Software Engineering

I am currently in the Web Development program at Practicum by Yandex. This is a great program! I have been challenged with every project. I have a background in computer networking, but I did not have any prior programming knowledge. I had been a stay-at-home mom for many years and decided that I wanted to rejoin the workforce but in a new field. I chose Web Development because it would give me the opportunity to work from anywhere in the world and have flexible hours. I came across several boot camps but they did not work with my schedule or were too expensive. I was happy to find that Practicum by Yandex offered a Web Development program that was online and semi-self-paced. When I say “semi-self-paced” I mean that we don’t have a particular time of day to work on our theory or projects. We do in fact have soft and hard deadlines to get theory and projects completed. I am impressed on how Practicum tries to keep up connected even though we are all across the world. We use Slack to interact with our classmates, tutors and administrators. They are always asking our opinion on how we feel about the program what changes can they make. Practicum provides live coding sessions, webinars and so many more opportunities to connect with others who are currently working in Web Development.  

Let's start from the bottom line- I highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to get in to web development world through a fun yet super serious, intense and high quality course.And that's why: As someone who has never really coded before, I came in to this adventure with really nothing much to expect.To see if I can enjoy or even handle this type of course I took the free introductory course Practicum by Yandex offers and I was pleasantly surprised how much entertaining the learning platform is and how I felt "glued" to the screen, wanting to pass more and more lessons and tasks.Now, the course is separated into sprints. Each lasts two weeks. In these two weeks you go through quite a charming learning process in the platform (including side jokes, visual explanations and reactive pages to see the code you write actually works). Then there is a project where you implay the knowledge from the lessons.In between there are webinars with people from the industry about a lot of interesting and important topics for the real tech world,live zoom meeting with the mentor and teammates to discuss the next project and more.. From my personal experience all the questions/ worries/ uncertainties I had where answered within minutes(!) from the really wonderful staff members. Whether it's the technical support team who will answer your challenging tasks questions or the community managers and mentors in the interacting platform (Slack). There's always someone to answer your question and it seems like they really care from the students' progress and they are eager to see them finish the course successfully.Plus there are several other channels on Slack where you can communicate with fellow students and share your thoughts, in a very friendly and nice way. 

I am a Web Development track student here at Practicum by Yandex. Previously, I have attempted and failed many times at teaching myself the in's and out's of web development. Practicum has changed that for me. The program is challenging, realistic, and provides a sense of community for its students. The curriculum itself is based off of real world work, which can be difficult to find in other programs. There is also no need to worry when you may be having trouble with understanding certain concepts. There are tutors excited to assist you with learning these strange concepts, while even providing additional resources to help you work through the problems. Aside from the tutors, there are also opportunities to pair program with other students who are in the same or different cohorts than yourself. The program makes it very easy to communicate with other students via Slack. There are constant opportunities to grow within your chosen program such as webinars, live coding, and so much more!

 The Web Developer Course from Practicum by Yandex is well-structured, progressive, and challenging. It starts out from basic concepts of website structure and design through HTML and CSS (with the BEM methodology), adds to it with a crash course in JavaScript, and eventually React, that immediately has you building quality, responsive websites and web apps. By then end, you’ll understand how to build a fully-featured web app in React, in addition to its requisite backend using a MERN stack. Each project builds upon the last, and a sense of progression and accomplishment is felt during every sprint. The Tutors and Senior Students are helpful and very willing to dissect code and guide you at every step. Each two week sprint is divided into a week of exercises, and a week of project building, although this divide is flexible. The time commitment is slightly demanding, so be prepared to spend a decent amount of time working on developing your skills; this definitely isn’t a passive program. Altogether, you can learn how to become a great web developer with Practicum by Yandex. 

When I went through the sample course, I found I really enjoyed how the curriculum was written: it made it easier for me to read through what had otherwise been dry material in my previous self-studying, and the way that portion was written stayed throughout the program with only a few areas being a bit more on the dry side. There's a little bit of humor in some of the messages when we've succeeded, often making puns on the material we just went over, which also helps with keeping the information a bit better.You do get out of it what you put in, and with supportive communities and networking opportunities, along with many chances to build upon soft skills: it's easy with Practicum to get a lot out of it. You have a cohort you work with, and many people you can reach out to ask if you get stuck or have questions: even if it's not directly related to the material you're going through in the course. If things aren't working, you can let someone know and it will be fixed by generally the next day. Feedback for projects is available within 24 hours, and you have chances to improve if you didn't get it quite right the first time. After finishing the program I've been working with the 'career accelerator' program they have and they're helping me through the job navigation process that spans to 1-1 conversations with someone who is actually helping you fine-tune the different parts in the job search. 

