Chegg Skills

I took the Engineering Flex course. It wasn't quite what I expected going into it. It is a lot of information and a lot of reading going into it. Also, there will be some outside studying you need to do to really grasp the concept. Overall I found it really helpful and am really thankful for the course as it taught me a lot! The best thing about the course is definitely the mentor sessions or a least the mentor I had. He was very helpful and would go out of his way to make sure you understood the concepts. 

I am currently halfway through the Engineering Immersion program offered by Thinkful and I am absolutely blown away by how much I have learned and retained in the passed 8 weeks. I have learned several different libraries and languages in order to further my goal as a developer. I am getting ready to start learning Computer Science algorithms and building my capstone projects! Everyone around me including the teachers, my mentor, the TA's and other students are extremely helpful and collabrative. That being said, do not take the warnings lightly. I spend on average 50-60 hours every week for this class and treat it as a full time job plus some. However, if you can handle the work load, you will walk away feeling supported, valued, and happier! If you're on the fence give it a try! They offer a free trial period! 

As much as I loved what Thinkful had to offer, I can now say that Engineering Flex program was not for me. As an older learner, I felt that the curriculum could have been better written which is why I am giving it 1 star. Many details of whatever subject matter you are on feel like they are left out or not fully explained. 

The best analogy I can give is, imagine if you were enrolled in a Driver's Education program. The program gives you online lessons that talk about getting in the car, putting your key in, starting it, using turn signals, and then it talks about the Automatic transmission and outlines all of the different gears. It then leaves you with a short description on transmissions like 'Automatic transmissions are the most common transmissions in cars today. There is also a manual or stick shift transmission available but we will discuss that later.'

The lesson continues to talk about when to use your turn signals, when to put your car in Drive instead of Low Gear, and then discusses seatbelts or something else related to driving the car. When it comes time to actually drive the car, the lesson presents you with a vehicle, you get in, start it, then come to realize that it's a stick shift/manual transmission. You then have 30 minutes to google the solution on how to drive a stick shift. That's where a lot of my frustration came from. 

I've shared my feedback with the Thinkful staff and they were very responsive but unfortunately, the curriculum can't be changed overnight. That said, that isn't to say that this isn't a good program. For applicants with some prior coding knowledge beyond simple HTML and CSS, this is a great program. For people that are new to coding, I strongly recommend getting a foundation from other coding resources before enrolling because you will always feel behind the curve especially if you are trying to complete this program within the six months on the Flex Program. 

I have since withdrawn from the program to pursue an in-class program that caters more to my learning style. My last issue is with the refund policy. The policy states in the student catalog that a student may be eligible for a refund after the trial period but when I pressed the finance department on this, they said that I wasn't eligible for a partial refund because they don't calculate refunds on a per day basis. That should be clearly stated in the school catalog. 

In closing, I'd like to thank my Program Manager and my Mentor for being patient with me and for their encouragement which is why I gave an overall rating of 3 stars - they were the ones that made this learning experience bareable. 

This review is highly detailed, as it needs to be to fully outline my experience of being removed from Thinkful’s Engineering Immersion Prep Course.

After years of apprehension towards pursuing Programming, and approximately 1 year of considering Thinkful, Inc. as my final choice for a school, in August of 2019, I applied to attend Thinkful’s Engineering Immersion Program and was accepted.  I had a great interaction with one of Thinkful’s admission advisors as he explained how admission, prep course and the EI course would work and we discussed my financing options.

I live in a major city so the living stipend was an option for me; I applied for the living stipend and the ISA (Income Share Agreement) issued via Lief Technologies, Inc.
I was approved for both the living stipend and the ISA the day after I applied and signed the contract as well.  Things were going off without a hitch and I was very excited to get started.

I met with my Program Manager who gave me plenty of resources of how to stay connected while in the prep course.  She made sure that I knew of the various avenues of community help and even local communities in my area; all things that allow a person to feel & remain grounded while studying in what may feel like an isolated environment, as distance/online learning can feel like at times.  I credit 2 of her correspondences with me on tech evaluation preparation and progress in the program as one of the primary reasons I remained motivated throughout the latter part of my stay in the prep course.

