Chegg Skills

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.