Thinkful

I recently completed the 18-week UX design apprenticeship at Bloc. I had a great experience with Bloc personally. Some highlights of my experience: -Remote apprenticeship: I met with a mentor on Skype twice a week for half an hour. The rest of the work... Read More was done alone on my own time so I could keep working my job as I completed the program. I spent anywhere from 20 - 40 hours a week working on assignments, readings and projects during my program. -Curriculum: The UX curriculum is not too advanced for beginners and also teaches some UI and front-end development. I wanted a curriculum that taught me the fundamentals of UX but also left me with skills to build out my designs. I learned HTML & CSS to a level where I feel comfortable building a simple website from scratch. -Mentorship: One of the things I liked most about Bloc over some other remote bootcamps was that I got to choose my mentor. I was able to select a mentor that had skills and experience in areas that I wanted to become an expert. I was able to select a mentor that I could relate too and we got along great. We emailed back and forth in-between skype meetings and he was able to pretty quickly answer any questions I had even though he was half-way across the world in Australia. During skype meetings we would review work, screen-share to review designs or do critiques and discuss upcoming assignments or projects. -Portfolio creation: During my Bloc apprenticeship I was able to create 4 real-world UX projects (including one IOS app design) to start my UX portfolio. I have since been able to add to my portfolio but having these projects to get started is very helpful. -Job prep- After my graduation, I had 4 weeks of Job Prep through Bloc. My job prep mentor (different person than my apprenticeship mentor) helped walk me through what to expect from design interviews. He helped me prepare my online portfolio site. My job prep ended just recently and bloc is currently helping some in my job search but getting a job straight out of the program with no prior experience is not guaranteed and would be difficult I think. I had some previous design experience going in. Overall, I had a good experience and it was what I was looking for. Being that it is remote, I think a lot of what you get out of the program will depend on how much time you are willing to put into it each week. There are a lot of resources provided along the way to go above and beyond the required work if you wish to learn as much as possible.

I went through the Fullstack program two years ago on my nights and weekends while working at a startup. Thanks to Bloc (especially my mentor), I landed a support engineering role after graduating and just made the switch to being a software engineer.... Read More I recently became a Bloc mentor and it is fantastic to see how much the curriculum has advanced in job prep, testing, syntax and overall computer science concepts. I'm proud that Bloc is able to provide tools to people we need in tech field that never would be able to participate in an in-person bootcamp (moms/dads, full-time workers, people not in a tech city). That being said, Bloc is a better fit for students that are self motivated and have already proven to themselves that they love to code. Bloc has changed my life in a way my MBA never could. I recommend Bloc to any ambitious wanna-be software engineers.

I had a great experience with Thinkful. I took the iOS course (the first time it was offered) and was paired with a spectacular mentor. I spent about 20 hours a week on the curriculum and was able to leverage my mentor for any hangups I had. I learned... Read More enough to create an app and release it on the the App Store and also teach myself more advanced iOS concepts.

Prior to the class I had tried learning iOS multiple times and found that it was close to impossible. I bought books, courses and watched youtube videos to no avail. Objective-C is difficult and the xCode environment can be intimidating. Thankfully, the curriculum and my mentor broke things down in a step by step manner and catered to the fact that I had never written a line of code before the class. Now I feel confident when I program and know how to solve tricky problems I had in the past.

The iOS Thinkful community has evolved and now there are even more resources for new students to get help and even learn subjects outside of the curriculum. Learning to code is tough, and I think having a community oriented approach like Thinkful does makes the process a lot easier.

I honestly feel like Bloc has the potential to change your life. In many ways it has changed mine and the best part is that it will continue to in the future. If I wanted to find a job as a developer I'm confident I could find one - especially if I'm... Read More willing to relocate. I am an entrepreneur and wanted to learn enough to be able to create my business ideas. What I learned in Bloc has given me power to make my ideas become a reality. I chose Bloc for three reasons. 1 - The first was it was online. I simply couldn't relocate and I needed something flexible. 2 - Even though it was online I wanted something intense, something that pushed me, something comparable to an at-location bootcamp. I was so impressed with Bloc in this aspect. The first few weeks are very guided and directed and not that difficult. Slowly it becomes more challenging until you get out of the guided work and you begin building apps on your own with the help of your mentor. There is flexibility here so for the person who finds this in and of itself challenging gets the challenge but for others who want to do more I was able to work with my mentor and do more advanced work. I loved that customization for me. 3 - The leads me to the third reason I chose Bloc. The mentors. This is the heart of Bloc and what makes it stand out. I met with my mentor three times a week! When I originally signed up I didn't realize it would be so often. I got to work with him on my capstone project which is a business idea I wanted to create. It was amazing to work together with my mentor to create a business. Just this was worth it for me. I now have skills and knowledge I didn't have before. I am better. I have more potential. I couldn't put a price tag on this. Invest in yourself. But, that's just my opinion.

Like many people out there, depite competing demands on my time, I had a real urge to increase my understanding of web related technologies and programming in general. While self-taught for the majority of my knowledge in, networking, programming, Linux... Read More and basic scripting I discovered self-teaching was taking me a lot longer than I thought. As a military instructor, I came to the realization that I needed some scope and objectives to try and achieve my goals. In the middle of 2013, I started to search for a flexible course I could take to help me get a foothold in the coding field.

There didn't seem to be a lot of institutions out there that provided the mentorship and scoping that would really help me grow as a student and fledgling developer without investing university level fees. Then I stumbled across Thinkful. They offered a great, always evolving syllabus and mentorship. The most attractive feature of the courses they offered was flexibility. From what I read on their website, I could fit their course work around a schedule that could have me working normal office hours one day, then 5 hours later, be searching for vessels in distress in stormy seas in the middle of the pacific ocean.

