Ivy Data Science

I was one of the four students in the first onsite intensive AI/deep learning bootcamp from Ivy Data Science (IDS). I know that they have not had any onsite immersive bootcamp since their first in Jan 2017. Therefore any reviews referring to an immersive bootcamp besides us four is dubious.

I can confirm what the other three have stated. This bootcamp was horribly managed. Avoid at all cost!!

A few highlights are:

The start date for this bootcamp kept slipping. They had multiple locations but in the end only the New York bootcamp went through. Keep watching their current start dates for their onsite bootcamp it will slip many times before it/if actually starts.

The lecture portion disappeared after the first week and ended up being self learning.

The curriculum that was promised was also thrown out after the first week.

The whole bootcamp was dumped on to the lab instructor who did his best with no support from the organizers.

Any complaints taken to management about the bootcamp was responded with verbal abuse.

The situation got even worse when we asked for additional time with the lab instructor after the 8 weeks since we had only tackled one data set during the 8 weeks. The founder was especially verbally abusive when this was discussed.

Management has been blocking the lab instructor from teaching the students unless we sign an NDA, which includes a clause to gag us from posting negative reviews.

Management also hasn’t paid the lab instructor fully.

I have yet to be reimbursed for the housing cost that was to be covered by Ivy Data Science.

I was asked to falsify my resume by the founder. I did not comply.

They claim to have a platform for energy, finance, health, and retail, but I have not seen little proof of this. We certainly didn’t have any contact with anyone during the bootcamp that was in charge of these platforms.

If you look at an archive of their website:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160906143323/ivydatascience.com
you will see their proud relationship with Experfy. That relationship no longer exists since they got kicked off Experfy’s platform due to their management of their first bootcamp.

Do due diligence. Contact the people on their website if you can even get a hold of them. Ask them how the first bootcamp went. Half the people on their team probably won’t know what you are talking about since they are just loosely associated with IDS or were not part of the bootcamp.

Also regarding the people that are posted on their website, IDS has had to remove people from their website many times for misrepresenting people as being part of IDS. Even though IDS has been liberal with placing people on their website some core members are not listed such as the CFO and supposed current interim CEO.

In conclusion, stay way from IDS. This organization has what appears to be a serious case of “fake it ’til you make it” attitude. My advice is to choose a program that is well established. It might not be the best for you but you will be saving yourself a lot of pain.

“To be avoided at all costs”

I was one of four persons (a fifth one was a student/instructor) with Desmond and Camilo here below,  that signed up for the first Deep Learning – Artificial intelligence boot camp from Ivy Data Science and I would like to recommend to anyone interested to stay away from this company.

I could provide a very long list of faults and anecdotes about what happened during the 8 weeks of camp, but I will limit myself to the most relevant ones:

• The curriculum is purely fictional and not vetted by anyone. I have learned that what they propose is completely unrealistic for an 8-week camp, especially if none of the students has significant experience in machine learning and software engineering.

• The theory lessons in the morning were suspended after week 1 and the instructor fired. Lessons were replaced by self study on free online resources and books.

• At the end of 8 weeks we had only covered a small fraction of the curriculum advertised. We only  worked with convolutional neural nets.

• I confronted the management multiple times during the 8 weeks and was first promised for proper learning support, then ignored for a few weeks, and then verbally abused at the end of the course when I asked for additional instruction time or a refund to compensate for the lack of organization, structure and professionalism.

• During week 8 all the students demanded  additional instruction and support as it was clear that we were not ready for a job or a large project and the bootcamp has been very lacking on all aspects. Management denied any wrongdoing and tried to deflect responsibilities on students and instructor. During our last meeting, trying to find an agreement, we were confronted with verbal abuse, to the point that one of us had to leave the room.

• Weeks 9 to 12 were supposed to be paid projects and remote work but those never came and we demanded more instruction time to make up for the deficiencies showed by their camp. At this point what was still a sort of civil relationship became really hostile. We demanded support and they responded by asking us to sign non-disclosure agreement and non defamation clause to avoid having us write reviews about what happened. The CEO was especially abusive to anyone questioning the quality of the bootcamp.

