Chegg Skills

This review is regarding the FEWD course.

I had a weird scheduling issue so I was with my first mentor for two months and am halfway through the last month with another mentor. My first mentor was amazing and geniunely wanted to help me improve my skills. He would talk me through issues and explain exactly what was going on. There were also awesome mentors in the office hours, chatrooms, and workshops. 

My second mentor has been a different experience. He's told me more than once "there's no easy way to do that". I understand it may be difficult, but it would be nice to maybe have an explanation. Also, I did some googling after our session and was able to find a solution and implement it in five minutes for one of the issues without an "easy solution". I asked about suggestions for a freelance clients website and he mentioned using Wix or Squarespace. I'm here to learn and I think using Wix isn't the proper way for me to improve my skills.

The main reason I signed up for Thinkful was for the mentorship and having finished projects. The curriculum is good and during my time they've introduced the library and workshops which is awesome. I wish they had that when I first started. I believe there's now a cheaper option to have access to the library and workshops only. I haven't gone through the job assistance yet, but I have my exit interview scheduled for next week. 

Overall, it was a good experience and the projects helped me have a goal and level up my skills. The community is exteremely helpful. I'm greatful I had an amazing mentor to begin with or I wouldn't know where I'd be. You can't select your mentor so it's all in the luck of the draw. 

I took the thinkful front-end develoer course part-time to bone up my work skills. While I walked away with some knowledge, I ended up abandoning the course about halfway through. My instructor was kind but didn't seem very worldly and would often take our calls from in bed (!) which was both unprofessional and awkward. The material was often out of date from the current version of Chrome. I ended up using other resources through Udemy that were a fraction of the cost of thinkful and got more value. Not recommended.

Recently I graduated from the Front End Web Developer Career Path course at Thinkful and I was beyond impressed. With a background in graphic design and animation, and very little experience in web development, I started my journey to land a job as a FEWD. 

Getting to meet with a mentor 3 times a week was more than beneficial because it kept me motivated, and when I had a deadline, I was more likely to complete my work. 

Many of the reviews have noted that you end up having to google free resourses throughout the curriculum. They are not wrong, but at the same time this is part of the Thinkful way of learning. They teach you how to find the information you need and it has helped me tremendously throughout my professional career. I learned how to phrase questions I wanted to ask and sometimes even figure out my issue prior to even asking it. 

The Career Path course is comprised of 5 parts:

• Front End Web Development
• Intermidiate Front End Web Development
• AngularJS
• Ellective
• Career Services

FEWD – I was able to complete in a few weeks because most of it was review for me, but I did learn a few tips and tricks along the way. This is a great course for someone with no knowledge of HTML/CSS/JS.

Intermidiate FEWD – I thoroughly enjoied this course because I was able to replicate the game "Flappy Bird" with nothing other than javascript and the canvas element. You also learn about task runners, preprocessors, and other useful programs that can speed up your development process.

AngularJS – This was my favorite course because I finally got to dive into Angular. At first I was very confused, but once I started talking with my mentor, he was able to explain and help me solve the problems. I'm currently using Angular at my job on a huge project and I give all credit to my skills to Thinkful.

Career Services – This course was iffy because I didn't get the full experience of it. I landed a job one week into starting it. The mentor I had was very nice, knowledgable, and helped me look at my resume in a way that an HR person would read it.

Overall I enjoyed my experience with Thinkful and definitely recommend this bootcamp to anyone that is looking for a fun, challenging way to learn to code at the speed you choose!

I'm about to wrap up my time with the Thinkful Front-End Web Development course.  I've thoroughly enjoyed my time with the guys and gals at Thinkful and have definitely made some big jumps in a few different areas of web development.  Without using too many platitudes, you'll basically get out what YOU put into the course.  If you really push yourself and build things from the ground up, you'll come out on the other side with a significantly improved skill set.  

Another great thing about Thinkful is that they are always looking to improve and provide more value to their students.  I believe they are currently on v4.0 for the front-end course.  The mentors are awesome, the projects lead you down a path that doesn't dead-end, and you community is even better.  We probably couldn't be frirends if you didn't enjoy your time with the Thinkful team.  

PS: Thinkful has also introduced "workshops" recently into their office hours, meaning that there are several different subject areas introduced eachweek in a one hour live workshop.  Topics lately have included React, Node, organizing code, error handling, gulp, and a few others.

