--- title: 'Review of Yandex Practicum''s 3D Design Course' source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=LrnMPP2MSnU' video_id: 'LrnMPP2MSnU' date: 2026-07-16 duration_sec: 840 --- # Review of Yandex Practicum's 3D Design Course > Source: [Review of Yandex Practicum's 3D Design Course](https://youtube.com/watch?v=LrnMPP2MSnU) ## Summary A 3D designer shares an honest, detailed review of Yandex Practicum's 9-month 3D design course, covering organization, mentors, video quality, workload, and diploma. The review highlights strengths like the textbook and practical tests, but criticizes poor video production and webinar quality. ### Key Points - **Course Selection and Cost** [00:02] — Chose Yandex Practicum over other schools due to program satisfaction, 9-month duration, and price of 127,000 rubles (with discount and cashback). - **Diploma and Motivation** [00:46] — Yandex issues a professional retraining diploma, which is not highly valued but still beneficial. Friends successfully changed careers via Yandex courses. - **Personal Background and Goal** [01:14] — Had prior 3D experience as a design engineer (SolidWorks, Compass 3D). Goal was to transition into creative 3D design, not immediate job change. - **Training Structure: Sprints** [01:57] — Course divided into 10 sprints over 7-9 months, each ending with a test. Deadlines enforced; can transfer to lower cohort twice before expulsion. - **Curator Role** [02:57] — Curator handled organizational issues, reminders, and motivational messages. Rated 8/10 for effectiveness despite seeming naive. - **Mentor Support** [03:41] — Mentor answered questions but had limited working hours, causing delays. Rated 9/10; useful to read mentor's dialogues with others. - **Student Chat** [04:25] — Chats on Yandex platform; faster responses from classmates. Recommended creating a Telegram chat as Yandex chats are deleted after graduation. Rated 6/10. - **Textbook Quality** [05:07] — Textbook with problem book: clear, structured, includes videos, diagrams, and integrated tests. Accessible on computer and phone. Rated 10/10. - **Video Lessons Criticism** [05:37] — Poor sound quality, monotonous speakers, illogical structure. Videos show only screen recording, no speaker. Rated 2/10. - **Webinars** [06:50] — Live webinars in evenings (Moscow time). One speaker admitted inexperience. Reviewer stopped watching. Rated 4/10. - **Tests and Assignments** [07:48] — Interesting tasks applying sprint material. Textbook sufficient for completion. Rated 9/10. - **Workload** [08:14] — Reviewer managed deadlines alongside tattoo work and travel. Others with full-time jobs and family struggled; some transferred to lower cohort. Rated 6/10. - **Dropout Rate and Refunds** [09:02] — Yandex reports ~60% course profitability, meaning nearly half drop out. Refunds available for unused months. - **Diploma Project** [09:57] — Chose coffee shop equipment visualization: created 7 units, packaging, animations. Used YouTube and ChatGPT. Tight deadline; portfolio-worthy. Rated 10/10. - **Advice for Beginners** [11:09] — Struggled initially due to lack of basic Blender knowledge. Recommends free Blender course first, then Video Smile course. - **Overall Results and Career Track** [12:35] — Mastered Blender and third-party programs (Illustrator, Substance 3D Painter, Photoshop). Career track helps with resume and portfolio but does not guarantee employment. ### Conclusion The course provides a solid foundation in 3D design but has significant flaws in video and webinar quality. It is best suited for motivated learners who can supplement with external resources. ## Transcript 3D designer. A year ago, I started taking a course from Yandexpracticum on 3D design. Now is the time to leave an honest review. There are number of large online schools on the market that offer courses in this area. And they all seem pretty similar to me, but I still settled on Yandex because I was generally satisfied with the program and the 9-month course duration. And the overall price also seemed okay to me. I paid in one payment without any installments. Plus there was a discount, I think, from Tinkovo ​​and some other cashback. In short, it came out to about 127,000 rubles. In addition, Yandex has a activities and issues a diploma of professional retraining. It's not that it's particularly important to me and it's not that anyone values ​​it highly, but nevertheless, a diploma would n't hurt. Several of my friends also took other courses from Yandex in other areas, and are now working quite successfully in a new field. This is also an indicator. My goal was to start changing my profession and move more into 3D design. Although I had worked with 3D before, but as a design engineer. Well, that is, there were also 3D programs there, like SoldWorks or Compass 3D. And essentially, now I just need to master a new program that is a little more creative than all this SolidWorks. creative than all this SolidWorks. completing it and immediately changing my profession. Well no, I'm a realist in this regard. The main thing for me was that I had a high-quality base and that I was interested in it, because I believe that you should change your profession only based on your interests and inclinations. Now I want to go through the entire training point by point and give my assessment of how it all went, how difficult or easy it was. Let's start with organizing the training. And at 7-9 months we had sprints. Well, it's like in IT. There were 10 of them in total. Each ended with a test, and there were short breaks between them. Naturally, there were deadlines. And that's a good thing, because