TripleTen

Well, the first 2 weeks seemed great at Yandex-Practicum, then I discovered that their program is full of bugs which hinders understanding of the practical exercises. You have to message customer support who, in some cases, just give you the answer, and unlock the next lesson for you. So you may not understand the practical tasks because you didn't even get a chance, but you'll need them later, for the project they ask you to submit every 2 weeks.   Lessons are locked, even though they say in their guidelines that they won't prevent you from learning while they review your projects. For example, you can't actually study any of the lessons in a chapter unless you complete today's lesson. Even if you don't understand it and want to tackle a different lesson to not waste time, all other lessons are locked so you're forced to complete today's lesson. In a book, if you have 5 chapters to study and are having a hard time with one of them, you can always study another, so you don't waste time, and get back to the hard one when your mind is clearer or can get some help understanding it. That brings me to another issue: you can't afford to wait or do extra research to understand confusing concepts in any one lesson because the entire course has very strict deadlines so you have to complete the lesson even if you didn't understand any of it.   The time pressure is enourmous and even though they advertise the course as a 20-hour per week course, it's actually not like that. It requires way more time, expecially for beginners who have no prior or very little experience with coding. I spent almost double the time in some instances and seriously thought of hiring someone outside of the course to help me. That while actually paying Yandex to help me learn.   One huge problem is the discrepancy between the level of the lessons and practice (which is very basic, for beginners) and the level of the project required at the end of each sprint (at least intermediate level to advanced). I told one of their reps once: the way you're doing this is like giving me the alfabet of a new, foreign language then asking me to write an award-winning novel. That's how big the discrepancy is. The level of expertise and perfection required for the project exceeds anything taught in the lessons. Not to mention that if you had a lesson with bugs, and customer support just fed you the answer without you even having to figure out the task, you're basically in the dark when you have to incorporate that in the project.   This brings me to another issue: the way they tell you that you need to ask for help for your projects. You're supposed to exhaust all possibilities on your own, then ask your fellow students, and only then contact a tutor. You could spend hours and hours scouring the internet for answers, before you can ask your fellow students. But your fellow students are not allowed to give you the answer either, only to direct you to other resources. If those resources don't work or are incomplete, only then you should contact your tutor. And the tutor doesn't give you the answer, but usually directs you to yet more resources, which then you have to decipher yet again. Every once in a while, you might get the right answer because someone takes pity on you, but very rarely, even when it's obvious you've been running into a wall and tried everything you could think of. This system only promotes waste of time and energy when you could just get straighforward help for some things.   Another huge issue: we're supposed to complete a project every 2-3 weeks, but the instructions contain confusing, inconsistent information, and once you submit the project, it can get rejected at least 4 times, and the next sprint/module starts immediately, in some cases. But the lessons in that next module are not available because Yandex-Practicum keeps them locked until your project gets approved. They have 4 official rejections for your project but they may reject it for some mistakes in the beginning, which doesn't count towards the 4 official rejections. The reviewer almost never gives you a straight answer about what you've done wrong, just that you need to correct '[insert issue]'. He/she only respond once every 24 hours so if your project gets rejected one or two times (without review) because of some mistake, which doesn't count towards the 4 official rejections, then 3 times with review, before your final rejection, that means you've wasted 1-5 days. That's a whole week during which all you can do is wait for the reviewer to decide what else is wrong with your project. In the meantime, you have no acees to the next lessons. And the next sprint starts per the schedule, for which you're not eligible and you can't access because , again, they haven't approved your project. Even though their guidelines say lessons will not be locked while you're waiting for review (as I've mentioned).   