SPICED Academy

Spiced Academy was the opportunity I was looking for to finally ramp up my knowledge in coding during my sabbatical. I appreciate that there was even an assessment process to begin with, to understand if I was cut out for it and to see through the course finally. The course is demanding and not for the faint of heart to say the least -- there are subjects and projects that require full attention and devotion to be fully mastered and covered, even beyond the scope of the duration of the course itself, which, in my opinion, is a bit condensed, but still, to manage and learn a variety of coding languages just in 12 weeks and be able to build upon your own projects afterwards, seems worthy the effort. The instructors have been incredibly helpful and provided full support throughout the curriculum, which was well paced. Overall, I really gained a better insight and hands-on experience into frontend and backend development and was really satisfied with the process and the outcome in the end. In regards to job assistance, there are several supporting pillars the course offers, along with job interview trainings and cv reviews that certainly provide helpful tools so as to become a proper candidate for entry level developer job positions.

I did the Full-Stack course during lockdown and it was one of my best life decisions since it helped me land a job as a full-stack web developer. Spiced Academy gives you the foundation and tools to start your career in web development. I found it impressive how Spiced changes their curriculum to suit the job market for example, they no longer teach Angular, but React and I saw that they've also included TypeScript as well as JavaScript. The teachers are really enthusiast and we rotated through them, so we had various teaching styles and approaches.

The bootcamp is intense and there was one point where I really close to burnout/giving up. If this happens contact any of the teachers, most of have been through the bootcamp and understand what you're going through. It took time to get used to, but I liked how their was no hand-holding or spoon feeding and you needed to be proactive with asking questions or help.  Since the the bootcamp is only 12 weeks, sometimes it feels like you barely understand one topic before you jump onto the next, but a lot of topics repeat or build up on themselves. The teachers are good at staying on topic, which I think is great at keeping you focused on what's important and because of this they can cover more and you end with a broad set of knowledge that you can keep building on after graduation.
As well as the coding encounters, there were also useful resources on how to change your work identity and CV and I found the talks given by previous students really motivating. The graduation projects are also really inspiring. I would highly recommend this course and also to take the prep work seriously and it's also never too early in the bootcamp to start applying for jobs or internships. 

I joined the 3-month Data Science BootCamp course from May'21 till Aug'21. Coming from an engineering plus finance background, I found the overall difficulty of the course to be medium level. I really liked the fact that all the different areas of data science were covered through the use of very interesting and relevant projects. Another big point is that by the end of the course you will have a portfolio of Data Science projects on Github to show to your future employers.
The teachers were very knowledgeable and helpful and so were the colleagues in my Data Science course. I will absolutely recommend this course to anyone who is willing to pursue a carrier in Data Science or a role that requires knowledge about Data Science. 

I attended the bootcamp at the beginning of the year 2021. Even though it was full remote everything went very well. The instructors were very helpful and were always online if you needed any help. Some were helping you even in their 15 min course breaks! I was very satisfied with the courses and the instructors. 
One flaw that I can say is that the career sessions were taking place between courses and it was really annoying! In the pace of this intensive bootcamp it is completely impossible to focus on other things, especially between courses. Because you are always in a position to catch up with the course material and tasks you have to do and believe me you are always one or two steps behind! So the only thing in your mind was that day's task you need to complete or the course subject you are trying to digest. 
That's why it would have been better if these valuable career sessions would take place after the courses ended or at least in a relatively free time so that the students could have an option to focus on the material with a clear mind. It was just a timing problem. I usually attended these meetings with my code opened in another window...

I attended the bootcamp during lockdown in spring 2020 and I can highly recommend it. With only little to none knowledge of coding/data science I learned so much that I succeeded in finding an internship and a following "real job" as a data engineer afterwards. The bootcamp is super intense and I would recommend it only to people who are really willing to learn and invest a lot of time during these 3 months. The Spiced teachers were super friendly and almost all of them were a good help, also under lockdown conditions. Though a  good sense for self-teaching and initiating group-work is needed. The curriculum is quite well structured, even if there were "reorganisations" from time to time which were a bit confusing. A student's english level should be very good to be able to easily follow along the lessons. Also preparation (there are prep lessons provided) /a little experience before the course regarding python coding and basic statistics is necessary to not drop out in the beginning and have a hard time to catch up I suppose. I would recommend to do some basic python coding next to the prep course as well. All in all a great and  intense course that provides one with a good basic knowledge and understanding of coding/data science which has a lot of potential to be build upon!

This fantastic Data Science Bootcamp is a great opportunity to dive into the world of Data Science and learn many different methods. For twelve different main topics you got the oppertunity to work on our own projects. This course is more than a brief introduction of the topics you really dive into the different fields e.g. Machine Leraning, Software Engineering, Time Series Analysis or Data Piplienes to just name a few. 
The teachers are great and totally interact with the students and not only work off their stuff. They respond to all questions and different interests of the students.
Even after the graduation you get great help through the staff & alumnis.

The Data Science bootcamp at Spiced was very well structured and hands on. The course material covers the broad spectrum of Data Science. And although this is a wide and complex field, the teaching staff managed nicely to deliver the essence of each topic and to lead is through it, without loosing us at any point. And this in only 3 month. Of course in this short time period, in-depth knowledge can't be achieved. But self-assigned graduation projects can be used to dive a bit deeper into a specific area of Data Science.
Overall I'm very satisfied with this bootcamp and grateful for engagement of teachers and staff of SPICED Academy. I definitely learned a lot.

