The 5 Best Data Science Bootcamps

Data Science is a booming field in today’s marketplace. According to the Economist, the world's most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data. Millions of data science jobs are opening up to accommodate this increasingly data-driven economy. The data science career path is packed with opportunity.

Have we piqued your interest? Want to take the first steps in becoming a data scientist? Thinking about enrolling in a bootcamp, but not sure which to choose? Don’t worry; we've got you covered.

We've done the due diligence for you and compiled a list of some of the greats. Here's our list of the five best data science bootcamps.

Full tuition: $3,950 part-time or $15,950 full-time

Duration: 12 weeks full-time or 10 weeks part-time

Location: Remote classes offered. Campus locations in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York City, Orlando, Phoenix, Raleigh, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Washington D.C.

Walk Away With: Certificate of Completion, Professional portfolio, access to dedicated career services and network

Focus Areas: Data fundamentals, data analysis, statistical modeling, machine learning

Best For: Students with a technical background, such as a degree in CS or Mathematics. Those students who are looking for depth in data science fundamentals in their curriculum.

Success Rate: 91.9% job placement within 180 days

General Assembly is a private education company founded in 2011 that offers full-time and part-time courses in software engineering, user experience design, digital marketing, and data science. Their classes can be taken online or in one of their many campuses located throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, or Australia.

General Assembly's claim to fame is placing more graduates in high-paying tech careers than any other data science program with over 11,000 hires to date. Students who enroll in the GA bootcamp can expect to receive 60 hours of teaching from elite instructors while building a professional data science portfolio using applied machine learning techniques to solve real-world problems. This program doesn't have any prerequisites besides some prior experience in Python and basic statistics, but will still offer up to 25 hours of online preparatory courses for those who may need to get up to speed. This means GA is perfect for those job seekers who don't already have advanced technical degrees, such as an M.S. or Ph.D.

They also offer flexible financing and course schedules, with their part-time courses being designed to fit within the schedule of someone working a full-time job.

See Full Curriculum Here

Full tuition: $17,000

Duration: 12 weeks

Location: Remote classes offered. Campus locations in Chicago, New York City, San Francisco

Walk Away With: Data science certificate, professional portfolio, ongoing career support

Focus Areas: Linear regression, machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, big data analysis, supervised and unsupervised learning

Best For: Those students who want breadth in their data science curriculum with exposure to many topics in data science

Metis is a 12-week accredited data science bootcamp that offers a thorough and sweeping data education, with its curriculum including topics in linear regression, machine learning, natural language processing, and big data. While Metis only has campuses in Chicago, San Francisco, and New York City, like General Assembly, it offers a Live Online option for remote students. However, Metis is a much more extensive program and, therefore, doesn't offer the same level of flexibility in its scheduling that General Assembly does.

However, with 400 hours of instruction on the curriculum, Metis students will receive a much deeper data education than they would at General Assembly. They would also receive personalized career support throughout the bootcamp, with career workshops, company visits, and mock interviews being offered to their students. Metis graduates can expect to complete the program with a professional certificate and the following five projects for their professional data science portfolio: exploratory data analysis, regression & web scraping, classification & interactive dashboards, natural language processing & unsupervised learning, and a passion project of their choice.

See Full Curriculum Here.

Full tuition: $19/month or $190/year

Duration: Completely self-paced

Location: All courses offered remotely

Walk Away With: 20+ Github projects for professional portfolio, access to webinars and workshops, access to RMOTR community

Focus Areas: Python, NumPy, Pandas, data analysis, machine learning

Best For: Students who need the maximum flexibility in their data science education, those who want completely self-paced, remote data science courses. Those students who may still be beginners in data science topics

RMOTR by INE is a fully remote data science education platform that offers numerous online courses in Python programming, Pandas, NumPy, and more. Unlike the other bootcamps on our list, RMOTR doesn't currently have any on-campus learning options. Instead, their program is completely self-paced, with 200+ programming assignments in Python, data analysis, and machine learning, 20+ Github projects, and over 100 hours of video lectures designed by data science experts. This means RMOTR is perfect for those students who need the most flexibility in their education possible but comes at the expense of any of the benefits of on-campus learning.

