Skillcrush

I already do website maintenance (html/css) in my career, but I wanted to step it up and add to my skills so I could branch out. I thought the Web Development blueprint would be an easy and affordable way to advance. I liked that it was flexible and I could do the lessons as I pleased. I was wrong. While the lessons are laid out nicely, clean, and seem short, they are not completely useful. They contain very short video lessons--I'm talking 3 minutes or less--and simple diagrams to teach. It seems logical in theory, but it doesn't work in practice. While there are a lot of basic resources and cheat sheets to refer to, it isn't enough. You really can find that information for free online, plus more!

I breezed through the HTML/CSS portion because I am familiar with that, but after starting Javascript, I was totally lost. It made me feel as if I was stupid and incompetent, but really its caused by the lack of explanation and information on Skillcrush's part. They immediately throw you into writing Javascript. While I like hands on learning, there needs to be thorough instruction on constructing statements and writing methods BEFORE throwing you off the deep end...especially in programming languages because of the various nuances in the code. There just wasn't enough guidance! There are so many holes they expect you to fill on your own. They literally instruct you to "google" how to do certain steps when they don't take the time to explain them in lessons. I am not paying you so I can google! That's what I pay my internet provider for! The majority of the lessons told you really simple information and then you were left to put the pieces together and magically create something out of scratch. So a 30 min to 1 hour lesson would take hours to complete. What a deterrent! 

There is no way someone who is a complete novice could successfully begin a career in web development after finishing these courses. That claim is such a joke. Employers would scoff at this resume if you brought this lack of skill to them. Even though Skillcrush claims you will have a polished, impressive portfolio at the end of Part 1....yea right! You get basic HTML & CSS to make a one page site with a few paragraphs and pictures. That's not acceptable in the modern web anymore and honestly is something you should expect from 1998. I got completely frustrated with how much the lessons leave you sitting in the dark that I haven't even finished the blueprint. I suspect the third and final portion, Ruby, Git & Sinatra, will be the same way.

There is a support system of other peers which can be nice, but I found the Mighty Bell platform to be very confusing. There were layers and layers of pages and half the time I didnt know where I was or if I was in the right group to post a question. Most of the time the students questions would go unanswered by the instructors and we were left trying to answer each others questions without any confirmation. They post daily tasks for each lesson in Mighty Bell as well, but my instructor was constantly late posting or posted the wrong week and took far too long to correct the mistake. That made learning even more confusing. The office hours were always at odd times...always during the weekend. I couldn't make any of them. It would be more useful if the office hours were during the week in the evenings.

Overall, I was disappointed with what I got out of Skillcrush for the $400 price tag. After giving up on Skillcrush, I picked up a Javascrip & JQuery book and felt more informed after reading it for 30 minutes than I did pulling my hair out for 2 weeks in the Javascript lessons. The lessons can help you start understanding websites, but I wouldn't use it to change your career....because it just simply does not give you that knowledge. I will say that the blog has a lot of great ideas and guidance on changing your career and how to get started. A++ in that aspect, but the lessons are terrible and were a waste of money.

Skillcrush was my first introduction to coding and I loved how it was designed for women and encouraged a community of females coders, but I didn't find the material to be thorough enough for an absolute beginner.  I ended up taking forever to get through the Skillcrush stuff because the video lessons were brief and didn't make much sense to me. All in all, I thought it was a waste of money because I ended up taking other non-Skillcrush courses to help me get through Skillcrush.  

I love the career resources and I'm thankful that Skillcrush left me feeling empowered as a female coder, but I really don't think it was worth the expense.  There are many other beginner friendly coding courses for far less money.  

When I began the Skillcrush Web Design Blueprint (Sept. 2014), I had no prior experience in web design or development.  I had been looking for a course that was geared toward women - for the design style and also communication.  I enjoyed the teaching style, 1:1 weekly office hours, community and support so much that I signed up for my 2nd Skillcrush Blueprint, Freelance WordPress Developer, Jan 2015.    

Through these blueprints I learned the foundations for several skills:   Web Designer Blueprint (Photoshop, HTML/CSS, JavaScript/JQuery  - the last one was the hardest for me and I didn't enjoy it as much as the first two); Freelance WordPress Developer (Intro to WordPress, Git, WordPress Best Practices, and Apprenticeship).  While there wasn't a focus in the Web Design Blueprint on job transition (aside from blog posts) - job skills were included in the WordPress Developer Blueprint (creating a resume, interviewing, client relationships, becoming a freelancer, and portfolio review).  