I had an excellent experience with this program! Highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn web development
Curriculum:The curriculum was up to date and well taught. In fact, rather than going to stackexchange or googling for something, I often review my lessons from this class when I can't remember how to do something or am having trouble with the documentation. There's a lot of information available online that covers similar subjects, but the way Yandex presents it is just better. Especially with javascript, a lot of information can be old or outdated examples that use jquery, not the case for Yandex.They cover basically everything you need to know for the MERN stack:
html/css
BEM style
flexbox/flexgrid
javascript es10 (they do an especially good job here)
react
nodesjs
expressjs
babel
webpack
mongodb
mongoose
REST api
modular programming
Instructors:The instructors were one of the best parts of the program. I really like the staff and found them very helpful and easy to talk to. You could reach them over slack whenever you are having trouble on a project. Keep in mind, though, that most of them are based in Russia. For me, in Pacific Standard Time, I would usually do my work during the day and send it to be reviewed or to receive feedback if I was having difficulty with the project, and by the next day I would receive feedback from them that I could work on.If you have anything come up during the course and need to take a leave of absence, the staff is very flexible and accommodating.The projects were challenging, but their feedback was extremely helpful and even if you have done some programming before you will really improve a lot. There were clear deadlines for projects that were very reasonable. 

Job Assistance:There were a few lessons on common whiteboarding questions you might be asked during an interview. There was also an optional project for a real company that groups of 3-4 students could work on, which was an excellent learning experience.Overall Experience:
Overall this was exactly what I wanted out of a bootcamp program. I especially recommend it for people who have some background in programming already and want to improve, since you will be challenged and they will leave a lot of constructive criticism on your projects. It can also be challenging because it is a lot of information to cover, but the program is long enough to cover it all well, and you can always come back to the course material if you need to review.

I have tried several coding programs, including Code Academy, Udemy classes, and Skillcrush. Practicum is far and above the best. As a WordPress developer, I have always been more interested in the code and less about the design, so I wanted to improve my skills to find a job in coding. Practicum has given me everything I need to be confident in my job search. The instructors and class cohorts are fantastic and extremely helpful. The lessons are flexible in that you don't have to attend live, which can be hard when you have a full-time job. There have been countless webinars and resources with recruiters and current coders on how to land a job after graduation. And the portfolio I will have to show future employers is stellar. I am one project away from graduation and I can't wait to move into my new career.

Practicum is by far the BEST learning platform I've used. The learning experience is dynamic and fun. PROS:-The curriculum is up to date and very well designed.-We work on real projects immediately applying what we learn on every module.-Our projects are reviewed by industry professionals.-The learning support comes in many ways: dedicated community managers, classmates, tutors, platform support.-The product team at Practicum is constantly improving the learning experience for students. They TRULY care about us. -We learn soft and hard skills needed for the real world. -The learning journey doesn't feel detached or lonely, and THAT is quite the feat for an online bootcamp. -The price is right. The length of program goes accordingly with the content and value we get from the program. Many bootcamps and online platforms offer much much less and cost 2.5X more.-They have a free 20 hr program introduction, which is super helpful if you want to find out what the program will be like and if you actually like web development. It's pretty straight forward, there's no catch or nasty surprises.-Transparency.I honestly don't have any CONS. In the past I tried many platforms and was very disappointed. When I found Practicum, I tried the introductory course and was pleasantly surprised to see that in only 20 hrs they thoroughly taught what other programs would take 2 months to teach in a boring and burdensome way. I was very surprised at the quality of the curriculum and was instantly hooked. Right from the beginning we are shown the practical applications to so many abstract and (many times) difficult concepts.The program is intense and very rewarding. It has gone above and beyond any expectations I had. 