you always had to meet a deadline . You organize yourself and set your tasks on time. And, of course, it was possible to move there to a lower cohort. If you suddenly don't have time for something, well, first you write to the curator, say that I don't have time, or you resolve the issue with him, or you really don't have time for anything at all, and you can be transferred to the next lower stream, and you will have to go through something again there. But it seems like you can only do this twice, and then you'll simply be expelled because, well, you can't cope with the program and don't have time to do anything. Basically, we had a curator in the chat who handled all sorts of organizational issues and reminded us about deadlines or upcoming webinars. And for the most part, it was some kind of slightly naive motivational speech in the spirit of, yes, guys, we are one team, we can do anything. There's still a little bit left, like, put up lights, who's making it to the deadline, who's not. Also, sometimes some memes would be thrown around, or there would be useful articles about discipline, burnout, motivation, and all that stuff. For me, it all seemed a little naive and contrived, but nevertheless, I’ll give the curator an eight out of ten. In addition, there is a mentor. This is the person who answers questions about studies, about textbooks, about certain assignments and tests. And if anything, he can help you. But it's worth considering that he had his own working hours. And if you're already burning out and can't meet any deadline, you're trying to write to your mentor and wait for a response, then you might have to wait a few days, because there are days off and so on. It's just worth taking into account. But in general, let’s say, I always received an answer to some of my questions. It wasn't always this direction. But it was useful. Plus, you can always read his dialogues with other students in the chat and highlight some information from there. And this is also useful. So I think I'd give the mentor a nine out of ten. As you've probably already noticed, we have chats with students, and sometimes you'll hear a response much faster from slightly more experienced classmates than from a mentor. Chat is a very useful feature, but it's worth considering that they're all built on Yandex's platform. And it would be better to immediately create a separate chat in Telegram. It's much more comfortable to communicate there. Plus, this chat won't be deleted anywhere, and all Yandex chats are simply deleted when you graduate and that's it. There might be some useful information there. So be some useful information there. So I'd give the chat a six out of ten. Next we have a textbook with a problem book. The whole theory is set out in it. Everything is in a fairly simple and understandable language, but structured. There are videos, and some diagrams, pictures, tables, and tests are integrated into it somewhere. That is, it’s all super convenient and clear. You can also read it either from your computer or open your phone while you're driving somewhere. That is, everything is as convenient as possible, in my opinion. And that’s why I give the textbook a 10 out of ten. But with video lessons everything is very sad. And more often than not, their sound quality is simply disgusting. I think this is, well, unacceptable for online courses. Plus there were different speakers, and some of them spoke quite competently. Someone had a completely super- monotonous speech with some mistakes. Also in an online course, when we watch and listen to all this, this is unacceptable. In some places the material was conveyed in a very strange way, somehow illogically, without structure, and you then had to reread the textbook, trying to understand what the person was trying to convey. I just watched some videos on X2 and it was still on X2 and it was still slow. And for an online course this is very bad. I have taken many different courses. And Yandex probably has the worst quality of sound and presentation. Plus, in videos, most often, you just have a recording of the blender screen. You can see, of course, where the person clicks, and what he says, but you can’t see the speaker himself . And the speakers were different. And who are they , what experience do they have? In general, it is not clear who they are. That is, for you, including some of their values, well, it’s not clear what kind of people they are, who is teaching you anyway . Therefore, I will leave two out of ten as video lessons. We also held webinars. And logically, this is live communication, an opportunity to ask questions of the speaker, learn something new, and solve some of your specific academic problems . But these webinars all took place in the evenings in Moscow, and I, let's say, well, I didn't have the opportunity to sit down at 12 at night and watch some two-hour webinar. I glanced at the recording once and had a lot of questions about the competence of the person who was saying all this . And plus he himself said that, well, this is my first experience of conducting a webinar, blah-blah-blah. I found this strange, and I never watched these webinars again, either recorded or not. So I'll give the webinar a four out of ten, because most likely someone there got their questions answered , but not me. Let's move on to the tests themselves. The tasks were definitely interesting and fun to complete. So, everything you learned in the sprint, you then applied in practice. Often there weren't even any proper hints for completing these tests, but the textbook had more than enough information to do everything correctly. do