Chegg Skills

I am currently a student in Thinkful's Flex (Part Time) Fullstack Web Dev Program and could not be any more pleased. The amount of information at your fingertips once you are a student here is truly incredible. All of this information is no doubt available online, but Thinkful provides most of it for you flawlessly through its lesson based curriculum. No more digging through countless open tabs piecing together pieces of stackoverflow answers to come up with the basic information you are seeking, hoping that it is still relavant. For the most part, the important aspects to understaning the material is provided clean and concise and there are always links for recommended resources to further explore and understand each lesson's topic(s).

With that said, researching topics on your own is integral to the process of truly understanding concepts and becoming sussessful as a programmer / coder. Having read some of the reviews saying Thinkful should provide more information to students, I have to say I could not disagree more. I studied Computer Science for roughly 3 years at UMass Boston and although I learned alot about data structures and CS theory, the amount of information we were required to learn on our own was astonishing. I had a class on algorithm efficiency that used Java for any projects or test questions and our professor did not even know Java, he would show examples (rarely) in C even though the course tested / used Java! Point being, in any other setting this amount of information bundled into easy to read lessons coupled with working examples is unheard of, at least in my experience. I have learned more hands on, real world coding skills that you might see at an actiual job in 2 months with Thinkful than the three years spent studying CS. 

Also, the attention to creating projects with the prupose of using them on an actual portfolio website is awesome. Not only do these projects teach us different aspects of web dev and give us practice with each of these topics, but they are the very things that will help us land a future career. In my opinion, that is priceless. 

My only wish is that I had heard about Thinkful sooner! 

 

I've just graduated from the flex bootcamp and couldn't be happier with the expereince I've had with thinkful. 

Coming in to the course I had a fairly good grasp of front end html / css as well as some very rusty and very basic php knowledge. I was entirely self taught and working as a freelance "web developer" I knew I wasn't happy doing what I was doing so took a year off to decompress and decide what I wanted to do next. I decided I wanted to stay in the industry and this time learn the right way. Thinkful seemed perfect for me since it is fully remote and can be worked through entirely at your own pace. 

The first few units covering the fundementals of programming in Javascript were so eye opening to me and plugged a considerable amount of holes in my fundemental understanding of programming which allowed me to move forward through some of the more complex curriculum with confidence. 

Jesse, my mentor, was awesome. We met 3 times a week and he was always ready to help, whether I had specific technical questions or more general questions like how the things I was learning would apply to real world development, he was always eager to help. One of the things I really appreciated about Jesse was that he was never afraid to say when he didn't know something, I've known plenty of teachers who when faced with something they don't understand will attempt to confuse the student as a way of hiding the gaps in thier knowledge, Jesse wasn't one of them. We would either find the answer to whatever I was stuck on together or if we got really stuck, he'd reach out to his network for some help while pointing me in the right direction for me to continue my own research. 

More than anything else, thinkful gave me a huge amount of confidence in my own abilities and helped me to understand that it's ok not to know how to do something as long as you know where to look to find out! 

As I was woring towards the end of the React content I had a job opportunity come up that involved Angular. Thinkful allowed me access to their angular content at no extra charge while I was preparing for my interview. I got the job a week later (which I started yesterday) and Thinkful "graduated" me early. 

The icing on the cake is that because I finished the course well before the 6 month estimated timeframe, they're refunding me the prorated amount and I'll still have lifetime access to the course curriculum. 

The curriculum is challenging but if you're willing to work hard and stay motivated, willing to put in the time, visit the awesome Q&A sessions and reach out to your mentor you'll get there.  my expereince with thinkful was amazing and I couldn't be happier.



 

I decided on taking the Full Stack Developer course through Thinkful.  I'd say I"m a lot more calculated and skeptical than most when it comes to these type of decisions.  There were others in my "top 3", but Thinkful seemed to be the best bargain for the dollar. The timing was bad for me since I had recently gotten promoted with my job and unfortunately, I couldn't dedicate the time I needed/wanted towards the program  At any rate, the curriculum seemed solid and helpful, which at some point, ill need to go back and revisit it.  I don't think coding is something you learn once and change the world.  Repetition and dedication seem to be the key as with most things.  Another big sell for me is that they seem to have a lot of integrity and deliver on what they promise.  My advice for those looking to code is give careful thought to the time you can devote.  Ten or more hours seem to be a decent starting point.  Also, keep in mind that there will be frustrating moments, but know that in the long run, having a more solid coding foundation can be very helpful     

 

I'm about a month or so into the Flexible Web Development Bootcamp, and it's been a very positive experience so far. The work is challenging, and the pace is pretty fast. I like the fact that they just don't lay it all out there for you; you actually have to figure out how to complete the projects, which forces you to research and look outside what's just presented in the curriculum. 

