Chegg Skills

Thinkful

I have been participating in Thinkful's Data Science Flex program since early September 2019. 

For the last three months, I have learned a lot. I had no prior experience with Python or SQL. At the moment, I am finishing up my Capstone 3  project and I am satisfied with my process.

I have a quantitative background and I can proficiently operate in Excel and in Tableau.    

To start with, Data Science program is not an easy program. Even though they say you can only spend 25 hours a week, that is not the case. For the last three months, I AT LEAST spent 30 hours a week to keep it up with the program. But I was expecting this because I did a vigorous search before I signed up to this program. Data Science is overall not so simple and the amount of information you need to absorb is just too much in only couple of months. That is why the dropout rate is very high. I guess it was around 70 percent. 

The curriculum is alright. I wouldn't say it's great or perfect. I think the main problem is the lack of examples. They only give you one example and move to the next point, they don't get into very deep. You need to make good amount of google searches to fully grasp a subject. They teach you the basic but important points. However , I don't really judge them because even with this, it's crazy amount of workload piled into 6 months. For a 6-month-long program, the curriculum is good enough.

I get to have two sessions with my mentor every week. They usually last around 45 minutes. 

I requested a change of mentor after four weeks into program because my first mentor was incredibly careless and always looked down on me. He would expect me to know something which was never mentioned in the curriculum, otherwise he would act like I am a moron and  should just go ahead and drop out of the program. He was really disrespectful and disgusting overall. Every session was like I was wasting his precious time. He would always have the session in a loud coffee store and I wouldn't hear whatever he said most of the time. 

On the other hand, my current mentor is the best. He is a good explainer, motivator and friend. Whenever I am stuck in something, he patiently helps me with the code or theory. He leads me to search the theory and purpose of the models. Overall, he is helping me to become a Data Scientist and I am very happy that I get to meet him. And yes, he is located in a quiet room whenever we are having our session, thanks God! 

There are about 100 mentors only in Data Science Flex program and it is possible that there might be some bad mentors. Considering both of these mentors have worked with Thinkful for years, you could be matched with any of them. 

I only had one session with my program manager. She was very nice. After having serious problems with my first mentor, she was very supportive and immediately reassigned me to my current mentor. 

I never got a chance to participate in an office hour. It's because I have to work whenever I am not studying. But I have seen some interesting subjects and I am planning to join them starting next week. 

I had only one session with the career service but it is okay because I am in the middle of the program. Towards to the end, I am sure I get to spend more time with them. 

OVERALL

I would recommend Thinkful's Data Science programs only if you have the time and you are sure that you will study hard. As I said, I'm a quantitative person and I have to spend about 30-35 hours a week to keep up with the workload. Yet, this is not Thinkful's fault. If you really want to become a Data Scientist, this is the reality you will face wherever you go. 

If you are ready to allocate the time and and study hard, Thinkful is a nice first step to start!!!!!

(I'm writing this review for the people who are stuck and/or trying to decide between Bootcamps like I once was - hence how long and descriptive)

If you're contemplating even going to a Bootcamp, just do it. The cost alone far outweighs the price of college in general. Not only that, but you will absolutely have no problem at succeeding if you're actually determined to make a career shift. 

My background: I was/am working in customer support, and I had no experience prior to Thinkful except dabbling and failing miserably at trying to retain information from Codecademy alone (resources like this are great and you can learn this way but it isn't for everybody). 

School Structure :

-  Everything is clear as far as when your assignments are due, when your mentor and manager sessions are, and where you need to go for help when you get stuck. This is why I highly recommend a Bootcamp in the first place, YOU HAVE STRUCTURE. It's hard to do it alone, and that's a big reason that people quit in the first place. 

- I really can't stress this enough, but there shouldn't be any reason that you are stuck for a long period of time with this course. They really put in the work to make sure that you're covered in all aspects to get you the help you need. 

Learning Curriculum: 

- This is extremely fast-paced, but they did structure it so that everything is broken down into readable and maintainable parts. You will be learning the current tech stacks that employers are looking for, which is pivotal. This topic is by far the most important, and as a word of advice, you should not only be learning the curriculum but researching on your own behalf (this will help you develop skills to learn at a faster pace, and know where to look).

Price and Course: 

- The course is extremely affordable (Only paying interest until I find a job, and you actually have an option to do the deferred program, depending on the specific program you choose).

- This is a great program if you have children, a full-time job, and/or a family. 

