Chegg Skills

# Some Good Title   In June 2016 I started Thinkful's (TF) part-time web development bootcamp. I can easily and honestly say that this has been one of the better decisions that I have made in my life. Here I am one year out, employed full-time in an exciting job with enormous career opportunities with a company that treats me like I'm a valued asset rather than simply another cog in the machine. And all of this due to the amazing crew over at TF.   Quick background: I did half of TF's program, dropped out (although technically I graduated early) to take a short-term job, and then after the job completed the rest of the curriculum. In April 2017 I started TF's career services. My program manager told me that I had them in the bank when I finished back in November. So when I came back this April they let me pick up as if I had just graduated the program! This is just a single example of the folks over there going above and beyond.   Here's a few things that I think set TF excels and sets themselves apart.   1. Cost & Financing   Bootcamps can get to be very expensive, but my experience in financing TF has been relatively painless. When I enrolled in TF I was a poor college grad and because of the financing opportunities I never felt like the cost was too much of a burden.   It's no the cheapest bootcamp out there, but you get what you pay for. In comparison to going back for a CS degree, I saved thousands of dollars, and I felt like I got a good foundation on which to continue learning.   2. Flexibility   The primary thing that made TF doable for me was the ability to enroll in a part-time bootcamp. Sure, it takes longer (about 6 months), but this meant that I could continue working valet to pay rent while I taught myself the skills to become a developer. It's the difference between starting on your career change now and starting after you've saved up enough to take 3 months off work.   It should also be noted that they also offer a full-time bootcamp, if you are able to take off the 3 months to expedite your career change.   3. Remote   Also, in addition to making TF work around my schedule, I could attend my meetings and do my coursework from anywhere. This made integrating TF into my life all the more simple.   4. Mentorship   One of the best things about TF is that they follow the mentorship model. Rather than throwing 10-20 students in a classroom with a single instructor and a few TAs, they assign each student a personal mentor, typically a senior engineer working for TF on the side (this is important! Your mentor is actually working on production code on a daily basis, rather than teaching full-time). For the part-time program, you meet with them 3 times per week. Having that personal touch to guide you when you're stuck or want to study something outside of the curriculum (gasp!) is the extra push it takes to speed up the learning process and separate yourself from the rest of the pack in an extremely competitive field.   5. Career Services   I have yet to see another bootcamp offer continued career services as comprehensive and effective as TF's. To be honest, I feel like Career Services is its own little bootcamp. I started Career Services April 2017 with little knowledge of how to network, present myself confidently, or make a sales pitch for myself as a candidate. 6 weeks later I had two competing job offers and I feel like I've gained the networking/job-searching skills so that next time I need to find a job in the future I will be well-equipped and confident.   6. Community   For being a 100% remote bootcamp, TF has a killer community. They have a Slack channel for all current students, alumni, and mentors. Usually when you're stuck on a problem there's at least one person on there that can get you unstuck quickly. In addition, TF puts on multiple workshops per week on a wide range of topics, all of which are accessible to students.   Some people complain about the curriculum, but to be honest, I feel like the mentor relationships are more important anyways (TF is also very good about updating problems in their curriculum quickly). But the real learning happens from the mentors — they're the ones that show you how to teach yourself (because TF's curriculum isn't gonna be there when you need to learn the custom framework being used at your new employer)   Also, online learning is not for everyone. For myself, I found that the online experience was refreshing and TF has done an amazing job of blending the automated, online approach with the personal touch.   All in all, 100% worth it. Every. Single. Penny. Decide whether online mentor-based learning is your cup of tea, if you're more of a brick and mortar type then it's definitely not for you. But talk to the people there because it's a life-changing decision and Thinkful's doing an excellent job of equipping people for the next step in the their career. Read less

I graduated Thinkful's Full-time Web Development Bootcamp in January 2017. 

After spending a month working on my portfolio, resume and personal portfolio projects, I started the job hunt. Thinkful was with me the whole way.

