Springboard Online Bootcamp

While full-time, in-person bootcamps are an excellent way to jumpstart a career in tech, they aren’t an option for everyone. Not everyone lives near a bootcamp location, and many people have to work to support themselves. As good as a six-month learning vacation sounds, this plan simply doesn’t make sense for everyone. While many schools offer a part-time online option, these often feel like compromises compared to their in-person courses. 

Springboard offers a solution to this problem. Springboard has full-fledged courses that are entirely online and self-paced, with all of the career and mentorship benefits offered by full-time in-person courses to help students make a solid career transition. Let’s take a moment to look at what this school provides to its students.

“The ideal learning experience should be designed to fit our life’s pace, with support from advisors and mentors who understand us.” – Springboard

School Overview

Springboard is built around the students. All of the school’s courses are online with flexible schedules, and they have flexible payment options when it comes to tuition. In addition, Springboard provides job-finding help and networking opportunities for graduates. In fact, it offers job guarantees on the majority of its courses. 

To round out the student-focused experience, students are paired with and guided through courses by mentors who already have experience working in the field for established companies like Facebook, Oracle, and Cisco. These mentors are selected carefully and—according to Springboard—only one in twelve applications for mentor roles are accepted.

Outcomes

Springboard puts a job guarantee on almost all of its courses, promising that qualified graduates will land a job within six months of graduating. However, it’s worth noting that this guarantee comes with some serious caveats. That said, according to an internal study by Springboard, the school has over 3,000 graduates and an average wage increase of $26k (for data science and UX design students). 

Students get one-on-one help from experienced career coaches, along with unlimited mentor calls to help them through their job-finding journey. On these coaching calls, mentors give interview practice, resume reviews, specific job-search advice, and help students understand the industry better. 

In addition, students get access to Springboard’s professional network. This means invitations to in-person meetups with other students and mentors, access to Springboard’s online community, and invites to Springboard’s annual conference: “Springboard Rise.”

Reviews

Reviewers from all over the internet shared their opinions on this Springboard course. Here’s one from Reddit that stood out.

“I think the primary value of the Springboard program is the mentoring provided. First and foremost is your personal mentor with whom you have a 30-minute call weekly. My mentor was friendly and knowledgeable… My mentor provided really helpful feedback and advice for lot (sic) of the machine learning methods I tried and gave me a starting point to create neural networks for my projects.”

Courses

Springboard offers six ‘career tracks’ split into three categories. While each course has an advised length and a recommended amount of time commitment between 15 to 20 hours a week, all of the courses are self-paced. Let’s look at the length, price, and an overview for each course.

Data

• Data Science Career Track – 6 months – $8,940
  This 500-hour course has a focus on providing real-world education in the data science field. It’s split into 18 units, with each unit inclusive of a project that students can use in their future job search. The course covers topics like Python, Python standard libraries, machine learning, deep learning, SQL, and statistical inference. 
  • Data Science Prep Course – 4-6 weeks – $490
    This prep course aims at bringing students up to speed before starting the data science course. It teaches Python and data science fundamentals that prepare students to take the technical skills survey for the data science main career track.
• Machine Learning Career Track – 6 months – $8,940
  This course is concentrated on teaching students to become machine learning engineers. It is a more focused course split into 11 units, which covers the Python language with machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, and using AI in production.
• Data Analytics Career Track – 6 months – $6,600
  This is designed to teach applied data science with both technical and business skills. The course covers topics such as structured thinking, SQL, Python, and presenting data. 

Design

• UI/UX Design Career Track – 9 months – $9,891
  This is a broad course that covers both UI (User Interface) and UX (User Experience) designs. It starts with design basics and design problem-solving and moves on through subjects like UI design, heuristics, accessibility, style guides, and practical advice on working with developers.
• UX Design Career Track – 6 months – $7,194
  This shorter design course covers UX (User Experience) design but leaves out some UI (User Interface) design for a more focused course. It covers topics like design basics, user research, prototyping, and design psychology. 

Coding

• Software Engineering Career Track – 9 months – $10,350
  This course is created to turn students into full-stack software engineers. The 800-hour course covers both front-end and back-end development, including languages and frameworks like Python, JavaScript, SQL, Node, Express, ReactJS, and Redux. It also features two large capstone projects that graduates can use in their future job search.
  • Software Engineering Prep Course – 4-6 weeks – $490
    This prep course will provide students with no experience in tech fields with a solid foundation for taking the software engineering course. It teaches HTML and CSS fundamentals and prepares students for the technical skills required to start the main course.

While self-paced courses are useful for those with busy schedules, having responsibility for their own schedule might not be everyone’s forte. Many students need the pressure applied by in-person courses to succeed. If you’re considering a self-paced course, it’s important to understand the commitment and motivation needed to complete these courses. 

Finance

Springboard has multiple finance options available to prospective students. All of the main career tracks have the below options, while the prep courses only have the option to pay in full and upfront. In addition, the school offers scholarship options to women and veterans that can reduce the price of most payment options by nearly 10%.

Breakdown of Financing Options.

• Upfront – Students can pay upfront for all courses. For the main bootcamp courses, if students pay upfront they can get a discount of around 17%, depending on the course.
• Monthly plan – Students can split up their bootcamp tuition into nine (or less) monthly payments that equate to the total tuition. 
• Deferred tuition – Here students only have to provide a $700 deposit to start the course, then only after finding a job in the field do they pay monthly payments for 12 months. The amount of these payments is the same each month but varies by course. 
• Climb Credit loan – The school also offers a loan agreement through Climb Credit, with various term lengths and costs depending on the student’s credit and total tuition. 

Application

The application process is similar to other bootcamps. Students fill out an online form, then speak to an advisor about the program. In addition, some of the courses have a technical skills survey that students are required to pass before entering the course. 

Review

If you are looking for a coding bootcamp to start your career in tech, but you need a school that works with your schedule while still providing human guidance, then Springboard is a solid option. Having the help of an experienced mentor that has their ear to the ground while currently working in the field is invaluable, making Springboard a unique and valuable school.