Thinkful Overview and Guide
Thinkful is a coding bootcamp with the sole objective of kick-starting your tech career within six months. Its programs can help you master fields like data analytics, software engineering, and UX/UI design. But is Thinkful the right bootcamp for you? In this in-depth Thinkful review, we’ll help you decide by showing you what you can expect.
Whatever your ambitions may be, Thinkful is an exciting place to learn the tools necessary to make it big in the tech industry. By the end of this guide, you will understand the content and structure of the school’s courses, its tuition scheme, and the career services it provides for its students.
What You Need to Know About Thinkful
Thinkful is a reputable online coding bootcamp with headquarters in New York City. It emphasizes the importance of providing students with 1-on-1 mentorship and career coaching throughout their course of study. The school offers a job guarantee and will reimburse your full tuition if six months after graduation you still haven’t found a job.
- Cost: Part-Time: $4,900 – $7,900 Full-Time: $7,500 – $18,500
- Schedules: Full-Time, Part-Time
- Courses Offered: Software Engineering, Data Science, Data Analytics, UX/UI Design, Product Management, Technical Project Management, Digital Marketing
- Upcoming Start Dates: Continuous enrollment
Thinkful Curricula: What Can You Study?
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At Thinkful, you can study everything from the basics of web development to advanced data analysis. Its online programs cater to beginners and intermediate learners alike. If you already have programming experience, you can take a course suitable to your level of expertise.
Thinkful takes a full stack approach to programming. You will be expected to acquire fluency in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, as well as tools like GitHub and Trello, before delving into the more complex world of problem-solving.
Software Engineering
The software engineering program is designed to help you master the basics of HTML, CSS, JavaScript. You will then learn how to design secure application program interfaces (APIs). This includes attaining fluency in PostgreSQL and Knex, crucial tools for database management.
You’ll try your hand at problem-solving by diving into data structures and algorithms. The course covers big O notation, which is used to search for and solve algorithms.
The last thing the course covers is Agile methodology, which is how real-world software development operates. Agile’s iterative processes aim to facilitate constant communication between developers and a client, which makes for a better end product.
Data Science
The data science course starts by providing students with a full understanding of Python and the methodologies behind gathering and presenting data. Also covered are the basics of SQL, with which you will experiment with designing your own methods for deciphering data.
You’ll get to apply machine learning libraries like scikit-learn in Python, as well as more old-school models of machine learning like OLS and decision trees. The idea here is to help you acquire fluency in building machine learning models using Python and other tools.
Data Analytics
This online course is oriented towards turning budding business analysts into data storytellers. You’ll perfect tools like Excel and Powerpoint before learning how to apply design principles and visualization tools such as Tableau to create meaningful data narratives.
The course then delves deeper into the world of statistics via Python and programming. You’ll learn useful statistical methods for analyzing data, such as writing complex SQL queries.
UX/UI Design
This fantastic course will get you to act and think like a veteran designer. As you explore the full scope of the design process, you will come to grips with experience research, usability, and visual design. Once you fully understand essential tools like Figma, Webflow, and Sketch, you’ll move on to a more practical approach to UX/UI design.
In the most crucial part of the course, you will practice prototyping and wireframing in a team setting, receiving feedback from peers and tutors. The communication techniques you’ll learn during this stage of the program will be vital for your professional development.
Furthermore, you’ll get a chance to build your own portfolio, so that when the course is over, you’ll be able to show potential employers what you’re capable of.
Product Management
This course will teach you how to operate in a business setting. You’ll learn and apply business metrics like key performance indicators (KPIs) or objective and key results (OKRs), which will allow you to enter a product management position with full confidence.
You’ll go through the full cycle of product discovery, from storyboarding and survey designs all the way to the building and launching stages. You will learn how to apply feedback and data to improve a product, as well as how to maintain constant and effective communication between engineers and stakeholders.
Finally, Thinkful will stick by your side until you land a job, as four mock job interviews are also included in the course package.
Technical Project Management
This course will teach you how to be a project manager in the world of tech development. If you are organizational by nature and get along with people, then this program is for you.
You’ll get a chance to sharpen your presentation skills for leadership roles. This involves being able to communicate with many groups in a single organization and knowing how to lead conflict management and resolution.