The whole review process is messed up. It's almost like a mind game, like a relationship with a toxic partner who tells you that they're upset with you, but they won't tell you what it is. But they're upset so you have to figure out what's wrong and fix it. This is the strategy Practicum employs for projects, which is just not healthy, and it's constantly demoralizing. For every project submission (I've done two), you see your project getting rejected again and again with barely any indication as to why. Then you submit it for the third of 4th time, after trying to figure out what's wrong, knowing that if it doesn't get approved, you'll have to leave your current class and wait to join the next one. Which puts you behind your class and your own deadlines to finish the course. It's in their guidelines: after the 4th rejection, you have to wait for and transfer to the class that started after you until they catch up, while your current class continues advancing.   I'm not a stupid person, but they make it so hard to get your project approved and actually help you feel satisfied that you did a good job. My last project got rejected 3 times, 2 of them because I didn't remove comments in the code, even after I manually removed them all and checked every single line at least twice. No instructions as to how to find all of them or where the elusive comment might be hiding. In the meantime, my code is solid, the website works, but there's one comment or a minuscule character that was part of a comment somewhere, and I'm on the verge of the fourth and final rejection because of that. Which means I'll fall behind again because I'll be demoted to the next class.   They make you have a constant feeling that you're on the verge of falling behind after every sprint, and it makes you miserable. And you have many sprints before the end of the course so living with that all the time, every 2-3 weeks, is just not right. And definitely not necessary. Negative reinforcement much?   They advertise this as a 20-hour per week course, for 10 months. This is grossly misrepresenting the time you have to dedicate to this. It says it's beginner-friendly but it's not. It requires perfection from the students but the organization of the course is a mess, their software has many bugs and the support you receive seems minimal, with very few exceptions, and definitely doesn't bolster confidence in the process. I've never felt so discouraged in my life, after working like crazy and ignoring everything else in my life. Even when I tried to start early, so I get a head start, I still fell behind because of the way the course is structured. When I tried to study harder every day to finish the lessons early, so I can start on the project early, I still fell behind, again because of the way the course is structured. Psychologically, my last 2 months with Yandex-Practicum have put me off learning to code. This is like the worst possible situation to be in when you're learning something. Your growth and development as a student is stunted.   I'm done with the course and I can't actually recommend it to anyone. I feel like it employs some bad teaching techniques which seem akin to toxic mind games, and which make the learning process torturous. Which is not how it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be hard work but not to break you mentally after every sprint. And this was just the beginning sprints, with many saying: it'll get harder. If they make it this hard now, what am I supposed to expect over the next months?   Obviously, this is my opinion, and maybe other students are having an easier time. But like I said, I'm not a stupid person, and I like math and logical thinking so if it's this hard for me, I can't imagine what it's like for others who come from other backgrounds. I guess I'm not willing to put up with the unhealthy system they have. Maybe others are.   Yandex-Practicum has notified me that they're giving me a partial refund. Read less

