Chegg Skills

This has been a great journey for me coming from virtually no programming background. The coursework is really good at taking a fairly new topic and familiarizing us and eventually helping us master it. The most vital aspect of this bootcamp is the one-on-one sessions with a personal mentor twice a week, who is a very experienced developer. This really helped me a lot! On top of that, there are multiple Q&A sessions going on during the day with other mentors where you can go in and participate and ask any questions you may have. There are various milestones that you hit during the course and many projects that you create (which eventually becomes your portfolio as well). This really helps you gather whatever you've learned up to that point and make something out of it. That's the best way to learn and remember what you've learned. Also, there are technical evaluations and mock interviews at different stages of the course to make sure you understand the topics as well as prepare you for the real interviews. Also, you are assigned a program manager who can help you with any problems related to the overall program and also keeps track of your progress. The loan options that they provide is also very flexible. The overall community is awesome.

All-in-all, the overall structure of the program is really designed so as to ensure your success. I am really excited and glad that I went with Thinkful!

In November 2017, I started my Full Stack Flex Course for Thinkful and immediately loved it. I had previous experience in HTML, JavaScript, CSS and flew through the beginning lessons. As the curriculum got more complex, jumping into Node/Express and the Back-end, my frustration definitely grew like it would for any other program. The difference from self-study and studying with Thinkful was the community and the help of a mentor. 

A big pro to the Thinkful Online Full Stack Flex Course were the Q&A Sessions that are available to students where staff members have an office-hours type video call where they help out all students who drop in with the questions they have. The staff members were extremely helpful and willing to answers further questions outside of the office hours.

The biggest pro for me was my mentor who pushed me through the program and helped answer questions I ran into along the way. He was able to keep me motivated and to meet with me multiple times a week, which is something I, as a student, definitely needed in my beginning steps. Also, my program manager was able to help by choosing a mentor for me that he knew would fit my preferred style of learning. The staff definitely help to mold the program accordingly for your success, which I greatly appreciated.

With the pros come the cons and one of the biggest cons was the lack of focus on design. This was not necessarily a problem with the program as a whole, but more because there was no time to focus on it with so much time dedicated to the fundamentals of front end and back end code. 

Overall, I am currently a few weeks from completing the program and have no regrets in taking it on. I do recommend that those completely new to web development should dedicate more then the recommended 30 hours per week to the program. 

I'm currently attending the online Full Stack Flex program with Thinkful. I participated in another in-person bootcamp elsewhere and found it really lacking as concepts weren't explained thoroughly and instructors/staff weren't around often enough to help me through tough assignments. So I found Thinkful through Course Report!

At Thinkful the course curriculum is so thorough that I'm able to tackle a good 70% of it on my own. They provide so many additional resources if you want to dig deeper or if you need help understanding a concept. Besides the fantastic material, there are also many Q+A sessions throughout the day. If I'm ever stuck on a problem for more than an hour I hop into a Q+A session and am guided in the right direction. I've been in many of these sessions and interacted with many of the instructors and each one helps put me on the right track without handing me the answer or making me feel stupid for not knowing something. I also have an incredible mentor I meet with twice a week on a video chat where we go over my homework and any questions I have. 

There's also a strong focus on job eligibility between mock interviews that are part of your course requirements, career Q+A sessions offered several times a week, and the capstone projects that are great additions to a portfolio.

I'm so grateful to have found Thinkful through Course Report! I find myself facing mental challenges I never experienced before yet it's all good because the Thinkful structure and team is encouraging through every step.

During my time at Thinkful, I was lucky enough to not only interact with several great mentors, but to also interact with other Thinkful students through our ever-active Slack channel. I learned so much from the people at Thinkful, not just about programming, but how to interact with the developer community, which is filled with so many talented people from all walks of life. I want to thank Thinkful for introducing me to this community, and I recommend anyone interested in Wed Development to sign right up!

As a student in high school, I've looked into many options for me to learn web development. Every boot camp, online or otherwise, turned me down except for Thinkful. WIth a simple email and no questions asked, I was allowed to participate in the Full Stack Flex program. Now I'm a month and a half into the course and I absolutely love it. The mentor program is extremely helpful and even in the time between mentor sessions, there is a slack channel open for questions. The course is divided into 6 modules with a final project/capstone and a mock job interview at the end of each one. Everything about the course prepares you to be job ready by the time you graduate. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning about web development. 

This course was flexible, convenient, and thorough.  The mentor meetings complemented the curriculum and having the mentor to provide in depth perspective and guidance on more technical concepts was truly invaluable.  I already had a significant background in Computer Science.  The course was flexible enough to get extremely deep in certain topics and touch less on topics I already understood in order to get the most I could out of the course. I learned SO much on the topic of data science and had practical experience that I was able to immediately apply at my job.  Extremely worth it!

I wish I had done Thinkful sooner than trying to study on my own. The mentor sessions are crucial to excelerating your learning. The curriculum sifts out what you need to know, but allows you the chance to learn more in depth about a topic if you want to. I recommend you do. There are Q&A sessions with experienced developers multiple times a day. The slack channel is supportive and you'll always get help to a problem you are having. Remember to be specific. You won't regret taking this bootcamp.

I have being working as Statistician (Data Analyst) and programmer (statistical and database) for many years. I know I have extreme passion and patience in programming. I was looking for programming that can challenge me and mostly that I enjoy doing it. Last year, I heard about computer programming Bootcamps from a coworker and I did more research about the different computer programming Bootcamps. I didn't know nothing about Thinkful before . In the third quarter of last year, I filled my profile on switchup.org and they recommended me Thinkful. When I talked to Benjy from Thinkful on the phone, I knew I found the right program for me. I found it very convenient for me. I work full-time, take care my family, and learn modern web development.

