Thinkful

I enrolled in the Thinkful Software Engineering Bootcamp (now known as Chegg Skills) with high hopes, but my experience fell short of expectations. Here’s a breakdown of my key experience:

Time Commitment Misrepresentation: The program advertised that... Read More I would need to commit at least 30 hours per week, but in reality, the projects and lessons took much longer to complete. If you request an extension on the program, you lose the refund guarantee.

Ineffective Support: On multiple occasions, I spent hours working with chat support, only to receive answers that didn’t solve my problem. This was incredibly frustrating and wasted time.

Mentorship Challenges: My mentor stopped showing up to scheduled meetings and didn’t respond to my emails. They only communicated when I reached out to Thinkful.

Lack of Help with Projects: I got stuck on a project, and despite seeking help, no one was able to assist me. Realizing that I wouldn’t be able to complete the remaining lessons and projects on time, I made the difficult decision to withdraw from the program.

Program Changes: After I withdrew, the original program was replaced with a new one that advertises a time commitment of 10-15 hours per week and covers basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript—skills I had already learned in the old program. This made me feel cheated, as I didn’t receive a certificate for my efforts, even though I would have with the current program.

Overall, my experience with Thinkful (now Chegg Skills) left much to be desired. While the idea of a structured, mentor-led bootcamp was appealing, the execution was lacking, and I didn’t feel supported in a way that would justify the investment.

Pros:

- Informative lessons that provided valuable knowledge.
- AI assistant effectively broke down complex concepts.
- Well-taught JavaScript portion, boosting confidence in the subject.
- Helpful resume support that aided in job preparation.

Cons:

I felt like I constantly had to cram. There were no weekends and no holidays off, every single day there were lessons due so it was really easy to fall behind, having to cram constantly made it hard for me to retain information.

This program has cost me thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours, and countless headaches. Do not take this course if you are a beginner. Do not take this course if you do not pick up concepts immediately with little to no teaching or effort. The curriculum... Read More is abysmal at best, chalk full of glitches, issues, and outdated code. In at least 3 different starters, I've had to alter the code just to get it to start (this was not meant to be part of the assignment). Concepts are covered lightly, then tested heavily. The course itself feels as though they want you to fail. There is no additional support available, outside of your mentor, which you may only meet with 2 times a week for 30 minutes. The mentor is the most important and helpful piece of the program, but, unfortunately, they swapped mine out at the very end of the program (setting you up to fail, again). I truly feel that they want you to fail the academic portion of the course, because then they do not have to pay out the money back guarantee when you're unable to find a job because you weren't taught anything of significant value. The community is nonexistent, and there are no other students to work with if you're in a flex course. The ThinkChat is a joke. About 1/4 of the time, you get a helpful coach. The other 75% of the time you're getting some person who does not understand coding concepts, and will either: 1. Have you alter your code to match their solution exactly 2. Address issues that you have not asked for assistance with 3. Provide you the solution with no context. This course is a waste of your time and money, and will drain you of any self confidence you've ever built. If you're considering this course, turn the other way and run as fast as you can. If you've just started the course and are wondering, "does it get better?" No, it does not. Ask for your money back/to cancel and go somewhere where they actually want you to complete the course, learn the concepts, and become a developer.

I would not recommend this bootcamp to anyone. 1) TA’s were overloaded with tickets so if you have more than 1 question in a day don’t expect to get it solved quickly. Some of the TAs are great and helpful but they’re helping 3-4 other courses at the... Read More same time. 2) chatbox was brain melting. I’d never recommend using chatbox to ask coding questions. They are also helping you and 3-4 other students at the same time so response is slow. 3) career services is a joke. They barely help you or find job postings for you. Besides the education course itself everything else about this bootcamp was awful. I have been emailing career services for 2 months asking for a simple document or letter to send to the loan company they partner with and I’m STILL getting the run around. Save your money and go elsewhere.

It has been a real pleasure to be part of the Thinkful software engineering program. Attending Thinkful gave me guidance and direction when I was trying to resume my career after a gap. I had been looking at online boot camps for some time and came across... Read More Thinkful. After researching each of the different curriculums I decided that Software Engineering is the one I was most interested in. Before the course, they offer Prep-coursework to prepare for applying for the full course which was not only free but also I had a mentor who helps me twice a week. Each week, there was a pair programming which I enjoyed a lot. This is a great program! I have been challenged with every project. Each week we go through quite a charming learning process in the platform. Then there is a project where you can imply the knowledge from the lessons and are being reviewed by the grading team. The best part of the program is your dedicated mentor who assists you with learning the concepts, while even providing additional resources to help you work through the problems. From my experience, all the questions I had were answered by the really wonderful staff members through email or Slack. Whether it's the technical support team who will answer challenging tasks questions or the community managers and mentors in the interacting platform. There's always someone to answer my question and it seems like they really care about the students' progress and they are eager to see them finish the course successfully. During the course, they offer coursework to prepare for applying for jobs however I found it hard to balance that with my main coursework. But you can wait until after graduation and they are still there to help you prepare. We will have your dedicated career coach who will show you a great way to contact the employer yourself. The amount of job support you get is good for the price of the course and they do also have various payment options available according to your need. With the growing number of boot camps out there, I think it can be difficult to take the leap and jump in, and I recognize that there was a bit of luck that went into my success, but if you are curious about software Development and able to work hard to develop your portfolio, I think Thinkful is worth looking into.