Practicum's Web Development program helped me find jobs and increased my skills. I got a job offer while studying and found freelancing jobs along the way. The program helped me think critically and solve problems myself without following tutorials. It really gave me the confidence to tackle and debug the code myself, thanks to the mentors. The mentors are very helpful and show you the way how to approach any bug. Career support is great. They have a dedicated section for career prep, resume revamp, cover letters, social media, and LinkedIn optimization. Their tips hugely affected my job applications. I gave more thought to my applications and got into the interview stage. Overall, great experience! Read less

Practicum by Yandex's Web Development Curriculum is quite comprehensive and very well structured and updated according to the current technology stack in the market. I have been learning Web development by myself but this bootcamp has given me a proper structure and time-line to my journey. The learning platform does a great job in laying out the theory and hands on. The bootcamp not only trains you on technical stuffs but also supports you with mentors who are professional Web developers themselves and always ready to help you out in projects and even side projects. The bootcamp also have community managers who are like our shock absorbers and a great emotional help. Apart from everything else, I like that the bootcamp promotes healthy learning environment and gives us many opportunities to work in real-world like scenarios through its various initiatives. 

Pros
 1. Very supportive community of students, mentors and community managers.
 2. The curriculum is comprehensive and always getting updated.
 3. The bootcamp's vision to provide students an exposure to the real world situation, is commendable.  Read less

The online platform of the course is really great. In each chapter the beginning is learning the theoretical material, in this part there are plenty of examples and code parts to make it practical. Sometimes when the material is really hard, I think they should have add videos which is not so common. But they do refer to extra reading webpages or other explanations. 
Afterwards, there are projects (first about small portion of material and then integrated). They are awesome tool for studying because you don't only get "Pass" or "Fail", you get some recommendations on things that were not in the theory and can improve your project (inc. visualization, using another methods/ functions ect.). 
One disadvantage is that the "community" feeling is not so strong, there is a "forum" where anyone can ask questions, but no one answer other students, just the tutors are doing it. In general I would totally recommend the course for lone learners.   Read less

I've always wanted to break into data analysis because it would be a great boost for my career. I did my research and decided to go with Practicum by Yandex. Going forward, I have no regrets! Currently, I'm in the middle of the Data Analyst program. So far, I like that Practicum has a good and detailed course structure. The material is well-written and easy to understand. There are 12 projects that become part of your portfolio once you finish. I completed 6 projects so far and I found them engaging. Of course, they were challenging, but believe it or not, this is the real deal. I'd also like to highlight the dedicated support team. My cohort is guided by a professional tutor and a very friendly community manager. Also, there's a senior student who makes sure that my questions and queries are answered promptly. I got lucky with my group mates, and it's a great feeling when you can discuss stuff with them. Every two weeks our tutor organizes live coding webinars where upcoming projects are explained and there's a Q&A session as well. At the end of the program, there's going to be the career acceleration part and I'm so excited about that. One thing that I'd like to say though is that the work of the platform could be improved because sometimes it can be slow. But it happens rarely and it gets fixed pretty quickly. The Practicum team are always improving the course and they are very open about the feedback they receive! They are there for you throughout the whole journey, so you won't feel alone! I highly recommend the Practicum by Yandex Data Analyst program if you're looking for new opportunities to kickstart a career in the field of data analysis. Read less

I have been teaching high school English since I graduated from my university. A few years ago, I started to think about switching my career and seriously considered coding. The idea of building something from scratch and being beneficial to online businesses at the same time had been stuck in my head for some time. I chose data analysis because I wanted to challenge myself and see how my humanitarian mindset could perform in the analytical field. 
While researching different boot camps such as GA, Galvanize, Fullstack, I discovered Practicum by Yandex. I was impressed by the curriculum, study approach, and most importantly, the Career Acceleration Program upon graduation. And you get all of that for a very reasonable price. I graduated a month ago and am now taking part in the Career Acceleration program. The study process was great, as I managed to acquire all the needed skills for an entry-level job —Python, SQL, ML, working with databases, and building with them from scratch. In just six months, not only did I obtain those skills, I got to see how they are implemented.
Currently, I've completed two mock interviews, provided by Practicum's team, and have built my professional portfolio, filled with the projects I had completed throughout the course. In fact, I already have several interviews with companies scheduled for next week, and I am beyond excited about what lies ahead.
To sum it up, I would highly recommend Practicum to people who want to make a career change. Practicum works with you every step of the way, from helping you understand what coding is and how the industry works, to landing your first position. Read less

I will be eternally grateful to Practicum for 'launching' me in data science field. Had I not done this bootcamp, I would have never managed to do so many projects, learn about so many different techniques and models which are widely used in the industry and not just data science related stuff but even general coding in python. I started this course because I did my bachelors in statistics so data science was a natural choice for me. Many students get placed in such roles so I thought that having done this bootcamp will give me an edge. And thanks to this course I changed my masters ( graduate degree) from statistics to computer science because I realised that I like coding much more than statistics. During this course we touched down on all aspects, statistics required, business value, working with text, time series, computer vision, sql queries in python, data mining using api and more. The tutors are there to solve your queries  regarding any topic, if life gets in the way and you cannot meet a deadline let your community manager know and they will help you out and also the community, you become a part of, helps you at every step! They also have a career acceleration program where they get you real world projects from companies which you can add to your resume. Read less

