Chegg Skills

Studying at Thinkful was an invaluable experience. I am really happy because I have acquired much of new knowledge and I managed to create a small portfolio, demonstrating my new skills. The curriculum is written in a very clean and simple way and you have full guidance on your projects. Of course as the lessons go by you get to work more independently but there is always enough information and online help to walk through the challenge set. People at Thinkful were really helpful and caring, from my mentor to the Slack community! I hope I will come back to a new course soon!

I did 3 thinkful courses over about 8-10 months from late 2013 - mid 2014...and by the end of the 3rd course I had a fulltime job as a developer! I did the rails, frontend, and angular courses.

They recommend 10 hours per week, but really the amount of effort you put in dictates how successful you will be. Go to office hours, hang out on slack, etc. The mentors are the biggest value and you should really try to use office hours for code reviews of your work and let your mentor tear your stuff apart. Use office hours/other channels for support and troubleshooting.

Their courses do have things like typos, occassional missing instructions, but they are quick to help out if you get in touch. You really can't expect perfection because once you get into the industry, you'll see plenty of incorrect readmes, bugs, etc and you'll have to figure things out yourself.

There was no job assistance when I did the courses, but I guess they offer that now. I picked thinkful because it was inexpensive, got me developer facetime when I was living in Asia and I could do it remotely. I still jump into office hours / hang around on slack because they are all really nice people and the mentors are brillliant resources who are always up to talk shop.

My experience with Thinkful was for the most part positive. The slack community was responsive, fun and helpful. The staff was/is friendly and understanding and the ciriculum was right for me.

The ciriculum started with the basics and then moved to more advanced topics such as frameworks, argparse, object orientated code. Knowing this was in-part why I signed up.

All that said, I signed up was assigned a mentor and left feeling much more confident in my web-dev skills especially in python. This is a great first step for enyone looking into starting web-dev as a career but wants to have a skilllike python that will be able to be used in multiple arenas.

When I say that the coursework is what you make of it, it truly is. If you spend time with the mentors online, ask questions and learn with their program, you'll be OK. If however you're shy or don't ask questions, you might be better off with something that's a bit lower in price. There are times that you have to bark in order to get help. This is rare but it happens.

At the time of my graduation, I didn't receive any job assistance however the skills that I learned were able to help me land a position as a developer. Job assistance just wasn't available when I was a student.

Pros:
Friendly staff
Fun content
Current & topical information for job hunting

Cons:
A lot of the time, I would be pushed to read the docs, even if I had already done so.
It did not feel the the mentor I was assigned was invested in my growth
Project Feedback was sparse
 

It is 2016,  I just spent a month stepping thru the Thinkful Front-End Development course.  While my mentor was helpful and talented,  the course-work was disappointing.  "Think of reading a book with many pages missing from the story" .   You are left with a feeling of confusion as too much essential subject matter is not provided by Thinkful coursework regarding HTML and CSS.   While the mentor can fill-in some gaps,  you must go to other websites to complete your answers to your many questions.    For a price of $300 to $1500 per month,  the student deserves more robust course materials to properly leverage their time spent with their mentor.  Unfortunately skilled mentors will not makeup for the flawed course materials.

I came in with the goal of admission to a bootcamp.  When I left I had admission to RefactorU, MakerSquare, and Hack Reactor.  So I accomplished my goal. 

I started out in their Front End Development course, but switched about halfway though to their MakerSquare Bootcamp Prep Course as it was more in line with my goal of admission to a fullstack javascript bootcamp.  Both expereinces were good.  I would recommend Thinkful, if you have a goal and want help getting there.  I took the Javascript codeacdemy course before entering and as a result I think I got more out of the javscript aspects of the course.  Along those lines I regret not also doing the HTML/CSS codeacdemy course beforehand, as I would have gotten more out of my thinkful course and my time with my mentor. 

One of the best parts of thinkful is their indivudualized approach to customer service.  When you need help with anything and they email you back, its not a auto-generated email, its a real person.  I moved once in the middle of a course and there were very accompodating.  Other little things popped up throughout my time with them and it was always handled painlessly, logically, and to my satisfaction.

When shopping for bootcamps, I was looking primarily at in-person programs, as I learn better in social situations. The cost of these programs were prohibitively high for me though. Thinkful seemed to offer a nice compromise with their mix of online cirriculum and weekly google hangouts with a mentor. The price point ($500 at the time, though they've changed up their programs/prices a bit since I began), delivered good value for the money. 

