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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.
I attended Bloc's Web Developer track Sep 2018-Present and unfortunately did not have a positive experience.
The majority of the course is a "monkey see monkey do" approach, following checkpoints and coding along, followed by assignments relevant to the checkpoint. Technical assessments occur at the end of each module to be sure you're prepared to move onto the next. Throughout the course students have access to Technical Coaches via Slack to assist when you get stuck.
...I attended Bloc's Web Developer track Sep 2018-Present and unfortunately did not have a positive experience.
The majority of the course is a "monkey see monkey do" approach, following checkpoints and coding along, followed by assignments relevant to the checkpoint. Technical assessments occur at the end of each module to be sure you're prepared to move onto the next. Throughout the course students have access to Technical Coaches via Slack to assist when you get stuck.
In theory there is nothing wrong with this approach and for what it's worth Bloc did help open the doors to the wide world of web development, I do plan to continue into this field. However I feel there are much more effective, efficient and inexpensive ways to learn this material. One of the key issues and my main reason for wanting to warn others is the quality of the curriculum. Although the subject matter is ok, the checkpoints are littered with typos. These typos range from annoying, but insignificant, spelling and grammar issues in the checkpoints, to much more frustrating typos and errors in the actual code students are told to copy precisely in order to get their programs to work.
On countless occasions I would follow directions precisely only to find my program didn't work as expected. After spending time, typically an hour or two or more, looking for bugs and reviewing the checkpoint over and over, I'd try Slack for support from a Technical Coach. An average wait time for technical coaching was anywhere from 20-30+ minutes and once someone finally begins chatting with you, 15-35+ minutes would elapse between replies, sometimes even longer. More often then not this would equate to a total of anywhere from 2-5 hours of back and forth trying to get a program to work. To make matters worse, technical coaches work part time hours (I believe) so after spending several hours with one coach trying to get something to work, you'd be informed their shift was ending and someone else would be there to help. In this case I found myself typically starting back at the beginning, reexplaining my problem trying to resolve the issue with the same 15-35+ min gaps between replies. This agonizing cycle continued to happen again and again and again so I decided I'd stick to Udemy and other programs to further my education since Bloc was only leading to frustration and feeling discouraged. Like most in the program I was balancing this with full time work, so my free time was prescious and couldn't justify spending hours and hours on weekends and evenings just waiting for assistance.
In the majority of cases, after wasting literally hours of time, I'd be told the issue I was experiencing was caused by a typo in the checkpoint's code and to just move on and ignore it. Since Slack is a chat community where you can see other threads from other students looking for support, I'd often see students running into the exact same problems with typos I had run into, only to be told the same thing by the technical coach - that it's just a typo and to move on. There were times I saw this happen MONTHS after I had encountered the same typo, which tells me Bloc is not interested in the feedback they receive from their students as these problems are not being fixed in a timely manner.
Although Bloc offers "Group Sessions" (live and prerecorded video content focused on specific topics), the videos are subpar. All of the videos I tried to watch, simple technical issues, like the host's screen share being so zoomed out you can't see any actual code, made it frustrating and pointless to attempt to learn this way. I often found myself relying on YouTube and Udemy for far superior content.
My recommendations would be:
1) Pay the money and go to a program with an actual campus so you can get quality assistance as needed (like Turing or something...)
2) Purchase a handful of Udemy courses for cheap (and or use other free programs like Odin Project, Free Code Camp, Codecademy, etc) and find some help at codementor.com for one on one support. You'll save money AND likely have a better experience than Bloc can offer.
Lesson here is you get what you pay for and Bloc is just about the cheapest program out there. So I guess it shouldn't be surprising this was my experience.
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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