 Before diving into the world of computer programming, I was a secretary at a doctors office. Iloved my coworkers and even liked my job but wasn’t being challengedenough. I was introduced to programming through sites likeCodecademy. I immediately fell in love with learning to code and wanted toknow more. I was lucky enough to be able to leave my full-time job todive into learning further. I started with self-learning through all of thefree sites you have undoubtedly have heard of, but eventually felt like I was in a rut, constantly learningtheory but not putting it into practice or knowing if I was doing itright! I discovered Practicum by Yandex through a Facebook programminggroup I had joined. I took the free introductory course for webdevelopment and flew through it. The promise of real world projects,actual reviews and a community to be a part of convinced me to sign up.I am so happy I did! One of the best things for me is now I haveaccountability. The course is split up into two week “sprints” thatgive me a goal to achieve, which is a great motivator for me. Thesprints are made up of two parts. First is theory, which you read about and then immediately practicein exercises. I’m a hands-on learner myself, so practicing what I justlearned in theory is so helpful. After the theory you work on a real worldproject. For these projects you learn how to use common development tools such as Figma, Github, VScodeand will have a website of your own creation at the end. Your projects are reviewed byprofessional web developers who give further sources for you toresearch if needed and explain why something should be done adifferent way. We also have a live coding session for every sprintthat further explains the theory and helps you see coding in action.If that wasn’t enough, there is a fantastic community of your fellowstudents set up on the chat program Slack. You are able to ask others who are workingon the same project you are questions or get advice. It’s so nice to know I’m notthe only one struggling with a problem or succeeding! You get practicein helping others if you can and there are senior students from othercohorts that help answer questions as well. On top of that, what I’vefound most helpful is my tutor. The tutor is there to answer yourquestions when you don’t know something but in a way that leads you to theanswer instead of just giving you the solution outright.Also I can tell everyone on the Practicum team wants me to succeed.They give you countless resources and listen to your feedback. Theywant to improve the course for all students.If you're on the fence about trying a bootcamp I would say jump overand sign up for Practicum by Yandex, you won't regret it!
 

Through unfortunate circumstances, my life changed significantly.  I needed a career and I had always been interested in web development and coding.  I happened upon Practicum by Yandex's amazing web dev course.  They promised to take me from zero experience to job worthy by the end of the ten months.  I immediately tried out the initial free course and was very impressed and couldn't wait to dive in completely!  The course is broken down into 15 sprints and a final 7 week project.  Each sprint is 2 weeks long.  The first week of each sprint is the course work.  Here the lessons are broken down into short segments of in depth theory where you will learn not only the what's and how's behind web dev, but also the why's and get full in depth knowledge to use later on in your interviews for future jobs.  The short segments are really helpful as it allows for good starting and stopping spots to easily work on the course work during your spare time.  After each theory segment there are tasks where you practice the concepts taught.  The answers are not just given to you; you have to work at it and understand it before proceeding to the next section.  During the second week of each sprint you apply the newly learned skills to ongoing projects.  You will complete 3 full projects as well as a final project.  The first few sprints work with a project that is only HTML/CSS.  Then you have a project in HTML/CSS/JS and lastly you convert the JS project into React and add all the backend functions through node.Not only are the course work and projects well thought out and wonderfully done, but the class community and staff on the Practicum team is easily accessible and ready to help in any way they can.  You will be assigned a cohort of students that go along with you at the same pace.  You can even pair program with them and take turns teaching each other to cement the skills you are learning even more concretely.   You get to know the students which encourages you to keep up the pace and not fall behind to a different cohort, as the students become your friends.  The tutors are very helpful and do weekly videos on troubled topics.  They are ready to answer any questions you have or help you when you are stuck on the course work.   This amazing team wants you to succeed and will help you do so!  I fully recommend this course.  It is phenomenal.  Just when you are too tired to continue, they throw in some humor to lighten the mood and keep you going.  In this program, you will become a web developer!  

Have research many companies before I have found Practicum by Yandex. Great company, very intensive course on Web Development - 10 month. I have found it very challenging and it gives you all the right tools that you would use on a job. I'm 8 months in, so a few more months until graduation and I have already made a website for a small company from scratch on the side. Still a lot to learn, but it gets more interesting once you start to understand what are you doing. With the skills you obtain from this course you'll be more than a Junior Web Developer, I think, it's mote close to middle level, since you learning front and end. So, I definitely recommend this course to anyone, who wants to change and secure your future. Good Luck and Happy Coding.)