I started at my new job in late April 2017, doing exactly what Thinkful trained me to do. I love the company and the people (and the paycheck), and the web development work I now do.

Do you need a bootcamp like Thinkful in order to get into this industry? Absolutely not. Everything you need to know you can learn for free. But Thinkful makes the tuition worthwhile:

-course material is streamlined, clear and concise. You spend your study time effectively. I bounced around through online tutorials before joining. Thinkful helped me focus my efforts.

-when you get stuck (and you will), Thinkful mentors and faculty are only a few clicks away. You will need to learn how to work through problems on your own, and Thinkful helps show you where to look or where to ask.

-there are a lot of tools out there. Thinkful introduces you to many of them, and shows you how to develop an efficient workflow.

-javascript proficiency is not the same as fluency. I could read and write javascript with some hesitancy before joining Thinkful. Midway through the program, it became second nature. But I didn't become fluent until tackling data structures and algorithms at Thinkful. The code review and refactoring that faculty lead me through proved invaluable.

 

Thinkful is not perfect. It's composed of people after all. The biggest challenge I saw with it was were growing pains. A few newer faculty were not be as well versed in the course material, or able to answer your questions as well as others. But they will not hold you back. There are lots of very well-versed faculty and mentors on hand to help you through the hurdles.

The only other criticism I found with Thinkful was in their course material. Most of it was very clear and easy to follow. But, a few places needed flushing out. Fortunately, they have been, and continue to be. Thinkful's course material is always being revised, updated and augmented. This continues being relevent after the program, since graduates maintain lifetime access.

 

Like everything in life, you will get out of Thinkful what you put into it. I put my undivided attention into the program throughout, and focused just as intensively (maybe more) on perfecting my job application materials for six weeks afterwards. It was one of the most rewarding investments of my time and money yet.

This is not a get-rich-quick-scheme. You cannot buy yourself a job through Thinkful. But, if you're willing to put the work in, Thinkful will deliver.

 

Web Development job search suggestions:

-have a blog, sharing problems you ran into in your projects, and how you solved them

-spend time on your portfolio and your portfolio projects. Make them look good and work well. Create documention for your portfolio projects.

-take an interest in continuously learning new skills, and showcase them in your blog and/or portfolio.

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I was an 18-year military veteran transitioning to the civilian side after being let go due to congressional sequester budget cuts. Without any prior knowledge of JavaScript and only a basic understanding of HTML/CSS I successfully completed their 6-month course and landed a full-time position in 4 weeks after graduating at $60K+. My course mentor guided me through their curriculum focusing on topics that would improve my ability to land a job. After graduating, I entered their job assistance program and received outstanding personal support. 

This isn;t easy. No one is going to spoon feed you the answers. You are going to have to do the work. But if you dedicate yourself to completing the course, understanding the material, and getting a job. You will be successful.

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First off - let me say this: I put going to pursue my four year degree on the backburner to attend Thinkful.

I already had prior experience and a good coding knowledge, but needed direction and mentorship more than anything. I could tell from the moment I enrolled at Thinkful that everyone was there to help to their fullest capacity.

I have progressed relatively quick through the course due to my past experience, but my mentor has been a tremendous help on advanced topics and workflow. The guy seems to know literally everything about everything.

Additionally, Thinkful comes with a job guarantee for certain cities. The strategy they roll out to help you get the job is amazing. It forces you to make real world connections and not just shotgun your resume everywhere. While I'm not 100% in the career services phase yet, the contact I have had with them so far shows that they are completely committed and very knowledgable in what they are doing.

I highly reccomend Thinkful even if you're an absolute beginner. The value of a mentor and a team devoted to you in priceless.