- It's 6 months of learning and 6 months of career advisement and help. This really made me feel comfortable. I can confidently say that I don't think I would've lasted long at a 12-week program, you don't really get to a point of retaining anything, and I feel like the imposter syndrome would be at an all-time high even at the end of your course (just my opinion on my own learning style). 

Mentorship: 

- I've seen a lot of people talk about there bad experiences with their mentors. For me, I've had nothing but a positive experience with my mentor sessions. The best part for you is that if you don't like your mentor or you have a schedule change in your life, then you have an option to simply request a new one that aligns with you. This is something they didn't have to do, so this is another sign of actually caring about the students that attend and not just the money. 

Time Management: 

- For this program they do recommend between 20-25 hours per week. For me, I spend about 40 to 50 hours because I have the time, and I really love doing it. You don't have to do what I do, but you really have to make sure that you are writing specific times to sit down, study, and be distraction-free. 

- Recite, Practice, Teach = The formula to fully understanding what you're learning. 

- Software Engineering has the same concept when it comes to Math, its either right or its wrong. You cannot fake this or procrastinate, because it will show, and you're ultimately doing yourself a disservice.

- Use Google Calendar, Evernote (personal fav), and any other time management tools. This will help you in actually being accountable for your time and daily tasks.

- I also time my study sessions and have a study log to track my hours week by week. It gives you the chance to see when you need to pick up the pace or when you're exceeding. 

Overall:

- The curriculum is hard, frustrating, exciting and you're constantly at a learning curve. But I've come to realize that this would be your day to day at an actual software engineering position. 

- It's affordable, convenient, and transparent.  

- There are times where you will feel like you're lost, give yourself time, and know that it will click. Software engineering is not an easy career it really takes time and perseverance. 

- The curriculum can feel dry sometimes, but make sure to take breaks (Pomodoro Technique is what I implement), and look at other resources (Youtube) to see a different perspective. 

- If you put in the time and ask for help when you need it than I can guarantee that you'll succeed.

- This is the best Bootcamp that's come to light so far. They don't just hire any person that claims to be a senior dev to mentor you (some boot camps do it), and they have poured tons of time, energy, and money to make the students feel capable and positive that they chose the right decision. 

I hope that by reading this you can make a better-informed decision, about what path you want to take. Happy learning and wishing you the best! 

Olivia Davis :)

First, I recommend this program to anyone looking to start his/her career in data science. You just need to be a person who can fulfill his/her commitment, and follow a clear time management plan.

In addition, I would like to highlight the following:

• The curriculum is great for the fundamental stage, but after reaching more advanced topics, it started to become not enough, you are required to do a lot of self-learning out of the curriculum using everybody's friend "Google". It could be part of their plan to encourage your self-learning.
• They have Q&A at different times of the day. You can come up with your questions and they can help you by guiding you to the answer.
• You need your mentor twice a week. It is more than enough, and the best way to ask more complicated questions which require a longer time of guidance and discussion.
• The school is not taking it easy, they are very strict about the quality of your work. They really work on pushing you to learn and provide quality work.
• They have good and experienced mentors who can support you during your learning journey. In addition, they have a slack channel where you can post any questions or inquiries and they are efficient in providing answers if it is during day time

I just graduated a few days ago, and I am getting ready to start my job search journey. Thinkful has a tuition reimbursement guarantee if you follow their requirements and did not get hired within 6 months of graduation.

I chose Thinkful because I felt it offered the best comprehensive education in web engineering. After studying on my own for about 6 months, I decided to make the educational (and financial) investment to speed up my learning.

Some facts about me:

• Went through some tutorials on freecodecamp.org and codecademy before enrolling
• Full-time employee (40+ hours a week)

One thing I can say, plan accordingly. The program is extremely rigorous (which may or may not be subjective) but depending on how you're paying, money can be highly motivating. I was offered an opportunity to transfer to the engineering n&w program and happily accepted as my discipline for learning on my own waned as topics became increasingly advanced.

Speaking of the curriculum, it was wonderful to have a roadmap to learning. That was one thing I found convenient vs piecemealing and combing through Reddit and other people's perspectives on what to learn next. However, I agree with a previous comment about maybe breaking up the information more. It would also have been nice to have a collection of links to outside sources that spoke to the content I just spent over an hour working through. Oftentimes, you'd read through the content and then be tasked with problem-solving or using concepts/techniques you did not cover in reading. I've heard this is normal and the sooner you get used to it, the sooner you'll gain confidence. If you find yourself being someone that needs additional help whether conceptual or specific, take time to figure out how you learn and how to research answers you need. Googling is really hard if you don't understand how to phrase your search. People in the slack channels are extremely helpful and I'd also encourage joining other Slack workspaces for coding. There are a lot of people who are more than willing to help. Mentors are great, as long as again, you already know what you need help with and you get on with your mentor. If you don't feel comfortable working with that designated person, ask for a new one. You're paying for this.

