Chegg Skills

 i was very excited to see that I could enter a fast-paced program while receiving a stipend so I could focus my time on studying instead of juggling homework and working to cover my bills. The program and instructors were very helpful however sometimes our lectures did seem a bit rushed. I felt like having advisors and mentors available to me helped to pick up that slack. I think the timelines for projects was helpful as well as getting us ready to perform daily standups on our individual progress. When I neared the end of my program, I naturally had imposters syndrome even though I had learned a lot in the program. They offer support for career placement for six months after your graduation and while my career coach was amazing, I still was worried I wouldn't find a company to accept me as a developer. I accepted a position in early August after graduating late March. Even if it took me over six months to get a job, I still would have not had to pay back my tuition which I think is an important promise they make to students so they aren't stuck paying for something that wasn't helpful to their careers. I was furloughed from a hospitality job (no developer/technology experience before) in April 2020 and have not worked since, I was sure that working in such a different field combined with such a large gap in my resume would surely make it hard to be hired. While it took some time, I'm very happy I was able to find a position within six months of graduation.

Overall Verdict 

1.     They are good at what they do and worth the money to invest in your future. Thinkful has a rigorous and strict policy for students to comply to in order to be successful. They are selling you a product and guarantee its success, IF AND ONLY IF, you follow their plan that they outlined and are backing their word up by offering full tuition refund if THEIR plan fails. 

2.     They give you the tools and the support to help you succeed and graduate the program because care about your success. All their staff (mentors, academic success manager, TAs, graders) are people with impeccable years of experience within the industry and are available for you to gain some industry knowledge/advice through their experiences. 

3.     Their success is dependent on your success because it affects their retention rate, success rate, and alumni network. People are more willing to purchase things based on brands that have a positive reputation. So, they want and will do whatever it takes for their students to succeed. This also means students need to come in with an open mind, motivation to learn, and drive to push through this rigorous program.   Thinkful and My success 

I was offered a project manager position in the software development team 2 weeks before graduation. The careers coach helped me prepare for my interviews by providing me possible industry-based interview questions. My mentor gave me confidence by reassuring and motivating me. My instructor answered any questions I had throughout the program and provided insightful advice driven from experience. Alumni’s were active on recruiting Thinkful’s students for their company’s job openings. All resources to succeed were made available and I made sure I got my money’s worth. 
What led me to Thinkful’s Technical Project Management Program   After months of submitting at least 5 applications a day (35 per week), attending about 4 interviews a week, and receiving rejection emails due to my lack of experience in the technology industry (FYI, I have prior experience as a project manager and attempting an industry switch), I decided to enroll in the Technical Project Management program at Thinkful. I chose the immersive plan because I had the time and motivation to dedicate more than what is expected of me to complete the program.  My experience with the Technical Project Management Program Thinkful gave me the project management knowledge and the experience to apply it to real-world projects that can be found at any organization in any industry. Company structures are all different from each other, so being familiar with all and selecting the appropriate ones that align with a specific company’s value only prepares you for success.  Thinkful gave me the strategies to become a successful leader which is the main aspect to leading teams on a project AND MOST IMPORTANTLY provided the opportunity for me to refine my skills while putting it into practice (This wasn’t written out or openly expressed, but I think it was a something that required students to “read between the line” or “find value in the things you do/learn by relating it to real-world work” to be successful in their career, which also further develops critical thinking skills).  Thinkful gave me the tools to understand the required processes and workflow involved in technical work by allowing the students to get hands-on experience with coding and various applications. Allowing the ability to understand the terminologies commonly used and to communicate more effectively between cross-functional teams. 

My time at Thinkful was a great experience. Transitioning my career during the pandemic was tough, but the resources that was provided to me through Thinkful helped tremendously. I participated in the Immersion program which was the full-time course, and although it was fast paced, the instructors as well as my mentor were available to me any time I needed help understanding the Data Science concepts. Throughout the course Thinkful has you learning the concepts by completing and presenting hands-on assignments and projects as well as mock-interviews to help you prepare for your job search. In addition, the graders were great as they gave feedback on what could be improved and what you did well. After the completion of the program, my career coach was with me 100% of the way in my job search. She helped in presenting my best self on paper, sending me job descriptions, and setting up a schedule so I could complete tasks throughout the week. Overall I am grateful for the experience at Thinkful as the skills and connections I made will continue to help me grow in this industry.

 Thinkful changed my life. A month and 3 days after graduating, I accepted a job offer for $70k. 