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About a year and a half ago, I was like you. I was reading through these course report reviews trying to decide on which bootcamps to take. After reading hundreds of reviews (literally), I decided to take Thinkful's Full Time Web Development Course. There were couple of deciding factors:

1. Ease of Enrollment

While some might argue that a good bootcamp needs to be hard, I wholeheartedly disagree. I think a good school needs to be able to take someone whose level is at absolute 0 and be able to teach him/her all the skills required to become 100. For this reason, Thinkful was perfect for me. They gave me a 2-week assignment to follow, which I was able to finish with little difficulty. Then, I had some skype interviews to talk about my goals, personalities. After that I was admitted and ready to learn. However, don't let this fool you to think it's an easy course. I got employed within 2 months of graduation. That tells you how complete this course is.

2. Contents

Speaking of the 'completeness' of the course, Thinkful definitely surprised me. At the time of searching, Thinkful was the only bootcamp that made all of its course materials end-to-end. I'm talking about chrome extensions, skype-like video lecture room, bootstrap-themed responsive course notes that you can view from your phone, easy-to-follow lecture slides, etc. You also get life-time access to these contents even after you graduate (and they get updates as well). It's different from other bootcamps where it looks like they ctrl-c/v some notes from wikipedia or blogs into craiglist-styled webpages. If the content makers were that dedicated to creating their own contents full-stack, I knew I could trust them into making me a full-stack developer. 

3. Mentors

Unlike other bootcamps I was searching at that time, Thinkful offered what's called a 1-on-1 mentorship (on daily basis). I knew that I learn best when I have a person to interact with. So, I decided to go with Thinkful. Although I was only given 30-40 minutes of mentorship everyday, my mentor, Jason was very generous with time and effort. We would work on concepts, problems that I did not understand during lectures/projects. The instructors are also extremely dedicated to helping students. When I requested some 1-on-1 tutoring (other than mentorship) outside of course, everyone was willing to devote their time into teaching extra. Obviously, you have to show effort, but when you do, teachers will match your enthusiasm.

4. Size of Classroom

This was an important factor to me because I wanted to be appreciated as a student. I didn't want a course where I have to wait hours before someone could answer my question. At the same time, I didn't want a course where my only interaction is with a teacher (not enough pair programming experience). To me, the ideal size of classroom would be somewhere aronud 10 students. That way, you have mutual interaction between teachers and students. At the time of enrollment, Thinkful's course had maximum of 8 students (they refused to accept more due to same reason). By the end of the course, I made some life-time friends and mentors, whom I still reach out to.

5. Career Support

Before researching on coding bootcamps, I thought to myself, "If a bootcamp does not have a great career support, I might as well be doing a self-study." It was already intimidating to spend thousands of dollars on learning something I wasn't familar with. I wanted to make sure I get some kind of fail-safe insurance. Thinkful provided 6 months guarantee, which is a promise of full refund in case of unemployment 6 months after graduation date. Most of top-tier bootcamps didn't provide this option (probably because they wanted to advertise that they can 'confidently' place students in jobs without the 'insurance'). Truth is, getting a job isn't all about a student's excellence. Sometimes, it's really about how lucky you are. I've seen students (from Thinkful or other top bootcamps) who are miles better than me struggling to get a job for months. I have no doubt that Thinkful will prepare you to become employable by great companies, but it shouldn't hurt to have a back-up plan, just in case that takes longer than 6 months.

As for the actual career support, I cannot recommend the program enough. Thinkful takes career support like its own course. After you graduate, you will immediately enter what's called a 'career-search' mode. You will have industry-styled agile scrum meetings every day with career mentors (these are different from your code mentors) who will help you with every career related issues--building resume/portfolio, preparing elevator talks, interview questions, etc. I felt like I was supported by the whole team throughout the day. Plus, the career team usually has pretty big network of recruiters, which was crucial at landing my first job.

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That being said, I don't want to give impression that Thinkful works for everyone (that would sound like an ad). It's certainly designed for specific group of people. If you are someone who cares about all the factors listed above, I highly recommend this program. If not, there are other bootcamps (or even self-studies) that will meet your need. As for myself, it worked perfectly. I got my first programming job (working for Intel) within 2 months of graduation.