While its possible to find all the information you would need to know on the internet (Udemy, Coursera, Youtube), bootcamps like this are for those who would prefer a little more structure and guidance. The curriculum covers the MERN stack in enough detail to help you become proficient in each technology and the projects they have you do are a step (or two) above those you'll find in a lot of other bootcamps. They just look more professional, they are well thought out, and you spend enough time on them to make them both fully-functional and polished. No hastily put-together, poorly designed projects here. Also, the entire team is so caring and thoughtful, and are willing to help in any way they can. They really make the program feel personal.Having completed the web dev course, I feel I have all the skills to be a React Developer, FrontEnd Dev, or Web Developer, and have already had several interviews this month. I will say though, if you truly want to succeed, you still need to put in work outside the class. You need to practice coding and make more projects, create a portfolio, and apply to a ton of jobs. This is not a golden ticket in the tech industry, but it is a very effective guiding hand into a new career. 

I really like Practicum offers hand on experience at coding. Though I self learned some coding before the program but never feel like I could break into the field. In Practicum web developer program, I not only learned the coding skill, but also the way how developer works. I am especially impressed by the hard working code reviewers. My coding structures and logic improved every time I got back my feedback. I now can build websites on a scratch all by myself, feel confident and am finally ready. Highly recommended!  

This course strikes a great balance of being remote and part-time, yet still remaining engaging and social. Like most courses, you will get out what you put in. With Practicum's Web Development course, if you put in the bare minimum, you still take a significant deep dive into front-end web development. You'll graduate the course (perhaps taking a hiatus or two if you can't keep up) with a full portfolio of impressive projects, useful skills relevant to today's industry, and experience working with a sprint-based workflow. If you're able to spend more time with the course material, you'll learn soft-skills (pair-programming, code-review, open source development etc.), build a network, and add even more depth to your portfolio. 
 
Everyone on the team developing this program has a vested interest in growing the program and making sure the students learn. This is evident by the consistent stream of new features added to the education platform as well as the development of new roles, groups, and events all geared towards creating a more robust education for the students. 
 
The cost of this course is a fraction of the cost of other comparable programs. 
 
Ultimately, you're probably looking at this review wondering: does this program work? While I'm still a student, I can offer some perspective. There are people in my cohort who have not passed certain modules and have needed to take a hiatus and join a later cohort. There are also people in my cohort who have already gained employment while taking the course. 
 This should communicate two things: 

This course isn't a freebie. It's hard. Not everyone who enrolls will pass. You will need to learn and apply yourself in order to progress. 
If you apply yourself and progress you will learn the skills you need to learn to gain employment in the industry. 

 
Who do I recommend this course to: 

Someone who is both willing and able to dedicate themselves to the process 

25+ hours a week 

Someone looking for a remote course with an active community 

Primary interactions occur via slack and zoom, with plenty of facetime if you want it or no facetime if you don't. 

Someone looking for a program that charges prices that accurately reflect the value of the education. 

$5,000 as of April 21st, 2021 

Someone looking to dive deep into front-end web development 

You will graduate with a solid foundation in Front End Web Development and an understanding of Back End Web Development. 

 
Pros:

Staff have a vested interest improving your level of knowledge and the quality of your education 
Two-week sprint format (a few days of theory similar to the free course with a project due by the end of the sprint) accurately reflects a workflow common in the industry 
Projects help practice and ingrain skills learned in the theory portion of the sprint. 
Reasonably cost for a quality education. 
Plenty of optional extra curriculars to interact with student from your cohort as well as the rest of the program. 
Interacting with students from all over the world 

Cons: 

No in person offerings as of yet 
Given the global nature of the community, it may be difficult to find times to interact with your peers. With Practicum-wide events becoming more available, this increases the likelihood of meeting peers. 
Everyone creates the same projects, for the most part. This is meant to allow tutors to be able to give guided instruction to all, and to allow code reviewers to provide more in depth assistance. This works, the practice is real and the feedback is helpful. The projects display deep levels of knowledge. If you want to create a project that will be the pinnacle of your portfolio, however, you will need to do that on your own. 
The program is young! While I personally see that mostly as a pro, meaning that there is a clear vested interest from the staff in the success of the program, it's just too early to compare this program to those massive ancient bootcamp that present "audited outcomes reports".

