Hi, I’m Elle! I work as a product designer at Getaround and as an industry mentor here at Pathrise. I help our fellows land great jobs in product design through technical workshops and 1-on-1s. Check out my article where I compare Springboard vs Bloc.
- Similarities and differences between Springboard vs Bloc
- Topics offered on Springboard vs Bloc
- Prices for Springboard vs Bloc
- Ratings and reviews of Springboard vs Bloc
- Alternatives to Springboard vs Bloc
- How do Springboard and Bloc compare to Pathrise?
Similarities and differences between Springboard and Bloc
Springboard and Bloc both offer courses in web design. Bloc also covers web development while Springboard covers software engineering and many other subjects.
Similarities
- Both programs are remote and self-paced.
- Students have weekly 1-on-1 sessions with mentors.
- The programs offered by Springboard and Bloc are hands-on so students build polished projects for their portfolios.
- Students who graduate from Springboard and Bloc both receive certificates that they can add to their resumes and LinkedIn portfolios.
- Springboard and Bloc both have a 6-month job guarantee.
Differences
- Bloc only offers programs in web development and UX design. Springboard offers courses in a wider variety of tech topics like data science, UX/UI, machine learning, and software engineering.
- Bloc can be more intensive, with students working 15-20+ hours per week for 4-8 months. If you enroll in a Springboard career track, you should only expect to work 10-20 hours per week for 6 months.
- Springboard offers lower-cost introductory courses.
- Bloc has a 100% acceptance rate. Springboard requires interviews and placement tests.
- Springboard offers more comprehensive mentoring, with a technical mentor, an advisor, and a career coach who work 1-on-1 with students
Topics offered by Springboard and Bloc
Bloc offers courses that cover the following topics:
- Web design
- Web development
Springboard teaches design too (both UX and UI), but they have a wider variety of course topics, including:
- Data science
- Machine learning
- Data analytics
- Data engineering
- Software engineering
Prices for Springboard and Bloc
Springboard’s short individual data science and software engineering prep courses cost $490 and last about 4-6 weeks. The full career track programs last much longer, usually 6-9 months with 15-20 hours of work per week. Career tracks cost $5,900-$8,500, but come with a $490 tuition credit. Students can pay monthly or upfront, which gives them a 16% discount. Climb Credit loans are also available.
Tuition for Bloc’s web design track is $9,500 while their web dev track is $8,500. Students can pay through monthly payments, Skills Fund loans, or upfront for a $1,000 discount. Most people can finish the program in 8 months working 15-25 hours per week. Students who don’t finish in under 8 months must pay an additional $1,200 per month for an extension. Scholarships are also available for women, veterans, and people from communities underrepresented in tech.
Ratings and reviews of Springboard and Bloc
Online reviews of Springboard are generally positive. They hold a 4.6/5 star rating on Course Report, where grads praise the 1-on-1 technical mentoring and hands-on projects. However, some had mixed feelings about the career coaching and the collaborative curriculum. One grad felt “the curriculum is good” but warned people to “be aware it is 90% curated from other sources.”
Their career tracks are also rated 4.5/5 stars on Switchup, where grads described the courses as “intensive” with lots of 1-on-1 support. One students raved about the “good support team from mentors, career coaches, and admin team” but was frustrated by the “lack of collaboration with fellow students.” Grads on Reddit were also impressed with the weekly 1-on-1 mentoring sessions, the hands-on learning style, and the curriculum that made sure students graduate with “at least two projects in your portfolio.”
Similarly, seviews for Bloc are mostly positive. They were rated the best bootcamp of 2021 on Switchup, where their courses hold a 4.72/5 star rating. While they’re also rated 4.62/5 stars on Course Report, some grads were disappointed by the limited mentoring opportunities and staff changes. In addition, some students felt they didn’t have enough time to complete the program in 8 months and needed to pay extra tuition for an extension. Others were frustrated that the curriculum did not cover concepts with as much depth as they hoped, sometimes having to supplement the technical curriculum with free online learning platforms Codecademy. On the whole though, most grads were satisfied with the hands-on technical training and new skills they gained from the program.