everything correctly. So, in terms of the score itself, I give it a nine out of ten. Total load. Personally, I met all deadlines absolutely, even though I had my own job at the same time. I'm a tattoo artist, but I've cut down on my workdays to spend more time studying and to get through it at a leisurely pace. Plus, I was simultaneously traveling and flying there for the winter. And during these holidays I also studied. I found time to do everything. But there were also people on the course who worked just 5:2. Considering that after work they still have a home, family, and children, it was difficult for them. The workload was high for them because they had less free time. And some even sat up all night trying to do these tests. Someone most likely took transfers to a lower course in order to have time to do everything. So it all depends on your lifestyle Overall, Yandex says that the profitability of their courses is around 60%. This means that almost half of the people who started buying with you will not make it, they will drop out. It will either be difficult for them, or they will not be able to reconcile it with their work. So, I'll set the overall loads at, let's say, six out of ten. Refunds for tuition fees are worth mentioning separately . If you don't like the course and decide not to continue, you can stop it, and they will recalculate the unused months you haven't completed yet, and refund your money. Maybe it's a little more complicated with the installment plan, but in any case, a friend of mine stopped the course this way, we got the money back, and everything was okay. Well, and the diploma itself. There were three topics to choose from because the topics were different. There were game locations, or the creation of characters for the brand. Or visualization and development of equipment for a coffee shop. Actually, I chose him. We made about seven units there, made about seven units there, a package of coffee, the coffee bean itself, and plus we had to make advertising layouts specifically for the catalog purpose and advertising layouts somewhere for social networks, with all sorts of inscriptions and so on. And plus, two more animations needed to be made . I think that this is also all within the scope of the course, but here, of course, I resorted to YouTube and some advice from the GPT chat. But I think that very little time was given for all of this. That is, in terms of complexity for all of this. That is, in terms of complexity as such, it is very difficult, but I spent the entire three weeks sitting and doing this diploma. And if there had been a little more of it, I think I would have worked through it all more efficiently. But towards the end you make animations. If only I could get them done in time. I think the level of the diploma would even allow it to be used for a portfolio, so I give the diploma a ten out of ten. Well, now a little personal assessment. Since I was a complete novice in blender and didn't know anything, not even any hotkeys, the hardest part was right at the very beginning, when you open video tutorials and expect something like, " Here they show you," you just say, "No, no way." There's already some kind of cover in the speaker's window , he's already adding and deleting objects, and you don't even know how to even supposed to press?" I was really freaked out about this at first. It turned out to me that the lessons themselves are somehow, damn, not quite structured and logical, because, well, first, at least bring out the basics of these hot keys, like how to add and delete, and then introduce training videos into the process. In short, it was somehow strange to me. Therefore, a big piece of advice for complete beginners is to take a free course first on Blender, and then something like the course from Video Smile. Then everything will be fine. Then you won't freak out like I did. But, actually, in the subsequent sprints everything was already okay. Once you understood this basic thing and figured out the interface, there weren't any major difficulties after that, in my opinion . But one way or another, during the course, I probably wanted to freak out and give it all up several times. As for the results, I think I mastered the blender well enough throughout the entire basic course. Plus, I mastered a lot of third-party programs, like Illustrator and Substance 3D Painter, and it’s the same company, Photoshop. We did something with them too. So the volume is quite large. And I think I would take this course again. That is, well, it provides a good base, in is, well, it provides a good base, in my opinion. Yandex also offers a my opinion. Yandex also offers a career track after the course. And there we learn how career track after the course. And there we learn how to create a resume and a portfolio. There is also a textbook in which all sorts of recommendations and tips are given. There were a couple of webinars and just educational videos there . You could ask your own questions. And they will also check your resume and give you advice, just like your portfolio. But overall, this doesn’t in any way guarantee you employment. Although somewhere in Yandex's advertising campaign there was something written about employment. M, but no, don’t hope that someone will take you somewhere. This is just the kind of basic help you will get for creating your resume and portfolio. And this is actually very cool. If you are thinking about taking this course, I hope my review will help you decide and make a choice. And if you have any questions, you can write them in the comments. I will definitely come by and answer everything you ask. M.