The most rewarding part of the journey so far has been all the help I've received from my mentor. There's a ton of stuff to learn, and having someone in my corner touching base with me 3 times a week is a huge plus. While I haven't actually dipped into the other resources quite yet (their slack channel and the multiple daily help sessions), I think it's great that it's there to constantly provide assistance. 

All in all, I'd say it's a great course. You just have to be ready to put in the work, because there's going to be quite a bit of it. 

I am currently a Thinkful student in the Flexible Web Developement Bootcamp and it has been a really great experience all around, so far. I am about a month and a half in and the one thing that has stood out to me the most is how well the mentors (and Program Managers) cater to your way of learning. They immediately get a feel for how you learn, what type of pace is a healthy pace for you, and make sure that you are enjoying your experience throughout the course. All in all, I would definitely recommend Thinkful for anyone interested in diving into the world of web developement in a new, fun way.

I thought I could teach myself to code, but after 3 years of off and on learning I knew I needed help.  I wanted to get a job, and I had no idea how to go about getting it.  I looked at several bootcamps and online schools, but ultimately decided to go with Thinkful.  Here's why:

They are extremely nice.  Everyone from the project managers to the mentors is friendly, asking how you are doing, and even chatting a bit before you get started with your meeting. This was important because everyone feels burnout while learning this stuff and it helps to chat and get a little off topic before you start diving in again.

Thinkful employees are professional.  Everyone knows their stuff and takes the time to make sure you understand the answer to whatever you are asking.  I've had days where I felt like learning to code is impossible and I wasnt cut out to code.  Someone has always been there to help me learn and get back on track.  As a side note, they never made me feel stupid for asking a question either. I really really liked that.   

The mentors are amazing.  My mentor has been coding for 17 years!  He knows his stuff and asks questions in a way that makes me research and know my stuff.  And if I dont know it, we go over and over and over it.   Hes even given me extra coding exercises for when I needed extra practice.  And he keeps me on track.  

Also the curriculum.  Dont get me wrong, you could probably find this stuff on the web for free, but hey, you arent getting the mock interviews, the chats with career services, extra workshops on everything from React to Github.. Not to mention the Q & A sessions for hours a day and the slack channel for students and thinkful employees to jump in and chat.

Listen, the bottom line is you get what you put in to it.  Thinkful is a great program.  I havent finished the course yet, but Im due to in about a  month, and Im confident that Im getting the skills I need to succeed in todays programming atmosphere. 

Also special shoutout to Derek, program manager, who has talked me down from the walls and always is there to lend a helping hand.  Hes seriously one of the best.  Im lucky that he was part of my team.

Before I get to the negatives I do want to say I got a lot out of this course.  I went into the course with some degree of coding knowledge and a lot of expereince in non-technical web practices, user experience, journey etc.  I run a small digital marketing/web business and I do a lot of web work using WordPress.  I basically wanted to increase my technical skill-set and ultimately expand my offering to include (or at least start my journey towards offering) front-end development.

On the positive side, I felt the course material was well written and had solid depth, and many of the challenges along the way were challenging and rewarding to complete.  Additionally, getting assigned a mentor that you catch-up with weekly is great for staying on track.  There's also a lot of flexibility in the final "Capstone" project to do essentially what you'd like assuming it meets the broad criteria.  I liked this as it essentially meant I could roll out something which I could hopefully actually sell into a client in some form at a later date.

On the negative side (and I'm really not a serial negative reviewer).  The main disjoint for me was the amazing pre-sales help/responsive support vs the support once you are actually a student.  Just to clarify, this is not a dig at my mentor but rather rather getting in touch anyone else.  I felt that following submitting the Capstone there was a real dead-end and I was left thinking - have I finished?  Did I pass?  What can I do better?  I sent many emails trying to clarify this process but no response, except for an automated one saying I would get a response! (I'm going to avoid the temptation to name names here).  My mentor did respond who felt there should be an independent developer review but eventually he just said he was advised to do that himself in my case and I'd passed after a few minor iterations.  I feel like he was kept in the dark as well to be honest.  Ultimately, I would have loved some detailed feedback on my code and a formal pass email, certificate, something!  $1500 USD and no "closure" just seems ridiculous to me.