Furthermore, you’ll cover all of the IT tools that allow you to align your business models and solutions with modern-day information systems.
Digital Marketing
In this course, you’ll explore the dynamics and trends shaping the world’s digital markets. You will start off with fundamental communications tools like email and social media, learning how to build up a brand from the campaign stage to content marketing.
Eventually, you’ll know how to maximize your brand’s or website’s visibility on platforms like Google.
Digital marketing requires acute data analysis skills, which you will hone as you work on your personal portfolio. Throughout the process, a mentor will be there to guide you along and prepare you for job interviews.
Thinkful Campuses: Where Can You Study?
All courses at Thinkful are held online. Additionally, there are in-person seminars held in most major American cities. The point of these is to create opportunities for students to network and mingle with peers, as well as to create excitement for aspiring web developers in each of these communities.
In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, all networking events are held online as webinars. Thinkful students are also encouraged to socialize and network on Slack, which currently has over 3,000 active participants.
Thinkful Schedules: When Can You Study?
Full-Time
The full-time option requires a commitment of seven hours a day and five days a week for six months. Classes go from 10am to 5pm ET. You will be required to complete a four-week prep course before you can enroll in a full-time Thinkful bootcamp.
Part-Time
The part-time option allows you to study independently, 15 to 20 hours a week, for six months. You do not need a prep course and can start immediately, assuming you pass the application process.
Thinkful Tuition
If you pay upfront, courses at Thinkful cost the following amounts.
- Software Engineering: Part-Time: $7,900, Full-Time: $16,000
- Data Science: Part-Time: $7,900, Full-Time: $18,500
- Data Analytics: Part-Time: $6,500, Full-Time: $12,250
- UX/UI Design: Part-Time: $7,900, Full-Time: $12,150
- Product Management: Part-Time: $4,900, Full-Time: $12,150
- Digital Marketing: Part-Time: $4,900, Full-Time: $7,500
- Technical Project Management: Part-Time: $4,900, Full-Time: $9,000
Thinkful Financing and Payment Options
The most cost-effective ways to finance your education at Thinkful are to pay upfront or in monthly installments. If you cannot afford to pay the advertised tuition, Thinkful offers a range of payment options.
- Deferred tuition. You can take the course and wait to pay until you land a job. Once you start earning $40,000, you will be expected to repay the cost of your tuition on a monthly basis. Note that this is available for part-time courses only.
- Loans. You also have the option of applying for a loan with Skills Fund, Thinkful’s lending partner. The loans available are interest-only and can be repaid on a monthly basis as soon as you graduate.
- Discounts. Thinkful also offers tuition discounts for military veterans, non-binary individuals, and self-identifying women, which can go up to $600.
Thinkful Admissions: How to Get In
It is important to be committed, motivated, and prepared when applying to Thinkful. Before submitting an application and starting the interview process, you should book a phone call with an admissions representative to talk about your career objectives, the interview process, and any payment queries.
Thinkful Application
Before considering applying for any program at Thinkful, you need to make sure you are over 18 and that you have a high school diploma or the equivalent.
To get into a full-time Thinkful course, you need to complete a four-week self-paced prep course. Your technical performance, as well as a short interview about your motivations, will determine whether you’re admitted.
For part-time courses, however, you can enroll without having to go through a prep course. You will just need to submit an application explaining your background, motivations, and why you would like to study at Thinkful.
Applicants are strongly encouraged to schedule a call with a Thinkful advisor before applying. This way, the school can make sure you know which course you want to take and why. If you have any doubts, give Thinkful a call.
Thinkful Interview
During your Thinkful interview, you will be expected to present yourself and your career ambitions. It is important that you let your interviewer know about your current skills, if any, so that they can make sure you enter the right course at the right level.
Try to provide clear and concise answers, and speak with confidence to let the interviewer know that you are fully motivated to pursue a career in the tech industry.
Thinkful Admission Rate: What Are My Chances of Getting In?
The admission rate isn’t published at the time of writing. Note that the data science program requires students to have a background in math or statistics and to perform well in the prep course.
Thinkful Outcomes: Will I Find a Job?