All around an amazing class! Highly recommend taking it and taking full advantage of your resources, including the tutor access, hosted events, and network. Practicum's long-form, flexible class structure allows for a work-class-life balance unheard of in most other bootcamps, in person or remote, at least based on the research I've done. While I was taking this course, I was able to land a full time job at a software company which has been amazing so far! 
My experiences learned from Practicum helped me tremendously with getting that job.
During the interview, I was able to answer many questions I wouldn't have known the answers to. 
My job uses a lot of the same systems, programs, and conventions as Practicum and so the course gave me a great introduction to these topics. 
I was also able to do a mock interview (with a detailed review, and questions answered about software interviews!) with a Practicum employee that gave me a lot of great tips on what to focus on learning. 
There have been so many good things that I've been able to participate in and learn from because of this course, I recommend it very highly. 100% worth the cost!! 

PROS: 

• Excellent learning platform, curriculum, and pointers to many helpful resources
• Teaches up-to-date and relevant technologies
• Responsive, kind, and helpful tutors, admin, and support staff who really care about their students success
• Extremely flexible scheduling, extremely accommodating when "life stuff happens" (this has been a HUGE plus for many students from what I've seen)
• Many live group and 1 on 1 discussions with tutors on various topics, and opportunities for Q & A
• Project-based course keeps the student working on new and useful features consistently
• Encourages and facilitates networking, group-ups, group events, pair and mob programming, personal and class project review, portfolio review
• Honest about total cost; no extra material charges or subscriptions were required after initial up-front payment
• Code review for each submitted project (there are 17 projects including the final project)

CONS:

• Interactive lesson platform was sometimes down or buggy (though it worked the majority of the time)
• Lecture-style teaching and live QA with tutor was only once for an hour every two weeks (not even a con for most people!)

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I started Practicum's free introductory web developer course as part of the Women Who Code X Practicum by Yandex scholarship and I absolutely loved it! 

The platform is highly engaging and simulates a real work setting. I like how the theory part is followed immediately by a hands-on coding task as practice. I also like how the platform is linear - you cannot proceed to the next section/topic unless you finish all previous sections. This addressed my problem of unstructured self-study and puts me in a structured roadmap with the correct order of learning.

I also like the fact that the official program is organized in two-week sprints spanning a total of 10 months, with a  final project at the end of each sprint. I haven't gotten far enough to do any project yet, but knowing that I will be able to receive customized feedback from professional reviewers on my projects further motivates me to treat each project seriously. 

The best part of my experience is the supportive Slack community and the live coding sessions/webinars hosted by tutors. This complements the self-paced study on the platform. Everyone I have interacted with so far - community managers Ramil and Iuliia, our tutor Nadya, and my fellow cohort-mates -  are absolutely amazing. I am looking forward to learning and becoming friends with everybody :)   Read less

Before joining Practicum I tried various other platforms for web development and Came to know that entirely video based tutorials are not for me where I was just following along and get a little opportunity to learn. While the Practicum has it's own platform where you can learn and apply. later on you need to make the projects using the information you learned. The platform they are using is user friendly and very well maintained. I am currently a student and it looks promising so far. Their career support and community support is excellent throughout and I like the continuous feedback from members of the team, not to forget the code review process is quick and detailed so you can improve your work. I definitely Practicum recommend to anyone who wants to learn Development from scratch.    Read less

Joining the Practicum by Yandex Data Science program was one of the best decisions I have made this year. Right from the introductory course to the full-time program, my entire experience has been excellent. The interactive learning platform contains relevant coursework accompanied with practical tasks. They even have interesting and funny messages that has kept me glued to learning on the platform. One of the things that stands out to me the most is the 24/7 technical support. Anytime I encountered challenges, the support team was always quick to help unblock me.

The people at Practicum are amazing! The community managers care a lot about student's progress and check in often. The tutors, instructors and senior students are very responsive and provide helpful feedback to students via the Slack community and webinars. The program is project-oriented so I get to complete at least one real world project for my portfolio. I also love that the Practicum team is very open to receiving feedback and are constantly looking out for ways to improve the program and student experience. 