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If you're like me, motivated to pickup the skills needed to be a developer but lacking the discipline and structure to commit, Thinkful's part time bootcamp will likely be the perfect program for you.

This truly is one of those things where you get out exactly how much you put in. Do not enroll expecting someone else to do the heavy lifting for you. Do expect to get paired with an expert mentor who is more than just an instructor, but a confidant and Jedi Master who will push you along your quest. Do expect other smart, talented mentors who offer office hours for answering anything from technical questions to industry tips. Expect to engage in a community of hungry developers in training and help eachother out. Ask questions as well as answer questions in the Slack channels from your peers (see the rubber duck debugging).

Thinkful proved, for me, to be an amazing experience and a real game changer. Towards the end of program track I began to put my resume out and apply for jobs. Derek, my program manager was very flexible allowing me to pause my mentor sessions and was really supportive, even getting me in touch with career counslors before I finished. Within a week I was landing interviews and was fortunate enough to get an awesome offer from a company where I love to go to work everyday. 

Changing careers and becoming a developer is not easy, but it's extremely rewarding. With a little guidance and the right support, it's very doable. I recommend Thinkful to friends all the time, it's that good.

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I enrolled Thinkful's online flexible bootcamp in December 2016, graduated in May 2017, found a Front-End Engineer job in June 2017. Overall it was a good experience and has toally changed my life. I was paired with who I think is the best programming mentor ever. We had 3 sessions every week and each session is for an hour. That being said, you pretty much need to teach yourself and learn how to learn programming. That is also my favorite part of this bootcamp experience.

After I graduated, they gave one 1-hour session every week to chat with me about my progress on job hunting and gave me some tips on how to write a resume and how to interview. Just like learning programing, hearing someone talking about it one hour a week is not enough. To ace your interview skills you'd need to spend much more effort on it. In terms of job search you're pretty much on your own and it's definitely NOT as easy as how every coding bootcamp advertises. What I really appreciated was that after I received a job offer they were very prompt on assisting me with salary and benefit neogociations.

Thinkful as a coding bootcamp has grown very fast in the past one or two years and they have, I think, over 100, if not over 200, programming mentors working with them. I have talked with about 15 mentors at Thinkful at their Q&A sessions. To be very honest, none of them were as great as my own mentor, in terms of knowledge, the ability of explaining things, as well as patience and attitude. So you'd have a really great experience with Thinkful if you're paired with the right mentor. But if you're less lucky when they assign you a mentor, I'd be a little worried.

Overall, if you are willing to commit and put in very hard work, I think Thinkkful is a great place to learn coding and pivot your career. I would recommend it.

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I completed the full time program and found a job pretty much right away. That is, however, not always the case for everyone, so if you do the course make sure you are prepared to spend at least 3 months looking for a job. It's really a matter of luck and being at the right place at the right time. If you treat looking for a job like a job though you should be able to find something.

My advice to anyone considering this program is to first spend a good amount of time working through free online materials to make sure web development/ coding is a good fit for you. I spent about 5-6 months working through codecademy and free code camp before committing to thinkful. I learned how to work with html, css, JS, jQuery at a beginner-level on my own. I went to a couple tech meetups in my area to see if I had similar interests with people already in the field.

Besides preparing me to be successful for thinkful's program, doing the prep work confirmed that this was somethig I actually wanted to do. If you have a good time working through those tutorials and you enjoy working on small projects with jQuery, you will be successful in the program. Read about nodeJS and reactJS and see if it really interests you. Good luck and enjoy the process!  