I’ll start with the pros The mentors.. well if you get a good one, mine was great (Aaron), my first one ghosted me and missed two sessions in a row, no explanation from Bloc which mysteriously rebranded to Thinkful in January 2021 without telling students.... Read More You meet once a week to go over your work. But keep in mind this is their side gig to their part time job. And may be in a different time zone especially if you live outside of the US, so you may have to wait sometime You have real UI/UX professionals grading your work, unlike some other online courses like Coursera/Google. You will learn the design thinking/user centered design process, it seems like Googles Coursera course was not very in depth, and more about building a personal brand, portfolio and designing for inclusion.. which Thinkful actually doesn’t get into very much There is career counseling and the build the online portfolio module is very good The cons If you like the traditional Professor with a lecture style learning, even if it’s remote or recorded, this is not the bootcamp for you. You have a reading module, filled with links to other articles and YouTube videos about the UI/UX process. Oddly enough, they sometimes link to rival Bootcamp CareerFoundry’s videos. So you definitely have to be a very dedicated self starter, there is zero hand holding. I was given a business-speak explanation from Thinkful that it was for you to develop “research skills” Even if you are in the part time program it’s not self paced exactly, you can’t fall behind. You will get one warning, then the second time, expelled from the course. I remember in the very beginning of the course, there was basically an assignment that said “do this in Figma” then you had to go out and find your own resources to teach yourself Figma. I have a design background so I picked it up quickly, but I saw one student struggling. —- The design sprint module made no sense.. there are no group projects.. you do everything yourself. The very essence of the design sprint is GROUP COLLABORATION OVER 5 days. I think most people in the program have a part or full time job.. how could you take on every role in the design sprint process then recruit usability test subjects, then schedule and conduct the the tests? — The Slack Channel It’s allegedly the student community but it’s dead and people only post if they want something like to do a survey or usability test. I tried posting discussion prompts but maybe 2 people would respond. — The “office hours” that went away, but came back (sort of) The mentors used to have sessions usually in the evenings and drop by and ask questions. There was a great who was friendly and knowledgeable, but they left. The links to the office hours were on the student portal homepage, but when Bloc rebranded to Thinkful in January 2021, the office hours disappeared. I asked where they went, I was told they were hidden in the HELP link at the top of the page (how would you know to look there?) Students reported that the mentors were not even showing up —— ThinkChat Allegedly, you can ask the “virtual chat “ to help you if you get stuck on the curriculum , it says you won’t wait more than 15 minutes, but I gave up after an hour once when no one came. —— Thinkful Staff Thinkful is part of Chegg a big corporation in online learning and textbooks and they will give you the standard business speak fake nice runaround and take zero responsibility for anything like my mentor or who ghosted me — Dismissed for going “too slow “ I got praises from the assessor of my first app design presentation and my mentor thought I was a great designer but I was dismissed for “falling behind “ So it’s not even self paced __ READ THE FINE PRINT EVERYONE! Consider IDaF , CareerFoundry and General Assembly before Thinkful for UI/UX

When I decided to change my career, I had a research which program could be best fit for me and when I compared Thinkful with others its pros overweighed. * First it was a flex program and as a mother of two toddlers, it gave me the flexibility for the... Read More time I could study. *The curriculum was easy to follow and understand. Also it gave me the chance to apply my newly earned skills. *Mentorship sessions are the meetings that I could find answers for all my questions. Even if it was a flex program those meetings made me study to be able to have a topic to discuss with my mentor. * After I completed program, I had an assigned career coach who was really resourceful and guided me through job search process. As a result, I totally recommend Thinkful for the one who are searching a program to change career or want to develop their skills.

Would recommend! I came to Thinkful to make a career change possible and I can confidently say it worked. The curriculum was thorough and highlighted all of the on-demand skills in the current job market for Data Analysts. The peer driven project work... Read More was effective and fun. Post-graduation, the my Career Coach helped me navigate, job applications, interviews, and eventually an offer! Thank you Thinkful!

Going through Thinkful to learn and hone my data analytical skills was one of the best things I have ever done. The curriculum solidified skills I already had and taught me skills that I never would have thought I would be able to learn such as Python... Read More and SQL. What is different about Thinkful is that not only do they teach you the skills necessary to perform the job, they provide skills on interviewing, culture fit, networking and cover letter/resume writing. They provide the full gamut of landing your next job. They even have a post curriculum career coach that works with you until you land your next job. Because of Thinkful, I was able to make a career change and land a job as a Data Manager for an amazing company. I will definitely turn to Thinkful for additional learning in Product Management and Data Science.

Thinkful is a great boot camp that is both flexible and structured in a way that most university courses would be. The curriculum is rigorous and thorough, but like any course, the student needs to put in the time to practice and do further research outside... Read More of class and pair-programming time. If you’re looking for a career change and/or already have a college degree in something other than computer science, then I’d recommend Thinkful. It will provide you with a solid foundation on which to build as you advance in your career. It doesn’t guarantee a job ( and neither does a bachelor’s or master’s in CS) but their career services are awesome and my career coach helped me so much so that I was able to find a great job only a month after graduating.

I started the Thinkful Digital Marketing Flex program back in late 2020 and the whole experience was top-notch, to say the least. I learned so much about today's digital marketing tactics such as Google SEO/SEM, social media marketing, email campaigns,... Read More google analytics, and so much more! I also love that the grading system has high standards for all the assignments, especially when working on your resume and cover letter. Overall, I enjoyed the whole program and I highly recommend anyone looking to expand their horizons and learn and new, valuable skillset for your future endeavors. Thank you, Thinkful team!