Updated in 2023
- What does Product School do?
- Who is Product School for?
- What does Product School cost?
- Ratings and reviews of Product School
- Alternatives to Product School
- How does Product School compare to Pathrise?
What does Product School do?
Product School is a bootcamp that teaches the skills necessary to become a product manager. Students can attend courses on campus or online. Their campuses are across the US, including in tech hubs like San Francisco, New York City, Austin, and Seattle, as well as other large cities like Denver, Los Angeles, D.C., Boston, and Chicago. There are also campuses in London, Sydney, Singapore, and Sao Paulo.
Students can choose which type of certificate they want to pursue in the program. The Product Management Certificate (PMC) and the Full Stack Product Management Certificate (FPMC) take 40 hours. Alternatively, the Product Leadership Certificate (PLC) takes 20 hours. Students can choose the part-time program, which has class twice a week for 2.5 hours for 2 months or the full-time accelerated program, which is 11am to 8pm for one week.
The courses cover how to build software products, including best practices for product management like scrum, A/B testing, and agile management. Students also get weekly mentorship and career support from the instructors.
Who is Product School for?
Both current and aspiring product managers can benefit from the courses and certificates offered by Product School. They also offer events and corporate trainings, which can be helpful for people with some experience.
What does Product School cost? How much work is involved?
The PMC program costs $3,999, the FPMC program costs $6,999, and the PLC program costs $9,999.
There is not a lot of information about how much work goes into the admissions process beyond the general application.
Ratings and reviews
Most of the Product School reviews are positive. There are a lot of people who have found success with Product School and are now working in PM roles. People found the content to be well organized and structured. They also thought that the addition of the school and projects on their resume helped increase the responses to their applications.
The negative reviews relate to the price tag. It is fairly expensive for just something to add to their resume. A lot of reviewers mention that Coursera and Udemy have cheaper options where you can still learn a lot and add projects to their resume.
Alternatives to Product School
For aspiring product managers and those who are looking to gain certificates,
- 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 like software engineering, data science, UX design, digital marketing, product management, and more. Read more about General Assembly in our review.
- The Menon Labs fellowship helps people learn the skills to get a job in web dev, data, and product management.
- edX is one of the largest online learning platforms. They have courses from top universities like Harvard and MIT as well as big tech companies like Microsoft. Learn more about edX in our review.
- You can check out Udacity and Springboard. These are online educational platforms that students can use to brush up on the basics or advance their current tech skills. Read more about Udacity and Springboard in our reviews.
- Women looking to return to the workforce as product managers can benefit from taking the courses at Product Academia.
- Similarly, Blackblot and Product Innovation Educators have PM courses for beginners and more advanced folk.
- Those looking to advance their product management skills and network with a community of peers can check out membership and classes at Product Gym.
More alternatives
- Similarly, experienced product managers can check out the community and courses at Mind the Product, ProductHood, Product Talk Academy, and Silicon Valley Product Group.
- Alternatively, aspiring product managers can check out Product Faculty, Product Management Studio, Product Hall, and 280 Group. They offer part-time and full-time bootcamps.
- Likewise, aspiring product managers might like One Week PM. Created by Product Manager HQ, both programs teach product management fundamentals and include networking with aspiring and current PMs.
- You can also consider Linky Product, which has self-paced courses and a bootcamp.
- Beginners can check out Dorm to learn the basics.
- Students can also check out Thinkful, One Month, and Knowledge Officer, which have courses in product management, marketing, and more.
- Likewise, School16 teaches marketing, sales, and product management.
- You can also check out Bubble no-code bootcamps to learn how to make products without coding. Learn more about Bubble in our review.
- On the other hand, Coursera and Pluralsight offer options for people who are interested in learning more about product management tools and metrics.
- Students can also consider Udemy. They have a lot of options for people looking to learn more and their courses are typically fairly inexpensive.
How does Product School compare to Pathrise?
Product School is a bootcamp with courses for people who are interested in learning how to become a product manager or people who want to gain a certificate. At Pathrise, job-seekers in our program should already have a background in the field they are interested in so that they can participate in and fully benefit from our technical workshops. These are where we provide a more specific curriculum based on what they will see in their interviews.
All of our workshops and sessions at Pathrise are live, as well as recorded, so that job-seekers in our program can review them afterwards and continue learning. Our program is flexible, with only 2-4 hours of group sessions per week and 1-on-1 sessions that can be scheduled whenever job-seekers need them. In addition, our program is personalized to work on the specific skills that people struggle with the most.
Specifically, Pathrise focuses on technical and behavioral interviewing as well as resume and LinkedIn optimization, portfolio building and strengthening, cold email and reverse recruiting lessons, and negotiation templates and guidance. Job-seekers in Pathrise find a job, on average, within 3-5 months of joining the program. The Pathrise income share agreement (ISA) means that fellows don’t pay anything until they land a job they love and start working.
Pathrise is a career accelerator that works with students and professionals 1-on-1 so they can land their dream job in tech. If you want to work with any of our mentors to get help with your technical and behavioral interviews or with any other aspect of the job search, join Pathrise.
Apply today.