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Thinkful provided me with just the program I was looking for. At the time, I was working full time as an engineer in the chemicals industry and I was unhappy with my role and really wanted a change. Through Thinkful's program I was able to keep my job while working through the program online on evenings and weekends. I was a grueling time commitment juggling both, but it turned out to be a great decision and I'm so happy I went for it. I met with my mentor 3 times a week online and in enabled me to learn to code faster than the online tutorials I'd worked through on my own. Being on the outside of an industry looking in, I found it incredibly valuable to to have access to skilled developers and live online QA sessions where you could ask questions and benefit from the developers' years experience and while also getting a feel for the latest tech and industry practices. Also when it can time to interview, a mentor recommendation meant a lot. Thinkful also does a great job with career support. Initially, I thought this would just entail someone helping me polish up my resume and portfolio, but it much more. In career coaching sessions we would talk though how to strategically approach job searching, applying and interviewing, which was very helpful. They are also very proactive in connecting you with potential employers, wherever your location. They worked with me to help me connect with employers in the city where I wanted to relocate. There can be cons to learning online, but it worked out well for me in the time I could commit.  After the program, I was able to switch industries and land a job as Jr. Software Engineer. I'd highly recommend the program!

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I am a serial entrepreneur who has worked extensively with developers in the past as a project / product manager.  Made the decision it was time to learn to code myself, with the goal of increasing my independence in starting a project or building a quick prototype.  I researched and spoke with graduates of several of the well known bootcamps. I wanted a path towards learning React & React Native.  And as I looked at various bootcamps and their curriculums, I realized I preferred a remote bootcamp.  I have never done as well sitting in a classroom compared to learning on my own.  But I had already realized that learning to code on your own is very difficult, there are so many pitfalls and ways of getting totally stuck at.  Those reasons are why Thinkful's approach appealed so much to me.  It allowed me to self-study as much as I like, with regular mentor session available for me to ask all my specific questions of where I was confused or stuck.  Also it was somewhat early days for React, but they worked with me to modify their curriculum at the time to fit my goal.  Bottom line is I didn't find any other bootcamp that was flexible enough to fit my schedule, allow me to learn from anywhere, had the right curriculum, and allowed me to learn on my own as much as possible.

After the bootcamp I started building a few of my own projects, building on the Javascript & React fundamentals I learned at Thinkful to pickup redux, react native, & firebase.  I have now used my new skills to create several live apps (mobile & web).  And working with other developers is a totally different (better) experience, much easier to communicate and stay on task.

Next time I am in between projects I am thinking of advancing my knowledge using thinkful (either a backend developer course or perhaps design/UX)

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Thinkful changed my life. I spent nine years in a career I hated. I was in sales, making great money but never felt any enjoyment out of my life. I dealt frequently with Software Engineers in my career and always wanted to be on their side. 

I was shocked when I heard you could attend a bootcamp and better yet do it remotely. After months of research, I decided I would enroll in the Full Time Web Development Bootcamp. At first, it was hard, I wanted to quit. I stuck with it and was so glad I did.  I learned more in the past 4 months then I probably have learned in the past 10 years. I went from not knowing what a variable or loop was, to building full stack applications using Javascript and latest Javascript frameworks. Not only do you learn in the Thinkful, but Thinkful teaches you how to learn for the rest of your life helping you continually build on your skills.

The special thing about Thinkful in addition to their curiccullum is something you cannot get from an Udemy or Pluralsight. It is the Thinkful community you are surrounded with. I spent 10 hours a day, 5 days a week and some weekends with the same 12 people in my cohort. We grew close as developers and also made some great friends / potential colleagues one day. I also grew close with the staff and we talk regularly even after the completion of the bootcamp.

The mentoring in Thinkful is second to none. I grew close with my mentor and he helped me every step of the way. There is no substitute from 1 on 1 mentorship and Thinkful has hired a great team of mentors to help students like me along the way. The mentorship alone is reason enough to enroll in this course. 

Enrolling in Thinkful does not mean you willl get a free ride. You truly get what you put in. It is not easy, you must study and eat, sleep and breathe coding all day to truly become ready to enter the job market. But if you listen to them and "trust the process" I guarantee you will be a competent developer by the end and more skilled than people from many other bootcamps.

I started Thinkful in January and Graduated in May. It is now July and I start a job this week as a developer making almost a $100K income. I cannot thank Thinkful enough and highly recommend this program to anybody on the fence. 

