Galvanize

I loved that Galvanize's courses were longer than many other coding schools. It was a very hard six months (with 9-10 hour days staring at code), but at the end I was receiving job offers and knew the tools necessary to succeed in the industry. It was... Read More also great for networking. I am so happy I went.

The curriculum was intense and exhaustive. The instructors were brilliant and friendly. That much I expected. I didn't expect the level of enthusiasm and emotional support from them, which was necessary given the intensity of the program. They also went... Read More out of their way to get us networking- making introductions, getting us to events- it made a huge difference. The career services take their jobs so seriously as well- basically everybody who works there will work relentlessly to prepare you for a new career, then do their best to help you find it as well.

Pros:
Learn how to learn. The odds of getting a job directly in your curriculum stack are low, the greatest take away is the ability to learn how to learn this stuff and get a handle on the basics. Campuses are great and the direct proximity to startups... Read More and partner companies is great. The software they've built that goes along with the process of learning and getting a job afterward it amazing.

Cons:
It's expensive, and the time commitment is no joke, but you get what you pay for.

I started out before attending Galvanize as a freelance digital artist. I liked what I was doing, but I always felt like there was something more dynamic and engaging I could be doing with my career. Prior to attending any sort of class, I had already... Read More learned the basics of HTML/CSS with a dash of JavaScript thrown in for good measure, but it was very apparent that I wasn't going to be able to tackle this on my own. Cut forward a few months of searching, and I found Galvanize, who were starting classes at their Austin campus. After doing due diligence and research on other similar bootcamps in the area, I concluded that Galvanize would be the best fit. The 6-month immersive web development program was certainly a huge benefit for the amount of information to be covered, especially compared to programs trying to cram the same information into a 3-month period.

I definitely found that the instructors gave a very structured curriculum, and left enough for us to learn on our own in order to succeed. I think this aspect of the course was simultaneously the most challenging, but the most rewarding part of my time here. The were definitely there when we absolutely needed the assistance, and gave us a plethora of instruction. Most importantly, they taught how to properly, quickly, and effectively learn new languages and frameworks by pointing out important aspects to look for in documentation, as well as the proper way to engage the net-based communities with questions. I was also fortunate enough to meet with a good number of the local businesses in the co-working space, which eventually led to my first paid gig as a web developer!

Since graduating the class, I have been working on contract work to build my portfolio, all while supported by our awesome career services manager, who helped all of us build a strong resume. Throughout the program, we had guest speakers give practical career advice, as well as people skills to practice for interview situations. All in all, I can't say enough about my time at Galvanize, and while programming might not be for everyone, it's definitely worth looking into for anyone seriously considering it.

So let me just say, I was SUPER skeptical when I first started looking into Galvanize. I was a Political Science and French major in college, thought I wanted to go into law but ended up hating it, and eventually switched career paths and found my way... Read More into the mental health field. I was working as a treatment counselor for $13/hour, literally getting punched, kicked, bitten, scratched, peed on, etc., every day, and I was super burnt out. I was craving something more stimulating, more rewarding...more sane. On a whim, I started taking the JavaScript course on CodeAcademy and before long I was hooked. It was like a game. For me, being able to use language to build cool stuff was the most incredible thing ever. But making an actual career out of it seemed impossible. I wasn't good at math. I wasn't particularly good with computers. And I didn't have a Computer Science degree. What company would want me?

So, back to Galvanize. I came across their website and thought it sounded too good to be true. Ridiculous $70k+ starting salaries, something like a 97% placement rate...I was just thinking, okay, what's the catch? This has got to be a scam. I actually had a couple friends who had gone through their Full Stack Immersive program and they had nothing but great things to say. Both found work within a couple months and seemed genuinely happy. At this point, my thought was, what do I have to lose? (Aside from the $20,000 of tuition, that is. But the alternative was going back to grad school and paying 3x that, if not more.) So I pulled the trigger and started gSchool -- almost one year ago today, actually. And it has truly been an incredible journey since then.