Among the many things that I love about Thinkful is that they have a well-established learning platform(technology). Moreover, many people are involved in teaching and evaluating your skills throughout the program. You have a program manager, a one-on-one mentor, technical evaluator, capstone project evaluator, and career coach. The mentors are very competent. A big shoutout to Moosa Hassan who was my mentor for the first part of the program who used to sacrifice his time more than two hours of his time in every session.

I am almost half way in the program and I love everything of it. I can't talk about career placement as I haven't graduated yet, but as of now, I would definitely recommend the program to anyone who is interested to challenge themselves and learn everything about full-stack web development.

In April of 2017 I decided that I was going to learn how web development. I had no idea what language(s) I wanted to learn or even what languages I should learn. So, utilizing one of the only useful skills from my degree in History, I researched.

And then I researched some more.

After spending some time with a free “learn to code” site, I found that I enjoyed it and could see myself developing web apps as a career. I consumed hours of Youtube videos on coding bootcamps, read the seemingly endless reviews from the various bootcamp review sites (like this one!), and reached out to people I knew working in the industry.

After all that research I concluded the following: Thinkful has the most employable curriculum - After all, getting a job is priority #1, right? Their full stack javascript curriculum is essentially what is gaining demand. Thinkful’s curriculum is built to change - This was one of the biggest factors for me. Knowing that Thinkful keeps tabs on the ever-changing web development industry means that what you learn is what is being used in the industry today. Thinkful has a job guarantee - They’re not the only ones, but they’re one of the few. Also, the guarantee does not apply to me, but the fact that they offer it and the fairness of their terms led me to believe that they’re putting their money where their mouth is. Longer Mentor Sessions - When I compared the length of the mentor sessions to Thinkful’s competition, Thinkful won by 30 minutes per session. Not a small number, especially since those sessions are the real selling point of the program.

I began working the Thinkful curriculum in mid-May of 2017 and began my mentor sessions the following month. Thinkful allows for up to a one month lead time on beginning the program. This was invaluable as I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

About a week before my first mentor meeting, I was assigned a mentor. My time with my first mentor was rather short (about a month) and I ultimately requested a different mentor. While my first mentor was a great guy and seemingly knowledgable developer, we just didn’t hit it off. And here’s the thing–unlike college/university, you get to choose who your educator is. Don’t like them? Ask to be paired with someone else, that simple.

Within a few days I was paired with a new mentor. I finished up the first piece of curriculum, fundamentals, about a week after meeting my second mentor. Then the real learning began.

As I progressed through the fundamentals of web development and then started on server-side programming, I truly began to see the value in having a mentor. Online videos and mass-marketed-subscription-curriculum will only get you so far–eventually you’re going to want to have a conversation about what you’re learning.

First, Thinkful’s curriculum is amazing, largely due to how succinct it is. It tells you nothing more than you need to know, and certainly nothing less. While the curriculum might seem limited at first glance, it is actually just well written and chock full of links to examples that put the subject into practice.

I had a realization during my graduation call with my program manager; during my time as a Thinkful student, I never once felt like I was by myself. Sure, sometimes I (foolishly) didn’t reach out for help when I encountered a problem but the resources were always available. There are sometimes dozens of Q&A sessions available each day, their Slack channels contain innumerable useful tidbits about web development (often the Slack conversations are better than some meetups I have attended), and the mentors are an invaluable resource.

The students also play a massive role in each other’s courses as we are always helping one another. Nothing hones your skills as a developer more than assisting someone with their problems.

While at Thinkful, I developed relationships with multiple mentors though I was only assigned two. This happens because every mentor cares about your development as a student, regardless if you are assigned to them or not. If they see that you need help, they help–simple. I had two mentors assigned to me over the course of the program and each was instrumental to my success as a student.

Additionally, the mentors make you work for an answer. Stuck on something? They’ll point you in the direction, offer clues, and tell you if you are warm or cold. In my opinion, that is one of (if not) the best teaching methods for learning this material. Coming to most solutions on my own–with guidance, of course–has made a huge impact on my confidence in my abilities as a new developer.

From day 1, you and Thinkful have one goal–Get. You. A. Job (as a web developer). Also, from day 1, they’ve got an entire staff of folks to help you do just that.

After you graduate, you go to school again, except this time you are learning job hunting techniques that can make or break your search. Oh, and you get assigned to a career specialist that will help make introductions on your behalf. I mean, if that’s not value, I don’t know what is.

As with everything in life, with the good comes the bad. Fortunately for myself and Thinkful, the bad is mostly negligible.

The only thing that I believe Thinkful needs to work on is their growing pains. They are expanding rapidly, and it seems that sometimes their people are a bit overworked. That being said, I have never felt like the attention I received from a Thinkful staff member or mentor was anything but the ever-so-coveted, undivided attention. Whether I was in a one-on-one mentor session, a 15 person Q&A, or receiving a reply to an issue on Slack, I felt like I was being addressed. Now, this may not sound like a lot, but after spending 5 years at a university and an adolescence in the public school system, this feeling of always being one-on-one is exactly what I needed to succeed.

Well, looks like I managed to turn their one negative into a positive. What does that tell you?

While I am only beginning my job search this week, I can confidently write the following:

I built three apps from scratch, each one increasing in complexity. I understand the development process at a base level. I have a general understanding of computer science fundamentals. I can look at a design sheet or a HTML wire frame and make a functional, responsive, and mobile friendly web app.

I could not have written those sentences 7 months ago.

Ultimately, I was able to become qualified to be a junior developer while still working my 9–5 (more like 8–6) 5 days a week. The program flexed when I needed it to and I was still able to maintain my commitment and learn the fundamentals for a new career. If you feel that you have similar goals and situation, I urge you to contact the good folks at Thinkful and learn more.