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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.
A little background -- before I joined Bloc I had never written a single line of code. I was a full-time middle school teacher for four years, and had never delved into anything beyond simple computer skills.
Enter Bloc. I started my apprenticeship in October 2015 with Ruby on Rails after doing the assigned prework on Codeacademy and other sites. The curriculum is laid out in a structured, checkpoint format, growing in skill and difficulty as you move forward. It continually bu...
A little background -- before I joined Bloc I had never written a single line of code. I was a full-time middle school teacher for four years, and had never delved into anything beyond simple computer skills.
Enter Bloc. I started my apprenticeship in October 2015 with Ruby on Rails after doing the assigned prework on Codeacademy and other sites. The curriculum is laid out in a structured, checkpoint format, growing in skill and difficulty as you move forward. It continually builds upon itself. The curriculum does, as some other reviewers have mentioned, hand-hold on the early stages. Though this can seem off-putting to some, this technique is essential when it comes to teaching a student with ZERO coding experience. Other coding schools require you to have some sort of pre-existing skill, and they only accept students who pass certain benchmarks. Bloc doesn't do this. It accepts anyone who has an interest to alter their trajectory, and eases them in to what anyone initiated knows is a challenging skill to learn and master.
Checkpoints present you with a lesson and then giving you coding challenges / problems to complete afterwards. None of these lessons are beyond the scope of what you have learned and many of them challenge you to think beyond a rote use of the code presented -- it challenges you to think of new ways to learn code you have been presented with. This structure is a great entry into the way the coding world actually exists - taking knowledge you know and extending it towards new uses. There are video solutions associated with all problems that are available to watch if you feel like a barrier is too much.
After the primary coding skills are learned, the projects begin. This is where you come to acutally start building applications and a true portfolio. You will be challenged to take a short use case with some direction, but you are primarily responsible for discovering and coding the solution. Bloc offers a lot of projects that cover the prime foundation of the technologies you will use. You don't build massive, epic applications, but you get the skills and knowledge necessary to start crafting such software monoliths.
The main squeeze of Bloc is the mentorship model. I admit that my first mentor experience was off-putting. My first mentor was late often, offered only small pieces of advice and did not push me beyond answering simple project based questions. As some other reviewers have mentioned, this sent me looking for answers elsewhere to extend my knowledge. In the second half of my program I had a completely different experience. I was paired with a mentor who was always on time, pushed me to learn new skills and came to meetings prepared to challenge me to learn new technologies or coding concepts. If you speak up about a poor mentor, Bloc will readily switch someone in to ensure that you are having the best experience. The support team at Bloc is not only responsive, but concerned with ensuring that you get the most from your experience. Any email or concern that I have had has been answered within a few days with solutions readily available.
I have been a student at Bloc for 7 months and before graduating from the Full-Stack course I already have two active interviews, one of which reached a third phase, complete with whiteboards and company-wide meetings. This would have been impossible without Bloc launcing me towards a love and passion for code. As I said before, I knew no code before Bloc, but I am now being considered for full-time Frontend Software Developer positions at established companies. The portfolio and range of projects are of great interest to employers (I suggest you do as many as you can!).
My one (and really, only!) caveat is this: Bloc is not the end all be all. If you rotely complete the curriculum and projects, you will not be ready to perform in job interviews. Though your education and portfolio might get you calls, all the calls I have received are looking to see if you have a fluency and interest / passion for coding. Anyone can learn to write loops and simple jQuery calls. But do you love to code? Do you want to do it for hours a day, week upon week? A simple portfolio will not display this. While as a student of Bloc I have attended meetups, worked on Open Source projects and read books about code to really master the fundamentals. I live on Codewars, completing challenges every day. However without Bloc as my foundation, my ship upon the seas, I'd be flailing about websites creating mediocre projects with fumble grasps on many concepts. Bloc, as it states itself, is the launching pad of a new career -- but you have to be the rocket.
Overall, I highly recommend Bloc. If you put in your passion and interest, and find you love code, Bloc will lay the ground work for a new career and a new trajectory in life. I have gone from teacher to software developer with a passion in a career that a year ago I didn't even consider. Go and get it.
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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