THE PROS:
- People. Maybe I just got lucky, but my cohort was full of AMAZING people. Admissions did an incredible job assembling a group of very intelligent, very fun people from all kinds of different backgrounds. Honestly, they became my family during those 6 months and now they are some of my closest friends.

- Curriculum. It's hard to know this until you're on the other side, but they did an incredible job preparing us to be actual developers. I can't count how many times someone at work has been amazed that a I, a junior developer with no previous experience, can do this or that. It's much more than being able to produce code -- knowing how to pair program, understanding Test-Driven Development and Agile methodologies, having the skills to LEARN well rather than having a static knowledge-base...these things are invaluable. By the time you graduate, you've literally been doing the work of a real-life developer for 6 months.

- Outcomes/Job Preparedness. I was still nervous about getting a job when month 6 rolled around. That was silly. For pretty much the entire 4th quarter, our time was split between work on our capstone projects and job prep. We had several resume workshops, whiteboard interview practice every day, networking events, fake salary negotiations ... by the time we were doing that stuff for real, we had practiced 100 times and it was no big deal at all. To be fair though, I didn't have to use those skills all that much. After Hiring Day, where we presented our capstone projects to potential employers, I had 3 companies reach out to me within a week for interviews. Two weeks after that, I accepted a job with an $88k salary! I cannot describe how insane that was to me. Never, EVER in a million years would I think that to be possible. And I truly, genuinely love going to work every day.

- The Galvanize Community: I consider myself lucky as I ended up working for a company with office space in Galvanize. I'm sure there are boot camps that churn out developers and that's the end of it, but that is most definitely not the case with Galvanize. gSchool is just the beginning. You get a great education, but you also gain access to an incredible network of people that want to help you succeed and a community that feels like family. Every day, I come to work and see tons of friendly faces, meet new people constantly, I hang out with students in the new cohorts and help when I can, I find myself going to more and more Lunch-and-Learns and Mentor Office Hours... believe me, I'm not the type to go all fan-boy about some company, but Galvanize has created something very special and every day I feel more and more lucky to have discovered it.

THE CONS:

- Drama. Our first quarter was a bit rocky. It's a major shock to the system and it's easy to freak out. A lot of us felt like we weren't getting what we paid for, our instructor hierarchy wasn't clear so we didn't know who to talk to, and we ended up writing a pretty angry letter to the higher-ups. The result was our best (in my opinion) instructor getting fired, and others switching to other cohorts. For a while, they brought in different instructors to fill the void but it felt like a revolving door of teachers who didn't really know us and didn't really care about us. HOWEVER, during the 3rd quarter they brought in one of the original Galvanize big cats -- a legend to say the least -- to see us through to the end. If I was upset or apprehensive at the time, I've forgotten it all because that was the best thing that could possibly have happened. He personally took ownership of our cohort and assured us we were going to be just fine. And we were better than fine. I believe the decision to bring him was ultimately the biggest reason behind my cohort's success.

- Intensity. "Boot camp" is so, so accurate. I would say I averaged about 60 hours of work each week, and closer to 70-80 when we had big assignments or projects due. I rarely had the time or energy to exercise, my diet was absolute garbage, my relationships suffered. Pretty much every week, I had to tell someone I couldn't do something because I was too busy. I basically never saw my girlfriend. I was commuting from Denver (long story) so I would leave at 7am and get home at 8 or 9pm. It was brutal, and at times you feel like you're going crazy. But I promise, IT'S WORTH IT!!! You will become so close with your classmates and once you get the hang of it, you'll start to love the grind. By Q3, you'll know when you need to hit it hard and when you can afford to chill out. Towards the end, I would stay for lectures in the morning and go home after lunch to work on projects or homework by myself. And trust me -- after gSchool, a normal job is going to seem like a walk in the park.

- Tuition. At $20,000 plus 6 months of expenses and lost income, gSchool is the most expensive boot camp I know of. But it's worth it. If there's a better investment out there, I hope someone tells me.

