Chegg Skills Reviews
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Anonymous
Thinkful Review
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I've got about a month left in my bootcamp and I gotta say I've probably learned more in these past few months than I could have alone. The curriculum is really streamlined to give you the most important details and best practices, that otherwise on my own I would have to spend a bunch of time researching what to actually learn, which is a huge time sink. Especially since I'm doing the part-time program, after working my full time job, I really only have 2-3 hours a day. So every minute is valuable. That being said, the curriculum can't possibly teach you everything, but it's a good starting point to let you branch off and help you know what you should be learning. If you are planning on attending a bootcamp, Thinkful's part time is great choice. But make no mistake, part time doesn't mean half the effort, if you want to do well in the bootcamp and as a web developer in the industry you gotta give 100%.
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Anonymous
Thinkful Full Stack Flex Bootcamp Review
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I am more than half way through the full stack flex bootcamp through Thinkful and it has been a great experience so far. The course has progressed through a lot of interesting and useful content in an intuitive way that makes it easier to learn and build on knowledge. I work full time as a product manager and everyday at work I am able to connect things I’ve learned in the bootcamp to development being done by the software engineers I work with every day. The two mentors I’ve had have been very engaged and always ready to answer questions and help me if I get stuck or just want to learn more. Besides always having a dedicated mentor to help with students through the content, every student also has a designated project manager who helps guide a student through anything administrative and is the go to person for any questions or advice about the course. Even though I’m not done with the course just yet, I have already learned so much and can build out my own full stack web apps now. Besides the basics, Thinkful teaches up and coming topics such as react and node so students are up to date with knowledge. The career management resources are also very helpful and connect work being done in the bootcamp to the overall goal of getting a job in software engineering. I have completed 3 of the mock interviews and with the combination of live coding challenges as well as classic interview behavioral questions they are a great way to practice interviewing as the bootcamp progresses. I have had a great experience so far and am looking forward to getting through the rest of the content and starting a career as a software engineer utilizing all the I have learned through Thinkful both technically and professionally.
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Anonymous
FSF-Student
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I'm about half-way through my Bootcamp experience as a Fullstack Flex student, and although it's been very challenging at times. I'm impressed with my skills now compared to a few months ago. I started out as a somewhat coding newbie and my mind has flexed muscle I didn't even know it could! I can't wait to finish up the course in 3 months and I'm beyond excited for where this journey will take me. The best advise I can give is, if you're on the fence about applying just go for. As long as you put in the time, work and effort, you will succeed.
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Anonymous
No teaching needed.
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I enrolled at this place because of the personal mentoring. I read the negative reviews and knew going in that the mentor would make or break the experience. I decided to trust Thinkful, that even the worst mentors could not be that bad. I was wrong. Among the mentors I've had: one was completely useless - he would show up to our sessions like he was high. I would have to repeat myself several times before he attempted to answer my questions otherwise he was silent and staring at the screen for the next hour. He only got upset and started berating me when I tried to log off because he probably wouldn't get paid for the session. Another mentor I had kept bringing up my gender. How, as a woman, I need to have more confidence - every session I've had with this ahole started off with a lecture about how I have impostor syndrome when I just wanted someone to help me troubleshoot an error in my project. I tried to placate him and agree, but he would not move on until he finished his 15 minute speech. And yet another one would make passive-aggressive remarks about how women should be in the kitchen ha ha
I ended up on slack more often because my mentors would not respond to my emails and learned more from the grads online. I eventually confided in others that I did not feel comfortable because of my mentor and boy was I surprised when I found out that not only was this normal, but that no matter how many times students complained about the lack of professionalism and the lack of knowledge (there are mentors that don't know a single thing about js, despite it being the principal language for your projects), the offending employees could never be fired. One of the mentors was even caught giving wrong answers to his student several times so the student would have to spend extra weeks figuring out what happened, only for the mentor to insist there was a "misunderstanding" at the next session. That's an extra $35 per hour for the mentor and weeks lost to the student. Easy way for the student to fall behind and pay another $2000 to extend the program and mentor access - good for Thinkful and explains why this mentor hasn't been fired.
The curriculum itself is set up so that if you don't have some background in programming, you are going to fail to finish in 6 months. html and css are easy to bypass which is why they can afford to offer the trial period but once you get to js, you are rushed through everything with no foundation. The exercises are limited and the content becomes overly vague. Thinkful offers outside resources in the beginning, but stops around js and in turn, slack is always full of requests for outside material because nobody understands what's going on. You have no teachers if you do not get a good mentor. You are reading and doing everything by yourself. Every section has a button for reporting spelling errors and issues with set up or unclear instructions. You do not get alerted to content changes and even mentors on slack will be surprised at how something was deleted and not know when the content was changed.
Thinkful also offers office hours and workshops and if they aren't cancelled last minute with no explanation, you take a gamble and go to the session. The good tutors have a long line, the bad ones are practically empty because they never know how to answer questions.
The interviews after every section are a joke. The reading does not prepare you adequately and the interviews ask more in-depth questions that do not reflect the rigor in the curriculum. If you fail the same interview twice, they give you an exercise to do but I have seen several students post the question and get the answer on slack.
The only winners here are the company taking your money and the predatory mentors who take advantage of the students and Thinkful's perks.
David of Chegg Skills
Head of Program Management
Dec 28, 2018
I am devastated to hear you've had such a negative experience in our program. We expect our mentors to behave professionally. This includes refraining from off-color or inappropriate remarks, including the kind that you've mentioned here. This is not the expectation we set, nor is it one we'd expect. If you were having issues with your mentors and receiving feedback, we would hope that you'd discuss that with your Program Manager.
