My Experience with a Data Science Immersive Course/Bootcamp and Suggestions for Prospective Students
Most of my teenage years (late 90s and early 2000s) were spent just playing around with computer coding languages. The ones that I found most easy to learn and mess-around with were Visual Basic(the name doesn’t lie) and C++, of which I did not get too into at the time. This was just for fun and mainly to fulfill my teenage-induced requirement for chaos and rebellion. By that, I mean that if you were ever simply chatting in an America OnLine chatroom back in those days, there is a good chance that you were ‘punted’ or kicked off of AOL completely, without any rhyme or reason. This was just to appease the chaos-requirement of a young group of ‘hackers’ from that time…none of us even being 18yrs old.
Once I got a vehicle, a lot of that stuff became secondary to me. I didn’t see too much of a future using any of that knowledge and decided to just get regular ol’ jobs; anything that would pay the bills, basically. Little did I know that around 20yrs later I would finally pull the trigger on utilizing this fascination with computer science for my livelihood by joining a course for Data Science.
My search first began in early 2018 as I already had plans to leave the dead-end customer service job that I was mindlessly doing for years at that point. I weighed many different schools and instructional institutes to find the best match for both what I was trying to learn and what I wanted to accomplish with this knowledge of Data Science: A fulfilling and well-paying job!
I finally landed on General Assembly after very, very close consideration of another school. The primary & best selling points to me were the hands-on approach to teaching as I have always required a structured-approach to really excel at education. Secondly, the amount of campuses that GA has, which, to me simply meant more connections and networking, being that they had more graduates that had actually been placed in the field that they chose with GA…to me, this was and still is a HUGE advantage. Lastly, I would just say the fact that they do assist with job placement. While other institutions offer the same thing, they were all about 1/3 of the size of General Assembly.
Now that my decision was made, it was time to begin…and man, did I find out what they meant by “Immersive” VERY quickly. My biggest issue was keeping up with the current day or week’s lesson(s) while being caught up with homework from the previous weeks’. I never fully ‘caught up’ in the traditional sense but the amazing intructors were happy to help and make sure that I met all goals that they set for us. It was a 12+ week typhoon of knowledge being thrown at me and while that is what I was expecting, I did definitely think the pace would be a bit different. Then again; NO REGRETS…So I am fantastic, ready to graduate and find myself a job in this new field of mine!
There were parts that were a struggle, simply because I felt overwhelmed with all of the work and new knowledge, but I am super happy that I did it and have made it. My new future, actually utilizing my full-potential, is now beginning! I couldn’t be more ready.
For those thinking of getting into an Immersive Course or a Bootcamp of some kind, for anything regarding development, data science, UX design, etc. — it’s difficult for me to say to go ahead and do it like I did. It’s going to demand the majority if not all of your time in order to keep up to speed and pass the course, assuming it’s as in-depth as General Assembly, anyway. There are also costs that I could never know if someone that is looking into something like this has but there are always financing options available to assist with that.
All I can say to people that are considering one of these immersive courses is to, first of all, thoroughly do your research on the institutes that are offering this education, check everything that you can about them and compare that information to other places. Secondly, BE READY! Again, speaking as a current but 1 day from graduating student of General Assembly, the information comes at you hard and fast, unforgivingly so and most importantly, for good reason. Make sure that this is something that you definitely want to invest the time(and money, if involved) into.
I would not recommend going into anything like this because the field is ‘sexy’ or pays well or anything like that. You have to actually enjoy the material being taught or you will never learn a thing! Luckily, I already had a passion for computer science and programming, itself. Also, it absolutely does not hurt that I was blessed with 5 (yes, Five) of the best possible Data Science Instructors that anyone could ask for (shout out to Kelly, Patrick, Adi, Noah and Jacob!).
Again, I do not regret a single thing and cannot wait to begin my job search in this field. I am ready to absolutely crush it! If that sounds like something that you would feel for this type of stuff, I would say absolutely, without a doubt, go for it! Just make sure you have the smallest amount of distractions as humanly possible, as it’s going to kick your butt and require a lot! Again, that’s A-OK, though…100% worth it!