FINAL THOUGHTS: If you're thinking about Galvanize, go to an info session, talk to former students, check out the campus. Make sure you do your homework and really think about it, because it's a HUGE commitment. But it's a choice I would make a dozen times over again and one I would recommend to anybody.

I was part of cohort 13 that graduated on July 2016 in the San Francisco campus.

Galvanize was life changing for me. It was extremely intense, but it transformed my career. My background is in business strategy and entrepreneurship and now I am a data... Read More scientist working with AI and deep learning for security in less than a year!

I studied using their guide materials for about 2-3 months before applying and took a few Coursera classes on Machine Learning as an introduction. The selection process to Galvanize was challenging for me due to the lack of programming and stats skills, it consisted of 1 challenge and 2 interviews.

They offered a week 0 before the program started just focusing on Python that was amazing for me! It helped me get ready and feel more confident in programming. The summary of the Data Science Immersive is: the learning curve is very fast, and the difficult level is always the same, meaning that you learn a lot but always feel like you can barely make it and absorb everything. In the end I feel that was the biggest lesson: they thought me how to learn and how to do it fast.

In general, the instructors were great! There is a weekly constant feedback loop and they are extremely responsive. I put as feedback one time that I was struggling with the math because I am a visual learner and two days later our main instructor approached me to understand better and on the following day all lectures were more visual - truly amazing!

What I wish I knew before: I was expecting to find a job easily since data science is so hot and there's a lot of demand. Job hunting is hard. Looking at "95% placement rate in 6 months" sounds easy. Applying to jobs constantly and networking and keep learning for 6 months is very intense. Don't expect magic. But luckily Galvanize also offer us career counseling, they were the best! They coached us individually, and organized career meetups for alumni every week to brush up our skills, practice whiteboarding, coding, interview questions, exchange best strategies, etc. But still, "data science" is a huge broad field. Companies that have data scientist positions open sometimes want an Excel number cruncher, while others need a very specific industry experience, etc. Keep going: I had to do 186 job applications to receive the offer I wanted.

Finally, I wasn't expecting my collegues to be that awesome. There were people ranging from 24 to 62 years old, from undergrads to PhDs, from business background like myself to aerospace engineering. And we all struggled together, bonded, and learned a lot from each other strenghts and weekness.

Overall, I highly recommend the program, it truly changed my life and career. Using the same mental models I learned there I kept going deeper in deep learning (pun intended) and got a job in AI. I will always be grateful for Galvanize for making me start confidently a cycle of constant learning in a world full of data.

I attended a six month web development immersive program that so far has lived up to its offers. Since graduating I have successfully found employment and essentially quadrupled my yearly income. I enjoyed the course and feel like it was worth it because... Read More I worked hard during my time there and gained a new outlook on learning and personal development. The pace is definitely fast and is not for everyone in my opinion. A background in technology isn't required but is extremely helpful. While I do know of some who made a successful career transition with little to no prior technical knowledge, I would say that the admissions process does not successfully weed out all who are not prepared or qualified. Overall, it was a good experience and I'm glad I did it.

I completed the course and got a job despite Galvanize's management doing their damnedest to ruin our learning experience. During the course they removed an instructor from our classroom because they decided to start another cohort while not having the... Read More staff for it and needed to take one of our's. They brought in a manager to talk to our class about this but she talked down to us as if we were children instead of adults who had invested $21K each in this course. They scheduled construction right outside of our classroom to begin in the middle of the course. Luckily, that got delayed until after we graduated but it did not appear to be because of our concerns. The two very well qualified and brilliant instructors we had are no longer with the program and Galvanize had to hire and then fire one instructor because they were so desperate for an instructor that they hired a sexist fellow who had learned skills from online tutorials. This showed a complete lack of respect for students as we are investing a great deal of time and money into this program but they could not properly vet and hire a competent instructor. As for the Outcomes Coordinator, he is more interested in ping pong than helping someone get a job. You want a job? Get it yourself. He didn't seem invested in our futures. The most I heard from him was when he wanted my starting salary so he could report that back with his numbers. Honestly, management here is a dumpster fire.

