Awesome product. What sets Springboard apart is (i) Attention to curriculum design, (ii) Weekly calls with mentors which helps you keep going. I love the UX design course.
For the past year, we’ve been quietly experimenting with a new approach to online education and today we're launching as Springboard, and would love feedback from the ProductHunt community.
Springboard is an online school for new economy skills like Data Science and UX Design.
We know there is a lot of great content available for these subjects. Our approach combines expert-curated content with support and mentorship from industry professionals. Our courses self-paced, enabling a more personalized experience for each student.
Each student who enrolls in a Springboard course gets access to:
1. An expert-curated curriculum with a focus on learning through projects
2. Weekly 1-on-1 calls for project feedback and career advice, with a mentor who works at a top company like Airbnb, LinkedIn, Etsy.
3. A student advisor, and access to a community of peers, experts and alumni, so all questions get answered within hours.
We’ve found that this layer of human support and accountability, along with a project-based approach, significantly improves the outcomes in online education. It’s like the difference between a library and a university. Our alumni have gone on to launch successful products, and land jobs at companies like Reddit and Boeing!
We’re hoping to create a universal model of education that allows industry professionals to participate in education. And bring something that has the effectiveness of the offline education, with the convenience and affordability of online learning.
We'd love to hear what you think.
Hey @katesegrin -- Most of our students are working professionals who already have college degrees. However, we have had students who were contemplating graduate degrees and chose our courses instead.
Our belief is that as employment becomes more fluid, education will no longer be a one-time investment at the beginning of one's career. People will need to retrain more frequently, maybe every 2-3 years, and they will choose this kind of education (online, self-paced, but with human support and mentorship).
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Best decision I made. I’m an alum of the Springboard Foundations of Data Science workshop and was blown away by the expert-curated course content. It’s amazing how frictionless the learning process becomes when you’re only looking at the best material out there for a specific topic, curated by folks who are industry practitioners in that field. Mentor and community support is incredible, and a wonderful team managing the product.
Thanks @aannasw -- We loved having you in the course. Your capstone project presentation on movie data was epic.
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I took the UX Design course because I was about to wade into a major ecommerce platform shift at work and I wanted to be able to make the right design decisions. I got all of that and more. When you're dealing with sometimes lazy programmers and designers without a clear UX understanding the course comes in really handy. It was also helpful in terms of laying out ways to figure out what you need to know. I even learned to use some new tools.
The best part was probably the Springboard people. The mentors were helpful, but the office hours were great. You learn a lot watching a few UX experts tear apart someone's project in an extremely constructive way. Ultimately the Springboard people care about what they're doing, and helping you succeed is part of their mission.
I feel like the course laid a foundation that I'll keep returning to and building on.
Hey guys,
Springboard is offering an exclusive 20% off on the first month of our data science and UX design courses! It won't last long, but if you use the promo code PRODUCTHUNTLOVE you'll be able to benefit right away and get paired right up with your own industry mentor :)
https://www.springboard.com/#wor...
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Is this something that is only ideal for someone looking to replace/enter a new career, or is it also someone looking to enhance their skills while working at or running existing business/startups? For example, I would love to grow my UX skills, but I'm not a full-time student type.
@kevinelliott looks like @gautambay said most of the students are working professionals (many of which have already gotten university degrees in the past)
Hi @kevinelliott -- Most of our students have full-time jobs, and do this on the side (usually 8-10 hours per week, but our courses are flexible). We've had many people (e.g. entrepreneurs, product managers) take the course to enhance their UX skills so they can do their current jobs better. As an example, see James Medina's comment above.
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@kevinelliott The course is kind of demanding if you really do it right, and you should if you're doing it for yourself. I managed to fit it around a job and kids. If you fall behind it will take you an extra month, but if you can carve out 2-3 hours 3-5 times a week you can get a lot out of it. I'd recommend reading Don't Make Me Think and The Design of Everyday Things before starting the course since reading those while keeping up with the coursework can be hard.
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Great job @gautambay and @rogerh1991 this is such a great idea. There's so much value in 1 on 1 working with mentors and I hope to see this expand to other areas. Will you be adding resources for Product Management in the near future?
Met Parul, one of the founders, and was really impressed with the vision they have.
I am fascinated by the online education space and have a question- Completion rates of online courses have been low historically. Companies like Jawbone and Fitbit use software that acts like a "smart coach". Do you think something similar can work in education?
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