Metis - CLOSED

Prior to enrolling in Metis I was a PhD candidate in a subject matter that is generally not seen as related to data science. While I was confident in my statistics background I had only coded sparingly and was completely new to machine learning concepts.... Read More On a whim I decided it was time to leave academia and stumbled upon data science as a career option. After debating whether or not to enroll in a bootcamp or teach myself the curriciulum I quickly found Metis and decided to apply, was accepted, and enrolled soon thereafter.

Having received a PhD I was no stranger to learning and was happy to discover that the Metis program design and curriculum was exactly what I was looking for. It was the perfect combination of fun, knowledge, and rigor. Given that the course is only 12 weeks the pace can be relatively quick at times; that said, I felt confident in the material I was learning and truly engaged in the projects I was delivering. At times I felt stressed, afraid, and overwhelmed that the work I was doing wasn't up to par but was continually validated and supported by my classmates, instructors, program manager, and career staff. And for my final project I was able to create an app that combined my PhD expertise with data science and was elated to find merging the two fields was a relatively easy task.

Within about a month after I completed the bootcamp, with the help of the career team, I had multiple job interviews under my belt and received a job offer as a Senior Data Scientist. I can't say enough good things about the careers staff both on site and around the country. In my experience, they were constantly on my side on my job hunt, during negotiations, and even after I accepted the offer.

Without a doubt I am confident that Metis was the right choice for me. While I'm certain I could teach myself to code and some overarching machine learning concepts, I found the classroom experience to be invaluable for me. The opportunity to engage with peers, ask questions, and of course the career support could not be self-taught. If you're on the fence about whether or not Metis is the right choice for you I strongly suggest that you take the leap!

Before: Psychology major with eclectic work experience for the six years since I'd graduated. Decided I didn't have enough concrete skills/experience to land a job that would be challenging and interesting enough, and I didn't trust myself to learn on... Read More my own. Decided on a bootcamp because of the structure and network it would provide, and considered data science because it seemed more niche than coding.

Application: I wasn't set on attending Metis, but when the application was harder than I expected, I was determined to get in. With virtually zero coding experience, I had to learn everything on the spot, and honestly that application was the most empowering weekend of my life. And I got in. Whoo!

Prework: I worked right up until the bootcamp started, so it was challenging to finish up there while completing the prework (I enrolled three weeks before the start date). However, the application plus the prework meant that I was prepared for the bootcamp. Would have been really hard to do the bootcamp without the prework.

Bootcamp: Full-time for three months. My boyfriend was annoyed that I was always working on projects, and I probably would have done better on my projects if I'd been single, but alas. Classmates were very supportive (I didn't experience any competitiveness between people). My cohort was unusually small (19 people), which was nice, and the small size of Metis overall meant it felt very personal, but the WeWork environment provided more people to chat with, ping pong, and coffee. Class material was great, and A LOT. Every day we "learned" something that I could have spent at least a week playing around with. There's really too much to learn, and the hardest part of the bootcamp was figuring out how to prioritize between projects, challenges, reviewing lectures, doing the extra readings, and experimenting on my own. The projects were challenging but essential for learning and also provided good presentation experience. Although both of my instructors were very knowledgeable and eager to help, the quality of instruction varied; I think Metis needs to spend more time preparing instructors (because intelligent people don't always teach well, especially not on such a wide variety of tools). Daily pair coding was awesome for the learning and the social aspect, and occasional cohort+staff activities were nice too. Definitely not an easy program! But like most things, you get what you put in, and of course YMMV.

Career support: Awesome career support throughout the bootcamp and beyond. Headshots, resume help, mock technical and non-technical interviews, speakers from the field, etc. Luckily I got a job pretty quickly and didn't need that much help after the bootcamp, because I think supporting the current cohort and the one that just graduated is too much for one person and she was sometimes hard to connect with once the new cohort started.

Job: I got a job! It's a data/backend engineer for an advertising/marketing agency. I don't use any data science per se, but I LOVE my job and I definitely could not have gotten it without the coding I learned at Metis and the opportunity of Metis Career Day, where I met my current manager.

Feel free to call/text me to hear more! 917-583-5942

I came into the data science field with my previous job as a scientist in the pharmaceutical industry. Lacking knowledge of the data science field, I started off with the" Introduction to Data Science" course, which I thought was a great primer to the... Read More topics of the field. By taking the course, I was able to have a top-down overview of the field, which gave me the confidence to deepen my understanding by enrolling in the 12-week bootcamp.

I had really enjoyed the admission manager's straightforward talk with me about the potential career opportunities and the job market for data science. One of the reasons why I had chosen this program was because he was frank and honest about career prospects. At no point did I feel any pressure to enroll.

The curriculum was pretty intense, and it was a whirlwind tour from start to finish. Even for me, as a person who had written a dissertation, I actually felt like this bootcamp was even more stressful given the time-limit in which many assignments had to be accomplished. So be warned, this bootcamp is not for those who simply envision themselves paying the tuition, listen to a few lectures, and expect to become a well-paid data scientist by the end of it. How much you get out of this program is proportional to how much effort you put in. Even working during all of my waking hours was not enough to complete/learn every single assignment/topic.