Thinkful does everything possible to help students find work. If you haven’t landed a job within 180 days of completing your course, you will be entitled to a full refund of your tuition.
About 85 percent of Thinkful graduates land a job following completion of a course. This is an incredibly high rate and goes to demonstrate that the career mentorship program is highly effective. Thinkful graduates have landed high-paying jobs at renowned tech companies like Google, Pulse, IBM, Simplr, Manhattan Mobile, Tagflix, and more.
Job Placement Services at Thinkful
Thinkful assigns each student a personal mentor to prepare them for the tech labor market. On top of being given a career coach, Thinkful students build professional portfolios by engaging in project-based learning. As a result, graduates of Thinkful have physical proof of their skills and abilities to show to potential employers.
Should You Apply to Thinkful?
In general, Thinkful has received very positive reviews from students and graduates alike. One of the most common feelings expressed by students is that the school expects a lot from them. Coding requires hard work, and in that respect, Thinkful holds up its end of the bargain.
If you’re motivated and absolutely sure about wanting to pursue a career in tech, then you should go for it. Thinkful will provide you with the tools and skills necessary to land a job in the tech industry.
- Outcome. Thinkful cares about its students’ achievements. The career mentorship program sets students up for success, which in turn reflects well on Thinkful.
- Specialization. Since data science is a wide field, the tutors at Thinkful encourage their students to specialize, which helps aspiring data scientists stand out on the job market.
- Events and Networking. Online flexible programs aren’t the only thing Thinkful has going for it. The school also hosts in-person events, seminars, and socials across the United States, where students can network with each other and tech professionals. Note that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these events are currently held online.
Thinkful guarantees you a job within six months of completing a course. This should fill anyone with confidence about the prospect of enrolling at Thinkful.
Anonymous
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.
June 7, 2019
Anonymous
I’m just beginning to finish up my Fundamentals Modules for the Product design Track on Thinkful and so far I’m super impressed. I left my full full time job to pursue this and it’s hand down the best investment I’ve made in myself to date. The curriculum is super thorough (which is super helpful to someone with no experience in the field such as myself), and the feedback from the graders is always helpful (unless you pass right away, in which they usually say something that can be summed up in a “job well done”). My mentor is great, and is an awesome match personality wise. Having the two 45 minute one on one sessions each week is a huge perk. I don’t see how anyone could do this well with out them. If you’re hesitant and reading reviews to help make a decision, I say take the jump!
June 9, 2019
Anonymous
I am a couple of months into Thinkful’s full-stack flex program, and I could not be happier! For me, the most important thing has been my sessions with my mentor. Having one on one time with a seasoned developer is absolutely priceless. The program managers are amazing, they are there to cheer you on and be there for anything you might need. Then, there is the Thinkful Slack community, just open lines of communication and students, alum and support staff helping each other out non-stop. It is clear from day one that Thinkful wants you to succeed and will be there with you every step of the way. This is a top-notch program, and I would recommend it to anyone!
June 11, 2019
Anonymous
It has been a really good and challenging experience!
-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.
June 30, 2019
Anonymous
I just finished Thinkful’s Engineering Immersion full-time program. I went from minimal/no programming experience to building full-stack (frontend, backend, database) in less than 6 months. It was equal parts exciting, difficult, rewarding, and exhausting.
Not for the faint of heart, but a great way get into web development. I put in an average of 60~70 hrs of work per week.
I would recommend studying a bit of JavaScript and SQL on FreeCodeCamp to give yourself a bit more time to digest the material.
July 6, 2019
Anonymous
Note: My experience was with Thinkful’s Engineering Immersion program. There are several tracks within Thinkful, and each is structured slightly differently.
Deciding to join a boot camp is a very nerve-wracking decision. For me, it was a total career change, so I wanted to minimize my risk as much as possible. I decided to go with Thinkful after seeing that they regularly post their job placement rates online and that they have a job placement guarantee.
The actual program ended up being extremely challenging. I put in anywhere from 40-70 hours a week, depending on that week’s content. The material is challenging, but the pace felt spot on for what I wanted to get out of it. During the program I always felt pushed, a little overwhelmed at times. As a result, I left the program feeling like my skills were good enough to not only land a job, but to be comfortable in a new role.