Awesome. Now, here's what I would say to anyone thinking about signing up:

• Do your research before you enroll. Spend all of your free time reading about job prospects, getting familiar with software, and understanding the scope of user experience design. Why? You will probably either fall in love with it or get nervous about how tedious the process really is. If the whole design thinking process sounds dull, don't waste your time.
• Get familiar with the pricing structure and policies. Thinkful does not screw around with absences, late policy and grades. You need to have those rules memorized (or stuck to the wall on a sticky note like me!) so you're not surprised if you accidentally violate one. You might be surprised by the ones that aren't enforced though! Certain things, like signing out at the end of the day, I'm pretty sure nobody checks. Word to the wise? Expect to be treated like an employee at a fairly disorganized company and you'll be fine. Just keep your head up!
• Going to say this for the overachievers in the front: don't do all the checkpoints. Some weeks, you'll have ten checkpoints and a huge graded assignment due at the end. Prioritize the graded work. Spend most of your time making it perfect. Use the TAs, DM your mentor, write about every detail in your decision-making process. The checkpoints are really there to make sure you have enough to do, and I know plenty students that would get overwhelmed and frustrated with all the work being thrown at them. 
• If you don't network early, it's going to be hard later. I say this because the hardest part about this program is the intense job search after graduation. I made my own schedule - a mix of applying for about 10 jobs a day for the first couple days of the week, then networking the other days, answering phone interviews, writing sharp cover letters, etc. You will need to practice early to get comfortable with the process. It also helps for morale to have already done some of the leg work when you are ready to start applying.
• The program is hard and there is a high turnover rate for the UX program. In my opinion, for the sake of the students who realize they're not going to be a great fit in the program, Thinkful should have a more strict admissions policy. I'm only saying this because by the halfway point, almost half of my cohort had dropped out - and that's a lot of wasted time for students who spent six weeks full time at Thinkful, many of whom feeling mislead by the school's marketing. So. Get to know yourself and be prepared to spend time doing self care, reflecting on your goals and making friends in the program. 
• If you're not sure if flex or immersion is right for you, I'd say this. How aggressively do you need a job? How confident are you that you can stay motivated and on-track if you're doing this alone? I did immersion, opted for the living stipend + the ISA, and I have ZERO regrets.

Now for some positive stuff!

• I actually made some really great friends during this program and spending time with them outside of instruction was one of my favorite things about this experience!
• The TAs are awesome. The assessors - awesome. The instructors - incredible. Getting eyes and ears on my work is really what helped me succeed in this program. (PS, I didn't expect this, but these people are qualified af. I don't want to call people out, but there were folks who had just come from household name tech companies, or transitioning into them. I got the impression that being a mentor to new designers is sorta like a rite of passage for senior designers looking to up their game, rather than just a fallback like other professions)
• I gushed about the work I was doing. I couldn't shut up about it to my friends. They all noticed a change in how I carry myself, and how I talk about my skills. I remember having a conversation with my therapist about this unfamiliar emotion I began to recognize as "confidence."
• Every day, starting at about the halfway point through the program, I would wake up into this surreal, seismic, shifting paradigm that is the outlook for the rest of my career. Before this program, my job options were bleak and I was prepared to be a ~bartender on the side~ pretty much forever. I am still processing that I've just given myself the gift of job security for the rest of my life.
• The projects are fun. Working independently is fun. Designing and researching and testing all day is super fun. I had more fun learning in the last five months than I did in five years of college.
• The careers team is so so so  soooooooo good. I didn't expect them to be so supportive and so ridiculously competent. I wouldn't have come very far in my job search without them. So, a word of advice? Use the resources available to you!!! Take their advice! Redo your resume as many times as they ask you to! Don't quit improving your application materials and strategy until you sign a job offer! Every question you have is worth asking!! Be nice to your career advisor! I'm not really supposed to do this but...shout out to Brenda and Melissa for being my lifeline.

You've read this far so you're probably pretty serious. A few more notes then I'll be done. After a month from graduating, I think I'm maybe the second or third person in my cohort to get an offer, and that's with treating the job search like a full time job. I could do this because I was receiving unemployment insurance. If you don't have a plan for how you're going to live for the last couple of months, you might have a hard time finding a job. I also have a college degree which helped a lot. Plus, I've had internships from my time in college (I was a music business major) and some odd experience working around the arts. If you think you can dive in and fall in love with UX and leverage your life experience to craft a compelling narrative, you will find a job.

Good luck and happy searching! I hope this helped! 