During Thinkful’s 4-week prep course, you are assigned to a mentor who you meet with twice a week to help iron out any kinks in your understanding the material that you would study independently for those 4 weeks.  My mentor was [redacted by moderators]. 
The dynamic with this mentor who was assigned to me wasn’t as harmonious as it could have been and we definitely had different teaching/learning styles and a few too many awkward silences where he didn’t control the flow of the session, but given the return on investment of a career change and being approved for the living stipend and ISA, it was a simple decision to just take these biweekly sessions on the chin, use the opportunity to learn all that I could and push through the material, as not all partnerships will be ideal. Not to mention, this was only the prep course and not someone who I would be assigned to for the duration of the course.

During my second to last session with [redacted by moderators], we’d gone over a few principles and he gave me some code to practice and told me to practice writing the code over and over in order to drill in the syntax; no problem there.  In all of our sessions, I made sure to fork what we’d worked on, or copy and paste the code to practice it in a separate editor, but NEVER would I change or add to the code he wrote during a mentor session.
The next day when I was practicing the syntax he wrote, none of the code would run. 
Additionally, this rang true for the rest of the code he asked me to practice from the repl.it file we were working on that previous session.  NONE of the code worked!
So during our next and last session, after our initial greetings, I asked him “Is the code we were working on the other day supposed to run?  I was practicing writing it and none of it runs in the editor and I’d like to get it cleaned up so I’m practicing the correct syntax.”
To which, he passive-aggressively replied, “Can you give me a link so I know what you’re talking about?”
And instead of cleaning up the code I brought to his attention, he immediately began to shift gears and began reviewing and teaching me the same code block that was incorrect, and quizzing me on the code.  I reiterated that my primary concern was to make sure this code is written correctly so I wouldn’t be committing incorrect syntax to memory.  Also, I just wanted to be able to cover new material in this session after the code was corrected.
He insisted on reviewing, after which he removed the incorrect pieces of code at the end.
This happened over 2 blocks of code I brought to his attention.

He then wrote an exercise he wanted me to write code for and I noticed it was the same exercise with precisely the same instructions from our previous session; code that he wrote and corrected in the end.
So I reviewed that exercise and wrote what I saw in the earlier exercise.  He asked me why I wrote this “anti-code” and I showed him the code that had his instructions word-for-word attached to the exercise and it mirrored the exact exercise we were currently working on and I told him I was just reviewing the code he wrote in the same exercise in our previous session.
[Mentor name redacted by moderators] then became very defensive and said he didn’t write it and accused me having changed code after-session.
All of this immediately after cleaning up code he'd written and had instructed me to practice.

I wasn’t very pleased with how this session went, so I emailed my Program Manager because I remember she mentioned I could contact her if I needed to. I asked if we could arrange a time for consultation before our next scheduled meeting.
My goal in that meeting would have been ensuring that, if possible, I could be assigned another mentor for the duration of my stay in prep course and any additional study materials for the upcoming technical evaluation I was on track to take.
I never received a response to that email.

Later that afternoon however, I received an email from my program manager stating that my mentor reported that I had violated the code of conduct and displayed disrespectful behavior during the session and that I would be withdrawn from the prep course effective that day.
I was never questioned about the session by Thinkful.  
My reaching out to the program manager wasn’t taken into consideration, no investigation whatsoever. 
It was just a staff employee’s word over a student’s.
I replied to the program manager that I did in fact have questions and I hoped that the sessions were recorded at the very least.
I received no response.

My advise to other student hopefuls is if you are considering Thinkful or PARTICULARLY if you end up with this mentor is to Cover. Your. Back.
Keep a record of everything and record your sessions if you don’t think they are going the way they should. Don't shy away from requesting a different mentor if you feel it may be necessary.
Do not allow one bad apple to ruin your progress, or in this case, cost you the opportunity to be awarded a stipend.
Onward and Upward!

This course is awful. While they pair you with a mentor and that's a plus, the curriculum is TERRIBLE. There are no videos, there are paragraphs of vague explanations on complex topics (often times riddled with errors), and then a subset of code that is NOT EXPLAINED and you have no idea what each piece is doing. I completed the course successfully and definitely don't feel like I could be a successful data scientist. Don't waste your money--spend a little extra time and money on a course where you will actually learn something. 

I enrolled in the Full Stack Flex boot camp because I wanted school like structure because I procrastinate without deadlines.  Curriculum is pretty good, but you'll still have to learn a lot by yourself that isn't covered.  I had 2 mentors.  The first was not great.  He missed meetings, didn't go out of his way to teach me anything unless I explicitly asked.  Second one was really good and I wouldn't have graduated on time without him.  They do guarentee a job but only if you complete it the course in 6 months or less.  I got employed about 3 months after graduating and I'm really happy with my job.