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Yes ... going through the program got me a position as a Front End Developer coding in ReactJS.  I couldn't have got there with out them. Thinkful is amazing ... They stuck with me through it all and were absolutely decidated to my success.

For full-time, the classes are live online and you work in a collaborative, pair programing environment with students around the US using tools like Slack, Screen Hero, and in a live tool similar to Google Hangout. You have a dedicated mentor that you meet with every weekday evening to help you with anything you didn't quite understand. And, they also have multiple live mentor Q&A and workshops every day. The curiculum was focused around the MERN stack (Mongo, Express, ReactJS, Node) in and using Javascript ES6/ES7 ... so, is very current and applicable to the current job market.

After graducation, we had daily career meetings where they helped with anything I needed (extra mentoring, reviewing code when job interviews required projects, advice, and encouragement) to weekly one-on-one meetings with a dedicated career coach to advise me on everything from my resume to how to search for a tech job to understanding what was working/what wasn't.

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Thinkful has been an awesome experience. I joined after taking a few primers on web development through Udemy/Udacity and I found that it was the best deal out there as far as web dev bootcamps go. What sets Thinkful apart is that you are really left to your own devices when it comes to solving problems so it really teaches you how to be resourceful and ask good questions when you're not meeting with a mentor. You're also not on a rigid in-person schedule like most bootcamps so this is great for people who are changing careers but dont have the ability to dive in 100% just yet.

They also do a lot to prepare you for networking, interviews, code challenges and beyond. The projects you build go right into your portfolio and its totally on you as to how far you want to take your projects. You can also slow down any part of the course due to its flexible schedule and proceed when you understand and are ready.

As for price, you get the most bang for your buck with Thinkful, but you have to be somewhat disciplined yourself in order to get the most out. You really get out of it what you put in so give it your 110% and you can get all the quality of a $20,000 in person bootcamp without spending 12 hours on site. 

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I came into Thinkful's Full Stack Web Development Flex program with very minimal knowledge of coding beforehand. What I learned by myself in 3 months, we covered in 3 weeks at Thinkful. My mentor is amazing and put in extra time when I needed it. I went from being a broke musician, driving for lyft, to being an employed frontend developer in 8 months! I could not ask for a better experience. 

Be aware, that you will probably have to put in more time than they say upfront. The curriculum is pretty good, but they are a few sections where additional resources are needed ( you can find them for free ). Everyone learns at a different pace, but I averaged 30-40 hours a week in the flex program, so be prepared to kiss your social life goodbye for 6 months! But if you are willing to make that commitment, you will not only get a job when you graduate, but you will crush it at your new job! 

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I was incredibly skeptible of bootcamps. The claims of becoming job-ready in x months seemed too good to be true. I started learning on my own through some of the free resources but I couldn't stay motivated. I got back in touch with my old friend, Elias, who's a mentor at Thinkful. Testimony from an individual I trusted helped nudge me in the right direction.

When I enrolled with Thinkful, I had a beginner's understanding of HTML, CSS and jQuery but I had no idea how to apply these skills to real-world applications. From the beginning, the curriculum is written in a way that the materials being covered can be easily-translated to the real world.

Working with my mentor, Rachel, has been fantastic. Both she and my project manager challenge me to perfect my projects and assignments. Rachel gave me direction and guidance from the early stages of the Front-End course which prepared me for the later courses like React.

There is nothing new or original about Thinkful's curriculum. They are not reinventing the wheel, nor should they. The value comes from the experience. I meet with Rachel 3 times a week, there are Q&A sessions multiple times a day which are run by mentors and open to all students, there is a Slack channel for students to get in touch with mentors and other students, and career counselors. All of these resources help me to see other perspectives on how to do things and connect with fellow newbies. I am building a network while I am still learning, which is priceless!

I have been enrolled with Thinkful for a little over 3 months now and I am very happy with my decision. I would recommend Thinkful to anyone looking to get serious about a new career in Web Development, as long as they are willing to commit to the time and energy it takes to complete this or any bootcamp.