I didn't make it far in the course, but when I did make an honest effort to do what they wantted, I found the way they formatted the curriculumn to be overly complicated. I am very new to HTML and CSS and didn't understand when they would say to do something because it was poorly formatted. Perhaps the expectation was for people to know more before taking the course but they said it was for beginners, and I didn't find that to be the case. They even had examples of what the code should look like but when I was showing it to my instructor, we realized the code they used was causing problems for my page, which lead to me getting frustrated. I really didn't have time to waste but waste it I did. 

To lead with the positives,my assigned mentor Denis was fanastic.Extremely knowledgeable, and further was available both for our scheduled meetings and via email, which was a big help for a number of questions that I had. He was an excellent guide in understanding how Node.js works in real life. Thinkful itself did  a very good job in facilitating the class, and when I initially had problems synching up with my first mentor, they readily extended the course availability until a new one was assigned. The curriculum itself though I found to be a little lackluster. I appreciate that it was building a project, but I feel that it was a level of instruction below that which I've gotten at Codeschool and Treehouse. In fact, both of those sources were used for certain parts of the course. Thinkful's own lessons were fairly quick, and I don't feel really went into depth the way I was expecting. Also, there were some typos and other issues in the course that made it seem that it wasn't quite ready for primetime (though I'm assuming these have since been improved, as I did report them to Thinkful). Overall, this course felt like it was second fiddle to their more premiere front-end offerings. Given the strength of my mentor, correspondingly high quality instruction material could have really made this course shine. I wonder if it's just biting off a little more than it can chew, as backend programming really seems to require more depth than can be delivered in a short term online course.
 

I just graduated from Thinkful's main FEWD (Front End Web Design) course. I have not yet tried to find a job as this process is a career change for me and I am still financially hooked to my prior job for a few more months. I cannot therefore speak to Thinkful's job assistance, but they have offered to help even though it was not covered in my original package.

I have to start off by saying how hard to back office staff works to hear from their students and learn from what they like and dislike about their program. They seemed super attentive to anything you had to say, whether that’s for me, their business, or both, I just can't say, but it did feel as though it was for me.

I did have a small amount of coding background coming into the course. A long length of time trying to teach myself, but not a huge amount of actual time was spent given that I work a 55+ hour a week job with lots of travel. That is the main reason I choose Thinkful and I think overall that was a smart move. Thinkful's biggest competitor is Bloc. Thinkful is a bit newer and rapidly growing everyday thus it is hard to make a full comparison, however, because I spent the money, I think I shall.

Thinkful is cheaper but you do receive what you pay for in this area. The curriculum had a huge number of errors, mainly typographical, however, they started to wear on the student as you go through the material. Given that Thinkful is so young, it is understandable, but nonetheless, quite irritating. Also on the curriculum, there was a great deal of "go to this other website and read their lessons and then come back here for your project". They are updating it as we speak, all the time, and have multiple version going at the same time depending on when you start. This was one of my two biggest pet peeves with Thinkful. Their curriculum is just not uniquely theirs while Bloc's does have a home written curriculum. My other pet peeve was that I was unable to choose my mentor specifically. While they were quite knowledgeable, they did not fit me personally and had some other shortcomings that I would have at least been able to attempt to rectify by choosing one that aligned with my goals. I am confident, that had I complained to Thinkful, they would have changed me out, however, like I said, I would then just be paired with another mentor at random, without really fixing the problem of alignment.

Thinkful's projects are great, though a bit on the lighter side. It is only 3 months of about 10 hours a week but still I felt that doing just the projects at face value would not lead to much help. I took my own initiative as much as I could to do extra for each project, just for the practice. I know Bloc's projects are much more in depth and of larger number. I would have liked that.

My overall conclusion is therefore, that for the money, this is a great program. If you want to go their online only, Bloc is quite expensive but offers more, and Thinkful is cheaper but offers less. This Thinkful program was still great and I would recommend to anyone that cannot afford the Bloc courses or does not need the intensity of that program.

I was a student at Thinkful over a year ago in their Programming in Python course in which I learned to develop a dynamic website using Python and Flask in the backend. 

At the time, I wanted to enhance my knowledge and potentially advance or change my career from the pharmaceutical industry to the tech industry. I was researching a number of options. I could get an AA degree in CS from one of the local community colleges; getting a BS was out of the question since the local universities here in San Diego, CA do not allow for a secondary BS and so my other option was getting an MS in CS at one of the universities. This meant that I would have to study for and take the GRE... meh, that's a lot of commitment for exploring getting into the tech industry.

