Thinkful

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.

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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! 

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 through

Cons:
- 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!

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.  

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. 

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.

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.  

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.