To be honest it was a no-brainer, I signed up, there wasn't anything really to lose. I never looked back, I have fantastic mentors, who provide honest, critical feedback and have excellent experience. As an instructor, the critical analysis of my code was invaluable to help dme grow as a developer. I also have immense respect for the patience and enthusiasm that Thinkful mentors have. They deal with a multitude of students spread over different time zones, yet always have time for a quick email exchange or chat outside of normal hours. The course flexibility allowed me to work hard when I had the time, and then put in a course pause when my job required that I deploy to a place with minimal connectivity.

I completed the front-end developer course in May 2014 and am currently working through the AngularJS syllabus when and where I am able. I've put the skills I gained in the FEWD course into my job developing applications for my current job, and helped me enhance our own teaching cirriculum.

As a learning institution and flexible educational model, Thinkful is well worth investing time and effort in. The on-going access you gain to an ever evolving detailed cirriculum, fantastic community of mentors, students and developers is outstanding. It also ensures you can go back and review anything, anytime. I highly recommend Thinkful to anyone who is looking at a structured course and highly-motiviational mentors for getting into the programming game.

I went through the Full Stack web development program back in the fall of 2012. I got stumped and frustrated with other online learning opportunities and wanted to get some help. I turned to Bloc because of its flexibility, the quality of the course and... Read More the expertise of its mentors. As a student, it was pivotal in my learning to have someone I could lean on. Without my mentor, I would have given up as I had before. Since then, Bloc has added numerous other courses, including the one I lead: UX Design (http://goo.gl/tMSWkY). I've been a designer for as long as I can remember, doing it professionally for nearly 10 years. I led the user experience team at Tribune Company in Chicago, have worked with a number of startups and mentored many students who have gone onto bigger and better things. You can find out more about our UX Design course by viewing our syllabus (https://www.bloc.io/design/syllabus). Whatever you want to learn, Bloc can help you find a new career, skill or passion.

I was teaching myself front end development for a year or so but felt so overwhelmed by the amount of information and resources out there. I was never sure if I was going in the right direction. Thinkful was the best solution I could of hoped for to solve... Read More this problem. Their well crafted and up-to-date curriculum tied with passionate mentors created a winning formula. They have mentors that can answer those difficult questions that googling cannot. These answers are delivered in a succinct way based on real world experience and genuine passion for what they do.

After completing the front end web development course at the beginning of 2014 I have since moved from a role that didn’t involve writing code to a full time front end development role. I am now back at thinkful to begin 2015 taking the Backend in Node.js course. I know by the time the three months is up I will be equipped with yet another set of invaluable skills to further my career as a developer.

Without Thinkful there would be no way I would be working as a developer today. I highly recommend Thinkful to anyone looking to switch careers or just to tie up the loose ends you have with any of the subjects they offer. You won’t regret it!

I took the FEWD course in the Fall of 2013 and I'm so glad I did! The curriculum was comprehensive, the community was super helpful and my mentor gave me all the guidance I needed to complete the curriculum and make my projects the best they could be.... Read More

I loved the project-based curriculum because it gave me hands-on experience and practice implementing what I was learning, while helping me build portfolio pieces to apply for a job.

Shortly after completing the course, I got my dream job as a Jr Dev at an awesome company, and I have since been promoted. I give Thinkful a lot of credit for giving me the guidance and self-confidence I needed.

I took the Thinkful front-end course and am now in the middle of the Angular course. After dabbling in code for a while and learning with other tools, I can definitely say that Thinkful has played a significant role in propelling me further in my programming... Read More skills and confidence.

What I love most about Thinkful are the hands-on projects you are tasked with at the end of almost each lesson. These projects are what really help me absorb the curriculum and the new tools and skills I'm learning. I've tried a lot of tutorials and online programming schools before including Codecademy and Code School, which were great. But what I was really missing were opportunities to use what I was learning in a real context. With Thinkful I've built numerous apps and sites and now feel way more confident to build something from scratch.

The mentor aspect of Thinkful also played a huge role in this, since there was someone reviewing my code each week and giving me feedback. My mentor also went out of his way to push me further when he saw that I was quite ahead in the course, by giving me extra curriculum projects to work on.

One could argue that you could find similar projects to work on and just use free tools. Maybe. But for me the bundle of the Thinkful curriculum, plus mentor, plus projects was really a winning formula. Different people learn in different ways. But if you're busy with a day job and family, and are serious about learning, I really would recommend Thinkful. It will save you time and maximize your learning.

Someone described Thinkful as being “in the middle” between free online resources and $10k+ programming bootcamps, and I think that’s an apt description. I decided on Thinkful over simply using free resources because of two critical factors: motivation... Read More and mentorship. I decided on it over a bootcamp because of it’s flexibility, price, and the thought that I could always enroll in a bootcamp if I got through Thinkful but couldn’t land a job (spoiler: I landed a job almost immediately after finishing Thinkful).
I started with the Front-End course, which provided the fundamentals and best-practices I needed to start with next to no coding experience. I found that the mentor sessions and office hours alone were worth the investment - having access to expert programmers for several hours a week is totally invaluable. Think about this, a comparable "mentor session" from a service like airpair can cost over $200/hour. To me, this is what made it a no brainer.
Beyond the obvious benefit of having a mentor to help you work through problems, I found that having a mentor session or office hours to attend kept me motivated - I never wanted to show up to a session without progress or questions. After finishing the front-end course, I completed the ruby/rails course, and less than two months after, received three offers (rails dev, front-end dev, angularjs dev). I'm now working as an angularjs developer and loving it.