While RMOTR offers its enrollees online career-based webinars and workshops, it can't offer the same level of personalized mentorship that the other bootcamps do. But this also means that the full RMOTR program is significantly cheaper than most other data science programs out there. In the end, RMOTR may be best for those seeking to dip their toes into the discipline for the first time or attempting to improve their data science skills, rather than accelerating their career in the field in the fastest amount of time possible.

Full List of Courses Here.

Full tuition: N/A, Needs-based scholarships available

Duration: 7 weeks

Location: Remote program available, campuses located in Silicon Valley, New York City,Boston, Seattle, Toronto, and Los Angeles

Walk Away With: Large scale portfolio project, company visits, interviews from top tech companies

Focus Areas: Real-world data science project meant to showcase leading industry skills

Best For: Postdoctoral students seeking to make the jump from academia to industry

Success Rate: Nearly all Insight Fellows receive job offers 5-8 weeks after completion of the program

The bootcamp provided by Insight Data Science is a 7-week postdoctoral fellowship for those aspiring data scientists who just completed their Ph.D. programs. As such, this bootcamp is the most advanced on our list with the highest prerequisites. A technical doctorate degree is necessary to apply. However, there is no tuition fee associated with the program, and enrollees may apply for scholarships to cover their cost-of-living or relocation expenses.

The Insight Data Science program is a full-time 7-week program with program offerings in artificial intelligence, data engineering, data science, decentralized consensus, DevOps engineering, health data science, and security. The first 4 weeks of the program are spent developing a data science project that is meant to demonstrate your skills in a way that companies can understand. The last 2 weeks are spent interviewing with some of the 700 tops companies that are partnered with their program.

See Full Curriculum Here.

Full tuition: $20,000 full-time, $8,970 part-time (nothing paid until hired in a data science role)

Duration: 5 months full-time, 6 months part-time

Location: Los Angeles, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Miami, Orlando, Raleigh, Tampa, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C.

Walk Away With: Certificate of completion, professional portfolio, access to mentors, career coaches, and community network

Focus Areas: Data analysis, machine learning, supervised and unsupervised learning, natural language processing, big data, deep learning

Best For: Those students who want an emphasis on building a job-winning portfolio and an education with both breadth and depth in the data science curriculum.

Success Rate: 84% Employed in-field within 180 days of graduation.

The last bootcamp on our list is the data science program offered by Thinkful. While the full tuition of their full-time five-month bootcamp costs $20,000, they allow their students the option of not paying anything until they get hired in a data science position. This program may be perfect for those who may hesitate to jump into a data science bootcamp because of the high cost. In this way, enrolling in Thinkful won't cost a student anything until it pays off.

Thinkful's data science program offers an immersive five-month full-time program or a part-time six-month program in dozens of locations throughout the U.S. Like most of the bootcamps on our list, students can expect one-on-one membership and data science portfolio projects that they can use for their professional portfolios. Students will also work side by side throughout the program and work on their projects together. Thinkful boasts that 77% of their graduates find jobs in the field within 6 months, and earn an average of $73,000 a year.

Each of these bootcamps are great options for those looking to jump into data science. However, each one is a little different. Depending on who you are/how much experience you have, some may be a better fit than the others.

To recap:

If you’re only starting to dip your toes into the data science world, then RMOTR may be the best pick for you. Not only is it the cheapest, but it’s the most flexible, too. It's the perfect option for beginners or those looking to touch up their data skills.

If you have some prior data experience, General Assembly, Metis, or Thinkful are probably the best choices. Each is similarly priced, but differs slightly in their curriculum. General Assembly and Metis are both 12-week programs, with General Assembly offering more depth in data science fundamentals, while Metis offers more breadth by covering many topics in data science. If you don't want to choose between them, however, Thinkful is the bootcamp for you, as it's 5-6 month program can provide both a thorough and sweeping data science education.

Which leaves Insight Data Science for the most advanced students. This program is only available to those with doctorate degrees seeking data science roles at the highest level. Insight is designed especially for those looking to jump from academia to industry, and is one of the most advanced data science bootcamps available today.

We're currently living in the golden age of data science. There’s currently dozens of bootcamps to choose from to develop the necessary data science education. If you're one of the many aspiring data scientists, hopefully, you found our list helpful in deciding which bootcamp is best for you.

If you're looking to boost your data science interview skills after you graduate from bootcamp, check out Exponent's Data Science Interview course below!