Thinkful

Hi Everyone its my first time review so bear with me

Currently Thinkful has different programs I will be talking about Data Science Program. They are saying they provide you outstanding curriculum , industry levels mentors, is not enough ? they have also... Read More provie Q/A sessions or workshops.....

1-) At first glance curriculum is good, and especially if you have no idea what data science you will feel like man i am learning but the truth is ifyou want to learn data science anywhere Kaggle, Youtube , CourseErea, Mit .... they have more information, SO WHAT AM TRYING TO SAY ....
curriculum is lack of academic knowledge, and some parts are not clear, and even you ask your mentor mentors have no idea

2-) Mentor ship : Thats is something great having someone in the field and expert is supporting you twice in a week ... But the problem lots of mentors they dont really work for Thikfull, theyre are part time, and TRUST ME . THEY DO NOT SHOW UP, and you can change your mentor , even the new one can be worse than your old mentor , its about your luck
3-) Q/A session where student ask expertise in CERTAIN SUBJECT, i have experience couple time they dont show up, and even one time i had to ended up helping another student
4-)Workshop same as QA , if you expecting something big i am sorry to say to you , DO NOT, I attended one it was 90 minutes the guy was talking how his life was before, and what he did to get a job, .... hold on a second this was SQL session ....and after some time he show the student
SELECT * FROM Table; it was perfect workshop i would never forget ....
5-)Program Manager (PM) this person is in the charge ,you can reach to them any time they say you wan to change your mentor go to Pm , you have question related to curriculum go to PM , financial question go to Pm , I mean is the hub connection point , only thing they can do it for your
SORRY FOR YOU EXPERIENCE LET ME TALK TO ACADEMIC MANAGER TEAM , OR LET ME TALK TO THEIR MANAGER ...that is the answer you will get from them so
do not do like me , try to search and do not believe 5 start rating , and job guarantee option, trust me, they are lack in academic curriculum , lack in having mentor support...I would give them --5n

I honestly feel really lucky and happy that I chose to go through Bloc to learn UX Design. As compared to other programs, I found Bloc to be really extensive and feel confident now that I'm a graduate, that I am ready to find a job with those skills.... Read More I had a good experience with my first mentor, but felt that my second was not helpful in ways that I needed. I also noticed that some students finished the program and got their certificates, even though their actual designs were not very good. So I think my main grain of salt is that I wished that we were also graded for how good our designs were and not that we passed the given criteria for assignments. I'm currently job searching and am really happy with my assigned career coach. It's definitely not the easiest to get a job as a junior, but I've appreciated our weekly chats and strategy.

I just completed Thinkful's Engineering Immersion 5-month apprenticeship/bootcamp (today!). It was an incredible experience and exceeded my expectations. Prior to starting with Thinkful, I had completed another coding bootcamp that was for front-end development.... Read More That bootcamp was about 80% reading material, 10% watching videos, and 10% actually coding. My comfort level, if someone had asked me to sit down and code -anything-, would have been about 15% confidence that I could do it.

I found Thinkful and started looking into their Full Stack program (Engineering Immersion). Immediately what stood out to me was that it was a structured program with live instruction/instructors, TAs, and mentors. The structure was also based on collaborative programming and embracing a growth mindset.

Before being admitted to the program, a three-week prep course was required and a technical evaluation. I was shocked that the 3 week prep course covered nearly everything that my previous bootcamp had taken months to do. It was a good refresher for me, but I was also very thankful that I had some JavaScript background since this prep course was so intense.

The program itself was highly rigorous and very time intensive. I graduated on-time and received nearly perfect scores on my graded assessments - but that required me to put in about 60+ hours a week doing my assignments and readings, practicing the parts I didn't understand, and putting extra effort into my capstones. But it was completely worth it!

In my opinion, one of the most successful parts of Thinkful's program is their use of paired programming. Now, at the end of the course, I am graduating with well over 500 hours of paired programming experience. Not only is that one way I was able to get such a deep understanding of what I was learning, but it also helped hone my collaboration skills in the context of a development environment. Paired programming helped me learn from and teach many different styles, attitudes, and personalities - which I feel like is invaluable.

The technical interviews at the end of each section were also a huge highlight. It helped me take everything I was learning and synthesize it into words. It has prepared me for the job search and given me an extra confidence boost that I can answer those questions.

The capstone projects were an eye-opening experience. They really gave me that vote of confidence that I could actually DO what I was learning. And that was only possible because every single day I was coding with a pair. Not reading, not watching videos, or watching someone else code. I was in the thick of it, sharing my screen, working with another human, trying to understand and solve problems. When it came time to put all of that knowledge together and do the capstone projects, I was ready and excited!