We have a dedicated support team to help ensure you have everything you need to be successful in our program. I would like to work with you directly to see how we can rectify your situation. Frankly, I'd love to know who your mentor was so I can address it personally. Please email me at David@thinkful.com at your earliest convenience.
Thanks,
David -
Anonymous
A Real Review - Not from a Thinkful Staff or Marketing Member
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Here are the problems with Thinkful:
For $1500 per month, you get to meet with an assigned mentor about 2-4 hours per week. All other learning is done on your own. My mentoer actually told me in the first week that I should add some other inexpensive courses from Other online sources to help guide me as well. What?? Its like the teachers at your college telling you also to enroll in another college at the saem time because their time is limited to actually teach you.
In addition to the 2-4 ohours per week with your mentor (again you are paying 1500 per month for this) You also get Access to randomly scheduled chat rooms to sit in line and hope you can get to a chat room mentor, so you can ask specific questions and SOMETIMES get helpful answrers, which you have to do in about 5-10 minutes because others are in line in the chat room breathing down your back.
Ask UP FRONT EXACTLY WHO guides you in the employemnt search when you finish. Then ask exactly HOW they guide you. Fact is, 'guidance' from them means You pretty much do everything on your own, and someone just checks in to make sure you are meeting their emplyment search guidleines defined in the their 'money-back 6-month job placement gaurantee'. If you miss a guideline or requirement one week, they are examplt from having to reund your money and honoring their gaurantee.
The online instruction is all just reading material on a page and then triying to satisfy the project requirements, which get more complicated at the end. Try to writ edown all your questions for when you meet your mentor 2-4 hours heach week.
Your 'advisor' may contact you and tell you at the very start of the program that, even though the program is 6 months, you can always take 7, 8, or 9 months to really learn more deeply, because "Many of our students do that to really learn the subject matter.". If you do this however, know that they don't not have to honor their job palcement gaurantee because they don't tell you this up front.
Many of the mentors are from overseas which is no problem, but they are difficult to understand because of heavy accents. And forget about THEM leading YOU in practicing, rather it is YOUR job to come up with questions to ask THEM. Otherwise, they just sit back and let the clock tick as you struggle and pay month after month.
Honestly, I know a lot of reviews here are organized and strageized marketing reviews written by people connected to their own staff and comany. But as a former student who found other ways to learn the material more scucessfully and become a developer, I would avoid Thinkful for now - until they make some major improvements. --As of Septmeber 2018.
Program Management Team of Chegg Skills
Program Manager
Dec 07, 2018
Your feedback is incredibly valuable for us and has a direct impact on the ways we continue to improve our programs. Our goal is that you get support from a team of experienced developers who work together to ensure that you get the comprehensive feedback and guidance to progress through the program and reach your goals.
We apologize for your negative experience in our program. We would like to do what we can to help resolve some of the issues you raised here. Please email us at success@thinkful.com at your earliest convenience.
Thanks,
Program Management Team -
Anonymous
Great bootcamp!
This is a great bootcamp to go from a noobie or hobbyist to a professional junior web or mobile developer. I really liked going about the curriculum in coding pairs with a mentor ready to jump into our session to answer any questions we couldn't answer for ourselves. It's a great approach to breaking apart and digesting advanced concepts.
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Anonymous
WORST SCHOOL EVER. MATERIAL IS ALL DATED, THE JOB GUARANTEE IS ALSO A JOKE.
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I started this program with broken promises. Before enrolling the school GUARANTEED A FULL TIME JOB OR A FULL REFUND. None of it has happened. The first month was great the easy stuff. The months moving forward I was assigned about 7 different mentors. Reasons being they did not know javascript or they would direct me to google. A lot of times the mentors would complain about the low rate of pay. The Q & A sessions offered are even worse, the mentors pick and choose who they want to work with. If they didn't like you or if you did not meet a certain requirement they would again point you to google or say they don't know the subject matter. About 75 % of the Q & A's I registered for were cancelled, no reason was given. The curriculum is dated and old it is a lot of reading and more reading. The mentors are not experienced at all. They just come to collect a paycheck and update their skills on the expense of the students. The school does not monitor the mentor sessions or the Q & A sessions which are just a waste of time. The slack channel your questions will go unanswered or if they answer it they will shame you and point you to an article on how to ask questions. I was not a professional programmer I was a student looking to learn. This program is not designed for students to be successful. Not a single assignment was graded or was any feedback given. I was given a pacing guide on month 8 of the program.
The statics show a 98% success rate which makes sense. If you go above the 6 months they will forcefully withdraw you to keep the data looking good.
Save yourself the time and money go buy the same course on udemy for $10 bucks. Employers do not look at education they look what can you build. The stuff learned here I was not even able to get a UNPAID internship.Program Management Team of Chegg Skills
Program Manager
Nov 14, 2018
Dear student, we are sorry to hear you've had a negative experience in our program. If you were having issues receiving feedback on your assignments and issues with Q&A sessions, we would hope you'd discuss that with your Program Manager.
We have a dedicated support team to help ensure you have everything you need to be successful in our program. Please email us at success@thinkful.com at your earliest convenience so we can learn more about your situation and make things right.
Thanks,
Program Management Team -
Anonymous
Thinkful Exceeds Expectations
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I've just completed my first month in the Fullstack Flex program. It's been a great experience and the amount of knowledge presented has exceeded my expectations. Besides their own course materials, which is extensive, they provide additional resources throughout each unit. Some of these resources have become my favorite websites to frequent.