A very good coding learning site.

 Like many other novice developers, I've found myself stuck in a tutorial loop which felt inescapable. I had been trying to make a career switch, but was frustrated with the endless "beginner" code camps which often resulted in just copying and pasting code. I had even completed a FullStack Javascript program from a competitor and felt abandoned the moment I got my certificate. Luckily, I didn't give up and I found Practicum. The course lessons are very interesting and tend to dive a bit deeper than most other programs to ensure you learn the "Why" behind the code. They even sprinkle lessons throughout the curriculum dedicated to helping transfer careers! I've made some great relationships with my instructors who I'm glad to call my mentor. Thank you Practicum for helping me break into my dream career! 

This program is no joke!! It is HARD but you will learn. Each part is split into smaller courses. In each course, there are lessons and tasks to test your grasp of the material. Projects are spread out based on 2-week sprints. In each sprint, you are task with getting through certain lessons and a project. The lessons will take hours and so does the project. If you are really not committed to about 20 hours a week it will be hard to complete (at least in the first week of each sprint with hours spread out  WHENEVER you can), but you will feel SO accomplished after each sprint and project is completed. Slack is very structured and helpful. They believe in publicly stating your questions (rather than private DMs) which turns the students into a community helping each other get through.  The staff is exceptional addressing ANY question and doing webinars showing you harder parts. Honestly, plain and simple. This is the best online course I have ever seen in my life!!! You will push yourself and accomplish things you never though you could. Practicum is making magic.  

I have just joined the Web developer program at Practicum by Yandex but I was impressed with the free intro course. it gets you in the mood to learn and the way it is structured as an interactive session is amazing. The scenarios used make you feel part of a team at a startup and you are the new developer who is learning at the new job. The support staff is always there to help in case of any challenges.I gained confidence in coding skills and am excited about what the full course has to offer. 

I just started my third month in the web development program.  Wanted to leave a review because I searched here before joining the school, and it seemed like most of the reviews were from people who have only taken the free introductory course.  Now that I've been a (paying) student for a while, I'll share my experience.The good:•  The introductory course was a good way to discover that their teaching style is a good fit for me.•  I have learned a LOT in a short time.  The large projects and strict deadlines keep me learning at a much faster pace than I ever would studying on my own.•  Having the main tutor, community manager, student tutors, and fellow classmates available.  They're there if I have questions, need help, need to vent, etc.•  It is an incredible value.  It's almost a year's worth of coding education for only $1000.  Even when things aren't perfect, I can't really complain since I've saved so much money by going here instead of other (pricier) boot camps.  And I feel like I'm receiving a very quality education for that price.Could be better:•  Maybe it's because I'm older and not as quick as I used to be.  But I spend a LOT more time on this course than I expected to.  It's been the equivalent of a full-time job for me.  They say 10 hours a week minimum.  But I don't know how realistic that is depending on your experience level starting out.    •  Sometimes there is a language barrier.  The way things are worded on the learning platform can be difficult to understand.  We also have live coding events and it can be difficult for me to understand what the programmer is saying.•  The learning platform can be frustrating.  If you don't answer the question the exact way to the computer is expecting you to, then you can't continue.  And if nobody is around on the slack channel to help you, then you can be stuck there for a long time.  Which is not only a time waste, but also prevents you from being able to access your project and start working on it.•  This isn't really a negative thing.  But they have a lot of faith in us lol.  The projects we do every two weeks are not simple.  It's not rare to feel unprepared and overwhelmed every time we see the instructions.  It usually feels impossible at first.  And the code reviewers are very strict about what they'll accept.  Yet somehow, I keep managing to stick with it and complete everything.Hope this is helpful to someone out there.

The material on the platform is engaging and the community is very supportive.   But what really makes this course shine are the real, substantial projects that you build from the ground up, along with the challenging system of code reviews for each project.   Highly recommended.