I'm super excited about the opportunity to study Data Science with Practicum and highly recommend them. Read less

I had very minimal prior Python experience (intro course on Coursera) before deciding to enroll in the Practicum introduction course for Data Science. In brief, the introduction course is an amazing way to get your feet wet in the field of data science. The introduction course is well structured and explains topics in a way that can be easily understood. The course also gives a lot of real life examples when explaining concepts and lessons. I think that learning coding can be a bit overwhelming but Practicum introduction course managed to help me gain a lot of confidence with Python very quickly. While enrolled in the introduction course, I was debating between joining Practicum and other 'job guarantee' boot camps but ultimately decided on Practicum because it is much more cost efficient and the support/curriculum has been amazing so far. I would definitely recommend! Read less

 The Web Developer Course from Practicum by Yandex is well-structured, progressive, and challenging. It starts out from basic concepts of website structure and design through HTML and CSS (with the BEM methodology), adds to it with a crash course in JavaScript, and eventually React, that immediately has you building quality, responsive websites and web apps. By then end, you’ll understand how to build a fully-featured web app in React, in addition to its requisite backend using a MERN stack. Each project builds upon the last, and a sense of progression and accomplishment is felt during every sprint. The Tutors and Senior Students are helpful and very willing to dissect code and guide you at every step. Each two week sprint is divided into a week of exercises, and a week of project building, although this divide is flexible. The time commitment is slightly demanding, so be prepared to spend a decent amount of time working on developing your skills; this definitely isn’t a passive program. Altogether, you can learn how to become a great web developer with Practicum by Yandex.  Read less

I was offered a full time position as a clinical data analyst last November - Practicum by Yandex contributes greatly to this achievement.

I love the way the team put a lot of effort in developing the content for the data science curriculum. They teach us from basic python syntax to complicated machine learning models, and also help us review mathematic concepts in linear algebra, statistics and probability. I think this is a holistic way to approach data science because you need not only to be able to deploy machine learning models, but you need to understand the math behind them, and to be able to preprocess data before running models.

Another thing I love about the program is the responsiveness of all the team, from tutor to project reviewer to community manager. This make you avoid confusion on your learning journey as much as possible. The fact that they set deadlines for projects and lessons helps us to keep discipline and follow our goal. They are also flexible enough to grant us a few academic leaves if we can't catch up with the space of the whole group because of our busy schedules.

I used a lot of knowledge and skills learned from Practicum to get through job interview and apply for my current job. With these great things, I highly recommend Practicum for those who want to start or switch to Data Science/Analytics career. Read less

I had an excellent experience with this program! Highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn web development
Curriculum:
The curriculum was up to date and well taught. In fact, rather than going to stackexchange or googling for something, I often review my lessons from this class when I can't remember how to do something or am having trouble with the documentation. There's a lot of information available online that covers similar subjects, but the way Yandex presents it is just better. Especially with javascript, a lot of information can be old or outdated examples that use jquery, not the case for Yandex.

They cover basically everything you need to know for the MERN stack:

• html/css
• BEM style
• flexbox/flexgrid
• javascript es10 (they do an especially good job here)
• react
• nodesjs
• expressjs
• babel
• webpack
• mongodb
• mongoose
• REST api
• modular programming

Instructors:The instructors were one of the best parts of the program. I really like the staff and found them very helpful and easy to talk to. You could reach them over slack whenever you are having trouble on a project. Keep in mind, though, that most of them are based in Russia. For me, in Pacific Standard Time, I would usually do my work during the day and send it to be reviewed or to receive feedback if I was having difficulty with the project, and by the next day I would receive feedback from them that I could work on.

If you have anything come up during the course and need to take a leave of absence, the staff is very flexible and accommodating.

The projects were challenging, but their feedback was extremely helpful and even if you have done some programming before you will really improve a lot. There were clear deadlines for projects that were very reasonable. 

Job Assistance:
There were a few lessons on common whiteboarding questions you might be asked during an interview. There was also an optional project for a real company that groups of 3-4 students could work on, which was an excellent learning experience.