Even though it's flexible and go your own pace, there is just enough structure to keep you focused, disciplined, and motivated. I've tried some other tutorials and self study web programs, but the difference maker with Thinkful is the industry wide support staff.
The mentors I've been assigned are experienced and very motivated to help you succeed. They provide a nice balance to the solo course work. There are a variety of Q&A sessions available at nearly all hours of the day and a very active Slack channel which is to say you always have support from staff and students.
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Anonymous
Full Stack Flex Student
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Overall, I have enjoyed Thinkful so far. I've been a student for a couple of months and have found the course material valuable. The curriculum is very heavy in reading so I think it's worth considering how you learn and whether or not that feels like the right style for you. With that said, it does provide a good outline of topics for you to go research on your own and then you can use the curriculum as supplemental.
The Q&A sessions, along with the Workshops, are very helpful. I think this is what sets Thinkful apart from just going off and learning on your own. It's game-changing to have a person you can ask questions to, and with Thinkful, you also get a one-on-one mentor. I had two mentors who didn't show when they said they would on a few occasions so it started out rough but Thinkful was accommodating and extended my graduation date due to the mentor absences. I'm now paired with a great mentor who has helped me a lot.
I would recommend Thinkful to somebody considering it but would caution them to consider what learning style is best for them. I do think anybody could be successful with Thinkful, however; the human element really helps to get you through difficult learning curves.
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Anonymous
Thinkful Is Thoughtful
I believe that by adding the opportunity for students to meetup in local cities (Philadelphia in my case) only adds to the value of Thinkful. It is (to me) the icing needed for a very good cake.
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Anonymous
Front End (Online)
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Joining front end development course of thinkful online was the worst decision I made. Maybe their offline schools are good but they were not available in my town.
Their curriculum for is stale and old. Teachers are good but the time is not enough for you to learn web design, not in 2018.
And, all the ressources they have can be found for free on Youtube.
Go to YouTube and learn for yourself instead of throwing money at them.
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Anonymous
My Experience with Thinkful
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Justification to attend:
I had done a lot of googling before coming to Thinkful and I had found through various sites similar to this one that it had some of the best reviews.
I had been in the web development field (primarily backend) for more than 10 years. At the end of my most recent engagement prior to Thinkful I began dusting off the resume and realized
that most of the jobs at the places I wanted to work at required either full stack skills or strong frontend skills. Sure, I could have taught myself how to do all of this, and most often when I need a new skill in a pinch I read a book or two on the subject but often times when you need to learn something fast, it is difficult to know what to learn and how to learn it thanks to a large amount of content (both excellent and horrible) available for free online.What I needed were structure and resources that I could tap to ask questions when I got stuck or needed more clarification. This is really where Thinkful was a benefit.
The Course:
I took part in the engineering immersion program which was typically more than 12 hours a day (for 5 months) five days a week, and often times during the weekend we had some time of reading that we should do (sometimes optional). If you are lucky, you do get a break week for a holiday (or two) but for the most part, you are hustling it up to get your skills up to date.The typical day included workshops in the mornings and drills in the afternoons with your peers. This is very important as you get to see how other people think and approach problems (some great, some not so great) and it really helps you get familiar with working through issues and problems in a collaborative fashion.
Having been self-taught for the majority of my career - I lacked knowledge in one key area: Data Structures and Algorithms. I knew the basic data structures and algorithms but having someone break it down so you fully understand it is really the main reason why I believe that Thinkful is worth it.
The Outcome:
As soon as I shared some of my portfolio projects on my LinkedIn the recruiters started flooding my inbox This was nothing new as having been in the field for so long, recruiters would always contact me - but with the new confidence that I had gained from what I had learned I was able to receive multiple offers and had the luxury to pick the job I wanted (as opposed to getting a job because you need it).You see, aside from the impostor syndrome I suffered from - what got me 90% of the time was the whiteboard/coding challenges that I would receive from the interviewers.
not being sure about which data structure to choose - or even how to explain your thought process clearly with the right terms (all of which Thinkful walks you through) was what would often be the cause of the response "We decided to go with another candidate".During the final interview for the company I ultimately ended up working for - I explained ES6, Core JavaScript and more advanced topics such as higher-order components, webpack , react and redux and I was even complimented by being told that "many of our senior devs aren't at your level" (extremely proud moment as all the terms and knowledge I shared at that interview was exactly what I had just learned at Thinkful).
What could be improved:
There isn't too much I'd change from Thinkful, though I must admit - now that I am no longer in the program that it is not without its faults.
Thinkful is full of awesome and amazing instructors - they are worth their weight in gold. The mentors are okay. Sometimes you get an amazing one, sometimes you get one that is more a friend and less a mentor. I requested my mentor when I signed up and I received what I asked for (someone extremely strong in the frontend side since this is where my biggest weakness was) except I feel most of the benefit of having a mentor came when we covered the frontend portion of the course - other than that (e.g. during data structures and algorithms) there wasn't much help but the instructor was always an email or screen sharing session away.Another area that could improve - as far as my experience goes - was the career services. Now I cannot speak to this too much because I found a job on my own prior to completing the program (a week or two early), but when I did reach out to career services I didn't get much response. I did send over my resume and received a cookie-cutter version of my own resume on their template and when I compared it to some of my peers they didn't change much, so I just ended up using my own resume. Also, we were supposed to get a LinkedIn profile review but mine was never done. We can use the excuse that since I was ahead of the class by a couple of weeks I didn't get the attention that I would have normally received (after all there are cohorts after cohorts all needing attention so I get it) but either way - we are not getting FREE career services, this is something we are ultimately paying for as well. SPEAK UP and GET YOUR MONEYS WORTH.
