My honest review of Springboard’s UI/UX design bootcamp
Turning back the clock to September 2020, I enrolled into Springboard’s UI/UX design bootcamp with hopes of finding my dream career. And I have. Everyone’s experience from Springboard is different so I’ll try my best to also point out objectively what other Springboard students have gone through.
The curriculum
Material from the curriculum was organized very well to help you learn all the fundamentals of UI/UX design. It was like a step by step process which made learning and going through material feel easy. There are a variety of PDFs, videos, homework assignments, and online blogs in each lesson to ensure that you have enough material to understand the topics. I found that most of the material was curated from online sources which I felt disappointed about as I was expecting to have custom created content from Springboard. Each time you go through or complete a topic, you’ll see your curriculum progress bar climb, which I enjoyed. For the homework assignments, you can seek feedback from peers in your cohort or go through them with mentors for further guidance. Since UI and UX is quite broad, it’s difficult to fit all the details of all topics into the curriculum, so you will encounter some topics to be quite unfulfilling as it only hits the surface level or bare minimum. I wished they would have supplied additional resources for those who are interested in taking a deeper dive into the different topics.
In addition to the regular design material, Springboard also integrated career services throughout to ensure the subject stays top of mind. You are ultimately trying to find a job, so why not start as you are learning early on. I dreaded the career topics so much as I was scared of the job process. But, it held me accountable which I am thankful for as it pushed me to complete these things that set me up for success when having my job interviews.
The 1:1 mentorship program
One of the reasons why I chose Springboard over other design bootcamps was largely due to their 1:1 mentorship program. You are matched with a design mentor who has been working in the industry to guide you along in your journey. You’ll have scheduled 30 minute 1:1 calls every week for you to discuss basically anything you like, whether it is your homework assignments or something you are curious about. I genuinely loved all the mentor calls and took advantage of the full 30 minutes. So, what about outside of those 1:1 calls? Maybe you need a couple more calls to get homework feedback. Well, Springboard offers the ability to schedule time with available mentors so you can meet other mentors on top of your regular one.
Now the negatives of the mentorship program is that you are not able to choose who your mentor is. You can either get a bad one or a good one. I know people who would only have a quick 5–10 minute call with their mentor and others who could message their mentor at any time. It’s really a mixed bag. The good thing is that you can contact a student advisor about your mentor situation and see if you’re able to switch mentors. I do want to say, having a good mentor really makes the Springboard experience worth it.
The industry design project (IDP)
Another reason why I chose Springboard is the industry design project opportunity that you are able to experience near the end of the curriculum. Springboard will match you with a company (mainly startups) to get you working with others in the real world for around 4 weeks. This experience for me was a little stressful. I was initially matched up with a company with a project scope that didn’t quite fit the requirements of the IDP. Which I had to reach out to an advisor and explain the situation. Waited it out and get re-matched essentially to another company. Thankfully, when I got re-matched it worked out really well. Me and another Springboard student basically worked for 40 hours a week collaborating over Skype to finish our project and it was a blast. We would have a couple meetings with their team as well to ensure our work was helping them. Even though we worked for free, it was a project that I’m proud of.
There are quite a few students who had to get re-matched to other opportunities due to various reasons. Some are due to the company and others are due to other Springboard students not investing as much time and effort. I do believe Springboard can do better in who they collaborate with for these projects as the first company I was matched with had 2–3 rounds of students work with them already. The project was basically complete but was in need of “minor tweaks”. Make sure to speak up or look for a project yourself. Having a project that you’ll be proud of and include in your portfolio is important.
The portfolio projects
Over the entire course, you’ll have a total of four projects that you can showcase in your portfolio: two capstone projects, one sprint, and one IDP. At minimum, I believe having two projects on your portfolio is sufficient, so having the choice to see what lives in my portfolio was wonderful. There are some projects (the first) which I did not want seeing the light despite spending the most time on that project. The first project is all about your passion so you basically chose what your project would be about -maybe something you’re really passionate about. While the other projects had more of a brief.
The problem with bootcamp projects is that there are tons of people who will have around the same type of projects making yours a little plain. Your portfolio is all about making you stick out to recruiters, so it becomes a bit of a problem if they’ve been seeing the same thing for every applicant. Despite having the same projects as others, I didn’t find this to be a problem as I tried my best to make my projects feel different. Unfortunately, I do not have my old portfolio to showcase anymore. Here is a couple screenshots of projects I had completed.
The price
Now onto the price. For all those who are not Americans, we suffer from the good old currency exchange rate. Springboard offers different payment plans to make your life a little better. There is an upfront, monthly, deferred tuition (only for US citizens at the time), financing, and scholarships. I took the monthly route as you only have to pay for the months you are enrolled in the course or up to the 9 month mark. If I remember correctly, the upfront plan costed around $12,000–13,000 CAD so I planned to finish the course in 6 months and go for the monthly route. This meant I paid $1,560 CAD per month which was a total of ~$9,360 CAD. Putting things into perspective, my local university tuition is $5,000 CAD a year (third and last year of university). That’s quite expensive.
Conclusion
Springboard was a great choice for me as I’m someone who needs to put money on the line to be committed. Even though it was quite a bit of money, you are able to make it back when you get that UI/UX Design role. By being in cohorts and having Springboard push me to make connections, I have met some wonderful people along the way. And it’s great seeing how everyone’s dream of becoming a designer came to light. We’re all just supporting each other on our design journey. Despite the lows and stressful situations that the IDP caused me, I thoroughly enjoyed the Springboard experience. For those who are interested, here is $750 (i̶t̶ l̶o̶o̶k̶s̶ l̶i̶k̶e̶ i̶t̶’s̶ a̶c̶t̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ $̶1̶5̶0̶0̶ n̶o̶w̶…sadly the deal was only limited) off your first Springboard course, https://www.springboard.com/invite/TOCKE. If you do end up taking Springboard’s UI/UX course, let me know how everything is going, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.