Having the benefit of a cohort and instructors was very helpful to building structure with my learning. However, it got to a point where pair programming proved to be not in alignment with my learning style. I found more solace in posing questions in the slack channels, googling, or reaching out to my mentor.

Just like anywhere, instructors can be hit or miss. I don't know what Thinkful pays, but you'll find some instructors tend to be more invested than others. You can tell who really cares and knows about the content vs someone who is fine with teaching but not necessarily assisting.

Another pain point I experienced was communication. Oftentimes when I'd reach out to the needed resources, it would be days before I'd get a response. This was extremely frustrating as I reached a critical point that required further instruction/next steps. And to be honest, if you pay attention in the slack channels- many people post asking who and how to reach out to people. Unfortunately, I did not get the information I needed until I was advised my loan ran out and I would need to re-enroll. (I have not graduated yet). I take full responsibility for my part in this, as I could have better planned for contributing factors. However I did reach out, repeatedly, and didn't hear back until it was too late. I'd encourage anyone to make sure you plan ahead as best you can to determine if your circumstances qualify for some sort of leniency.

Even with these qualms, I still feel like I was and am getting a quality education. Despite not being enrolled, you retain access to the course material - check the FAQ page. That's a huge benefit.  I appreciate people, like admissions counselors, keeping in touch me. I know this is a business but, I think people become invested in your success and it's not just about the money. The more people that graduate, the more Thinkful's stats go up as a reputable place to get your education. And above all, you are paying for this education. Speak up and communicate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

I have just graduated from Thinkful's Full Stack Flex program with high accolades for the most part.

Firstly, I was working full time when I started the program, so the very fact that the program is offered online was a tremendous selling point for me. That being said, It's not the kind of commitment to take lightly. The good people at Thinkful make a point of saying right from the get-go that it will be a serious undertaking to which you must devote many many hours a week if you are to make any progress.  

Their model is really efficient and highly professional. The bi-weekly mentor sessions are an invaluable resource, and my program manager was tremendously helpful with any issue that would come up. If the mentor you are assigned turns out to not be a good fit, they will assign you a new one right away. It happened to me, and my new mentor was great and helped me through to the end.
Outside of mentors sessions you have Thinkful's slack channel where you can ask for help on your project from qualified technical coaches. It's a good option for when you're on a pause period to catch up and mentors sessions are not available. 

The curriculum and its sections are well crafted and they walk you through it at eye level. The non-programming related tools like the LinkedIn and resume guides they provide are also extremely valuable and go a long way even long after graduation. 

The few things I felt they could improve is the layout of the actual material. Incoporating more visual aids just to break the monotony of walls of text would go a long way for me. The curriculum is really heavy on the reading, and if you have ADD like me it gets tiresome to try and keep your brain sharp during long studying sessions, especially after coming home from your day job. Not everybody would feel the same as me, just one man's opinion.

Overall, I highly recommend Thinkful's web development program if you can afford to make the commitment.

I found Thinkful to be well worth the money. It is such a great investment into your future! My main reason for choosing Thinkkful was that it was online, yet you still had support from mentor meetings and office hours. I never felt overwhelmed, since I knew that I had such a great support system. I did this while working full time, which is exhausting (you definitely have to put life on hold), but well worth it. I was able to master in demand skills that helped me land a software engineering position before graduation. The salary increase alone paid for the program several times. If you stay focused, which your mentor is there to help with, and put in the work, then you will be successful in the program. The course helped me gain confidence in interviews with thier set of mock interviews throughout. I think that was one of my weakest areas at first. By the end, I was a pro at selling myself and showing off all of the skills I have obtained. If you are interested in web developmet, I highly suggest Thinkul! 

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

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

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

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

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

I am about halfway through the course and am liking it pretty well. Strong points have been finding the right mentor and communicating with technical support- getting the right people to help you through difficult concepts makes a giant difference. 

The curriculum at times jumps abruptly from subject to subject (somewhat expected given the 6-month span), which makes it hard to tie subjects together and learn cumulatively. My advice here is to click EVERY link to additional resources when provided-this info is much more helpful and central to helping you learn course material than it would initially seem. 

Overall, I enjoyed it, but since the target audience is people with little to no prior experience in programming there could be a bit more clear explanation of the code written in the curriculum for students to reproduce the results. 