NOTE: This was my experience, however, Thinkful has a high job placement rate and if their career service folks are anything like their instructors I don't doubt I would have been taken care of eventually.
Really at Thinkful you are paying for a few things:
- a 1 to 1 mentor (ask tons of questions!)
- a structured course led by industry professionals with extensive knowledge
- a community of developers of all skill levels that you can tap into during and after completion of the program
- a set of resources that help you get a job and coach you through interviews, resume writing and social profile presence
And as you may hear from someone eventually, be it someone at Thinkful or alumni, "You get out of it, what you put into it"
If you do all your work, read all your assignments, complete them and do all you have to do, YOU WILL walk away with highly valued knowledge
If you attend a workshop and do your drills but skip the evening assignments or put things off... you will struggle, you may miss a few things, and you will effectively lose money as time IS money.---
In the end, was it worth it to me? YES! I recommend it to all my friends and family interested in doing what I do.
Some tips if possible:
Pay the tuition up front if you can afford it, even if you have to take out a loan at your bank or borrow from a family member - it will be way cheaper.I did not pay the tuition up front - Don't worry though the tuition is the same, if not slightly less than the other bootcamps I looked at... (but financing it with Thinkful's vendor when I signed up doubled the cost of the program) That being said, if someone said: "Give me $30k and In 5 months you will earn $70/hr would you do it? HELL YES! I would do it again, and again, and again... (matter of fact I'm preparing to go back for the data science course -- except I'll pay it up front this time :D )
Are you still thinking about this? Do you really love solving puzzles and creating things? What are you waiting for! DO IT!
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Anonymous
Full Stack Flex (Online)
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Pros:
- Great curriculum that provides lots of challenges & drills
- Mock interviews test you throughout the program to make sure you are on track and understand concepts thoroughly
- 1-1 mentorship, meeting 2x a week and a great community to ask questions throughCons:
- You can't replace a computer science degree 100% -- there is so much "miscellaneous" extra stuff that you won't learn from a 6 month bootcamp. Be realistic about expectations.Overall:
The full stack flex program is great. The curriculum is thorough and mentors do the job of filling in real-world gaps in your knowledge. Just make sure you are realistic and understand that you will get out of it what you put in, and expect to put in a good number of hours! However, the mentors and your program manager do a great job of providing a graduation plan if you want, and supplying extra resources to give you the best experience possible. I'm so thankful that I finally took the dive into the software engineering world via Thinkful! -
Anonymous
Quality Education
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I joined this program because I really wanted to get started in Web Development (web dev), and since web dev is so involved and requires knowledge of multiple languages which each have their own numerous libraries, I had no idea where to begin or what to focus on. My overall thought on Thinkful is that it does a nice job of outlining the important technologies that is used in web dev, and the curriculum throughtfully walks you through scenarios where they would be relevant.
I came from a programming background already, and the challenge of learning to code wasn't an issue for me, so I was pleasantly surprised when I still felt like I was being challenged by the curriculum. The capstone projects require thought, planning, and a 'software engineering mentality'. I believe the challenges of the big capstone projects combined with the detailed curriculum is what produces quality software developers if they get through all the material in the program. There is a lot of stuff covered in the program, you learn front-end basics like developing a dynamic website with JQuery, to API integration, server-side development with Node, DataBase stuff, React/Redux (my favorites) and data structures/algorithms.
The curriculum aside, you get a fair amount of support from mentors if you need it which I think is important especially for design-concepts of your code when you first start. For example it is easy to google syntax, but not easy to google what sort of patterns to use in your code in order to optimize your app. You get assigned a personal mentor whom you meet with regularly, and there is also a good amount of community support.
I have to say that I am impressed by this program, mostly because I see that it is well-thought-out and the program seems to care about the quality of the education it provides and the quality of job candidates that it produces.
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Anonymous
Awful Experience
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I had a very bad experience with Thinkful. My mentor was really great though, as a person and as an amazing professional in his field, which is why I am giving him 5 stars. Actually, all mentors that crossed my path were really great.
I started the program in September 2017. In good faith, I paid up front the whole amount for the Web Development Flex program (bad idea, as it turned out). Everything was fine for five months, until I discovered that none of my two program managers (PM) were aware of my falling behind. So after five months, I finaly recieved my graduation trajectory, after asking for it for weeks. Well, it was there all along, it just wasn't shared with me. I was one month behind. There was no way that I would finish in time. My second PM told me that I would have to pay monthly until I finish the program, in addition to what I already paid. I was really upset about this. Few days later, they broke the contract and accused me of yelling and insulting the staff. Absolutely ridiculous. I am a firm person, I know what I want and I know what is fair and what is not. I don't have to be pleasant when I am presented with this mess. I invested $8000 in this and I wanted to get what was promised to me. But, this was one-way deal, it was their way or the highway, which is fine, but they also kept my money, which is not fine.
Miss-worded policy
During the one-week back and forth between me and my PMs that were not hepful at all, and if I didn't ask million of questions, while trying to learn and code (I basicaly did their job), I would not even know the protocol concerning the pause days. So I finally looked at their pause days policy and asked about that, and so my PM told me that the policy is miss-worded and I did not understand it correctly.
Also, my PM said that she told me that I haven't been investing enough time in my projects during our meeting. That conersation never occured. I called her out on that and she appologized. I accepted the apology.