For other bootcamps, I had noticed one of the major complaints was "lack of career support". However, Metis is a different story. The career counselor is wonderful and had provided me with career advice that I had not heard elsewhere. It was good hearing how job searching is supposed to be done. The selection of the two instructors was also brilliant in that they had specializations in skill sets that complemented each other. It was good to receive instruction from extremely knowledgeable instructors.

I'm not going to go over the topics covered, because the syllabus can be found on the website and have also been covered in earlier reviews. In summary, I am VERY pleased with my experience here, and it's wonderful being surrounded by intelligent, friendly, and passionate people. Keep it up, Metis!

Metis is an absolute gem. The bootcamp was an amazing experience and extremely worthwhile. I felt like I got more out of it than any other educational program I've been in.

What made Metis stand out for me was the support that students received at every... Read More step of the way. From the coursework, to the projects, to career help- Metis truly has every student's back. It feels amazing to know that you have someone to turn to who will actually help (or try very hard even if they don't know how). The focus on employability is also very refreshing. It seemed at times that Metis was more urgently trying to get us employed than we were- which I loved! Like a pushing parent- it was what we all needed.

My thoughts in summary: the coursework leaves your thoroughly prepared for a position in data science, the speakers introduce you to an amazing array of applications and directions to head in after the course, and the career help is extremely thorough and personal.

Before attending Metis, I was a postdoctoral researcher in chemistry who was not feeling academic research anymore. I took some online classes in data science and thought it seemed like a cool and interesting field, but online courses can only take you... Read More so far. Also, I lacked enough connections to actual data scientists to really get a job in the field. I got into and applied to several different boot camps to help me bridge this gap, but I really appreciated that Metis did not try to oversell me on my prospects afterwards. Some of the other boot camps could really learn from this no nonsense approach.

Metis helped me bridge that gap between academia and the tech industry through both the data science cirriculum and career workshops. The cirriculum starts out much more lecture focused, but quickly turns to applying that knowledge to actual projects. Lectures include both descriptions of the math behind various algorithms and programming demonstrations showing practical programming/computing skills like web scraping, SQL, and using AWS. Career-wise, weekly workshops helped you to get started on improving your resume, LinkedIn profile, and networking strategies. I felt it was extremely focused and helpful, if a bit intense! (they don't call it a boot camp for no reason.)

By the end of the program, you have a portfolio of projects covering the major areas of data science (Supervised Learning: regression and classification, Unsupervised Learning/Natural Language Processing) and your final passion project. These let you start networking with other data scientists in the field and give you something to talk about!

The other people in my cohort were also wonderful. It was a pleasure to interact with people of such diverse professional and personal backgrounds. I felt like I not only met a bunch of professional contacts but also some great new friends.

The boot camp just ended last week, but I have met so many new contacts that I don't think it will be too long to find the right position. The boot camp also offers indefnite career support and lets you return to the office as much as you need. Even a lot of the alumni who already found jobs come back on a regular basis and offer career/interview advice if you ask.

The only thing I think could be better about the curriculum is that there could have been more feedback about projects/challenges. It seemed like it came a bit late or inconsistently. Also, we went over the basics of Big Data tools like Hadoop/Spark, but it felt a little out of place since we never used it.

The one last thing I would add is that this is called a boot camp for a reason. Be sure that you are mentally and emotionally prepared, because while it was a wonderful experience, it was a very intense one. I'm glad that my cohort was such an amazing, positive, and passionate group of people to help me (and everyone else) get through this experience. You will get a lot out of this experience, but you still have to put something in.

I loved Metis. For the past few years, I had been transitioning to build more technical skills around math and programming. Between taking free online courses and getting small bits of information/help from friends, I didn't get too far. It's certainly... Read More difficult to transition to a more technical career. However, Metis absolutely helped me build a lot of new skills that are exactly what data scientists use on the job. We learned about applied lots of new skills/knowledge in several projects around: databases, querying data from a database, web scraping, data cleaning, data analysis, data visualizations and predictive modeling.

Pros:
- Learn the actual tools and knowledge utilized directly in data science jobs
- You learn mainly by doing projects with real-world data, rather than simply sitting in lecture all day or taking exams (like traditional universities)
- Instructors had years of industry data science experience and were extremely knowledgeable across all the topics covered
- You have a fun and helpful community of peers working alongside you. This pro is extremely understated/undervalued. If you need help, of course you can ask an instructor or TA, but you get a lot of value about talking data science concepts with peers, receiving and providing help, and building friendships with people along the way.
- Incredible team of helpful staff at Metis from admissions, program management and career support
- The Career Advisor is super helpful. He provides tons of great advice on how to brand yourself: resume, blog, LinkedIn. And he's helpful in finding companies hiring, interview recommendations and connecting students with Metis alumni who work at companies.
- You'll be forever part of a great community of hundreds of Metis data scientists across the U.S. that you can keep in touch with over Slack and at events
- Flexibility to work on any project topics of your choice
- Access to the Metis workspace so you can work from there even as an alumni

Cons:
- There were a couple of hours of lectures each day. And lectures generally aren't a one-size fits all for students. Students often have different backgrounds in math, programming, real-world knowledge and so some lectures may seem easy, and others may be difficult to understand (and you'll hopefully later grasp the concept through utilizing it in a project). In an ideal Metis world, lectures/learning would be even more personalized to cater to people's learning needs.

