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Bloc is now Thinkful
As of 2/4/21, Bloc is now Thinkful; the curriculum and community will not change.
If you graduated from Bloc prior to Feb 4, 2021, please leave your review for Bloc. Otherwise, please leave your review for Thinkful.
To view updated and accurate information, please visit the Thinkful Course Report page.
Bloc is an online coding bootcamp that incorporates 1-on-1 mentorship to prepare each student for a career as a professional software engineer or UX/UI designer. Bloc's apprenticeship approach is tailored specifically to each student's learning needs. In the Web Developer Bootcamp, the curriculum is centered around frontend JavaScript and students can choose whether to learn Ruby on Rails or server-side JavaScript with Node. Bloc’s project-based curriculum is written by expert curriculum developers and vetted by their advisory board comprised of hiring managers. Students work with mentors 1-on-1 to clarify concepts, pair program, and build a portfolio of sites that will demonstrate job readiness as a professional software engineer. Not everyone can quit their job or move to a new city for a bootcamp, so Bloc has designed a comprehensive bootcamp with this in mind. Students can enroll full-time, or complete the program at a part-time pace. Bloc also offers 80 hours per week of real-time access to an experienced developer to answer any questions students may have.
No prior development experience is required to enroll in Bloc, but a strong desire to learn and take on challenges will be important in each student's success! Bloc has a 100% acceptance rate, but is looking for students who are driven, hard-working, and ready to learn.
Career readiness is important to Bloc- their flagship Track programs include job preparation material and career prep workshops. Mentors will help students put together a portfolio and prepare technical interview questions. When ready, students work with the Career Support team to navigate the job search process with an individualized game plan and exposure to Bloc's Employer Network.
My previous full-time job was completely unrelated to programming. I had a few hobbies that surrounded computers (gaming, computer building) and I had spent some previous time with self study using free online resources and taking a couple community college CS courses. I had tried teaching myself C++ as a young teen and quickly realized how difficult that was, thus abandoning my early CS career. My current job was very stressful with long hours and no appreciation and little to show for it...
My previous full-time job was completely unrelated to programming. I had a few hobbies that surrounded computers (gaming, computer building) and I had spent some previous time with self study using free online resources and taking a couple community college CS courses. I had tried teaching myself C++ as a young teen and quickly realized how difficult that was, thus abandoning my early CS career. My current job was very stressful with long hours and no appreciation and little to show for it. So I can to the conclusion something had to be done and decided to look back at something that had interested me enough to attempt self learning with C++.
The Course:
I spent 12 months in the Full Stack Web Developer course. The material was broad and deep. Their curriculum spans a huge range of topics and they push you in their projects to dig deeper. They help you develop a foundation and ensure you cover the basics, but very soon you will move past that as you attempt to put together real projects. It is in those projects where most of the learning takes place. Problem solving, debugging, and just trying stuff out. These projects were great in that they were advanced enough to showcase to potential employers and to push you to learn new things, but not so advanced that it was too challenging to complete in the necessary time frame. Most of the resources were developed in house and would only sometimes refer to outside resources for their course content.
To really excel in this course, you must have great discipline and self motivation. It is an online bootcamp with only occasional meetings with a mentor to push you along. You must come with the desire to move forward and persevere or you will not make it a success. I felt that I was pretty close to where I needed to be to land a job after completion. I only required a little bit longer in the job prep area to hone my interview skills and touch up on topics I was lacking.
Mentors:
The course was broken into two sections, front end and back end. I had a different mentor for each section. For the back end section I had a ruby expert that had spent a large portion of his career in ruby and was very proficient. When it came to being a mentor however, I felt that I was spending too much money for the valuing I was receiving. He did not come to meetings with anything prepared and relied on me asking questions. This was not a good thing as I did not know what I did not know and was relying on him to help guide me along, which is one of the biggest advantages of having a mentor. He would also be unable to answer some questions where I wanted to do something in Rails that was, I guess, uncommon. I felt that it was a little weird for him to not have any idea about SQL for example. I did end up complaining about him after that section finished and Bloc offered me attention time in the course as a form of compensation. This was not sufficient but it was at least something.