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I joined Thinkful's Flexible Bootcamp last November. It was very good at the beginning and I felt as though I was learning a lot. Once the course got to Node, I started to fall behind and I couldn't understand the lessons very well. My instructor, M____(want to keep his name anonymous), was definitely a good guy and very flexible with scheduling, but oftentimes would do things for me and not explain why he was doing things. There was a bit of a language barrier, too, which made communication difficult at times and limited his ability to explain.

I admittedly didn't have as much time as I would have liked to work on programming (averaged 15-20 hours/week), but I did go over the course material over and over to no avail. I found the Thinkful course material lacking, especially starting at Node and for React. There's a lot that's just glossed over. I guess you're expected to seek out the materials yourself but that's a bit unfair considering how much you're paying for the course.

I'm 2 months over the expected 6 months at this point after project requirement changes mid-course that also stalled my progress. For instance, you're expected to make a landing page for your projects now, a requirement added in at random. I understand they want us to have the best portfolio possible, but it's annoying when you're not given these expectations up front.

Two of my projects keep breaking at this point and I tried scheduling a time with my program manager but he blew me off yesterday. Not sure what to do at this point. I think most people would be better off self-learning through Udemy, Coursera, Pluralsight, and Stack Overflow, to be quite honest. I wanted to belive in Thinkful but I was pretty let down.

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It's difficult to know where to start with an update on my review. I just recently graduated from Thinkful- because I was hired as a Junior Developer. SO much is going through my head as I write this review, but I will start with this: If you are considering bootcamp, Thinkful will help you reach your goals! 

I started this program with a little experience in HTML & CSS. I didn't really understand either of them, if that helps you know what "a little experience" means, but I loved learning it. I was an elementary teacher, looking for a way to help provide for my family, love what I do, and not spend 70-80 hours a week trying to keep my head above water. I loved my students, but the workload was unsustainable. I wanted to connect my love for learning with my new-found fascination with writing code. 

I knew that I could not truly learn to code and change careers on my own with the job I had, family, and other demands for time. I began looking into bootcamps, and was quickly discouraged at the time commitment and cost. But then I stumbled across part-time, or flexible, bootcamps. Thinkful was one of many that I considered and interviewed. Ultimately,  the staff, their system, and the job guarantee won me over. Every staff member with whom I spoke was helpful and informative. The system is set up for students to succeed. I found very few bootcamps that offered the amount of support Thinkful did- from 3 one-on-one mentor sessions weekly, to a program manager available any time, and career services to boot. 

I spoke with career services very early on, and the person I spoke with strongly encouraged me to network. That is not something I enjoy or do well. However, because of the way she helped me understand its importance, I jumped out there and tried it. Eventually, it led to my first interview as a developer. And a position as a Junior Developer in a company I love. 

I could not end this review without mentioning my incredible Mentor. My journey has not been all rainbows and cupcakes- I held down a full-time job, took care of my family, and often on my days off traveled to do teacher trainings. While learning Javascript. And jquery. And Node. And React. And so many things I thought I would NEVER actually "get". My mentor walked me through it, gave me specific exercises to help me understand, encouraged me, and told me when I needed to put forth more effort. On our last call, when I told him I appreciated him and could not have done this without him, he said, "Oh you definitely could. I was just here to be your sidekick and help you know you could." He is truly one of the greatest teachers, because he stuck it out with me even when I wasn't sure I could do this. 

I am grateful for this experience and the opportunity to begin this exciting new career where I can, and will be expected to, learn constantly, be on a team making tools to share with the world, and solve incredibly complex problems. If that sounds exciting to you, call someone at Thinkful now!!

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I want to disclose that the reason I am a current student at Thinkful is made fully possible through a full tuition scholarship recipient from Out in Tech. It has been a wild adventure to get to this point of my life and it's something I wake up every day to going, "Oh golly this really is still real and happening, that's so darling."