Pros
- each week a new topic and project, which were insightful and most of the time fun
- very engaged teachers and staff
- well structured course and more material for further learning
- career service

Cons
- due to remote learning (at the point necessary due to COVID regulations) the fast-pace learning was pretty intense and challenging

For a long time I was interested in learning Python and a bit curious (albeit sceptical) about data science. It wasn’t until I joined this course that good instruction, curiosity and use-case connectivity collided to really unlock an expressivity that had been trapped within me since adolescence. If this sounds a bit like therapy, then I’d say go with the flow: early on, I found myself genuinely “in my element” and I (actively) decided not to look back. I have a mediocre maths degree from long ago that I never knew what to do with. But this walk through Kristian’s SPICED shop (with Tom, Stefan, Gesa, Paul and an incredibly interesting cohort) immersed me among the half-forgotten but familiar set of ideas (Poisson distribution there; Eigenvector over here) that never became the sensory overload that I might’ve feared. Thanks again to whole SPICED team for having me :)

*** Overall experience ***
It was clear to me early on that I wanted to take a data science course. So I searched thoroughly to find a course that suited me and read many reviews. Not only did I want to learn data analysis and programming in Python, but I also wanted to do this in a short period of time combined with the latest machine learning techniques. The course at SPICED Academy was very demanding, but the quality was worth it, the teacher support for the participants was great and the course structure was logical, stringent and helped me to gain a deep understanding of Data Science in a short period of time. Overall, I can highly recommend the Data Science Course at SPICED. You have to be aware that it will be challenging, especially through many statistical topics, but you can get a lot out of this course as long as you are willing to put in the effort and time.

*** Course structure ***
In each of the 12 weeks, a different topic was dealt with very intensively and a weekly project was developed. There were short sessions on special topics in the mornings and afternoons. The projects were very practical and realistic. At the end of each week, each participant gave a short talk on what they had done or learned or found out during the week. The exchange with the teachers and my fellow students was given at any time, so that questions were answered immediately and no one was left alone on their learning journey. This proved to be particularly important due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as we had to take the course online. However, the teachers ensured that an open, relaxed but focused learning atmosphere was created and maintained.

*** Learning atmosphere ***
All SPICED teachers were eager and passionate about their subjects, which was very motivating. This was especially evident during the final project phase in the last week, when students had to develop a final project of interest on their own. The teachers were just as interested to ensuring that the projects reached their full potential as the students who worked on the projects themselves. Additionally, SPICED provides comprehensive advice on preparing your resume, LinkedIn, GitHub and any other relevant professional portfolio sites. After the course, contact continues so that students have access to possible career opportunities.

We all get that this is NOT a university program, this is a bootcamp where people with previous degree/ or comparative experience should be allowed, it should be clear from the beginning that you won't learn to code in 3 months. 
Unfortunately everybody can get in and the course is even sold as appropriate (the cost is almost 10k) for unexperienced/ starters coders which is very close to a scam......
Once started you jump on a high speed train and there is no support at all/ no time to catch up with your colleagues/ teachers, which turns up to be very demotivating for your learning process. Totally not recommended if you want to learn to code

I was happy that I managed to complete the bootcamp but beware, the methodologies and ways of teaching are not very well adapdted to neophyts. The sooner you start preparing for the course, the better. The freebootcamp pre-training is far from enough.

The pace is extremely fast which doesn't leave time to process and digest information so don't hesitate to get external help if possible.

The number of teachers is not enough for the number of students which can be very frustrating while working on projects.

If you manage to survive until the end, you will be able to create and do nice things with a bit of confidence but the foundation will not be stable and strong.

Bear also in mind that you will only be fed knowledge about coding and not much about what it is to be a web developer.

I just finished the first ever Data Science course at SPICED and I couldn‘t be happier about the whole experience.

The curriculum is great and well thught out. Every week we covered a new topic, which can be summarized like this:  In the first 4 weeks we covered the basics of coding/data science (python/pandas/numpy/scikit-learn/Machine Learning theory), then in the next 4 weeks we focused on deep learning (Tensorflow/Keras) and all kinds of different neural networks, and finally in the last 4 weeks we looked at topics like distributed computing, databases, deploying of python projects and of course worked on our final project.

Kristian, the head teacher, is just amazing. He knows everything about Python and Data Science, and - maybe even more importantly - you can see that he really enjoys teaching. This makes for a very special combination! He is great at explaining difficult topics in a simple manner, so you can pick them up quickly. Also, he is always trying to make the curriculum as interesting for the students as possible. So for example, each week he asked us what areas of that week’s topic are of special interest to us, so he could adjust the topics/material according to our interests. I think he is what makes this data science program really special. In addition, the whole environment (employees/fellow students/equipment/facilities etc) at SPICED is very pleasant and makes for a great learning atmosphere.

All in all, I’m very happy I decided to take this course. I had a great time at SPICED and learned a great deal! I would definately do it again.

After several years as a Customer Success/Account Manager in the B2B SaaS sector, I decided to learn how to program and code. I was first drawn to SPICED because it's located in Berlin, but I ultimately decided to join its Full Stack Web Development program because of its people. 

The entire team at SPICED is determined to help you reach your goals, whatever those might be. Personally, I knew before joining SPICED that I did not want to become a developer. I wanted to complement my business experiences in tech with real life coding knowledge. Additionally, I knew that I wanted to join a company in a hybrid role that combined client relations and product management. I was able to land this job after one month of graduating from SPICED.