Starting the Data Science course to this program, I had no computer science background. I had earned a master's in biology 5 years prior and really enjoyed processing the data (Excel, sigma plot and sigma stat). After comparing a few programs, I decided Thinkful was the way to go since they are so sure of the program that they offered a money back guarantee if you don't get a job in the field within six months. I just graduated the program, so I will start my career search now. What I can say about the program is that I learned a TON. Some of it I may never use, but I am glad to have the information. Other info such as the supervised learning techniques I see as indispensible. I started with a mentor who eventually left the company and I therefore ended up with a really helpful mentor half-way through the program. He always gave great advice and was super encouraging. I did not find Slack, the online collaborative chat to be very helpful, as I would often just get responses that sent me to stack overflow links that I had already seen and did not help my situation. I would also say that the timing estimates were not all that accurate for me. Some tasks that were only supposed to take a few days took me weeks. I work 40-50 hours a week and was anticipating dedicating 20 hours to Thinkful but it ended up being closer to 30-35. I used all my pause days as I juggled work, a family emergency, and an unexpected trip so it took me about 8 months to do this six month course. But therein also lies the amazing thing about this program: I was able to balance my life with this program and I came out of it with so much more knowledge than I had 8 months ago. It's cheaper than some of the other programs I looked at as well and for someone who, again, was starting with no foundation, it was necessary to endure a longer program as I don't think I would have understood anything going into a 'Learn Python in a week' course. I also ended up with two different program managers in the course and they were both amazing. Super nice and encouraging and always very quick with their responses and help. I think the curriculum could use some tweaking as some assignments are a bit ambiguous, or show you something simple and then ask you to do something far more complex. Overall though, I learned a lot and was glad to work on real world problems and not just theory during this course.

I enjoyed and strongly recommend Thinkful.  

The program is fundamentally a broad, though shallow, overview of the core data science toolkit. It’s primarily designed for people without a coding background. The curriculum features a structured, top-down, conceptual overview of topics and algorithms followed by hands on exercises, challenges, and capstone projects.  Thinkful does not provide a holistic, nor deep-dive, into the math behind the algorithms but the lessons often have links to additional resources for the students to consider in due course. Given that students come from diverse backgrounds, I think this is smart.

The real highlights of Thinkful are the things which go beyond the actual data science curriculum, namely all of the technical support. This includes: one-on-one mentorship multiple times a week, open technical coach "office hours" multiple times a day, an active student message board with mentors available 10 hours every day, and finally, a career support team to assist with your job hunt after graduation. It amazes me that they offer so much personalized technical support.  This is the strength of the program in my eyes.

They created a successful program to lift students into the data science field. I couldn’t have asked for more from a bootcamp. 

-Pros - 
It will provide you with good and updated material to get your skills sharp on the language that they are teaching you. 
It is fast paced, it will make time fly and you will be learning a lot really fast. 
It will challenge yourself as a professional, and you will understand the meaning of "detail oriented'.

-Cons- 
- Why didn't I start this program earlier? - I ask myself this question almost everyday.

It may seem overwhelming at the beginning but trust me they will provide you with the tools for your success. Understand that this boot camp is what its name means, it will require of your time to sit down and put the hours in. I currently have a full time job, my afternoons and evenings I have to dedicate to the program in order to stay on meeting my dates.

I am really enjoying working through the Thinkful curriculum, and the support of my Thinkful mentor and the community has really helped me through the process. I am currently a part of the Full Stack Flex program and one thing I really appreciate about this program is the flexibility to be able to get the work done outside of working my day job. The curriculum provides a lot of helpful reading, which I can sometimes do on-the-go, and the way the projects and assignments are structured is super engaging. They have elevated the program even more to include more online community among students as well as some local meet-ups and networking events. 

I chose Thinkful over other boot camps because of the cost, the mentorship, and the job guarantee.  My experience has been positive on all fronts.  I can't say enough about my mentor and my program manager, they were the key to my success along with my hard work.  My program manager was there to assist with any questions I had about the program, such as staying on track to graduate on time.  My mentor was patient, helpful and knowledgeable about various Data Science topics. If you don't have the math and programming skills, you will definitely have to put in more time. I am glad I stuck with this course and finished strong.  If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.  It's never too late to start something new!