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About Bloc
Bloc is the world's original online coding bootcamp that incorporates 1-on-1 mentorship to personally prepare each student as a professional web developer, software developer or designer.
Bloc's apprenticeship approach is tailored specifically to individual... Read More
Because career readiness is important, Bloc's flagship Track programs include job preparation material and access to their Placement Network when students are ready. Mentors help students assemble a portfolio and prepare for technical interview questions. When ready, students work with Bloc's career support team to navigate the job search process with an individualized game plan and exposure to Bloc's Employer Network.
No prior development experience is required to enroll in Bloc, but a strong desire to learn and take on challenges is important to student success!
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Courses
Average Ratings (All Programs)
4.71/5
- Anonymous | Web Designer
- Designer Track
- Graduated: 2020
Overall Score
Curriculum
Job Support
"If you are a disciplined and dedicated you can learn a lot UI/UX on your own"
I had buyers remorse a few weeks into Bloc's UI/UX design track. You have reading modules that are brief then an assignment at the end that you ALWAYS have to do more reading on your own and watching YouTube or LinkedIn Learning/Lynda.com videos to supplement... Read More
For instance they will ask you to use the program Figma to complete an assignment. They don't even point you to a tutorial, you're just supposed to figure out on your own.
Their competition, Careerfoundry makes very good videos on YouTube and I was watching them to help me
You have a mentor, but its a side gig for most of them, and some treat it more seriously than others.
They try to attempt to have a student community on Slack, but it cant come close to being in a real or even virtual classroom with other students you can get to know, ask for help, or ask to critique your work. People just use it for usability testing and surveys.
If you need structure, this is not the program for you
Comment- Adam L
- Web Developer Track
- Graduated: 2020
Overall Score
Curriculum
Job Support
"Great experience and support."
My experience with Bloc's Web Developer Track was outstanding. The curriculum focused on learning HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Node, Express, and more.
On top of that, the support is what I believe really makes this program shine. From day one I was... Read More
Mock interviews throughout the course were another reason I picked this program. I feel that seeing how interviews involving technical questions and live coding challenges was vital. The more practice the better.
I've just graduated and am now receiving assistance from a career coach to find employment with my new skills. I would recommend this program to anybody.
Comment- Pierce Hicks | Front End Developer
- Web Developer Track
- Graduated: 2019
Overall Score
Curriculum
Job Support
"Everything in great but the outdated course material"
- Stephanie LeBlond | Senior Program Manager
- Graduated: 2020
Overall Score
Curriculum
Job Support
"An incredibly rich, demanding and rewarding full stack web development program."
- Shane Kurt Finlayson
- Graduated: 2019
Overall Score
Curriculum
Job Support
"Over priced, poor curriculum."
- Mark Bergstrom
- Web Developer Track
- Graduated: 2020
Overall Score
Curriculum
Job Support
"Great online bootcamp experience with Bloc!"
I would definitely recommend Bloc's Web Developer Track to anyone seeking to learn how to become a full stack developer. I had some self-taught coding experience in VBA coming into the program, but this was my first formal code training since a basic... Read More
The general layout of the curriculum requires you to read a written lesson and then complete a set of exercises. Occasionally, these exercises will be reviewed for completion and accuracy, but oftentimes they are just for your own benefit and understanding. Once per week, you'll meet over the web with your mentor. This is a great time to help work through the areas where you're stuck or get some higher level understanding of how exactly the new skills you're learning would come into play in a real-world tech job. In between mentor meetings, you'll have access to loads of technical coaching through Slack where you can talk to coaches or other students working through the same content you are.
It might seem like a lot to figure out and accomplish while you're in the middle of it all. It certainly did for me at times! Trust the process. You can do this!
Comment- Sihao Cao
- Web Developer Track
- Graduated: 2020
Overall Score
Curriculum
Job Support
"Good Experience with Bloc's Web Developer Track!"
- Anonymous
- Designer Track
- Graduated: 2017
Overall Score
Curriculum
Job Support
"Irrelevant content, not worth your time nor your money, better off self studying"
I currently work at a well established tech company in the Bay, but I will not attribute any of my success to the wasted time and money spent at Bloc.