The management of Ivy Data Science has no idea about what deep learning and artificial intelligence are and have no clue how to organise a bootcamp or provide an environment that is suitable for learning. I would encourage anyone to stay away from this company. If you don’t you will have to deal with incompetence and abusiveness.

The anonymous reviews on this site are likely fake.

I would rate this camp -5 stars if it were possible.

I was one of the five students in the first cohort. Four of us studied for eight weeks and the fifth was a student/instructor. We are extremely dissatisfied and have asked for refunds.

The bootcamp started two weeks behind schedule. From the beginning, they failed to provide accurate information on what the bootcamp was offering. The curriculum wasn’t correctly built and it was never vetted by a Deep Learning professional. The people who run this “bootcamp” will tell you anything to get you to sign up and will then miserably fail to follow through.

Ivy Data Science represented themselves as a Harvard/Experfy company, promised an impossibly comprehensive curriculum, claimed to have instructors, TAs, and a camp director. Turns out they had none of this in place. They only managed to hire a machine learning expert as the sole afternoon lab instructor a week before the camp finally started on January 30, 2017. A full day of studying turned into less than half a day, and the promised lectures and certification was never provided. They left it up to the students to teach ourselves, something we don’t need to pay $13k for. The facilities were inadequate (a poorly kept co-working space in Brooklyn) and  accommodations never panned out.

We raised our concerns about the lack of resources and reliable instruction from the first week. Instead of listening to the students and taking accountability, “management” barraged us with verbal abuse that made us feel physically threatened.

By week eight, the mismanagement and heavy distraction from dealing with all of this had us about a month behind. They insisted we sign gag orders just to get some additional AWS services for us to finish our studies. They also cheated their instructors out of pay. Past week eight, we were given no instruction, support, or a final capstone project to work on.

JOB SUPPORT WAS NEVER PROVIDED. None of us came out of this with something tangible to show to employers.

Stay away from these people and save yourself the time, money, and stress. There are many other courses out there that are actually set-up by Deep Learning/AI professionals.

If something feels odd here and is making you doubt this, follow your instinct.

I was one of four persons (a fifth one was a student/instructor) that signed up for the first Artificial intelligence bootcamp from Ivy Data Science and I would like to warn anyone interested to stay away from this company.

The bootcamp was completely unorganized, the curriculum was not vetted by any expert, and the lab instructor was actually hired only two weeks before the bootcamp was supposed to start and did not have enough time to prepare for the course. The start date was also delayed multiple times without reason or warning. The original date that the bootcamp was supposed to start was early November. The start date was then pushed back multiple times, and finally started January 30. If they are delaying the start date of this bootcamp, listen to your guts and stay away from this bootcamp and company.

The bootcamp was not organized at all and the curriculum they present on their website is purely fictional. After the first week, the instructor for the theory lessons was fired. For the following weeks, we were left to self-teach and study on the relevant topics amongst ourselves. At the end of week 1, we were all complaining on how the bootcamp was going, and they promised to fix issues and provide appropriate support for our learning, which did not happen. With the help of the lab instructor we tried to make it work and learn as much as possible, but the management never came through with any support for theory, software engineering or DevOps.

During week 7 and 8 we started to battle with the management; weeks 9 to 12 were supposed to be paid projects and remote work but those never materialized and we demanded more instruction time to make up for the deficiencies showed by their bootcamp. At this point, what was still a civil relationship became hostile. We demanded support and they responded by asking us to sign non-disclosure agreements to avoid having us write reviews about what happened. The CEO was especially abusive to anyone questioning the quality of the bootcamp.

This bootcamp was the worst decision of my life, and to this day the rest of the students and I are still struggling to either finish our training or get our money back. This is the bootcamp to go to if you want to waste your time, money, and energy.