For the second portion of the course, front end, I was matched with a more design oriented mentor. She was very much the opposite of my first mentor and probably the best mentor I’ve had. She came to all meetings with her own agenda before getting to any questions I had. I learned a great deal from her and she was always available to assist with questions or general advice. She was much younger and less experienced than my previous mentors, but she seemed to care more and be more in touch with the general industry. Her advice was much more meaningful in my eventual job search and employment than my previous mentors. She was also very involved, or at least had the knowledge, of how Bloc was structured and was able to keep me in tuned to the course and how the projects were designed to be approached. This helped ensure I was on topic and learning the things I should to make myself the most employable I could. Having the right mentor for you is key for these types of programs.
Job assistance:
Bloc heavily advertises their career assistance before you join, however, overall I felt this to be lacking at the time of taking the course. I will say that they were in the process of changing a few things as I finished so I did not get the full benefit, though the items that were advertised at the beginning were still lacking. My assistance amounted to a couple technical mock interviews. While super helpful, I did not receive much more than this. I was anticipating a portfolio review, Linkedin review, other online presence reviews, and other tangible guidance. They did have written course guidance on the steps to prepping yourself for the job hunt, but that was all solo work with no overview from a trained professional as was advertised. This was a huge disappointment. Also, there was no follow up after I finished my mentor sessions. They did not check on me, offer me any help, or even respond with the promised T-shirt after I completed their exit survey. It was almost like, ‘OK, you’re done, c-ya’. This was absolutely terrible customer service as this is now the last thing I remember from them.
Overall:
This course was decent. It is very expensive and the content is pretty good. I would say that if you get a great mentor and connect with them, then it could be worth the cost, however, if you do not or even just get a mediocre mentor, it is completely not worth it. I would recommend taking freecodecamp and if you feel you need a mentor, there is a website that offer paid time with a professional where you can get that mentor-ship help, but only as you need it and save a huge amount of money. As described above, my lasting impressions of Bloc are sub-par in consideration of the cost and promises, with the except of my second mentor.
This program has many positive aspects to it, but there are some realities that I wish I knew before signing up.
Pros: I am very excited with my portfolio. The effort that you put into work, definitely reflects the final outcome of your portfolio. When I addressed my concerns and frustrations, the program coordinators were very accomodating extending my schedule. The curriculum is constantly being updated and is accessible for students after they are finished with the program....
This program has many positive aspects to it, but there are some realities that I wish I knew before signing up.
Pros: I am very excited with my portfolio. The effort that you put into work, definitely reflects the final outcome of your portfolio. When I addressed my concerns and frustrations, the program coordinators were very accomodating extending my schedule. The curriculum is constantly being updated and is accessible for students after they are finished with the program.
Cons: I went through many different mentors and grading team members and the quality varies. Some are excellent and very professional - others had much less to offer in terms of experience and suggestions. Since the program is online, it seems that the coordination is not in sync between the grading team, the mentor, and the slack coaches - so it feels very disjointed and confusing at times. The checkpoints are often set-up in a way where you need to finish one before moving on to the next one. The grading team is supposed to give feedback within 48 hours, but many times for me this extended up to 4-5 days! This was frustrating for me to keep the momentum going, especially since the grading team usually asks for at least 2-3 revisions. I am a good student and always tried my best, so I found this scenario to be extremely frustrating. With a goal of 3 checkpoints per week (while working and studying), this situation was not maintainable when I was waiting so long for feedback.
Final thoughts: I know the program has grown big quickly and it feels to be increasingly disconnected (especially with recent changes). I was feelling lost in a series of checkpoint revisions between mentors, grading team, and coaches, who would say conflicting things then leave me lost until the next meeting or checkpoint revision feedback. I didn't feel like they were fully there and available for me, but rather waiting for the time to be up. Even the slack coaches who were supposed to be available immediately, usually had a whole queue of other students to help and half the time responded with things like "i'm about to clock out! will forward to next coach." - and very often I just left the question.