For the Engineering Immersion program you’ll meet with an instructor twice a day to go over the day’s material and check in on everyone’s progress. Then, you’ll pair program with another student until the end of the day. There is always support from the instructors and from mentors. On a typical day, we could have someone helping us within 5-10 minutes if we really got stuck on a tricky concept. Having that support meant that I never felt like I was wasting my time. Twice a week you’ll meet with your mentor to go over anything that you feel like you need help with. Finally, after the course is complete, you’ll be assigned a career coach to help you navigate finding that first job. For me, landing that first gig took just under two months from graduation.
Thinkful is a challenging, rigorous program. If you’re looking to skate through with minimal effort and start applying to jobs, this probably isn’t the program for you. If you’re looking to build solid foundational skills and put in the time to learn, then Thinkful has the right resources to help you succed.
July 11, 2019
Anonymous
It’s a very well curated program in data science.
Pros:
– Well-rounded curriculum.
– Deep discussions of topics are available.
– Very active online community
Cons:
– The local community could be more organized and activated.
– More structure around the capstone projects would be useful
– More active mentor supervision is needed.
October 21, 2019
Anonymous
I just completed Thinkful’s Engineering Immersion 5-month apprenticeship/bootcamp (today!). It was an incredible experience and exceeded my expectations. Prior to starting with Thinkful, I had completed another coding bootcamp that was for front-end development. That bootcamp was about 80% reading material, 10% watching videos, and 10% actually coding. My comfort level, if someone had asked me to sit down and code -anything-, would have been about 15% confidence that I could do it.
I found Thinkful and started looking into their Full Stack program (Engineering Immersion). Immediately what stood out to me was that it was a structured program with live instruction/instructors, TAs, and mentors. The structure was also based on collaborative programming and embracing a growth mindset.
Before being admitted to the program, a three-week prep course was required and a technical evaluation. I was shocked that the 3 week prep course covered nearly everything that my previous bootcamp had taken months to do. It was a good refresher for me, but I was also very thankful that I had some JavaScript background since this prep course was so intense.
The program itself was highly rigorous and very time intensive. I graduated on-time and received nearly perfect scores on my graded assessments – but that required me to put in about 60+ hours a week doing my assignments and readings, practicing the parts I didn’t understand, and putting extra effort into my capstones. But it was completely worth it!
In my opinion, one of the most successful parts of Thinkful’s program is their use of paired programming. Now, at the end of the course, I am graduating with well over 500 hours of paired programming experience. Not only is that one way I was able to get such a deep understanding of what I was learning, but it also helped hone my collaboration skills in the context of a development environment. Paired programming helped me learn from and teach many different styles, attitudes, and personalities – which I feel like is invaluable.
The technical interviews at the end of each section were also a huge highlight. It helped me take everything I was learning and synthesize it into words. It has prepared me for the job search and given me an extra confidence boost that I can answer those questions.
The capstone projects were an eye-opening experience. They really gave me that vote of confidence that I could actually DO what I was learning. And that was only possible because every single day I was coding with a pair. Not reading, not watching videos, or watching someone else code. I was in the thick of it, sharing my screen, working with another human, trying to understand and solve problems. When it came time to put all of that knowledge together and do the capstone projects, I was ready and excited!
Thinkful has very few flaws, in my opinion, and has been an incredible experience. One flaw that I ran into was the use of Mentors. I have talked to many of my cohort members that have had incredible experiences with their mentors, but unfortnately my experience was very lack luster and a waste of time. I look forward to Thinkful giving mentors a little more structure so that when students need help, they can get it. However, the TAs that were available every afternoon were INVALUABLE. The amount of time they would take to explain a concept – even using props, playing cards, drawings, etc to help illustrate a hard concept – was truly amazing. So many of my successes were built off of a TA taking the time to work with me when the concept was first presented.
All in all, I would recommend Thinkful to anyone who has a strong work ethic, who has that drive to reach their goals, and has the time to commit to the program. I would recommend doing some free coding/JavaScript lessons so you don’t feel like your feet have been swept out from under you when the prep course comes along. Along with many things in life, the program is what you put into it. And if you put in 100%, you’ll get an incredible education experience with job-ready skills.
November 22, 2019