I'd also point out and this is really dependant on personal learning style but this course is all written with a number of code challenges along the way (you do this using CodePen or similar).  Personally, I learn much better with at least some video content thrown in to reinforce concepts.  I appreciate that as a developer you need to research yourself but still I would have benefited from some video content curated by Thinkful themselves (although they do provide some great links along the way).  I don't recall a single video as part of the core curriculum. 

In summary, I've come a long way in three months and this is partly due to this course.  However, knowing what I know now could I do better elseware?  Absolutely.  I'm currently going through the Treehouse FWED track which I'm already finding a lot more cost effective, interactive, and educational.  I'm also slowly chipping away at free code camp which I think is a great free resource.  My initial plan was to master the basics through this course and then progress to the Thinkful Angular course, however I'll be focusing elseware to expand my knowledge.  I hate leaving a less than ideal review but I do feel like I've received less than ideal service in this case... it could be so much better thinkful!  

 

 

 

 

 

   

I thought a lot about this review before posting it, because I haven't completed the entire course yet. However, I don't expect much to change, and my experience has been good! With that in mind, I haven't approached the "Job Assistance" process yet (5/23/2017) so I've left it N/A for now.

Assuming you understand that a 'Bootcamp' is a "hit the ground running" kind of thing - Thinkful has done a great job of putting together an order for learning lessons that builds upon the previous where you eventually create capstone projects that are portfolio worthy.

The curriculum has forced me to search beyond what is provided to gain a deeper understanding of all the concepts. My mentor has been able to clearly answer every question I've had, and Thinkful also has scheduled Q&A sessions available throughout the day, where you can jump in and ask questions with a different perspective, or point of view. It's good school, but I would recommend knowing some basics before jumping in, as the pace can be quick. Stay ahead is key for me, while working a full-time job.

After doing extensive research on coding boot camps, I decided to enroll in Thinkful's Web Developer flex course. I recently graduated and had an awesome experience. Here are some of the highlights of the program. 1. The flexibility. I was able to continue to work my full time job without quitting. This was a huge necessity for me. I worked during the day and studied in the evenings and weekends. 2. The one on one mentorship. As a novice, having a dedicated mentor that could refine my skills as I moved through the course was essential. They recently began to implement local mentors in some locations. I had a local mentor which was really helpful. Not only having a mentor with coding knowledge, but someone who had experience in the local job market was a plus. 3. The price. I looked at a dozen or so boot camps and most of them were priced way out of my range. Thinkful was one of the few boot camps that I didn't feel extreme anxiety about paying for. They have many payment options including month to month, deferred and a third party loan company called SkillsFund. I used the SkillsFund loan and they were really easy to business with. 4. The job report. Thinkful is one of the few boot camps that publishes job report statistics of their graduates. This was really reassuring to know where graduates usually go after finishing the course. 5. The material. The course layout was designed really well. I had no experience in development before joining. The material is packaged in a way that makes it simple to learn fundamentals, practice what you've learned and use that knowledge to build applications. Each section is a building block from the previous. 5. The Support. They want you to succeed and this is very apparent with the support system they've built. They have mentors that have open 'office hours' available from early in the morning to late at night to answer any questions you have. They also have a huge slack community that's available 24/7. So between your personal mentor, office hours and slack, you're always able to get help when you need it. 6. The Community. All of the team members are beyond nice and genuinely care about your success and happiness. My program manager Derek was extremely helpful in making sure I had the support I needed throughout the course. The GM and Program Manager of Atlanta(Jas and Peter) do a great job of building the local community which is really helpful for current students and graduates.

After researching coding botcamps, I chose Thinkful because: it offers the most relevant and up-to-date curriculum I've seen from online scholols; the teachers/program managers are very invoilved in your learning experience and are quick to respond.

I started the Thinkful Felxible bootcamp with absolutely no prior experience in coding. The curriculum covers HTML, CSS, the command line (Git/GitHub etc) with lots of drills at the end of each lesson. They make sure you get solid foundations before you actually start programming in JavaScript and using JQuery, APIs etc.
Once you have completed the front-end section, you move on to the server-side. You also learn about more advanced topics in Computer Science which is an aspect lots of bootcamps  tend to overlook.

Apart form the curriculum, the strength of this program lies in the projects you work on, the portfolio you build and the three weekly 1-1 mentor sessions –coupled with lots of daily live Q&A and workshops– that help you overcome the challenges of programming.

This is an online school, however you are not on your own...far from it.
Thanks to Kristen, Mark and Derek by the way.

Highly recommended.

