Chegg Skills

I am currently enrolled in thinkful's Flexible web development bootcamp and here's my experience so far. 

It took me a while to finally commit to thinkful, a lot of research and asking around. a lot of other school out there offeres the same or if not almost the same curiculum as thiknkful. but what actually caught my attention was their promise to land you or at least help you land a job. and since i'm doing this to change careers these option works best for me. 

I started with a call with NOEL your friendly thinkful walking wikipedia who i think knows everything you need to know about thinkful. after he answered all my questions i know i'm in. he sent me the link to the enrollment page

Note: one thing i love about thinkful is they offer a a lot of payment options. which really really help. they're working with skill funds for any one who needs to take a loan. 

after i enrolled, i got scheduled with Aric my program manager who walked me through on how the course will be. he was staright out on what to exoect from them and what they expect from. 

after that i had my first mentor interview scheduled, which i think cause my mentor flaked on me, but i'm pretty sure he has a valid reason. i sent an email out to aric and the thinkful support team, they responded pretty quick. i got a little late with my mentor sessions but it's ok cause they provided me with a new mentor Kris Craw who is by the way an amazing mentor. his style in teaching works prefect for me. i don't know about other mentor but this guy is the best, he actually gives a lot of pro-tips which helps a lot in moving forward, his tips makes your coding life more easier. 

i'm currenty doing the JQuery lessons and so far everything has been great.

this course like every other course really depends on how your outlook is. if you're willing to learn you will learn a lot of new amazing things. what i really suggest to anyone planning to enroll is try out codecademy free material its not 100% the same but i think its the closest you can get on how their material feels like, this is a good way to see if you can commit into an on-line coding class. cause it's not easy you need dedication. 

one last thing i want to add. i think what makes thinkful really stand-out than others are their mentor sessions, this helps a lot specially in understanding the lessons. or giving you tips.

At my work there was an opening for someone to build an iOS app for another department. Naively, I jumped at the chance, thinking app development couldn't be hard. But it's tough, crazy tough for a beginner like me. There are many online tutorials, many of which don't cost much. And maybe you won't consider this until you've been as far as I have in the tutorial wilderness. The mentorship at Thinkful is really great along with the slack channel where you can get even more help in between sessions. The user experience of the course is also really great. Some courses have smallish font with scattered videos. Thinkful is a nice clean presentation that makes you feel comfortable with learning and keeps you going.

I signed up for the Front End Web Development course through Thinkful when I thought I was signing up for the Bootcamp Prep course. When I found out a month later that I signed up for the wrong course, I immediately thought I made a mistake, but I actually felt like I made the right choice. I learned a lot more than I thought in a short amount of time, and felt that I could use that knowledge to get into the bootcamp of my choice. After a little bit of time, I was accepted into the bootcamp that I really wanted to join and could not be any happier. I accomplished what I wanted with the program and more. I would recommend this program to anyone wanting to start learning, because it gives you a great structure to learn, and doesn't hold your hand the entire way. Finding things out on your own, and through the slack community has made me learn things better than someone just telling me the answers. Thank you Thinkful for the direction you took me.

I am about 6 weeks into the Thinkful Flexible Bootcamp. At first I was a little sketched out about forking the cash for a coding camp. Upon many reviews and many trips to reddit and youtube I stumbled on thinkful. 

Initially siging up for the course was easy. I was guided through by the program manager until they could find me a Mentor. Although, it took a week to get me a mentor after signing up my concerns were addressed in a very quick manner. They got my mentor set up with me and helped me in every way possible.  

Once I got completely settled in which only took a week for me because everyone was awesome. I was impressed with how structured all of the material was and how motivating my mentor always is. The plus with having a mentor is that you are held accountable and have to answer for something if you do not progress. I have been self teaching for a while but have learned more in the past month from Thinkful than 4 years of self taught learning. 

The only thing that I have to say about thinkful or any bootcamp that is on the verge of negative is that it is not for the faint of heart. I work a full time job 40+ hours a week in DevOps so I am in high demand. On top of that I put in 3.5 hours a night to my bootcamp. On top of those things I have a wife and a 2 year old daughter to pay attention to. It is not impossible just hard but if you go through it every accomplishment and every problem solved is that much more grand because you have a life outside of the camp that needs attention to.

So I would recommend Thinkful to anyone that would wants to learn a whole lot while working. You have to want it though. If you are in it for just the glamour of being a developer you will be dissapointed because it is not always glamourous. It is not always sitting at starbucks drinking a latte just hacking away. You will get stuck and you will feel inadequate at times. However, the trick is to perservere because once you have learned and once you get your dream job you will be thanking yourself. Your family will be proud of you as well. 