For anyone else like myself who really loves to break and find things, it truly is worth finding out how the folks who design the things that you like to break think. It also is most certainly helpful to be able to actually build that same thing from scratch beginning to end and ask yourself: is this actually secure, am I part of the problem, too? It has been an extroardinary experience working through that which I accept as a very happy challenge to myself.

Going into this program I knew I'd be going into a structured program with the trendy/popular full stack they're gearing students towards. What I didn't expect was for my mentor to figure out how I learn best, how I think or see problems, and use that to help me get a much richer and fuller understanding than the course itself alone. I'm a massive generalist so to have my mentor reach into my security and hacker community backgrounds to connect everything I know and the course together to fill in the gaps I do have has been absolutely wonderful.

The mentors are by far what truly make this program what it is for me. That's not to say the instructors and TA's aren't, they are most definitely that other huge chunk. Yet it really is up to you to decide on what path you want to take, what you want out of the program, and your mentor will be there to help guide you down the way you want to go.

Before I forget if you're in a Thinkful city like DC there are a lot of meet ups plus dinners for students and mentors together! They're absolutely darling and I highly recommend going to them even if you're not a registered student (for the regular public meet ups of course).

The full time program is intensive. If you come from prior experience, however, you may end some specific days during certain parts of the bootcamp earlier than expected. Especially if you know what '1=1' is for times you focus on databases. On the other hand you make up for it by helping other pairs understand it, working with your mentor on more advance concepts, and working on other things.

Paired programming is something I never got to truly experience growing up messing around in the way we work in the full time program. There is a really lovely mix if folks in my cohort when it comes to prior experience. Getting a chance to work with everyone whether they have a comp sci degree or are a former lawyer is really exciting to see what they bring with them to the program.

You learn a lot about yourself, I don't think I've self reflected nearly this much about myself in how I interact with people in a long while.

There's so much I want to talk about alas I think this is a long review already. If you really want to talk more about the program with me it shouldn't be that hard to reach me! Hope you all have a darling day.

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I have been in the Thinkful Flexible Bootcamp for a little over a month now. I have learned so much within this short period of time with the very thorough curriculum, mentorship three times a week to help me work through my most recent problems, and the community that Thinkful has around it to propel me as a lifelong learner and student of software development. I took a lot of thought into picking a coding bootcamp that helped me accomplish my goals and flexible enough to give me the opportunity to grow as a programmer.

I highly recommend Thinkful for anyone who wants to level up their skills. Whether it's server-side programming, learning asynchronous programming, or learning how to solve software problems with algorithms and data structures. I have been coding little over a year now. Since being in this program, I have learned invaluable advice from some of the best in the field. With all this said,  this bootcamp gives an individual everything they need to succeed but it's up to the individual to apply and grow to acheive what they desire. Good luck and happy coding!

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I would like to admit that I was a big skeptic of bootcamps and people claiming 'it was a life changing event for them', at first. Seemed like propaganda to me.

One day a friend came up to me and said that he had joined Thinkful, out of the blue mind you. Of course, this had me a little more interested in bootcamps, because now I had an inside voice and a test dummy for me. Win!

After hearing him talk about how great Thinkful is and showing me all that he has built in less than a month, I was in.

I knew I had to make a change in my career soon, and Thinkful did that just that and more for me.

After about 4 months in this course, I am still amazed how much I have actually learned in 4 months. 4 MONTHS. That is nothing realistically. But hear I am developing FULL_STACK apps, by myself and with others (pair programming is an indispensable skill to learn)!

Even though I am paying a tuition, I still think I won't ever be able to repay them for everything I have accomplished. From becoming a developer to all the way to learning how to work better with others, it is all thanks to them!

So if you are like I was, a skeptic, I would highly recommend you check out Thinkful. 

If you have any questions about my experience at Thinkful or just want to talk more, please feel free to reach out to me on twitter: https://twitter.com/jacoboutlaw or on my LinkedIn ^

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