Thinkful has very few flaws, in my opinion, and has been an incredible experience. One flaw that I ran into was the use of Mentors. I have talked to many of my cohort members that have had incredible experiences with their mentors, but unfortnately my experience was very lack luster and a waste of time. I look forward to Thinkful giving mentors a little more structure so that when students need help, they can get it. However, the TAs that were available every afternoon were INVALUABLE. The amount of time they would take to explain a concept - even using props, playing cards, drawings, etc to help illustrate a hard concept - was truly amazing. So many of my successes were built off of a TA taking the time to work with me when the concept was first presented.

All in all, I would recommend Thinkful to anyone who has a strong work ethic, who has that drive to reach their goals, and has the time to commit to the program. I would recommend doing some free coding/JavaScript lessons so you don't feel like your feet have been swept out from under you when the prep course comes along. Along with many things in life, the program is what you put into it. And if you put in 100%, you'll get an incredible education experience with job-ready skills.

My prior skill level:
None. I have a BA in History and an M.Ed in Special Education. The closest I had come to coding were the kids coding challenges on code.org.

Why I chose this program:
I used Course Report to review several boot camps and decided on... Read More Thinkful because of its price compared to others and its job guarantee. The deal is that if you don't find a job within 6 months, you'll get a refund. When reading the fine print, I found that you have to meet a lot of requirements in order to qualify for the refund, such as make 8 phone calls and apply 2 places a week (or something like that). I was okay with that though, because I know that's what it takes to find a job in a new field. It's a good incentive to keep pushing. I also found out that if you finish before the 6 months are up, you can get a prorated refund for the time you didn't use. I wanted to take advantage of that, but the program did take me a full 6 months (and then some extra).

Why you should choose this program:
The most valuable part of the program is the mentor pairing. I met with my mentor twice a week for 45 minutes each session. That is the accountability I needed to go through a self-paced program. I feel this is much better accountability than assignment due dates like in academia. Any problems I had with an assignment, I knew I would be talking through them with my mentor soon. Other boot camps didn't seem to offer this level of partnership.

Curriculum:
I don't know how the curriculum compares to other programs, but I can comment on the pedogogy. One of the most difficult aspects of any curriculum is creating a Transfer of Knowledge. This means being able to apply your newly learned skill to a new situation. Many of the Thinkful assignments require replicating a process with a different dataset - much like how Math is taught. The problem with this is that if there is any difference between what you have learned and what you are asked to do, you could get stuck and become frustrated. At times, I found myself copying and pasting Python code from the lessons in order to complete an assignment without understanding what was happening. While I know this is part of the learning curve, it did affect my final capstone when I couldn't understand why the code I copied and pasted from Stack Overflow wasn't working. I wasn't able to transfer what I learned in the program to new pieces of code. It seems like this is a problem for coding in general, given how much copy-and-paste-code there is in Stack Overflow. It's only if you're lucky that someone explains their code step-by-step, which enables you to understand where in the process you went wrong. This is something you should keep in mind regardless of what boot camp you choose.

Job Placement:
I just started the "Career Services" part of the program this week, so I can't comment on that. I haven't found a job in the field yet.

I graduated last week. It took me just over 15 months to finish the program. I had an overall good experience with the program and feel it is a good value and useful for accelerating my new career path. Pros: Student success really listens well and has... Read More always responded in a timely fashion with relevant information. The actual content is engaging and well drilled, each time in greater detail and demanding of more refinement. There was no filler content. Every checkpoint I felt was relevant and had a valuable lesson to teach. If I had a question about the content, or became stuck, I was eventually led into the right direction. I feel I can speak confidently on what UX is and I came out of the program feeling energized and optimistic, not beat down or jaded. A handful of the people in the program are absolute gold at instructing and I had gained much valuable insight from them. Cons: I utilized my mentor rarely. I didn’t need them to get through the program. I had tried out three mentors, each with variable quality. The grading team can have a slow turnaround time. Often, I waited 80 hours to get input. During a few parts of the course, I was able to apply myself elsewhere... but often I would need to sit and wait before I could move forward. Sometimes, the feedback conflicted with other graders visions and advice which could be annoying. Some of the demonstration videos Bloc uses are well edited... but I found many did not have any editing at all and it felt like a slog to get to the relevant information. I didn’t ever feel there was a community of students to bounce ideas off on the slack channel. I think this is a powerful tool that could be refined and be a great asset. The technical coaches were hit or miss. Sometimes I would get exactly what I was looking for. However, other times, I felt I had to explain simple ideas of what I was struggling with and was not given pertinent feedback and had to re-re-re explain the situation. Bloc asks for 3-4 checkpoints a week. I would say this is an unrealistic pace for most weeks. Some of the more involved checkpoints took me two weeks just to finish one. I would recommend this program to others. If I were to do it again, I would have studied on my own what UX was instead of going in to the course totally fresh. The most important aspect for me was the feeling of optimism at the time of graduation. I feel fresh and ready to step into the UX job market.