I also read a few articles about bootcamps and so I researched that. Unfortunately, there are no local bootcamps in SoCal. They're based near Silicon Valley and New York. Going into a bootcamp would've required me to quit my job for a few months and hope that I would find a job after the end of the bootcamp pending the fact that I don't burn out from the bootcamp. Since I already had job, the risk of doing a bootcamp didn't seem worth it. 

There were also these other free online courses and MOOCs... Udacity, Udemy, Coursera, etc... and I also came across Thinkful.com. I've taken some courses on Udacity and learned how to program with JavaScript. These free online courses and MOOCs were great! Learn at your own pace and sometimes they were free or relatively cheap. And then comes Thinkful...

It's somewhere between a full on bootcamp (I'm assuming here since I've never done a bootcamp) and a MOOC. You pay for their course and service (which is a sh*t-ton cheaper than the cost of a bootcamp) on a monthly basis and in the end, you graduate the course by working on and presenting a project with real world use. My final project was an "Online Training Website" in which a user can log in, do training courses, and it tracks which training courses you've completed. I used Python, Git, SQLAlchemy, Flask, and MySQL to create this site and I've actually put it into use at my current place of employment and they liked it so much since it was value-adding to our safety training. My company was recently bought out by another company (actually, the number one company in my particular industry) and I may even be able to use my training website in this company...

Anyway, I've learned so much from Thinkful and I would definitely recommend it. The most valuable difference between Thinkful and MOOCs or other online courses such as the ones I took at Udacity and Coursera is that you have a mentor... a person who works in the industry with the technologies that you're learning. You do the assignments, just like Udacity or Coursera or Udemy... but when you're stuck on an assignment or if you don't understand the how or why... you have your assigned mentor availble to help you out. That personal touch can't be beat. And even if your mentor isn't available at that time, you have other mentors available to help you out. This type of positive experience doesn't even compare to MOOC forums or MOOC TAs. 

After graduating from Thinkful, I've taken a few Python programming MOOCs here and there and honestly, I wouldn't have been able to pass some of those MOOCs without the knowledge I gained from Thinkful. And if I didn't pass those MOOCs, it would've been a waste of time and commitment...

My overall experience with Thinkful was awesome and my mentor was excellent! I've learned a lot about his programming workflow and about his experience in the industry... that's something you'll never ever learn in a MOOC!  They are continually updating and improving their curriculum so I know the courses I did while I was their have improved. I haven't really looked into their Job Assistance as of yet since I'm still currently employed in the pharma industry (and using what I've learned at Thinkful) but I just might check with them in the near future... 

If you're looking at bootcamps... have a look at Thinkful first... maybe that's a better option for you and they have other courses too! If you don't want to pay... go ahead and look at Coursera, Udemy, Udacity, etc... but when it gets to the point where you plateau in your learning, type http://thinkful.com into your web browser... 

When I found Thinkful I was looking for a way to reclaim my life and my time.  I wanted to be able to work from home and focus on my family.  After all, I didn't get married and have three wonderful kids just to spend the majority of my waking time at work.  I wanted to be there, to watch them grow up. I realized that the only currency of worth in our lives is time. You can't get time back and you can't stop spending it.  The thought of missing years of my kids lives because I worked a "traditional" job weighed heavy on my heart. It was a driving force pushing me to make radical change.

College was just to expensive and time consuming.  I didn't want a well rounded education I wanted a specialized one. I wanted to hone my skills towards a specific goal and while college degrees are cool and all it just wasn't going to work for me.

When I discovered Thinkful the first thing I noticed was that they were really friendly. In fact I was able to get on the phone and talk to them right away. They were quick to go over the pros and cons of online learning. They let me know that it was on my own time frame and that I could go as fast or as slow as I wanted.  They told me about how the mentorship program works and what I could expect.  I was the most excited about the prospect of a mentor.  After attempting to self teach my self front-end dev and hitting wall after wall with no one to ask for help I was ready for a mentor. 

After speaking with Thinkful I continued to research my options. I reached out to several other prominent online bootcamps and after weighing all of the pros and cons of each I decided to choose Thinkful.  

The price was right and the people seemed exceptionally warm and sincere.  I took a leap and enrolled and it changed my life!

My mentor was/is amazing.  He is the reason I was able to succeed through the whole process.  He not only provided support and accountability but true friendship.  I always looked forward to our weekly hangout and a chance to ask questions and show off my work.  He was always patient and took the time to make sure I really understood the curriculum. There were times when I just didn't get things.  In fact several times we focused on the same weeks problem for several weeks.  He made 100% sure I got it and I was ready to move forward.  He wasn't trying to push me through, he was teaching me.  And I actually...gasp LEARNED the content!

