Skillsup Lab FAQ
FAQ
The program
During the program, you will be joining our community. Whether you join online or in our Lab, we learn from and with each other. In addition to meeting together, we are also connected online. After you complete your program, you will still have access to the community. This is a great resource for you as you go back to work with your new skills.
Communities are as strong as their members so we have an active participation expectation. As a community, we rise together. If you are someone who prefers to succeed on their own, more traditional tech bootcamps may be a better fit for you.
You begin your program by getting familiar with your hardware. We believe that practical experience is a critical component of the program. From the fourth week of the program, you will start working on real projects. These projects are part of the portfolio that you will build. The scope of projects will vary, to allow you to develop your data and IT skills more deeply. You will also follow courses on Coursera and meet up with the community and your coaches regularly.
Just as data skills give SkillsUP Lab participants more opportunities in the labor market, so do self-confidence and developing your leadership capacity. We believe these are essential Power Skills. In the SkillsUP Lab program, we have specialists in teaching consulting, presenting, and other business necessary skills. There is a minimum of 9 Power Skills days planned. If you join us from outside of The Netherlands, you won’t be able to join our Power Skills track. Instead, we offer extra 1:1 job coaching.
The full Data Science program is 28 weeks. See the timeline for the full schedule of the program. You need to pass each portion of the program with a score of 85% or higher to continue to the next step.
After you have finished your Data Science, Python and Power Skills program with a score of 85% or higher, you will receive your SkillsUP Lab certification. You can start exploring the job market and search for your next career step. If you score 90% or higher, you will be offered an employement contract for up to 1 year. If you do not finish, all your earned certificates are yours to keep. You can continue your study independently. You would not be eligible for a paid job with us.
The community is critical. If personal circumstances require you to stop with the course, we can make arrangements with you to continue with a later program. Once the program starts, we will not accept late entries into the program as it tends to be disruptive to the community that is being built.
Laptop and software will be provided for your use during the program if you join us in the Lab. You are responsible for the care of the laptop. At the end of the program, you will need to turn it in. If something happens to the laptop during the course, like it is lost or stolen, you will be responsble for the replacement cost.
Costs and Payment
The total costs for the six-month track are € 12.093,95 (incl BTW). All participants pay €3188.35 (incl BTW) to start their track. The remainder (€8905.60) of the program costs can be paid by you or your employer.
For unemployed participants, the remainder of the program cost can be paid by your future employer.
You agree that you will be responsible for paying the full cost of the program if your employer/future employer does not. Payment arrangements can be made for all parties – our goal is not to block access to this knowledge because of lack of financial resources.
This is an independent program, without corporate sponsorship. We are making this investment together. We invest our knowledge, skills, platforms, resources and networks to this program to strengthen people’s competencies and workplace retention. You invest your time, energy and share the costs of the program with us through your fee. This enables us to keep the SkillsUP Lab accessible for you and future attendees.
Our goal is to open the doors to learning practical data science to everyone who wants to learn. Our programs contribute to an inclusive data community, every cohort engages with the next one to share knowledge, job opportunities and networks. We also want to keep the cost affordable so that people can learn who might not be able to afford other bootcamps or programs. If the cost to learn technical skills is too expensive for all but a few, then we will not get a more inclusive IT workforce.
Refund requests before the program starts are 100%. After the program starts, refunds are offered at a pro-rated basis on fees paid up until month 2. After month 2, refunds are no longer available. Costs for certificates earned will not be redeemed as they are not transferable.
Every financial situation is different. If you think you might not be able to cover the fees or if you have other payment related questions, feel free to contact us, so we can explore your options.
We are also a recognized provider for schooling and training for UWV clients. Contact us for more information.
After the course
That depends on your experience, your interests and your personal circumstances. If you are seeking new work, we will have someone available to work with you through the program to help you find the right career step for you. The skills you are learning can be applied to any industry – think of your new skills as an additional competency rather than as a job title. This is why we won’t brand you as a “Data Scientist”. You will be a data professional, a person with new data science skills that add to your previous experience and knowledge.
We do not guarantee that we will find you a job. What we will do is partner with you and use our extensive networks to help you find a job. This is a joint effort. You can expect that you will attract a great deal of interest with your new skills. If you score 90% or higher during the program, you will be offered a job for up to 1 year with the company. During your work with us, we will work with you to find a longterm employer for your next step.
Job contracts for up to 1 year are available for those who complete all parts of the program with a 90% or higher score.
During your work with us, you will continue to learn. You will continue to build your presentation and knowledge transfer skills by coaching the next group. You will make steady progress from working on internal products to external customer projects – the goal is for you to move from 10% to 90% during the year. You will work with multidisciplinary teams and get to expand your skillset across multiple IT fields, including data and AI.
All employees receive the same contract terms, including hours and wages so as to ensure fairness. It’s a 24 hour a week contract and starting wage is 12 euro per hour. As you increase in your responsibility, your wages can increase up to 18 euro per hour by the end of your contract.
A job with us represents an average investment of 41, 291 euro per employee. Yes, you read that number correctly! We are independent which means we have to earn every euro that we spend. To make sure that our work can create the most impact for creating inclusive data and AI communities, they go to the most motivated, most community focused and quality oriented participants.