It was worth every penny. Feel free to email me if you have any additional questions on the program: daniel@dfrieds.com

I recently finished the Metis Introduction to Data Science class in NYC and I have nothing but good things to say about it. I have been interested in Data Science for a while so I decided to go to a Metis meetup where they went over the curriculum of... Read More the class. I found it very interesting but what sold me was the teacher, Sergey Folgelson. He is an excellent and energetic teacher.

The class is intense and moves quickly. At the time of this review it runs every Tuesday and Thursday from 6:30pm to 9:30pm. You may be tired after a long day of work but Sergey will wake you up. There will be exercises thrown in at different portions of the lecture. You will learn a lot if you put in the work. I found that reviewing the notebooks after class on my own and completing the exercises really helped me retain the information. If you expect to just go to class and not do any homework then you might not get much out of it. As with most things you learn by doing.

For me it was a perfect introduction to the field and just made me want to learn more. I loved it so much I applied to the 3 month intensive.If you work with data and are curious about what all the fuss is about Data Science then I cannot recommend this class enough. Best investment I have made in a long time.

I finished the Data Science Bootcamp in April of 2017 and it was a great experience! Making a career change is difficult and Metis did an excellent job of preparing me to enter the field. The technical skills and network I built have been invaluable and... Read More certainly worth the time and effort the program demands.

If you're interested in reading a more in-depth review, check out my blog post: http://agdatascience.squarespace.com/blog/metis-review

I completed the Metis Data Science Bootcamp in SF. There are a lot of skills taught at Metis, but my main take way skills were python programming, building machine learning models, and using AWS (EC2, S3). Post bootcamp career help (mainly via slack)... Read More was extremely useful. After job hunting for 6 grueling months, I was able to land a job as a Data Scientist at Roche. I still talk to Metis alumni via slack to ask questions and/or answer questions. I definitely recommend checking Metis out!

I just graduated from Metis on April 7, 2017. Today is April 12th and I have already had a total of 5 interviews with 3 different companies - I have 3 more interviews with 3 more companies scheduled in the next two days. If it sounds too good to be true,... Read More you might be right. There was a lot of hard work getting to this point. But there is no doubt in my mind that I couldn't have gotten here without the help of everyone at Metis. Let me break down the what I think are the most important reasons to attend Metis:

What you will learn
Data science is massive. Machine learning is massive. You will actually spend most of your 12 weeks learning about how little you actually know. It's not until the last few weeks that you're able to look back and realize how much you learned. More importantly, you will know the things that you haven't learned yet. Metis sets you up to continue learning and growing for years to come. Before I attended Metis, I had an inkling of what Machine Learning is. Now, I am a full blown addict and couldn't be happier. I didn't even know 100% that it was "what I wanted to do", but now I can't imagine it being any other way.

Who will instruct you
First off, Metis hires kick ass Senior Data Scientists to be your instructors. Every single one of them has an amazing background and a ton to offer you. The diversity of their team is really astounding and the domain expertise that instructors have, whether its from consulting, nuclear physics, banking, etc, all weaves its way into data science. My instructors really showed me what a wide open playing field Data Science is. Now that I've graduated, I couldn't be happier to have great mentors, contacts, and friends.

Who you will be in the trenches with
Everyone who is accepted to Metis is up to snuff. Your first week will inevitably be trying to gauge where you are at with other students and battling Impostor Sydrome, but the bottom line is that everyone there is there because they chose to do something different. I don't want to overtalk it, but attending Metis is a life-altering decision and you will always share that special bond with the people in your cohort. Not only will you spend hours and hours and hours together working on challenges and projects, but on a deeper level you know you all wanted something different and better for yourselves. That's a solid bedrock to build lasting relationships.

So what did I leave out? Amazing career workshops, guest data scientist speakers almost every week, building a rock star portfolio of real-world problems, networking events, career day, food and drinks (sometimes but not always), and on and on and on. I didn't want to focus on the career aspect because honestly, if you do the work, if you attend the workshops, if you listen to your career advisor (shout out to Ashley!!), it will happen for you. Are there any downsides? Yes. Did I mention that there is a lot of hard work involved? Metis is a full-time commitment. And when I say that, I mean it. You will eat, sleep, and breath data science. You will bleed algorithms and you will sweat data and you will love it.