This program has many positive aspects to it, but there are some realities that I wish I knew before signing up. Pros: I am very excited with my portfolio. The effort that you put into work, definitely reflects the final outcome of your portfolio. When... Read More I addressed my concerns and frustrations, the program coordinators were very accommodating extending my schedule. The curriculum is constantly being updated and is accessible for students after they are finished with the program. Cons: I went through many different mentors and grading team members and the quality varies. Some are excellent and very professional - others had much less to offer in terms of experience and suggestions. Since the program is online, it seems that the coordination is not in sync between the grading team, the mentor, and the slack coaches - so it feels very disjointed and confusing at times. The checkpoints are often set-up in a way where you need to finish one before moving on to the next one. The grading team is supposed to give feedback within 48 hours, but many times for me this extended up to 4-5 days! This was frustrating for me to keep the momentum going, especially since the grading team usually asks for at least 2-3 revisions. I am a good student and always tried my best, so I found this scenario to be extremely frustrating. With a goal of 3 checkpoints per week (while working and studying), this situation was not maintainable when I was waiting so long for feedback. Final thoughts: I know the program has grown big quickly and it feels to be increasingly disconnected (especially with recent changes). I was feeling lost in a series of checkpoint revisions between mentors, grading team, and coaches, who would say conflicting things then leave me lost until the next meeting or checkpoint revision feedback. I didn't feel like they were fully there and available for me, but rather waiting for the time to be up. Even the slack coaches who were supposed to be available immediately, usually had a whole queue of other students to help and half the time responded with things like "i'm about to clock out! will forward to next coach." - and very often I just left the question. These are just some things that I wish I knew going into the program because I could have better prepared myself for the experience. I am certainly surprised by all the solid 5 star reviews - and I do recall being asked to leave feedback about 1 week into the program before I had the full experience of it - so take the other reviews with a grain of salt! I suggest researching deeply into the various programs before choosing, so you make sure that you join a bootcamp with the curriculum and support system that you can thrive in.

My experience with Thinkful was the single worst educational and customer service experience of my life - which is saying a lot. The online curriculum is definitely subpar and there are no explanatory videos or live sessions as there are with other bootcamps.... Read More

The program provides you with bi-weekly mentor sessions to answer any questions your may have and to guide your progress. I went through 5 mentors - FIVE. 4 of whom 'ghosted' me and did not show up for our scheduled sessions. The other one chain smoked and made inappropriate comments throughout the duration of our sessions.

Most of the mentors commented on how poorly structured the program was and how there were better bootcamp programs available. One mentor even said that it would be difficult to find a job without knowing Redux which was removed from the course material.

I ended up withdrawing from the program after the fifth mentor called minutes before our scheduled session and said she was 'too busy' to be my mentor anymore. After this incident I did not receive a reply from anyone at Thinkful for 1 week. At this point I was months behind due to these administrative issues and had lost any learning and progress flow. I had fallen completely stagnant.

Ultimately, there are so many choices for programs both online and in-person. I really do not want anyone to have to go through what I went through. If you commit to this program there is a strong possibility you will experience enormous delays and that you will be on your own with any problems you experience.

Other programs may seem more difficult and less flexible in terms of schedule but it is well worth inconvenience for a comprehensive experience.

I just finished Thinkful's Engineering Immersion full-time program. I went from minimal/no programming experience to building full-stack (frontend, backend, database) in less than 6 months. It was equal parts exciting, difficult, rewarding, and exhausting.... Read More

Not for the faint of heart, but a great way get into web development. I put in an average of 60~70 hrs of work per week.

I would recommend studying a bit of JavaScript and SQL on FreeCodeCamp to give yourself a bit more time to digest the material.

Pros:
- Well-rounded curriculum.
- Deep discussions of topics are available.
- Very active online community

Cons:
- The local community could be more organized and activated.
- More structure around the capstone projects would be useful
- More active mentor... Read More supervision is needed.

In my opinion the pros of attending bloc are the always helpful slack community and the meticulously informative support teams. I may be biased, but, the coursework for career advice and searching is incredibly invaluable. I would say the downsides, seems... Read More I was a one off in this case, is the mentoring. In my case most of my mentors were no shows, not to mention I missed a few along the way as well, though we ended up just forfeiting mentor meetings near the end either way.