These are just some things that I wish I knew going into the program because I could have better prepared myself for the experience. I am certainly surprised by all the solid 5 star reviews - and I do recall being asked to leave feedback about 1 week into the program before I had the full experience of it - so take the other reviews with a grain of salt! I suggest researching deeply into the various programs before choosing, so you make sure that you join a bootcamp with the cirriculum and support system that you can thrive in.
I'm surprised to see that there are so many straight-up positive reviews of Bloc. I'm a graduate of the Designer program, I can say they got some things right and some things still need work. I'll start with the not-so-great. The curriculum around front end dev felt piecemeal and choppy. I had to slow down a lot during those sections to seek out other resources because their lessons were confusing. The self-paced program made it easy to get more time to slow down when I needed to.
...I'm surprised to see that there are so many straight-up positive reviews of Bloc. I'm a graduate of the Designer program, I can say they got some things right and some things still need work. I'll start with the not-so-great. The curriculum around front end dev felt piecemeal and choppy. I had to slow down a lot during those sections to seek out other resources because their lessons were confusing. The self-paced program made it easy to get more time to slow down when I needed to.
I had different 5 mentors in the 14 months it took me to complete the program. Some gave constructive criticism but others just patted me on the head and said "good job". That was frustrating at points, however, it was very easy to change mentors when I wasn't satisfied, and I recommend changing if you're not getting what you want out of your mentor sessions.
I'm the kind of person who likes to collaborate, so I felt pretty lonely in my work for most of the time I was in Bloc. I recommend engaging as much as possible with the social channels on Slack and going to events/meetups early on to connect with other designers.
I appreciated how much emphasis there was on career prep and how much support I got in my job search. Job searching is the worst kind of boring work you'll ever have to do and it takes a lot of energy to stay motivated. My career coach was very supportive and helped me get to the point where I felt confident sending out my portfolio, resume, LinkedIn profile, etc.
I supplemented a lot of the curriculum with my own reading list. Bloc, for example, might just say "make a user survey", but not address how to approach it or what makes a good survey question. There are plenty of books and articles on the subject, so I would suggest building in some time for non-required reading and research.
UX is an emerging field that is changing all the time and Bloc is making an effort to remain flexible and change with it. I appreciate that they are really good about asking for feedback and constantly making changes to improve the program.
Overall, I would say this program is challenging and you have to bring a lot of intention, motivation, and curiosity to be successful. You will probably be frustrated with it at some points, but the people are great and it's a good value for the price point.
Employed in-field | 75.0% |
Full-time employee | 52.5% |
Full-time apprenticeship, internship or contract position | 22.5% |
Short-term contract, part-time, or freelance | 0.0% |
Started a new company or venture after graduation | 0.0% |
Not seeking in-field employment | 0.0% |
Employed out-of-field | 0.0% |
Continuing to higher education | 0.0% |
Not seeking a job for health, family, or personal reasons | 0.0% |
Still seeking job in-field | 25.0% |
Could not contact | 0.0% |
How much does Bloc cost?
Bloc costs around $9,600. On the lower end, some Bloc courses like Web Developer Track cost $8,500.
What courses does Bloc teach?
Bloc offers courses like Design Track, Web Developer Track.
Where does Bloc have campuses?
Bloc teaches students Online in a remote classroom.
Is Bloc worth it?
The data says yes! In 2019, Bloc reported a 0% graduation rate, a median salary of $62,400, and 75% of Bloc alumni are employed. The data says yes! In 2016, Bloc reported a 41% graduation rate, a median salary of $65,411, and 80% of Bloc alumni are employed.
Is Bloc legit?
We let alumni answer that question. 477 Bloc alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Bloc and rate their overall experience a 4.61 out of 5.
Does Bloc offer scholarships or accept the GI Bill?
Right now, it doesn't look like Bloc offers scholarships or accepts the GI Bill. We're always adding to the list of schools that do offer Exclusive Course Report Scholarships and a list of the bootcamps that accept the GI Bill.
Can I read Bloc reviews?
You can read 477 reviews of Bloc on Course Report! Bloc alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Bloc and rate their overall experience a 4.61 out of 5.
Is Bloc accredited?
While bootcamps must be approved to operate, accreditation is relatively rare. Bloc doesn't yet share information about their accreditation status.
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