Upon finishing the program, I did not receive reimbursement given the standard protocol.
While I was... Read More
My recommendation:
self-study - look at other people's work and observe what they have done and how they did it
contact a few designers in your area and ask for feedback on the things you've been working on (people will respond, help and actually mentor you)
don't code your portfolio if you don't know how to code (some of the best portfolios I've seen are the ones made from website builders... and I've seen hundreds of portfolios given that my current role requires me to interview candidates)
don't be a sucker - don't fall for these quick success schemes from bloc... they show all these success stories about former students joining companies like google, dropbox, etc. but they don't show how much work these people had to do outside of the bloc curriculum.
- Paul Cho
- Web Developer Track
- Graduated: 2016
Overall Score
Curriculum
Job Support
"Bloc Screwed Me Over, Won't Reimburse Tuition As Promised, Even Though Followed Protocol"
- A
- Web Developer Track
- Graduated: 2019
Overall Score
Curriculum
Job Support
"A Brutally Honest Review of the Web Developer Track"
There are a lot of things I wish I had known about this program before signing up so I'm here to tell my story hoping someone finds it useful if you're on the fence about this. I'm surprised at how many 5 star reviews are on here. The program pesters... Read More
Curriculum: Once you're enrolled, you're given access to their Slack channels and to their site to begin the program. You then choose a mentor that you'll meet once a week to go over any problems or questions you may have. The material consists of a series of checkpoints with practice problems that you need to complete in order to move onto the next. There are slack channels for each section/modules you're on to ask technical mentors for help when you're stuck on a problem. You'll take an assessment after each module through online video conferencing which will unlock the next module upon successful completion. In the end, you take your final assessment along with a final project to see if you get your certificate.
Pros: It gets you started with web development. Some of the mentors seemed to genuinely care about my success and learning. The git workflows. Career services were solid.
Cons: This is going to be a lot - The material was pretty disappointing. I was expecting video content at least to explain difficult concepts, but it was just plain text with external links to other resources. It's no different from going to a library and checking out a book on web development. I learned most of the material through Google, Udemy, YouTube - All significantly better resources.
The slack channels where you ask for help was extremely inefficient and clearly suffered from having understaffed technical coaches. This was really frustrating and really slowed down momentum when you're trying to solve a checkpoint and have limited time in the day. Sometimes a response could take 20-30 minutes since they had so many questions from other students. If a technical coach's shift is ending midway through a problem, a new one will jump in and you'll start the process over again. This is a HUGE problem when you're trying to complete the curriculum within 8-months. The program is aimed at working professionals, but after an 8-hour workday, I only had about 4 hours before the technical coaches leave for the night. This along with the fact that they were understaffed with 20-30 min response time was painful.
My mentors were hit or miss. As I said, some of them seemed to really care about my growth, while others seemed like they were just there for a paycheck and riding the hype train. You're expected to come prepared for these mentor sessions, but the mentors seemed to be disconnected from the curriculum and didn't come prepared by looking at your status in the program (even though they have access to it). Sometimes going over the checkpoints, they don't know what the projects or problem statements are so you have to spend extra time just familiarizing them. You only have 30 mins a week with them which is sometimes just enough 1 problem and familiarizing them with the curriculum didn't help. I also don't think that the mentors, technical coaches, and graders were all on the same page - There have been numerous times where they would have conflicting feedback on the checkpoints.
Overall: In the end, I did eventually find a job in the industry, but I wouldn't give too much credit to Bloc for that (Thanks Google, Andrei Neagoie, and Brad Traversy!). I know Bloc and Thinkful were going through a merger throughout this time so that may have contributed to the issues, but either way, it wasn't good for the students. If I could go back, I'd definitely attend an in-person, well-known Bootcamp to alleviate all the inefficiencies. I didn't know this going in, but a bootcamps network and reputation is pretty crucial in the job hunt phase. They can introduce you to more companies along with past alumni's in the industry to help get your foot in the door. While Bloc's career support was ok in job leads, their network is small in comparison. Also, after going through the job search, no one is going to care about your certificate of completion from the bootcamp. Networking, grit, portfolio, and interview skills will be key.
CommentBloc's average rating is 4.71 out of 5.0 based on 340 review(s).