My time at Thinkful as a UX/UI student was okay overall. The instructors were all very knowledgeable and helpful, and loved to give real world insights as to how it compared with what we were learning. The academic advisory staff were amazing! Any time I ran into an issue, they were there to help and support, even through moments of pure burnout. I had an issue in particular with a project being reviewed for grading, over and over again. The grading team is subpar. They are unorganized and everyone has an opinion - so consistency became an issue. My project was graded by one person, then another would have an issue with the changes made that were suggested by the previous grader, and so on. This caused this one project to take almost a month to finally pass. Again, the academic advisory person working with me, helped me through the issue by pushing my work to a senior grader, and by taking the time to talk out a selfcare plan with me, as I was feeling beyond drained and ready to cave. Other than this very large issue, I think I learned enough to land my first job. It only took two months and 100+ applications to get there (which seemed overwhelming at first.) My career coach was awesome and supported and cheered me on through the whole process. I am glad I took the course, but do think there are many things that could be improved, but overall, I met some great people, learned invaluable lessons, and was able to land a new job in a new field, in less than a year. 

I came across Thinkful after taking a self-taught digital marketing course. I was seeking a program that would give me a more in depth understanding of digital marketing and all of the branches of it. I also wanted a program with more structure, guidance and resources. Thinkful was exactly that. I was given a great education, hands on experience with projects, a career coach and an AMAZING industry experienced mentor who was by my side the entire journey. The grading team is also awesome. They give you helpful feedback and guide you in the right direction when needed. As someone who was changing careers, my job hunt was a little intimidating but I really felt like Thinkful equipped me with enough experience and knowledge to confidently job search. About three weeks after completing the program, I landed a job as a junior marketing coordinator with an awesome company that I am growing to love more and more every day. I don't think I would have gotten this opportunity if it weren't for me attending Thinkful. This opportunity has put me on a path with so much room to learn and grow in my new career. It has also put me in a better position financially. If you're debating whether to attend Thinkful or not, do the research, talk to a counselor and if you really want to do it, go for it! I'm so incredibly thankful that I did!

My time at Thinkful was a great experience, from the staff to the fellow members of my cohort, my time spent during my journey at Thinkful was great. Although it takes a lot to transfer careers during a pandemic, with the help of my mentor and world-class instructors I was able to understand the concepts of Data Analytics we were learning. It takes a lot of commitment to complete the course and land a job but if you follow all the steps laid out during Bootcamp you can easily achieve your goals of landing a job. I completed the full immersion Data Analytics Bootcamp it took a full commitment of 60 hours plus weekly to complete, so plan on dedicating as much of your life as possible to this but it is well worth it. Working with the other members of the cohort was great also working together to study, helped reinforce concepts and make life-long connections you might need in the future. I only wish that maybe the course was a week or two longer just to get deeper on more intermediate skills in Python or Excel to better prepare for the technical interviews in the real world.  There were ups and downs as expected but through working with my ASM, mentor, and career coach I was able to land a new career with an amazing startup!

The course was great at getting me up to speed on all the tools that modern day data analyst use. The job assistance at the end was really helpful. Work really hard during your job assistance and they will work for you. My only honest negative feedback is that companies don't care of you have a certificate from a bootcamp, there are so many now. So don't use the course certificate as a reason to get a job. You will still have to find some type of experience before landing a full-time job unless you're lucky. 

Thinkful was a great program. I was one of the last students to be on the older curriculum and watched as they updated all information and lessons to include more modern information. I managed to get a job just under one month after I graduated. My favorite part was having my weekly mentor meetings. He was really great and flexible with his time. The curriculum is text-based, short sections with assignments (sometimes graded) at the end. They have a really active discord channel, full of incredibly helpful students, mentors, and other staff. The community is a large part of my success. The job assistance was everything I could expect from a Bootcamp. They don't give you a job, but you get a career coach who helps you with everything when you graduated. She suggests jobs for you, helps you with your LinkedIn and resume, and supports you through the whole interview process. She exceeded my expectations. 

If you are reading this, be sure to learn a programming language possibly javascript or python yourself for at least a month. Then, if you feel comfortable coding and solving problems be ready to commit 500%. After that, when you compare other coding bootcamps you will find this is the best place you can think of when you are to do a complete career shift. Because you will get the best instructors, you will get a mentor, you will have a career coach who in my opinion excel above and beyond to get you to where you want to be.

Thinkful is an offshoot of Chegg, there's a bit of leftover cross-over so some workers will have Chegg. The content and the staff themselves are what make the difference. 

The ability to talk with someone about the coding and programming you are doing was everything for me. Was within a few minutes of talking to a teaching assistant while working on SQL, Excel, Tableau, and Python. These skills are important for everyone in the data fields. 

The course is designed for beginners, if you have coding or programming experience it is going to be a challenge to learn new skills, but it won't be impossible to pass. If you do not have any experience then it will be a great program for you. The team environment is an important feature of this program. 