Besides that all, the instructors I did have were AMAZING. They were all brilliant individuals with diverse work experiences which, sadly, management didn't seem to celebrate. I feel like my fellow students and I came away with a great set of skills and were found to be immediately hirable by many amazing companies. It is what you make of it, and I saw it important to work from 8AM to 2AM daily to make sure I got everything I could out of this program.

While my experience had a happy ending, my concerns about the current state of Galvanize Seattle are too great and I would not recommend it to anyone.

I took the Galvanize Data Science program. It's a lot of work, and there is a ton of material covered, a new machine learning almost every day. The distribution of the class was about 25% PhDs, 50% masters degrees, and 25% bachelors. At the end of the... Read More class, the PhDs all were hired within a month or two of graduation the people with masters degrees or a lot of coding experience were also generally very successful, and most were hired within 3-4 months. It is much harder to get interviews for data science roles without an advanced degree. Overall almost everyone has gotten a job so far, and most in high paying positions. It also hasn't been 6 months yet, so, there is still some time for everyone to get a job, but it has been more difficult for the people in the lower achieving portion of the cohort.

The TL;DR if you already have a lot of coding experience or an advanced degree in a hard science and are looking for a career change, this is a great program for you. If this is going to be a stretch to get into the program, perhaps a more traditional education route might serve you better.

Coming into the bootcamp experience, I carried a hefty dose of skepticism which served me well. I deliberately chose a 6 month program because I felt it would serve me far better than a 3 month one (or even shorter!). Galvanize was the most highly reviewed,... Read More which I found after an exhaustive search of other bootcamps, so it was my first choice. I'm glad I did, especially in light of things other bootcamp grads have told me and things I've seen.

Keep in mind that Galvanize is a company: I'd argue that _you_ are their product. It's in their best interest to do right by you, and most of the time I think they do. I suspect it's strongly dependent on who your teachers are and who the staff is at the particular campus you attend, but I found the Seattle campus to meet or exceed my expectations in almost every area. We had some instructor changes in the middle of term, which I understand affected some of my classmates a lot but didn't really affect me. The staff was almost always helpful when I interacted with them, particularly the instructors. They get good people but they don't do enough to retain them.

The curriculum was ever-changing and even since I graduated in July they've already adapted the curriculum to meet market needs. This means that sometimes the curriculum isn't as polished, but it also means that you're able to be a more competitive candidate in the market. The instructors were incredible supportive, acting as counselor, teacher, mentor, and friend (sometimes all at once). The staff both during the course and post-graduation were friendly and helpful. The campus was great, in a great location, and was really comfortable considering how many hours I spent there.

Things I wish I had known: it's a 60 hour a week commitment for a bootcamp; sometimes you have to learn things you aren't interested in; group projects will be the bane of your existence but you'll also learn the most; failure is a mark of learning even though it's painful and it sucks. Do your research on bootcamps. Talk to grads. Talk to companies if you can. Form relationships and connections early. Find one or several other students in your class that you connect with and support each other through it.

Full disclosure: I'm still underemployed. Most companies* are reluctant to hire a bootcamp grad, any bootcamp grad. But I did find the Galvanize experience to be rewarding. I learned far more than I would have on my own. I met some fantastic people. I was able to make connections, even if none of them have yet panned out with a full time job in the area.

I highly recommend folks read this before applying to or attending any bootcamps: https://medium.freecodecamp.com/5-key-learnings-from-the-post-bootcamp-job-search-9a07468d2331#.rx44c92e7 I'm not the author and have no affiliation, but I do think the author makes a lot of good points.

* I admit that I had higher expectations than most. I'm a married woman in my 30s so things like healthcare, fair pay, and good work/life balance really mattered to me. Many of my classmates found jobs before I did because their requirements were less demanding than mine. I think that's neither the fault of me or Galvanize, just something to be aware of. The jobs you are likely to get out of a bootcamp are not always going to be the ones that pay at market rate, or the ones with healthcare. Keep this in mind as you're approaching bootcamps and your time on the job market.