Alternatives to Springboard and Bloc
If you decide not to enroll in Springboard or Bloc, you might want to look into one of the alternative resources and bootcamps below instead:
- Aspiring web designers and software engineers can check out Kenzie Academy, a full-time tech bootcamp that offers in-person and online courses. Like Springboard and Bloc, their bootcamp includes mentoring and opportunities for portfolio building. Learn more about Kenzie Academy in our review.
- The huge online learning platform Udacity hosts both free and paid courses on dozens of tech topics, including web design and web development. They collaborate with top tech companies like IBM and Google on the curricula. Students in their nanodegree programs get 1-on-1 mentoring with both a career coach and a technical mentor, similar to Springboard’s career tracks. Find out if Udacity is right for your goals in our review.
- If you’re seeking an online product design bootcamp with both self-guided and instructor-led options, check out DesignerUp. Read about DesignerUp in our program review.
- Similarly, Designlab is an online bootcamp that teaches people the necessary skills to land a job as an entry level UX designer. See if Designlab matches your goals in our review.
- One of the most well known bootcamps is General Assembly. They offer full-time, part-time, and 1-day courses on a variety of topics, including UX design, software engineering, and more. Learn more about General Assembly in our review.
- BrainStation, Perpetual Education, and GW Bootcamps have tracks in web development, UX design, data science, marketing, and product management. Like Bloc and Springboard’s career tracks, BrainStation features project-based learning and 1-on-1 feedback.
- People who are interested in UX design, sales, or business development can check out GrowthX Academy. Like both Bloc and Springboard’s UX career track, their program includes 1-on-1 mentoring with hands-on assignments.
More alternatives
- Some popular software engineering bootcamps include Rithm School, Hack Reactor, Codesmith, DevPoint Labs, and The Software Guild. While these programs may be more intensive than Springboard’s software engineering career track, students learn software skills very quickly.
- You can also check out Boise CodeWorks, which is a full-time, in-person coding bootcamp.
- Similarly, the massive online learning platform Udemy hosts 100k+ courses on both tech and humanities topics. Their courses are self-paced and mostly consist of video lectures, with a much wider selection of course topics than even Springboard.
- For students seeking self-paced courses on a budget, Simplilearn, Treehouse, and Pluralsight could be worth pursuing. While they may not have the same level of support as Bloc or Springboard’s career tracks, these online programs host hundreds of tech courses to help people launch tech careers.
- Another affordable option, Codecademy is a very popular resource that teaches students dozens of programming languages. Their program is also hands-on, with lots of assignments and projects. Courses are free, though there is a $20-$40 a month membership option for increased course options and support. Learn more about Codecademy in our review.
- The massive online learning platform edX hosts university courses from top schools like Harvard as well as big tech companies like Microsoft. They cover a variety of tech topics, including web development and web design. Learn more about edX in our review.
- Similarly, Coursera is an online learning platform with thousands of online courses on tech topics like web development, UX design, software engineering, data science, and more. Their courses are taught by professors from accredited universities with hands-on assignments, recorded video lectures, and even community discussions.
How do Springboard and Bloc compare to Pathrise?
Springboard and Bloc offer courses that teach people the skills they need to launch a career in tech. While both programs offer online and self-paced courses in web design, Bloc also teaches web development while Springboard covers a much wider range of courses like data science, software engineering, data analytics, machine learning, data engineering, and more.
Pathrise is a full service organization that helps with all phases of the job search. Fellows in our program work 1-on-1 with mentors on their resume, LinkedIn, and portfolio optimization, reverse recruiting and cold emailing, behavioral and technical interview prep, salary negotiation, and much more. Our experienced mentors have already helped 700+ people land great tech jobs.
Pathrise optimizes the job search through 1-on-1 mentoring and technical training. While Springboard and Bloc students usually start with no experience, fellows in our program should have some background in their chosen field so that they can fully benefit from our technical curriculum. We have tracks in software engineering, product design, data science, digital marketing, sales, product management, strategy, and ops. The Pathrise income share agreement (ISA) means that fellows don’t pay anything until they land a job they love and start working. We never require any upfront payments.
Pathrise is a career accelerator that helps people land their dream job in tech. With our tips and guidance, fellows have seen their interview scores double and their application responses triple. If you would like to work with any of our mentors to land your dream tech job faster, join Pathrise.
Apply today.