I am going to endevour to be objective in the review and point out Thinkful's pros and cons. 

Pros:

- Cheap
- Self paced
- Introduced to a broad range of topics (...but at low depth)

Cons:

- They do not hold on to their more talented staff for very long as they underpay and under deliver on promises about workloads. I lost my mentor half way through due to Thinkful's inability to provide him with a steady stream of students. Instead they decided to funnel students to individuals who didn't even know the code the curriculum was written in. They do have a handful of awesome mentors, but many are just not up to the job and as I mentioned, the good ones don't always stay around that long.
- I hate to say it, but the curriculum sucks. Things are not explained in any depth, there's typos, mis-statements. The math is never addressed. Some of the assignments are completely non-sequiter. Many of the lessons end abruptly once you get into the meat and potatoes of the content - often with a glib: 'That's enough for now! We don't want to go too deep here!'.
- They take on way too many low quality students - their personell resources are strained due to the fact that they use their platform as a cash cow. Many of the technical (non-mentors) assume the students are bumbling idiots, and they're a reason for that. Can make group sessions difficult if you're engaged and knowledgable. 
- Employement rates are kind of attrocious...about 1 out of 3 people who start end up with a job.
- Horrible marketting campaigns that encourage prospective students to 'Quit your job!'

Now despite all of this, in the aim of being objective, I did learn a fair amount from Thinkful (not without quite a lot of extra work being put in outside the course load). I was offered a job before graduated and never ended up finishing the actual course (context: I also hold a PhD). I am inclined to believe I would have learned just as much by paying for a private tutor and teaching myself from other online resources (many of which Thinkful points to when the going gets tough)...overall I would not reccomend Thinkful. It can provide some useful resources at low resolution to motivated science and math graduates but i'm not sure the value for money is really there. 

I had a little bit of coding experiance before taking the Full Stack Flex program and I enjoyed my time and learned a lot. The carriculum will give you enough to learn the basics and most best practices but if you aren't a self-learner Thinkful might not be the best fit for you (or really any bootcamp). I felt confident that I could teach myself coding but took this program because you don't know what you don't know and it gave me clear direction on what to learn and what was important to know to get a job, and I think for the most part it does that.

Cons:
My first mentor was not very knowledgable. That mentor only mentored people through the first month of basics and my understanding is that some people don't make it past that point so I think they try to save money by hireing less experianced mentors when students are early in the program. My mentor sessions basically just consisted of him checking my questions on stackoverflow. I learned nothing from him. I don't know if this was normal or I just happened to get a bad first mentor. It would be helpful for Thinkful to make sure all of their mentors have more experiance, even when a student is in the begining of the program.

The curriculum I went through was, in my opinion, really deficent in front-end testing. If you want to do any legitimate front-end testing you will have to teach yourself. It also does a terrible job of giving the student a good idea on what good front-end unit testing coverage would look like. I understand that the curriculum can only go so far in 6 months but i think this is the only place in the curriculum that really falls flat and doesn't set the student up for success.

Sometimes it felt like it took forever to get assignments graded and sometimes I got the feeling that little effort was put into the grading. I'm not sure that any grader ever actaully reviewed my capstone code and I suspect they spent maybe 10 minutes mindlessly going through the rubric. You'll get a few UI suggestions and they look for accesability isues but I didn't learn anything from the graders that made me a better coder. It would be much better if graders gave more feedback on code and checked for codeing best practices and also spent time to tell you what you did well. It's frustarating to spend a month on a project and the grade comes back with basically just, "Good job" as the only comment.

Pros:

My second mentor was great and incredibly knowlodgable and I learned a lot from him and I think his experiance alone was worth the price of the program.

Now that I have a job in software development I can say that the curruculum did prepare me well for a job. But with that said, you do have to be a self-learner. The curriculum will give you the basics and will point you towards what you need to become competent but you will have to challenge yourself with your capstones to learn new things.

I think I may have just gotten lucky but I got the first phone interview for the job I ended up taking the same day that I officially graduated. Talking to other students a result like that is not typical, but most did get a job in the field within 6 months.

Thinkful is online but it did have a lot of resources to take advantage of if I got stuck on something. Most hours during the day there is someone online that can answer questions and help you out. I never felt like I was stuck and had no one to talk to.

I never felt like I was doing busy work or wasting time. I was always learning and felt like Thinkful was getting me ready for the job field as quickly as possible.

Disclaimer: Thinkful offered me a $15 dollar giftcard to write a review