Overall Experience: Overall this was exactly what I wanted out of a bootcamp program. I especially recommend it for people who have some background in programming already and want to improve, since you will be challenged and they will leave a lot of constructive criticism on your projects. It can also be challenging because it is a lot of information to cover, but the program is long enough to cover it all well, and you can always come back to the course material if you need to review.

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I always had a keen interest in pursuing my career in the area of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. I was looking for a good, instructor led online course that would enable me to learn and also do hands-on Data Science projects. When I found about the curriculum and learning process of the DataScience Bootcamp by Practicum@Yandex, I immediately enrolled in the program, and I am thankful I DID, because it is an EXCELLENT PROGRAM.

This course consists of online, comprehensive, well planned, highly educational course material with hands-on exercises, challenging hands on projects, collaborative stack of Slack and Notion, and a community of professionals and educators. 

This course has enabled me to learn various topics in Data Science (Python, Data Preprocessing, EDA, SDA, AI, ML, Deep Learning, ComputerVision, Supervised Learning, Unsupervised learning and much more). It has increased my curiosity to learn more, boosted my confidence to a level where I am eager to work on new projects in Data Science.   This course also has a web-development part, where we can learn in the web-development introductory courses offered by Practicum @ Yandex.  Everything in ONE place.

The course is very rigorous and used Agile Methodology of Sprints. The active help and 24/7 support from the technical instructors, coaches, administrative staff, and students have made the entire learning a very pleasant and confident process.  The instructors and coaches are very learned, knowledgeable and experienced. They are willing to go above and beyond to enable us to learn more. There are well-planned webinars held to teach new concepts and discuss the projects.

A year ago, Data Science seemed to me a far-reaching goal and I used to wonder  if I could ever do that online. The Practicum @ Yandex Data Science boot-camp has enabled me to reach my goals in less than a year. With their constant guidance and support, I am very optimistic to find a job in the Data Science field. 

Thank you all at Practicum @ Yandex.  Read less

I started learning data analytics by doing various small courses online and realised this is the kind of career path I want to pursue. Then I want to engage in some more comprehensive, intense, but also practical learning to develop and consolidate my skills. That's when I found Practicum by Yandex among all the bootcamps available online. 

I picked Yandex based on others' reviews and I'm extremely glad with this decision. I feel so enjoyed the course and every aspect of it: the platform, the tasks, the design, the flow, the support. I can't say enough good things about the course and still can't believe I get so much for what I pay. 

I'm half way in my data analytics course and excited with each new chapter and task. The learning offered by Practicum suits me perfect. There are also plenty of additional resources offered which i really appreciate. The tutors have been great and so helpful too. 

What I'm really impressed is how prompt the platform online support is. Whenever I got stuck with a task, I sent an inquiry via the platform tech support, the response is almost straightaway, despite all the time differences. Wow. that's impressive, and super helpful! 

As i said, I can't say enough good things about the course. Anymore will make me sound like a sales person. haha!  Highly recommended!  Read less

I am studying at Practicum by Yandex for half a year now and I am going to finish my course soon. I've enjoyed my Data Analytics course and I am inspired for further work. I would definitely recommend this course to anyone, cause it has a  complex approach to studies. You get well-structured theory, practice, real projects, guidance, tips on soft skills, communication with mentors and peers. This is a top quality program.
Of course, nothing is ideal and there were some annoying moments, for example, some bugs on the platform. But they were really minor and did not spoil the overall experience.
In conclusion, I'd like to add, that knowing how to work with data is essential in today's world. Data is the essence of knowledge, science and development.  Read less

I loved my experience! They made learning feel easy. Any time I ran into a road block I contacted support and got help quickly, as they were really responsive. The structure of the curriculum was challenging in a good way. It helps you build skills to learn for yourself instead of just the simple read and review tutorial of other bootcamps. I loved practicum by yandex so much I am considering going back for one of there other boot camps in the future! Read less