Attempt to resolve my problem,
There was one attempt during the video phonecall, where we came up with a plan and continued to work together. By the way, it is during this cideo phonecall that they said I yelled and insulted the staff. We continued to work normally after this, at no point did they say to me that I was yelling or insulting. I remember us smiling, discussing, also my husband was in the room, he tought it went well. Really strange, but also dishonest, in my opinion, to later deem this conversation to be disrespectful. I think that if somone was yelling and insulting me, I would ask them to stop right away, why go for 30 min with me yelling and insulting? That makes no sense.
Also during the same call we reached a plan, that they would change a day later without consulting me. Again very autocratic. They said that there were multiple attempts to solve my problem that they caused. but there was one and in the period of exactly two days, and that one went from bad to worse.
Dismissal letter
Few days after the video call, I recieved the letter, I wrote the letter of apoogy, because they, in my opinion, held my investment hostage, I felt emotionally draned after dealing with them. I really had nothing to apologize for, as I received no apologies from them for being in my predicament. As other things in my experience with Thinkful, my apology fell on deaf ears, but I had to accept their apologies for fabrications, "miss-worded" policies, resolution plans that they kept changing. Actually my graduation date changed twice.
In this whole process, I asked the student support manager to call me, he did not communicate with me at all. Just with his staff that was at fault. They did not want to hear from the student.
The thing is I had a major red flag when I read their term of service and the learning contract, they are both extremely one-sided and autocratic. Where is the respect for my investment? Should I have just pay more, accept the solutions to my problem that were detremental to me? They said that their employees felt bullied by me, but they just went along with it and did not write a formal complaint, why didn't they? I feel bullied in that they dismissed me like I was their employee but kept my money.
So, I ended up paying $5300 for the following:
-no job guarnantee, or a job or a chance to obtain a job with the their help.
-no full stack knowledge,
-I got nothing out of the course that I can monetize, because I am that absolute beginner that did really well, but that was of no concern to the support manager. I needed job assistance, help with portfolio.
- mentorship, that I didn't purchase, or consented to purchase. I purchased the whole program.
-forceful withdrawal, because they were sick of my questions and requests as a paying customer.
The only reason why I decided to go with Thinkful is because of the job guarantee and because of all these great coursereport data.
My problem lies only with the administrative part of Thnkful, this was just not a good fit, I don't like relaxed policies or the idea that somone has an autcratic control over my investment of thousands of dollars. I deeply regret ever investing in my education through Thinkful.
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Anonymous
Racial discrimination
I didn't go to their class , bacause they will reject the non-native speaker to enter their course, I feel racial discrimination against them.
I have a few years of programming experiences and also interested in their course, but finally they use an excuse to reject me.
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Anonymous
So far, a great learning experience
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I'm so glad I'm taking Thinkful's Data Science bootcamp instead of an over-priced graduate degree. Having all the coursework available online and the direct, 1-on-1 support from a "mentor" really works for me. Thinkful provides concise and up-to-date learning materials that are immediately useful for my work. The mentors with whom I spoke with until now have been great teachers. As a result - I've been learning a lot!
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Anonymous
Terrible experience
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I enrolled in the full stack flex, signed up in May 2016 and finished my course in Nov 2016. My instructor is nice but sometimes missed details. The curriculum did give you some junior developer experience but which is not enough for the tech interview.
The job assistance is frustrating. Because I graduated in Nov, the transfers from graduate to job assistance wasted two weeks because of the holiday. The coach in my program only has HR experience, not the SDE. She just did some changes on my resume and only provided me some slides like conversation guide or Amazon interview guide which was got from another student. In her mind, the most efficient way is to attend meetups in my area. However, after I attend three times, I found the meetups can't do any help for my job seeking because of my cultural background. I talked to her about my experience in my weekly session. She insisted on the same way. When I stopped corporation with Thinkful in this May, I only got one tech interview from my online application and all interviews introduced by Thinkful is stopped after HR call.
The most frustrating thing is they blame all on me when I asked Thinkful return my money back. The reasons they use are weak, pale and unreasonable. They said I didn't attend enough meetups to satisfy their requirements for at least two a month, while I didn't find the requirements when I enrolled in the program. I also told my coach I can't attend meetups at the beginning of the job assistance and she didn't mention the requirements. They also blamed me for not pursuing my job search to the best of my ability because one mentor helped me about the code challenge who totally gave me wrong suggestions. And finally, they just say "we would be happy to support your continued job search in any way possible" and refused to refund.
After five months I graduate from Thinkful, I update my resume and just apply online with no meetups. I find my new job in a worldwide company as an SDE. It proves the strategy which Thinkful uses is totally wrong.
If I could get another chance, I wouldn't enroll in the boot camp.
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Anonymous
A great place to learn coding but not for finding a job
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If you are looking for learning programming, this is a great place to go. If you are looking for a developer job, this might not be your choice.
Pros:
The mentor session is great. This is the time you learn the most of the things. You will build a strong fundamental concept of web development. The curriculum is great and it is fully structured. However, the curriculum is not enough for handling a technical interview. You need to use other resources to build your JavaScript knowledge.
Cons:
As I mentioned, this is not a place to help you find a coding job. There is no job assistance although they market for that.
Overall, the learning experience is great. The people and community are also good.
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Anonymous
Python with Thinkful a game professional's perspective
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Overall the course was informative, an excellent refresher/intro to python and a great refresher/intro to SQL, Flask, Git and much more. It showed me how challenging but rewarding web development can be. It brings together many of the basics and puts you through exercises so you understand the core, so at the end you are constructing something that you would be happy to post up on the web. It is challenging but rewarding. It has put me in good stead to jump straight into writing tools for Maya which was my end goal.
