four consecutive Sundays. It costs $300.

AI in Medicine

This specialized bootcamp gives students practical experience in applying machine learning to real-world medical problems. For example, students will apply tree-based models to improve patient survival rates and use data to recommend treatments. The AI in Medicine bootcamp takes 12 hours to complete, spread over four consecutive Sundays. It costs $253.

Blockchain

Students learn to become blockchain developers in six weeks. This specialized bootcamp is $253.

Distributed ML with Apache Spark

This short course is meant for aspiring or entry-level data scientists or data engineers. Students must be familiar with Python and machine learning and be comfortable with college-level mathematics to qualify. This bootcamp takes 12 hours to complete, spread over four consecutive Sundays. It costs $253.

Mini Bootcamps

Magnimind’s mini bootcamps are free courses designed to introduce interested students to the fundamentals of data science, machine learning, and other related topics. 

Acceptance to Magnimind’s full programs is highly dependent on an applicant’s previous experience. Many students have taken previous courses in other bootcamps or already have data science backgrounds.

If Magnimind feels that it is not in the applicant’s best interest to be accepted into the Full-Stack Data Science or Mentorship program at the time of the application, they will recommend that the student prepare further. These mini bootcamps allow applicants to gain in-depth knowledge and experience in data science before they commit to a 15-week program.

These mini bootcamps are also open to anyone interested in exploring the data science industry and learning from top instructors. Some of the topics offered as a part of Magnimind’s free mini bootcamps include:

• Machine Learning 
• Python for Machine Learning 
• NLP for Non-Coders
• Data Analysis with Python 
• SQL for Data Science 
• Statistical Modeling for Data Science 
• Machine Learning with R 
• Time Series 
• Natural Language Processing 
• Neural Network 
• Machine Learning Interview Topics 
• Deep Learning 

All mini bootcamps, except for Machine Learning and Python for Machine Learning, take12 hours to complete, delivered over four weekends. The Machine Learning mini bootcamp takes eight hours to complete while the Python for Machine Learning mini bootcamp requires 10 hours. Mini bootcamps are also scheduled on weekends.

For both specialized bootcamps and mini bootcamps, students can choose between attending in person at Magnimind’s Sunnyvale, California campus or attending the live classes online.

What Makes Magnimind Unique?

There are several reasons why Magnimind is unique in the bootcamp space. 

1. More hours of guidance. Magnimind Academy offers students as much as four times the hours that other bootcamp students get to work with mentors and instructors. These additional hours give students more access to knowledge and training from industry experts. They also add significant value for students in need of more guidance as they navigate their way to the job market. 
   
2. More mentors to guide you. Aside from the additional hours, Magnimind students also have access to more mentors. While most programs assign each student to one mentor, Magnimind students work closely with at least three mentors. They receive more perspectives that help them develop a deeper understanding of the data science industry. 
   
   Mentors and instructors are a good mix of industry professionals and academics with 10 years of experience in their fields, giving students the best of both theoretical and practical knowledge.
   
3. Internship opportunities. These opportunities include instructors-slash-data science professionals who invite students to join ongoing real-world projects.
   
4. Skilled student body. Another notable feature is that many Magnimind students hold PhDs. Working together in groups provides students an incredible opportunity to learn from each other.
   
5. Lifetime access and networking opportunities. Students also enjoy lifetime access to advanced and diverse data science content and a network of top-notch scientists and engineers from Silicon Valley.

Start Your Journey to a Tech Career at Magnimind Academy

Magnimind Academy is an exceptional bootcamp founded in Silicon Valley that offers part-time online programs with the aim to help learners explore data science careers. Magnimind equips them with the skills to create or facilitate career change through high-quality and affordable 15-week courses.

If this sounds like the right bootcamp for you, take a look at Magnimind’s complete list of programs here.