Thinkful

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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!

I am currently taking the $300 a month Frontend Web Development course. 

Pros: 

1. Quite a bit of course material.
2. Course material can sometimes be in depth.
3. Good mentorship
4. Breaks down learning into easy steps.
5. Good amount of projects to work on.

Cons: 

1. Course material 95% of the time is extremely vague.
2. No video's.
3. For the most part you have to look other places to actually learn about what they cover.
4. You get the feeling that a lot of the course work was just mashed together from other free websites out there.
5. 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.

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).