I was a biomedical research assistant before Springboard, running experiments for a staff scientist. I graduated from UCSD as a biochemistry major before this job. I realized that I didn't have much career growth opportunity in my field as I wasn't pursuing a Ph.D., MD, or any other graduate degrees. As I reflected on what I enjoyed doing within my job, I realized that I really loved to analyze data and make decisions based off of it, so I figured that data science was the way to go.

I decided to learn with Springboard because it was really highly rated on websites like SwitchUp and Course Report, and they were the only ones giving out a job guarantee back when I applied. As I saw what data science and work backgrounds their mentors have, I thought Springboard would be a good experience for someone new like me.

"I think the challenge I faced in the course was mainly juggling life with the bootcamp, as I was still working full-time and had a family emergency in between."

I really enjoyed Springboard, from the mentorship, career counselors, curriculum, and projects. I enjoyed the freedom to pick whatever project I wanted to do and the support I received from my mentors, who helped me find a job even before I finished the program (shout-out to Allison and Alex!). The curriculum was difficult coming from a minimal coding and statistics background, so it took me a bit longer than I expected to finish the program, but it was definitely worth it.

I think my relationship with my mentors were good overall. I had to switch mentors in between, but the transition was pretty smooth, and they were both not only responsive to my questions but also genuinely caring about my progress in learning.

I think the challenge I faced in the course was mainly juggling life with the bootcamp, as I was still working full-time and had a family emergency in between. The staff and mentors at Springboard were super helpful to keep me on track as best they could and to help me finish the course. Otherwise, I think the difficulty in content was expected since I was new. But when I had any questions, it was easy to find help from my mentor or the Springboard community.

One of my capstone projects was a song recommendation system. It first tried to predict if a new song would be a hit song based off of Billboard's top 100 hits and then give you a list of previous top songs that closely align with the new song. Different aspects of the song were taken from Spotify's API to be able to classify the songs into different recommendation sets.

I am currently working remotely as a Python engineer at Rejoiner, using data science to answer different issues posed for email marketing and Django to build their Insights web application extension for clients. I definitely want to continue growing in data science and giving actionable insights to different audiences. I also want to be able to teach data science to different people soon.

For those considering online learning, I would say definitely give it a try if it will help you toward your passion or life goal. It's worth the risk. For current Springboard students, there are plenty of resources through the Springboard community, mentors, or staff, so just reach out and ask if you need any help. Otherwise, you'll make your bootcamp experience harder and less fun than necessary