To get the most out of your Skillcrush Blueprints, I'd recommend:   1) Be as involved as you can on the Mightybell groups.  The more involved you are with asking questions and answering fellow classmates' questions - the more you will learn.   2) Show up to every possible 1:1 or group office hours, and participate.  3)  Do your best to keep up with lessons.   Even though this is self-paced and you can take all the time you need to complete your lessons, you will find more support from peers if you are current than if you are a few months behind.  The instructors are great at answering when you do get to the lessons, but you will find the most help by staying as close to the schedule as you can.   If you do get far behind, I have known a couple classmates to request to be put into the next start date's Mightybell group so that they can get on track with the new group's schedule, and it benefitted them. 4) If you see that there are peers with common interests or learning styles, consider asking if any of them would like to be "study buddies" (as recommended in one of the webinars), with the idea that you could message each other with any questions about the course, and encourage each other as you go.  I did that with a few peers and it has been among the best parts of the experience.   I'm a few months beyond my blueprint and still keep in touch with one of my "study buddies."  

I would HIGHLY recommend Skillcrush.  My favorite pieces aside from the content, were the interaction with instructors and peers on Google Hangouts and Mightybell.  As I processed the coursework with them, I learned so much more.   I really do feel the value is more than the cost of the course, and you will most likley make the cost up in your first client or two.    As other reviewers have said, you won't learn everything there is to know (probably in any course) - but I loved that the instructors often encouraged us that there is always more to learn, and that's exciting!  And that your website can and will continue to evolve as you/your business does (takes pressure off the perfectionists! ;))   

The courses are code heavy, so if you are more interested in the design side, you may want to consider other programs.  I thoroughly enjoyed Skillcrush and what I learned through the program, instructors, and peers!  And would highly recommend their blueprints.  Right now, I am looking to learn more about design to add to what I've learned through Skillcrush.  If/when Skillcrush creates a Graphic Design or Logos/Branding Blueprint - I'd be one of the first to sign up! :)

I really wanted to like Skillcrush. The course seemed like it would teach a lot of things for the money, and I liked their spirit of female empowerment. Unfortunately it was mostly just a lot of hype, and hardly taught enough to make it worthwhile. Here is a breakdown of what they advertise, versus what you actually get:

“Practical Training That Fits Your Schedule”: The classes can be completed at your own pace. It can certainly be done in less than an hour each day, as advertised. A daily email is sent out with directions on which lessons to complete, articles to read, and any class announcements. Each lesson is comprised of a few minutes worth of video lectures, followed by a coding exercise. Rather than showing how to code, as most coding tutorials do, the videos are of Adda speaking at her desk, with a few screenshots spliced in. It was not very helpful, and I didn't like her unprofessional manner (saying things like “Amazeballs!” or making cheesy jokes). I had to do a lot of searching the web for answers before I was able to complete most of the coding exercises. I'm also not sure what the point of submitting the coding exercise was, because there was no feedback on any of them.

“A Community of Impressive Fellow Students”: There were approximately 150 people in my class, and Skillcrush uses a platform called Mightybell to connect everyone. Students can post in their “circle” and others can comment on their post. New comments would drive a post to the top of the feed, as were “trending posts” that had a lot of comments. This made it really hard to find posts pertaining to a specific topic. It didn't matter much though, because only a handful of students were active on Mightybell. There is also a group chat area on Mightybell, but it was usually dead for days at a time.

“Expert Support and Mentorship From Super-Friendly Instructors”: Only one teaching assistant was active on Mightybell, and she didn't always answer students' questions. I never saw any of the instructors post or comment there. Throughout the 3 month course, there were only 8 live office hour sessions. They were almost always on a Saturday or Sunday at 2pm EST, and I never got to attend any of them because that time doesn't work for me. Submitting homework assignments was meaningless, because there was never any feedback on it. Overall, the level of support and mentorship was a huge disappointment.

“Tons of Downloads, Code Samples, and Cheat Sheets”: They did give us samples of code, although they were quite basic and nothing you couldn't find for free on the web. The cheat sheets were full of Skillcrush graphics and used large fonts, so there wasn't much material on each page. To me that defeats the purpose of a cheat sheet; you should be able to glance at a page and find what you're looking for, not thumb through 7-8 pages to find it.

“Master Classes with Top Industry Experts”: There were 3 master classes during the 3 month period. They were each an hour long and gave a brief overview of one topic.

