I have cross-posted this thread on the twoplustwo for actuaries here -http://www.actuarialoutpost.com/actuarial_discussion_forum/showthread.php?t=276134
Theres quite a bit more goodies in there. I am officially finished with Zipfian and am now in full study mode right now. This includes completing projects for potential employers, studying old material, learning new material, adding on to my personal projects, studying quirky interview questions and connecting to people in the know.
I've been successful at getting interviews and equally successful at getting rejected. I think I've had at least a phone screening with 9 different companies and have been rejected by 6 of them. I actually just got back from an on-site interview with a company that would not be my top choice and they don't do much data science but there is some time-series which is a step up from my las t job as an analyst. I'd also be shocked if they did not offer me the position so hopefully I can get something on the scoreboard by next week. Data science interviews are not easy and there is an incredible amount of material that needs to be held in memory so it will take loads of studying to solidify it all. Apparently, the average number of companies it takes a Zipfian graduate to interview with to find work is 20. I was feeling extreme rage upon my rejections as its no fun to get denied but I really am not prepared at the level I want to be so the rejections are pretty justified.
I was very skeptical of Zipfian gradutes being able to be placed before attending but not anymore. At least not for me. Another student got quite a nice paying job at a startup with some equity before we graduated. That was very comforting to see. I think just about all of us are getting good leads on interviews so the demand is there.
My final project was on event detection in online news articles and can be found here -
www.newventify.com. I also made some upgrades to my poker AI thanks to bootstrap (
www.gametheoryoptimalpoker.com). So I've got 2 decent portfolio projects for employers to see.
Somnius, I can't really help you out much with the given info but for me, I took as many data science (and a few programming) moocs as I could swallow. Its probably a good idea to spend some time building out a curriculum on paper. This will save you time from randomly going to the candy store. The only web dev bootcamp that I know that has verified results is Hack Reactor. I'm sure there are other good ones but their results are quite striking.