As a professional it was tough fitting it in between work and business trips. I think I would have been able to rattle through the course in 1-2 months if I was approaching it full time. That would be my recommendation to anyone doing this as you are less likely to lose momentum.
The mentor program is extremely good. Instead of bashing your head for days over (sometimes simple) code errors, bugs, tech issues. Their experience is invaluable to keeping your momentum up. My mentor was top notch, friendly and extremely supportive. Providing examples, explanations and fixes that were holding me back.
I'm looking forward to applying my newly aquired knowledge to my work in game development and on personal hobby projects.
My only criticism is that the Slack channel wasn't as active as I would have liked, but still a good community on there too.
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Anonymous
More mentor time than Bloc
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I was enrolled in the Bloc part-time bootcamp and neede more than two 30 minute mentor meetings per week. With Thinkful I got three 1 hour session per week. Also, liked the way the material was presented on Thinkful. It was explained then you did drills then used the material in challenges. In Bloc they just piled concept upon concept at a very deep level with much of you work just copying the code they already had in place.
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Anonymous
Full Stack Program
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My journey from social studies teacher to software developer has been a crazy journey, and not always an easy one. After trying a variety of different programs, such as Launch School, free code camp, code academy, etc... I realized that I in fact loved programming, however I was not going to be able to be disciplined enough to do a self paced program.
This is where Thinkful comes in, and I am so glad I worked through the program. Not everything is perfect with any program, but Thinkful did a great job in the Full Time Web Development Bootcamp. The program was very structured, and built upon itself each week.
My favorite thing about the entire Thinkful full time web development bootcamp, was definitely the fact that we had structured instructor time, TA availability throughout the day, and a personal mentor. I met with my mentor every day after class and we would go over anything that i didn't understand or wanted to dive a little deeper into knowing how something was working.
The thing that is awesome about the Thinkful program is how caring and hardworking the staff is in their mission to help their students become professional web develoeprs. The thing that i truly admired about the program is that we weren't only being taught current technologies, but how to continue learning, and think critically about a problem.
Overall I would highly recomment Thinkful's full time web development bootcamp if your a student that requires a structured environment, and if you learn better by having classmates who are in the same boat as you are.
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Anonymous
They never responded....
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I was highly interested in the program and ended up sending 3 emails with a question and request for response. These were all submitted through their website. Each was spaced a few days apart in an attempt to not be annoying/demanding. Still no response to this day.
If they are unresponsive at this point, there's no way I would entertain the idea of sending them money and trusting them. No longer interested - I've found something else.
Note: I was required to rate the Instructors and Curriculum to submit this review. I defaulted to a single star due to my experience with simply trying to get some information. I have no experience with their instructors or curriculum.
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Anonymous
Think twice
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Pros:
- Easy to use platform
- Mentorship - 45mins once a week
- Offers Q/A and workshop sessions
- Price - $500 per month
- Nice and friendly staff
Cons:
- Exercises sometimes doesn't reflect on what was being taught. It's more difficult than what was explained or even asking for completely different solutions at times. I know that they want you to learn and do research yourself, but it just doesn't smoothly transition into the exercises/projects. I don't feel like it's for "beginners" as how they mentioned the course was for.
- No videos at all. Expect to learn from reading and mini projects only. And if you ask your mentor, they want you to research yourself as well.
- Although having a mentor is helpful, you need to be the one to ask specific questions and tell them what you want to review during your sessions. Basically, it's YOUR choice. However, if it's more structured, it will be a better guidance for the students. For instance, once you submit your projects, you will hear no feedback from your mentor unless you are THE ONE to bring it up. I feel that as a student, if I submit something, I should receive some comments or etc? Just like when you are in school, you receive a grade/comment. At least that's how I feel.
- Sometimes typos/errors in given problems to solve. For instance, you are given an algorithm to solve in jsbin, but if you're not able to solve it within a specific time, then look at the solution they gave you. Then after you understood it, write that code on your jsbin to solve it. However, it doesn't work (I did not change any codes at all, parts of the codes were already given when you open the file, so that it will show 'it's working' or 'it's not working'), so I had to copy and paste the same code from the solutions to the jsbin to make it work. Meaning there were already some kind of typos in the given problem to solve.
- You don't have lifetime access to the course materials unless you stayed at least 3 months in the course. What if people finish in less than 3 months, then they're forced to stay extra long and pay that extra month/s in order to receive lifetime access?
By no means, I'm trying to make you change your mind if you do decide to join Thinkful. This is all from my personal experience and personal thoughts on the course. I don't recommend it to those who are just starting out as a beginner, but if you do have experience with coding, then Thinkful is for you.
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Anonymous
Dont be fooled
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As far as the graduation rate and job placement,like many schools they promise wonderful things. Its just a matter of having the means to attend one of these schools or camps. My experience with my advisor or whatever they call themseleves was very simplistic. Simple in that once he found out i was living patcheck to paycheck i didnt matter much. Its quite understandeable but i dont think many people new to a career change are actually realizing how much 4 to 6 months without work can literally destroy a life especially if you have a family to care for. So I have 3 realistic options. 1. I can give up my low paying job and have me and my family stay in low income dangerous housing,going hungry from time to time and not knowing how bills will get paid 2. Keep my job and in my very little free time try and be self taught which will get me the experience in about 5 to 6 years. 3. I cannot get a loan for any real amount of money (if i could i wouldnt need to switch careers) so actually option 3 is off the table. Will the world be able to fill these 1.4 million programmer positions by 2020? With people like me probably not but what do i know i make minimum wage. So Thinkful and all you other schills;no thats not a typo, quit pumpin numbers about graduation rates and job placement. We all know theres TONS of jobs out there but until someone comes up with a realistic way for normal everyday people who have bills to attend these schools then youll just be another Kaplan or ITT tech -
Anonymous
Frontend web development
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I would highly recommend this course. I took it while working a typical 9-5 job and didn't feel completely overwhelmed. I didn't know what to expect considering my college major is in philosophy, but the video tutorials and the challenges they give you really help you understand the material without feeling like you were at a disadvantage from the start. I never really liked online classes but the way they organized the material made it much more enjoyable. I was a little worried with having it be self-paced but I actually preferred it that way in the end, and my mentor definitely helped out with that. I unfortunately had to put it on pause because I'm back in school finishing undergrad, but I will, without a doubt, finish the course later on.
