My experience at Platform By Perscholas

Hello,

My name is REDACTED. I won’t disclose my name. I was a part of one of the Data Engineer cohorts at Platform By Per Scholas and the goal of this post is to provide some information on the training. To start off, it is around 12 weeks, across the span of 3 or so months. My cohort was focused on teaching Data Engineering and I gained a wealth of knowledge. I will divide this into sections: Linux (Week 1), SQL (Week 2), Java (Week 3–7) and the rest was on Hadoop and its ecosystem.

The Application Process

The application process was simple. You answer a few logic and reason questions and some questions about yourself. Shouldn’t take more than 25–30 minutes.

The Facility

I would say that Platform has a nice facility. There is a kitchen area stocked with coffee, tea and hot chocolate. A nice area to take a break.

The actual training

I have mixed reviews about the training and I will not hold back on the pros and cons.

Week 1 (Linux)

Linux week was by far one of the best weeks in this training program. The instructor was pretty good. He had a great sense of humor, ran the class in a strict fashion and deliver all the material clearly and concisely. The lectures flew by because he kept the class interested and interacted with us. For this week, we worked on a mini project involving automating a bunch of tasks using bash scripts. This week gave me hope that the following weeks will be just as good if not, better.

Week 2 (SQL)

SQL was an average week at best. I have no doubt that the instructor is knowledgeable on the subject but he just didn’t deliver it very well. His lectures felt like those dreadful monotonous biology lectures in university. Most of the class was blindly copying the code he had on the screen instead of understanding it. I don’t think that is effective at all. This instructor was extremely picky when it came to the assignment. Nothing special here.

Week 3–6 (Java)

I enjoyed Java mainly because of how much the instructor cared about his class. I appreciated that more than anything. His slight accent didn’t stop me from learning as he also delivered material fairly well just like the instructor from Linux week. The project he gave was very reasonable and we had more than enough time to complete it. I felt that the exams were a bit unfair as they had debatable answers and the spelling was horrendous. Not his fault as the exams were supposedly written by someone else I will not name.

Week 7–13 (Big Data)

I would say there are mixed reviews for this last leg of the training. The instructor can be compared to a really bad adjunct at a average university at best. We had a bunch of exercises to practice the different tools but they were all taken from a Udemy course. If I wanted to do those, I would have just stayed home or at a cafe. The lectures did not provide anything useful. I had more help from my fellow classmates than what this instructor had to offer. His help was mediocre, as he would show noticeable frustration. Throughout instruction, the coaching sessions were considered to be a relief, rather than a waste of time.

Coaching Sessions (in classroom)

Although I appreciate the effort by the career coach, I didn’t find the sessions helpful at all. It was nothing but a waste of time. Career coach lessons should be short, to the point and catered towards the partnered company. The sessions that we had didn’t offer an tips or advice we didn’t already know through common sense or a 10 second Google search. A majority of the class dreaded the sessions as it took time away from us working on our case study. Sessions consisted of PDFs, which is a horrible way of teaching something that should be done face to face (in groups etc).

Final Thoughts

In the end, my experience at Platform was quite good, despite the cons that I have pointed out. I was given the Platform and knowledge I needed to apply to other jobs in the market. The best part? This was all free. So, if you can maintain your own, and make the best out of the training, this opportunity is invaluable.

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