I looked around at several bootcamps before choosing Thinkful. I moved ahead with them because they offer several options to 'try-before-you-buy' so I felt confident that if I decided this wasn't the right place for me, I could back out without loosing a ton of money. Once I got going, I realized I really loved to code and have been loving the courses ever since. I've been working as a nanny so I haven't been paying for child care for my own kid for the past few years and I realized if I did an in-person bootcamp, I would not only be paying for the school but also need to find care for her while I was there and not be able to work even part-time and that was too much. With Thinkful's flex-program, I've been able to keep working part-time and be with my daughter while working through the course materials. I still had the support of an individual mentor at all times and constant access to other support through Q&A sessions and the slack community. Atlanta has also become a very tight-knit family where we meet up in person a couple of times a month so I wound up still getting some of the most fun parts of an in-person bootcamp without needing to leave everything else for 4+ months.

I recently wanted to make a career switch, and thought that programming and software were always something that interested me. So, I decided to do research and research and research, and did not get anywhere until I saw thinkful. Up until that point, everything was either expensive, weird, or plain old garbage. So, I then got in touch with Benjy. 

From there, he took care of my every concern and worry. Not only did he do that, but the onboarding process for this company is serious. The whole staff works to make sure you have everything you need to allow you to work hard and learn this tough stuff. So, with the help of thinkful, what I would have learned in 6 months on my own, I learned in a week with thinkful, no exaggeration. 

Here is why. Plain and simple. When you learn, you need knowledge and practice. For knowledge, you need to know, what to learn and then best sources. Thinkful, gives you structure from A-Z, and guides you in the right direction. Different from being self taught and going at it blindly. This is more strategic honestly. On top of that your mentor is also there, so you have an expert right at your fingertips who actually becomes a friend like mine did. Then you need practice, and Thinkful gives you plenty of it. You learn through rigorous drills, and then capstone projects. Amazing way of learning, why? Well you practice all of the small pieces that will makeup your capstone later on. Practice makes perfect, you succeed in projects, and you will feel great. 

Also, YES, you could learn programming like anything else by yourself. But honestly, time is spare, so why waste it. Unless you actually like devling into the unkown, and don't give up, join Thinkful. They give you a free trial. No other bootcamp will care about you enough to let you try them. 

Shoutout to my mentor Juan, amazing guy. Will always be a friend and mentor. 

I started the Flexible Full Stack Web Dev Bootcamp with Thinkful in summer 2016 with only some knowledge of HTML, and an awareness of CSS.  I was working in email marketing (where I learned some HTML) and enjoyed it, so I wanted to learn more.  If you're like me and can't pay attention in a physical class, Thinkful's online bootcamp is great.  

The Flexible course is paced so that you can go at your own speed, and it provides relevant examples along the course as you learn, so it's not just pure text reading.  You do need to be willing to dedicate and put it in the time and effort into going through the material and practices/projects when you're by yourself, but having a mentor work with you 1 on 1 is amazing and helps you through it when you're stuck or just have questions.  Also, special shoutout to Capi for being awesome and patient with me through the entire course!

There are also a lot of sessions that you can join throughout the week to ask questions from other mentors, and I highly recommend taking advantage of those.  Sometimes even if you don't have a question, you can pick up some stuff from other students asking questions.

I finished the course in about 6 months after portfolio reviews and started working with Career Services.  Thinkful does guarantee a job after the course, however they're not going to just give one to you.  You need to put in the work in searching, applying, and interviewing, but they make sure to help you through the entire process.  Resume and portfolio reviews, interview practice, suggestions/resources on whiteboarding, and a Career Services mentor are all part of the package. Also, a special shoutout to Rob for always taking the time to meet and pep-talk me before my interviews!  Thinkful Slack is helpful during this process in the careers chat too.  You can get tips from the people in Career Services there or from other students.  

Learning web development in a short time isn't easy, but I feel that Thinkful does a great job in getting you skilled and ready.  Two months after I finished the course, I got a contract as a junior front end web developer, and I'm making more than I used to doing something I enjoy a lot more.

A summing up of my experience with the Front-End Developer track:

• Wonderful curriculum rich with information that is otherwise hard to find
• Curriculum is meaningful, fun, and fast-paced. No fluff or information you could quickly google.
• Very practical information that I could use
• Lessons flowed logically and reviewed previous content
• Tons of outside resources and references to modern tooling
• Mentorship was the best part. I got a mentor that fit my needs very well. Got decent feedback and answers to questions.
• Mentorship sessions were very much led by me and how much coding I got done that week. If I did have a lot of questions prepared the lesson wouldn't be as rewarding. 
• Curriculum was project-based. No useless certifications. Only real results I could show an employer and that would prepare me for real-world projects. Final project was a portolfio website that showcases all of my projects. 
• Workshops were frequent and were mostly great. Some workshops didn't reallty touch on a lot of content. Others had my notebook filled with great tips.