I like Thinkful and I support what they are doing whole heartedly because they truly care about their relationships with the students and the alumni. I am looking forward to my future in software engineering and web developement with the expert assistance and career services of Thinkful. 

TO THE POINT: If you are looking to learn and have the backing of industry professionals and people that truly care about your success sign up now at thinkful. 

Even though I'm only on my second month into my bootcamp, I'm so glad I chose Thinkful. All the staff that I have had the pleasure to interact with have all been very helpful and has made everything very simple. My mentor, Mario, is a great friend and mentor. He tries his best to answer all my questions - if he wasn't too sure what the answer is, he'll look for the answer and make sure to explain it to me. There was an error on my billing and Ariana quickly corrected the error. Aric, my program advisor, has been very helpful as well answering every question I have and have been very supportive. I needed to take a month off as I will be moving in August and everyone has made it a very smooth transition for me.

Outside of everyone being amazing, the lessons are also as great as the staff are helpful. The lessons are given to you in a way where you can get the basic idea of the topic and try to take off from there. But even if you can't figure it out, your mentor, other mentors, and the students are more than willing to answer any questions on the community messaging. There are daily Q&A sessions that are available to all students to take advantage as well.

Thinkful is honestly a great community to learn coding. I look forward to continuing to interact with everyone and finishing my course.

When I came to Thinkful, I had zero knowledge about coding. Working with a mentor at Thinkful was the best thing for me. I learned so much faster than if I had worked on my own. I have a better understanding of problem solving and the logic behind certain codes. Now I'm much more confidant about coding.

Alvin, my mentor, was fantastic. He really cared whether I understood the material and was very patient with me. Even problems that were probably really easy to him, he never rushed me. He was encouraging when things got tough and he also made it fun. I couldn't have asked for someone better to help me get started. I feel very lucky I had him as a mentor. 

Overall this was a great course. There are a plethora of online learning resources, however having a dedicated mentor is invaluable. If you're starting from scratch you may find the curriculum challenging - however it prepares you for the research and problem solving skills you'll need to successfully finish the course.

I came with some programming experience - and some Swift experience - but still gained considerable knowledge. And my mentor Brian was great. 

Looking forward to taking more courses.

Before I write about Thinkful I'd like for people to know of my prior knowledge about bootcamps from friends I have. My two friends went to MKS in San Fran, it cost them over 20k each for 3 months because of the cost of living in San Fran as well as tuition. They both obtained jobs within 6 months of graduation.

I chose Thinkful over MKS or Hack Reactor because I was able to keep my job which is not something I could find anywhere else and I could also go at my own pace with the part time program. Thinkful is the most affordable of all the top bootcamps and the mentoring is like working with other professional devs from day 1.

I have yet to finish the coursework as I just started in July. However the curriculum is exactly the same as what you would learn at places like MKS and I know this because I had 2 friends who went there. If you have some prior knowledge in html css or js you will probably finish in about 4 months with the part time program.

 If you are considering a bootcamp, I would just say to think about this: Why pay more money for the same curriculum? And also if you have bills to pay so you need to kepp working rather than get 3-6 months off, it's highly unlikely you will find a program with mentors that can be available whenever you need them, which is how thinkful is setup.

TLDR:

In short Thinkful is the most affordable top bootcamp with a network of mentors that doesnt exist anywhere else. It is the best option for people who cant take 3-6 months off whether you be a total noobie or have some prior knowledge. And finally in my opinion I would say that it is also the best option if you do have that time off and participate in the full time program and that is because of the vast network of mentors they have.

i just have to say I'm having a blast in my front end part time carreer path with thinkul. This is my first online class and the experience has been really good for me. I think the projects are great they have really challenged me to ask a lot of questions and it has been really great to be able to see what a professional web developer does and how they break down certain designs and how they go about their work flow. My mentor has also been very encouraging and has given me some really good sources to help me out. I was skeptical about doing an online course thought I might get lost in the mix of things but that is not the case here you get a ton of resources to help you through the times where're you get stuck and even in those times at least for me they have been the most helpful forcing me to call upon all my recourses and try to figure things out on own but having an amazing safety net in having the mentor. What I think is my favorite thing about the program is that they are not too hands on and not too hands off with you more then just my ability to code and learn how to learn other languages I have had more confidence in myself and my future after I get out of thinkful I would definitely recommend it and plan on taking more classes in the future here