Product School Los Angeles — Local services in Los Angeles

I just completed an 8-week online Product Management course at Product School. I chose it because it is interactive and structured, providing me a “real classroom” feel. It truly had been an incredible experience and exceeded my expectations.

About me: I came from business / sales / marketing background in real estate / VC and was working with a startup founder on a SaaS product before I joined the course, hoping to broaden my skills and knowledge on digital product development, which may help me pivot into a new career in the tech industry.

The instructor: Mischa S I was fortunate to have Mischa as instructor. He has all the checkpoints I was hoping for from an instructor: diversified experience of cross-functional roles, a wealth of knowledge in the PM domain, dedication and enthusiasm. He was accessible when I had questions about the course or homework, and often stayed late after class to help whoever needed. I really loved that he brought to the class real-life practice and insights, which made the course more relevant and interesting.

The resources and tools: The admin/support of Product School is super responsive and well organized. It has a very robust community on Slack and LinkedIn, where you get push notifications on upcoming live stream events, tips and advice, and everything you can think about to become a PM (or a good PM). I didn’t use Product School’s own website much other than downloading all the course and reading materials, and submitting my final. Slack was our main communication channel, which to me was effective.

The fellow students: It was a diversified group of students (motivated professionals) from all backgrounds, ethnics and nationalities. I can not stress enough how much I have learnt from my peers. So many valuable ideas, feedback and resources were shared through group exercises, especially during the second half of the course when we started to get to know each other a bit better.

Career help: Although job hunting was not my top priority during this course, I enjoyed the process of analyzing my own SWOT to figure out my superpower (it’s not as easy as it seems) and the tips/advice on how to be an outstanding job candidate through creating a better resume and cover letter, practicing interview questions and ‘smart’ networking.

To recap, it is definitely an intensive but manageable course, packed with practical knowledge and tools. To me this PM course is well worth the money and a good investment. Having someone (my instructor Mischa) there guiding me through my project without judgement was crucial. The emphasis and mindsets of user-obsession and collaboration with teams are invaluable for whatever I will do in my next career. Lastly, the network and friendship with some of my peers is priceless. I highly...

Very glad that I took the Product Management course! I was in the Summer 2018 cohort on Saturdays in downtown LA. Product School provides a great overview of the world of product management. Yes you can read their book – but I knew that I needed more interaction to really integrate the information. Having in-person class was a big plus for me when so much of my world has been virtual interaction lately. I took some risks: the curriculum recently was updated and also there were no review for my instructor online. However Product School has built a strong enough brand that I trusted their track record and was not disappointed. Our instructor Alex Alwan is really smart and capable. He has held several Product Management roles and offered a lot of practical examples and advice. He is a fountain of motivation and inspiration, since he has worked so hard to build his own professional skills. He was very generous in sharing his expertise about Product Management and Data Analytics. His honest feedback and skillful coaching were very helpful. Also Alex has a lot of emotional intelligence. He invested effort for developing more community within our class, and making time for us all to get to know each other outside of shared professional interests. What I learned from Product School: updated skills and modern language for the tech world. It turns out that I already had a lot of skills and experience for the product path, and the feedback from Alex and fellow students helped me to reposition and connect better with the product path. Note: as an MBA graduate, I already understood a lot about strategic planning and marketing personas. I had extensive experience with analytic frameworks, how to build a business case, and public speaking. Still the Product coursework helped me to understand all of this better for an agile software context. The live exercises in class were valuable. Working on my final project taught me a lot, and I was grateful for insightful feedback on our presentations. There were practical considerations for me because the time and money fit into my schedule and budget. While Santa Monica site would have been closer for me, it was the right choice to leave my evenings free for networking and educational events. Plus I liked spending the day with my class and having the option to socialize together over lunch. Product School fosters amazing global connection among of students and alumni. Strongly recommend to explore their communities on Slack, Facebook and LinkedIn. Also live events are available in many cities. Also I was glad that when I missed classes I could make them up by trying out other instructors… extra planning but well worth the exposure to meet more students and professionals...

I highly recommend Product School for anyone who is looking to learn more about Product Management or to change careers in Product Management. My PS experience was amazing because of my instructor (Nitin Bhat, Seattle). I thought the overall content was good but it's the instructor who makes the class worthwhile. Nitin made it 5 stars for me.

Instructor Nitin Bhat was an amazing instructor because he was consistently enthusiastic, passionate, and thoughtful. First, he deeply cared about our experience and went above and beyond to enhance our knowledge by sharing personal examples and techniques and introducing us to his network of PMs.

I also appreciated his passion to find us roles as PMs that were aligned with our strengths and prior work experience. Throughout the course, he gave us thorough feedback that highlighted our strengths and made introductions with other PMs from his network. These PMs would often come as guest speakers to speak about their PM experience.

In addition, his style of teaching was perfect for me. He had a high standard for his class and I was constantly pushed to give my best effort. We did many additional exercises which taught us other techniques and frameworks outside of the PS curriculum. He would always expand on the syllabus to teach to our needs rather than being fixed to the content. This usually meant that we would stay a bit longer after class to learn more about, which I welcomed.

I know I would have had a very different experience if it wasn't for Nitin as my instructor. If you're in the Seattle region, I highly recommend you taking his class!

Course

The course lays the basic foundation of product management. My favorite experience is working on the Product Requirement Document and presenting it. It was great to hear feedback from an actual product manager (Nitin Bhat). I also enjoyed practicing the interview process, which I think is a huge challenge for those trying to get a PM role.

Final Words

If your goal is to learn product management, product school is a great place to start. However, the learning doesn't stop with this school - it's just the beginning. I learned that is SO much to learn about Product Management - tools, techniques, experience, etc. For me, this course gave me the confidence and conviction to pursue a career in PM.

If your goal is to become a Product Manager, your instructor is very important in this journey and the amount of work outside of the class is crucial. The course itself lays the general groundwork but it's really up to you to put in that extra effort.

If you would like me to expand more on my experience, feel free to shoot me a message and I'd be happy to talk...