This experience really jump-started my web development career and I got a job within 3 months of graduating. Strongly recommended!

 

Note: Edited to add background and note at end

I graduated from the Full-Time Full Stack Web Development Bootcamp in the beginning of April. I'm now 2 weeks into the job search. 

 

Background:

I joined Thinkful after an 18 month stint in the banking industry in NYC. That was my first job after graduating college. Prior to taking the course, I took a 4 week bootcamp prep course offered by another bootcamp institution.  In addition, I completed the Javascript track on Codecademy. Other than that, I had never been exposed to programming in any meaningful way.

 

Overall Experience:

I could not be more happy with my experience at Thinkful. Thinkful provides a comprehensive suite of services to their students from day 1 to the day you land your first job (and beyond). The instructors, the TAs, the mentors, the program director and the career services advisers share one common trait: they care deeply about your success. This is what drives the entire process at Thinkful and it's what makes their program stand out from the rest.

 

Instructors:

The instructors at Thinkful are top notch. They are tremendously knowledgeable and passionate about what they do. Joe and Ben were extremely responsive to our questions and they were always willing to clarify and expand on topics when necessary. The TA's (who join the class for several hours every day) were excellent at explaining difficult topics, guiding students through bugs, and suggesting improvements to code. Every weeknight, students meet 1 on 1 with Mentors who are there to answer questions related to coding, technology, languages, frameworks, jobs etc. I looked forward to my meetings with my Mentor every single day. Finally, Thinkful offers several live Q&A sessions every evening where subject matter experts are on hand to answer questions related to all things programming. 

 

Curriculum:

The skills taught at Thinkful are highly relevant in the job market today. The primary stack is MongoDB, Express, React and Node.js. This seems to be the most commonly desired stack among employers in early 2017. I feel like I'm well-prepared to contribute to a development team. With that said, the curriculum at Thinkful is very flexible. When technologies change, Thinkful adjusts quickly. Furthermore, Thinkful also reserves the right to make adjustments to the curriculum on a daily basis in order to address difficulties that the class might be having as a whole.

 

Job Assistance:

I am still early in the job search process, but Thinkful has been very helpful so far. They take it upon themselves to connect you with employers. Not only that, but they provide you with resources such as career coaching, interview prep, portfolio review, resume editing and more. Even though I "graduated" a few weeks ago, I feel like Thinkful is as involved as ever. 

I recently finished the full-time web dev bootcamp. Highlights: strong course material, helpful online community, and lots of in-depth, student-driven projects that I had a lot of fun with — and they look great in a portfolio. Lows: Mentors are hit or miss, and the daily in-person lectures are often just repetition of the course material and also are limited by the online format, so they're not super engaging or interactive. The lectures in particular are a casualty of the online format, but overall, if you're looking specifically for a remote bootcamp, I'd recommend Thinkful.

I have switched 3 mentors, and it's a common situation. If you could be assigned  a mentor who is responsible, willing to help you, lead you, I'd say you are super lucky.

My second mentor spent 2 whole sessions to debug a typo, refused to take a look at my code, and told me that was not his responsibility to take a look at students' code :) Funny

My third mentor was much smarter than the last one, however he ignored my messages for most of the time, when you get stuck and nobody could help you out, the feeling is fantastic:) 

Then I started my career service. They have this strict rule says if students don't show up in the session for twice, they will lose the 6- month job guarantee. So be careful and read the email once the career service send to you , don't act like me chose to take it as an automatically assigning email and ignore it, because nobody will tell you that unless you break the rules. 

The funniest thing was, my career coach forgot to send me invitations which include session link and time each week( they have the rule that mentors and coaches have to send out invitations each week to remind students). And I totally forgot about our meetings because I have a very small brain :). Although I was sitting in the front of computer thinking about my life, and one single slack message could remind me of this meeting, however my career coach chose not to, instead sending me very caring and considering  emails 3 hrs later after the sessions were over, told me I lost my job guarantee. Here is the funniest part, I explained to career service manager and my program manager that my coach never sent me the invitations, and she suddenly realized she made this mistake and changed the date information of my first agreed invitation, screenshot to the managers. So now I'm not only a irresponsible person but also a lair :). I cried for whole day, and explained everything to my program manager, I asked the receipt emails of agreed invitations to prove myself, he ignored me, and after I was reassigned a new career coach, the last one started sending out the invitations LOL. Such a unforgettable experience.                                                                            

Overall, you are on your own for 90% of time and efforts, so work extremely hard.