I found the curriculum well done.  It continued at a good pace. I felt like each new concept was introduced at the right time and it was challenging but not overwhelming. Thinkful suggests that the Front-end dev course should take about three months.  I took four months and that felt just right.  I was able to spend time with my family and still have time to continue to learn.

Midway through my course I decided to make the jump into freelancing. I had  reduced my hours to part time at my job but that wasn't enough. I needed a change! So I quit and went 100% into freelancing.  It was scary as hell but I had made up my mind.  I knew my skill set was strong enough to start charging. I also felt confident in my ability to learn and master my trade. 

 I am now in the second year of my business. It hasn't been easy and I know there are still many challenges ahead of me but its been the best years of my life. I work from home and get to enjoy my beautiful wife and children every day. I am watching them grow up and giving them my time instead of a job I didn't like. I just bought a house and I am getting the privilege to partner with exceptional clients.
 
 I went on to take the awesome Angular.JS course with Thinkful.  I was even given the honor to help write some of the content for Thinkful's freelancing course.  Things have gone full circle and I honestly couldn't have done it on my own.  Thinkful was the foundation I needed to get going and help me live my dream.  I am so thankful for Thinkful!

This was a great class, boosting my frontend productivity. The Angular (v1.3) curriculum presented the necessary info and concepts to understand a very large portion of the framework. 

It seems that many people today are struggling with Angular, but I love it. Working on old jQuery only apps was such a pain. The Angular framework employs convention over configuration, providing it's own way to create a slick MVC separation between the view (HTML/CSS) and the JavaScript/backend and model. It's built-in dependency injection system is genius. The controllers are super easy to learn. The services handle all business logic and talking with backends. Directives really make Angular what HTML6 should be. I know that are some problems with AngularJS (makes SEO tough, startup load can be slow), but it is such a huge leap forward in SPA development.

The Thinkful team built a very powerful curriculum. Just do it one lesson at a time, and you will come out the end understanding most of the Angular framework. My mentor (Leon) was in the UK (six hours later) and was very helpful. He had been using Angular from the early days and really knew the framework. If you already have a bit of backend experience, having Angular under your belt will definitely give you a boost in productivity. Use Thinkful if you want to do it right.

I just graduated from Thinkful's main FEWD (Front End Web Design) course. I have not yet tried to find a job as this process is a career change for me and I am still financially hooked to my prior job for a few more months. I cannot therefore speak to Thinkful's job assistance, but they have offered to help even though it was not covered in my original package.

I have to start off by saying how hard to back office staff works to hear from their students and learn from what they like and dislike about their program. They seemed super attentive to anything you had to say, whether that’s for me, their business, or both, I just can't say, but it did feel as though it was for me.

I did have a small amount of coding background coming into the course. A long length of time trying to teach myself, but not a huge amount of actual time was spent given that I work a 55+ hour a week job with lots of travel. That is the main reason I choose Thinkful and I think overall that was a smart move. Thinkful's biggest competitor is Bloc. Thinkful is a bit newer and rapidly growing everyday thus it is hard to make a full comparison, however, because I spent the money, I think I shall.

Thinkful is cheaper but you do receive what you pay for in this area. The curriculum had a huge number of errors, mainly typographical, however, they started to wear on the student as you go through the material. Given that Thinkful is so young, it is understandable, but nonetheless, quite irritating. Also on the curriculum, there was a great deal of "go to this other website and read their lessons and then come back here for your project". They are updating it as we speak, all the time, and have multiple version going at the same time depending on when you start. This was one of my two biggest pet peeves with Thinkful. Their curriculum is just not uniquely theirs while Bloc's does have a home written curriculum. My other pet peeve was that I was unable to choose my mentor specifically. While they were quite knowledgeable, they did not fit me personally and had some other shortcomings that I would have at least been able to attempt to rectify by choosing one that aligned with my goals. I am confident, that had I complained to Thinkful, they would have changed me out, however, like I said, I would then just be paired with another mentor at random, without really fixing the problem of alignment.

Thinkful's projects are great, though a bit on the lighter side. It is only 3 months of about 10 hours a week but still I felt that doing just the projects at face value would not lead to much help. I took my own initiative as much as I could to do extra for each project, just for the practice. I know Bloc's projects are much more in depth and of larger number. I would have liked that.

My overall conclusion is therefore, that for the money, this is a great program. If you want to go their online only, Bloc is quite expensive but offers more, and Thinkful is cheaper but offers less. This Thinkful program was still great and I would recommend to anyone that cannot afford the Bloc courses or does not need the intensity of that program.