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Anonymous
Data Science in Python
Great mentorship. Many course sections need to be more rigorously copy edited for typos and dead links.
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Anonymous
Happy Student
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I have enjoyed the UX Design Thinkful course very much over the past month. I think the course work is very informative and relevant and gives a good overview of what goes in to UX Design. I have really enjoyed my mentor. I think that is the most valuable part of the program is having someone who knows what they are doing give advice and guidance. Of course, with programs like this you get out what you put into them. As long as you are willing to put the work in Thinkful will help you progress in a positive way.
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Anonymous
flexible fullstack career path
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Thinkful's customer service and professional mentorship are the program's best assets. I was always impressed by how accessible Thinkful staff are. Here's one example: I was worried that my final project wouldn't quite be up to snuff before another billing cycle. If Thinkful just wanted my money, they could have made me pay for another round, but instead, they were on my side and worked with me to make sure my final project was solid.
The front-end unit was pretty easy thanks to resources like codecademy, but suddenly the back-end unit made me feel clueless at first. I definitely felt frustrated at first, but I think that Thinkful was doing me a favor by making me seek out answers to suppliment the provided material. Also, they made that seeking-out-of-answers pretty easy by responding to all questions on Slack channels and pointing me in the direction of articles and tutorials that made the pieces click. I realize now that I will have to know how to go out and find the answers to most of the problems I encounter as a web developer, so I am really glad that the curriculum didn't hand me all the answers off the bat.
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Anonymous
Part-time bootcamp
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My wife and I both joined thinkful, both of us have quit after two months. And let me say firstly, laziness was not an issue. We spent hours every day trying to do this course, we did not seek "handholding" nor did I enter this with an illusion of becoming an engineer overnight, this program is expensive and I wish I had sought better information before handing the cash over.
If you are looking for an immersive educational experience leading to a career change, this is not the program for you. If your company is paying for it and you are looking to kill time and put on a good front for the boss this is perfect, or perhaps for some reason you want to buy an ebook that cost thousands of dollars; this is the program for you.
Expect the course material to be 100% reading and assignments based on the reading, expect the solutions to be wrong(wasting days and days and weeks and weeks), expect your personal mentor to have no knowledge of the course material itself or your prgress throughout it, expect no help, expect arrogance and condesention when you seek help.
Not many graduate, they claim 60%(read the fine print of their report) graduate the program and if that is true I would be surprised that the graduate rate is even that high. I never wanted to write a review like this and stayed loyal as long as I could but the truth is they don't care about your success, and I would hate to see someone lose hope in learning to code and make the life changes simply because they were fooled and signed up for the wrong program. I switch to the free version of CodeSchool.com and in 10 minutes learned more then 2 months of heartache from thinkful.
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Anonymous
How Thinkful Dispelled My Fears
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Are you totally intimidated by the phrase "Full Stack Web Developer"? I was too. Thinkful's entire Slack community dispelled my fears. Anytime I had a question, Thinkful was there to point me in the right direction. Anytime I was worried about career options or needed further support, Thinkful was there. My mentors were all engaged and helpful, and when (due to scheduling conflicts) I needed to switch to a new mentor in my first few weeks of the course, the mentorship manager was immediately on it to get me the connection I needed. The career services team is up-front, kind and thorough, and I have every confidence that they will be able to place me in the right network as I move past graduation.
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Anonymous
Great Introduction to Programming!
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I've never programmed before so I didn't know what to expect, but Thinkful has made it a smooth easy to understand. The curriculum covers a lot of core topics, and the projects they assign test your knowledge thoroughly. My mentor is great – quick to respond and good feedback. The sessions generally go over the projects – any key points that you miss will be pointed out, and solutions different from yours will be shown to give you an idea of how experienced programmers think.
The only negative thing that I could say is that the reading material isn't always as in-depth as it should be in my opinion. Sometimes in order to do parts of some of the projects that they assign or answer some of the questions they ask, I find myself having to look at free online sources. But that isn't too big of a deal because the information is readily available (for free), and you are guided towards learning this information by the projects and questions so you won't miss out.
Great course overall.
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Anonymous
Excellent
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I just completed Thinkful's Web Development Career Path and was very impressed with the program. I’ve been coding regularly for over a year now and I am currently seeking full-time work as a full stack developer. During the program I studied in depth, full stack JavaScript web development, created four personal projects, and received excellent mentorship. I was able to complete the program in three months without working. I recommend this program to anyone starting out in web development.
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Anonymous
Good Investment
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I have been enrolled in Thinkful for about 1 month now, so very new and very new to coding itself. I am a true beginner coder, changing careers. I was between Viking and Thinkful and did a lot of research to see what would be best for me. The cost, length of course, mentorship and career help was what led me to Thinkful ultimately. I knew that I would need help along the way with the intensity of the program and so mentorship was key for me. My mentor Marius is a superb mentor that has been doing web dev for a considerable amount of time, so I knew I was getting a professional.