“Personal Letter of Recommendation”: I did receive a letter of recommendation with my name on it, touting what a “great” web developer I've become. Given the lack of feedback throughout the course, this letter is obviously meaningless, and probably serves more to promote their graduates, and thus their company, more than anything.

“A Professional-Looking Portfolio”: I was able to design a few basic sites that looked and functioned like they were made in the 90's. I was hoping to come out of this with something to be proud of, but it's not even close.

“Certificate of Completion”: I did receive a certificate indicating I completed the program.

Throughout the course, I was constantly frustrated by the lack of information in each lesson, and was frequently searching the web for answers just to complete the homework. In all that searching, I found that everything taught at Skillcrush, plus much much more, is available for free. I realize they can only cram so much material into one class, but I can't believe how many important topics they didn't teach. With a poor curriculum and lack of support, I can solidly say it's not worth paying for. Ironically, the best parts of Skillcrush are free. Their blog and free webinars are packed full of great career advice, with the exception of recommending their Blueprints to learn to code.

I previously took the Web Development blueprint (see my review below), and I came back to Skillcrush for the Ruby on Rails blueprint.  I liked working with Ruby but really wasn't comfortable with it from the short course as part of my first blueprint.  So, I wanted to explore it more in depth.  This is a new blueprint that Skillcrush is doing, so they are still accepting feedback and ironing out some kinks in the curriculum.  For instance, we are in the first month of three months total, and this first month-long class was easy to understand up until the final couple of days.  We had to push our app to Sinatra, and there was very little guidance on that.  Fortunately, the TA is available to assist and will help to debug your code and sort things out.  However, I thought it was faster to ask developers on Twitter for assistance and fork my GitHub repository for quicker problem solving.  

FYI: Skillcrush does not offer job assistance, so I gave that a "1" rating.

I took the Skillcrush Web Developer course. It has 3 units: HTML/CSS, Javascript & JQuery, and Ruby. Before I started the HTML unit, I read HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites by Jon Duckett. I started the unit and I breezed through it weeks ahead of schedule.

I then started the Javascript unit and I was so confused. I tried getting assistance from fellow student, the instructor, and rereading the course material. Nothing helped. Then I started reading  JavaScript and JQuery: Interactive Front-End Web Development by the same author. I was amazed at how much more I understood about Javascript from 1 chapter than I ever did from 1 week of Skillcrush lessons.

In retrospect, had I not read the HTML book, I'd have been equally confused on the HTML unit. Skillcrush's 2 minute videos and infographics just don't work. They really just present a superficial understanding of the material. Reading the books, I've gotten such a deep understanding of the material. I'd never reccomend Skillcrush to anyone, especially people new to coding. Also, I'm always suspicious of a company who doesn't post a phone number or address.

At the start, I was skeptical about Skillcrush—the cost was making me sway, but the end result has left me with no regrets. 

I love the energy and outstanding know-how that Skillcrush has. Their presentation of material is thoughtful, thorough and easy to follow. Their after hours one-on-one instructor-student help is unique, as well as course cheat-sheets, inside knowledge and additional videos are all incredibly helpful. I especially liked how they regularly encourage you and never leave you feeling like your treading water alone during your course (or after completion).

One stipulation, I live in Canada so their job postings are not so accessible for me. BUT, as a Skillcrush Alumni they are still super supportive and revel in my successes as well. This happens in the form of a retweet or blasting out my interview that I did with them (Sept 2014), which has got me some traction (thank you, Skillcrush!). 

I still get their eblasts and take pleasure in reading them. Their tone of writing is enlighenting and entertaining—not stuffy whatsoever.

I highly recommend Skillcrush to everyone (even the fellas)!

I thought Skillcrush was the best choice for me when I realized that I needed more "formal" learning for front end development.  I previously had owned my own web design business for a year and knew basic HTML and CSS, but I was self taught and had huge knowledge gaps of the basics.  I took the Web Developer Blueprint and loved the price- it's way cheaper than a lot of the other bootcamps out there online.  I got a good foundation in the basics of HTML and CSS, JavaScript and JQuery, and Ruby on Sinatra.  I felt that the class rushed a bit for JavaScript and Ruby, so I'm less comfortable with those and am studying them independently now with a couple of books.  The best way to enforce learning is to definitely do all of the projects you are assigned, and to try out side projects on your own.  The course is flexible, so if you fall behind, it's okay, no worries.  It's a good value overall.  FYI: Skillcrush does not offer job placement or resume help.  

I am taking the new Ruby on Rails blueprint with Skillcrush next week and will report back with those results.