I did the Python program, which has a focus on backend web development. The cirriculum was decent. On par with Google's online Python classes- my only point of comparison for purely online courses. I didn't spend much time in the Slack channels or online workshops, though I did find them useful. Several times I got blocked and posted a question in the Python Slack channel. Each time someone from Slack answered my questions and unblocked me with a response time averaging ~1-15 mins. The real value of the program though came from my mentor (Tudor), who was excellent. In our always-too-short 45 min weekly sessions, I learned exponentially more per minute than when I was learning on my own. Also, having another human to meet with regularly held me accountable and kept me motivated. 

The average time it takes to finish the course is three months. I ended up taking four (for a grand total of $2,000), mainly because I chose a fairly ambitious capstone project (a Django site), which took much longer than expected (Django is awesome but hard!).

I feel this course could get you within "striking distance" of a junior software development position, if that's your goal. It teaches you enough about some fundamental technologies (Python, Flask, databases (Postgres), Heroku, basic front end stuff (html, css)), that you can build real-world applications. I didn't take advantage of their career services, so can't review those. I'm currently doing some basic freelance web development work I got through a friend and looking to keep building and learning.

Would (and have) recommend Thinkful to people looking to pursue coding without quitting their day job, or just looking for a more economical learning experience. 

A good overview of what the world of Data Science is like. This is a great course for someone looking for beginners' knowledge with a little extra. The plan to finish within the recommended time frame (12 weeks) is a little unrealistic, especially if you have other commitments, such as full time work. However, it is absolutely worth it to invest the extra time. The mentorship you get is invaluable as being introduced to coding for the first time can be overwhelming and a more hands on approach by a mentor can make this seem less daunting.

Keep pushing through the content! The last unit will introduce machine learning, which is very interesting. Don't get burned out at this point, it is a LOT to go through!

My background: Degree in Comp Sci 6 years prior to starting the course. Acquainted with HTML, CSS, JS.

My goal: To gain relevant skills so I can get a job in web development.

My reason: Thinkful offers flexible, self-paced, and guided curriculum which fits my schedule since I have a full-time job.

My result: Gained a full-time job as a developer before finishing the Front-End Career Path Course

My experience (in summary):

I had a great learning experience with Thinkful. Your experience will depend a great deal on your mentor. So if you think you're not paired with the right mentor, ask for a change as soon as possible. Fortunately, my mentors were great developers. Like everything else, just because you can do it, doesn't mean you can teach it. The same applies to Thinkful mentors. It's up to you to pick their brain. Be proactive by asking questions, explanations, helps, and clarifications.

One notable mention is Derek. Derek's not my mentor, though I wish he was. There is hardly anybody as interested or as hard working in helping me as Derek. From advice, to extra mentor sessions, to extra curriculum. Anything that will aid me in accomplishing my goal.

I highly recommend Thinkful, but please realize that it's not a utopia for dev bootcamps (I can bet you that no place is). You'll learn to think and solve problem as a developer.

My time at Thinkful started when I was quite aware that to pursue a career in Freelance Web Development I needed a reputable institution as a reference point to future employers. I had some previous experience coding, intermediate HTML & CSS skills, but no javascript knowledge - even said that javascript was uneccesary and too complicated to implement in my, then, web projects. By the end of this course I thought I'd never say the words: "Javascript IS necessary and fun!" I had a great mentor, a guide along the dark alleyways fo learning a new language, and a fantastic, closely-knit, community of fellow classmates, coders, and eventually friends. Within two months I had grasped not only an advanced level of Javascript, but honed my HTML & CSS skills to the MAX (yes I know, my name is Max, pun intended)! By now I'm a season programmer, with many projects under my belt, a whole new skillset, and the ability of utilizing this new found knowledge to pursue that Freelance Web Developement that I was so desperately in search of! Come one, come all, join me at Thinkful!

My background includes more than two years of QA and Test Automation experience working as a contractor for various companies in northern Colorado. My focus had been to write software that would test against web sites, meant to ensure sites wouldn't break and user experience remained high. My goal with Thinkful's FEWD career path was to help me transition into the development side of things and not remain just a tester. 

Success with education is always left up to the student, whether you go to a university or choose Thinkful, it is up to you the student to get what you want out of the experience. If you intend to get a junior or entry-level web developer role then Thinkful's FEWD career path is a great option considering they will show you what web developers go through on a day-by-day basis (yes this includes - using Google, StackOverflow, code reviews, debugging, test-driven development *hopefully*, refactoring). 

Every concept you will use as a web developer is taught in this curriculum, so my advice would be to not focus so much on the tools being used but rather the concepts and reasons for using the tools (version control, build processes, testing, design, MVC frameworks). Learn and practice daily even if for only 20 minutes - it adds up over the 4 to 6 months you're in the program.