I will say, the course is hard (is for me) but very much worth it. As much as I struggle is as much as I thrive and motivated to go the next challenge and see my coding create sites. You will struggle, you will doubt yourself and you will wonder if you will get better and YOU WILL if you stick with it and do the work involved.
I know I'm only a month in, but I have already learned so much! Only 5 months more to go!
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Anonymous
Meh
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I am currently taking the $300 a month Frontend Web Development course.
Pros:
- Quite a bit of course material.
- Course material can sometimes be in depth.
- Good mentorship
- Breaks down learning into easy steps.
- Good amount of projects to work on.
Cons:
- Course material 95% of the time is extremely vague.
- No video's.
- For the most part you have to look other places to actually learn about what they cover.
- You get the feeling that a lot of the course work was just mashed together from other free websites out there.
- The price they charge for the course. Not worth $300. $100 a month or less seems a fair price.
Overall I am very unimpressed with this course. The course material is altogether very vague. Going through it almost feels like you have to decipher everything line by line. I believe they do this so that it takes you longer to go through it so that they can charge you more.
If you are willing to drop money on an online course I would honestly look any where else but here. In all fairness I am going to complete the course and then look else where to continue my education. I would not recommend thinkful.com to anyone.
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Anonymous
Not what I expected
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Curated curriculum means most of the content is from FREE web resources. So I guess you're paying for the Mentor, except my mentor never answered any questions but rather threw me some weblinks and told me to go on Slack or Stackoverflow.
Yeah, I know I can find the answers online but I'm asking YOU right NOW for the answer. She also told me to go to Codeacademy - again another FREE resource.
I had high hopes for Mentor led learning but at Thinkful I got the impression that my Mentor was just trying to fulfill a quota of meetings and killing time just to reach the required 45 minute minimum.
I'll give Thinkful credit in that it got me to start using Github and Terminal but most of the technical learning I did on other resources like Codeacademy and even Lynda.com (my current employer has a company account).
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Anonymous
Fantastic Experience - Terrific Mentor - Wow!
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Just finished up Thinkful's FrontEnd Development Course with a dedicated mentor. In full disclosure, I conducted a signfiicant amount of diligence into how best begin exploring a career in coding -- and after reading many reviews, making calls, talking with references, I decided to choose Thinkful. Importantly, my own personal experience over the past five months has been entirely consistent with the feedback I had received from a myriad of others before embarking on the course.
My experience with Thinkful: This was truly my first coding experience and while I was bit nervous, my assigned mentor literally assuaged each and every one of my concerns. IN so many ways, Thinkful bridges an important, critical gap between asychronous, self-paced, online free learning and on the other end of the spectrum, jumping into a coding bootcamp, full-time (whether online or in residence.)
With Thinkful, I got access to:
(1) a very strong online curriculum that allowed me to work on my own pace
(2) a strong, active and supportive community of both instructors and fellow students with ample opportunities to participate in workshops (think extra, live classes)
(3) And most importantly, a dedicated "mentor" who was litearlly with me every step of the way.
I cannot emphasize enough how important this mentor-relationship is. While Thinkful calls its instructors mentors - I really thought of my mentor (TJ) as a super coach. He is a professional developer with a ton of experience -- experiences that he shared with me that went well above and beyond the actual curriculum itself. For example, there were multiple times in which TJ suggested fantastic additional, free learning resources that were outside the scope of the Thinkful online curriculum that I would likely not have found myself. There were instances were TJ told me that it would pay off in dividends to invest the extra time and effort to learn a ton of Git shortcuts. He was right.
Most of all, my Thinkful mentor served as an inspiring and encouraging coach. Not only were all of my 1-on-1 sessions with him instructive and incredibly helpful, but knowing that I had a meeting scheduled with TJ was super motivational to put the extra time in - even after a long & tiring day at school - so that I could be best prepared to a) try to impress him and b) make sure that I used the time most effectively to address questions or concepts that I had been struggling with on my own.
For my "capstone" project - TJ continued to be super encouraging and incredibly helpful. I wanted to go a little further for my FrontEnd project - so I literally developed and launched a commercial website that's now generating approximately $1K per month in revenue just a few weeks after launch. My Thinkful mentor was not only open to helping me with my project as part of our mentor sessions together, but was incredibly helpful in teaching me how to do things like STRIPE API integration, leveraging AWS et al. Again, I realize that these things may seem both obvious and simple -- but remember, prior to starting Thinkful, I had absolute zero experience.
To balance out this review, I really wish there were some things I could point to for areas of improvement in regards to the overall Thinkful experience. Fortunately (or unfortunately) there really aren't. Ultimately, the litmus test for me is will I be returning for the next course sequence at Thinkful? The answer is yes. I could not recommend Thinkful and it's mentor program more highly. Truly.
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Ellen
Full Stack Flex
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Thinkful has provided me with great resources to be successful in this program. I was able to complete the 6 month program in 4 months by working on it full time. A few things that I wish I had been prepared for were to do some additional learning and research on my own to discover new things, and to reach out for help much earlier and more often. I found myself scrambling to work on things on my own, and once I owned up to the fact that I needed help and asked for it, I was able to learn and do so much more. Some of the curriculum is slightly dated (for example deploying to heroku, rather than another deployment site), based on the jobs I'm applying to, but there are plenty of external resources and other thinkful mentors and students to get help from. If you're coming from a completely different background, like I did, be prepared for a steep learning curve.