I started in a cohort of 15, by four weeks in, we were down to 7. 

The program is not easy, but it's not impossible. 

I am great friends with my mentor, my teachers, and my classmates. 

Thinkful is a nice with nice people. 

Highly recommend. Thinking about it, shoot me a message on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregorynmuller/

I took part in Thinkful's UX/UI Design Flex program from September 2020-June 2021. 

It was a weird time to take on a new project with the pandemic, my home state being on fire and being job limbo. In spite of the word seemingly to be ending I decided to move forward with my plans to take this course. 

Overall I had a great experience. I'm not a school person and usually stray away from things that are structured. This program was the perfect balance of structure and ability to be self paced for me. I had 4 mentors throughout the program and gained a TON of relevant knowledge from them throughout the program. Every question I had would get answered in a way that directly related to what would be relevant in a professional setting.  I asked one of my graders to be my mentor after my second presentation because I was having a hard time understanding user flows and the research side of things. He was more than willing and it was very easy to make the switch. I liked that I was able to take charge of what I needed and that my decisions were supported by my team. 

I got hired as a digital marketing strategist in the middle of the program. Taking on a new job while in the program was a lot to handle so I ended up asking for an extension because I fell behind. The program is flexible but there are deadlines and you only have a limited amount of time to get certain things done. Don't start the program and expect it to be easy because it's not. You learn a lot in a short period of time. Being able to make time to really digest what I was learning was challenging at times.  

I was able to use my work for my 3rd project and I've gotten a few interviews just from that one experience. If you do the program I'd recommend positioning yourself in a job that is relevant to the career you hope to have post program! For me working at a company that I could connect what I was learning in school to my day to day helped me understand things faster than I think I would have. 

I would definitely recommend Thinkful to anyone interested in UX/UI. I got a 33% raise after using my company as a project and showing them that my UX experience increased conversion rates. I still haven't gotten a UX job (I graduated 2 weeks ago when writing this and honestly haven't applied to a ton of places yet) but I've had 3 interviews which is great! Also my overall "worth" as an employee/ freelancer I would say went from 20 ish dollars an hour to closer to 30-35 just by having the certification. I don't have a college degree so that's pretty awesome! 

For me this program was a great way to dip my toes into what is possible in this field and discovering my strengths. 

I honestly really loved this program, it was harder than I expected but the challenge was fun! I love that I was able to learn so much and meet so many kind hearted professionals. 

Tip: If you do the program add your graders on linked in and do informational interviews with them! They give great genuine feedback and have been in your shoes! I loved getting to know people who worked for companies like the New York Times or have worked for big marketing agencies. It's really helpful to ask what their UX path was like and play with what yours might be! 

Also! The careers team is so sweet and the ASM I worked with was very encouraging! (ASM is who helps keep you on track to graduate and helps you make a plan if you fall behind) She was super real and I never felt embarrassed that I was struggling when I talked with her.  This program really meets you where your at and gives you the push you need! 

It gets hard at times but push through it! There are some people who dropped because it got to be too much. I almost did! I'm glad that I choose to do nothing on the weekends and get this stuff done because now I feel like I have so many opportunities in front of me! Which is great because I'll definitely be making more money moving forward either at my current job or when I get hired somewhere else! 

DO IT! 

For someone that is completely new to tech, I think I did pretty well. Yes, it’s not easy but that is part of the struggle and it’s up to you how you move forward. I chose the Data Flex program because I feel that I learn more when I read and do the exercises on my own. At time, I’d get stuck and I’ll go on the slack to seek guidance or wait for my mentor meeting. My mentor was amazing. He’s very knowledgeable of the industry and the school material. The only things that Thinkful struggles with at times was their mock interviews or temporary mentors and scheduling. There was times that I would book a mock interview a couple of days in advance and use their calendry system, but for whatever reason, the interviewer would be unaware. Not sure why that happened a couple of times but once I’d meet up with them, they would make it up and give great feedback.  I am not yet employed, but I am confident I will find a job with the skills I earned.

I just graduated from Thinkful and I had an absolutely fantastic experience overall. Starting from no experience in SQL, Python or Tableau, I am now confident enough to try and attempt projects on my own. Like any other boot-camp, it is a given that you will not have the complete knowledge of the subject that you are studying but the important thing is that you leave with a solid foundation that allows you to build on it and that is what I have. The instructors and the career guides are extremely helpful, there are tools available to help you throughout the course, just make sure you are aware of all the tools available to utilize them to the best of your advantage. I would highly recommend the course to anyone new to the field of Data Analytics.