Galvanize

I took a lot of time to do my due diligence when selecting a bootcamp.  I had to stay in Seattle and I knew an online bootcamp would not be ideal for my learning style, so my options were a little more limited.  I checked out every single one, in person.  Even after all of that work and effort, Galvanize only barely looked better than the rest.  Their campus was nicer and the people seemed great but they were the most expensive.

In the end, I have no regrets with my choice.  Galvanize was worth the extra money.  I feel like I learned things permanently and was able to apply my knowledge to real world applications.  My instructors were Wes and Roger.  I feel like I got lucky because getting two lead instructors is rare.  On top of that, both Wes's and Roger's teaching styles fit my learning style great.  I have 0 complaints about the instructors and feel that these two really put my experience above expectations. 

The curriculumn was a little clunky.  My cohort was the first of a new curriculumn, so there were a lot of bugs and errors.  The students were the ones that discovered a lot of these errors.  Additionally, the curriculumn was not standardized between writers.  This largely came into play near the end of the course, where the content suddenly became very dense and hard to absorb.  Despite these downsides, I still enjoyed the program.

The non-instructor personel were very friendly and helpful.  They frequently solicited feedback and I felt like they genuinely cared about the students.  It also seemed like they were always available for us. 

In the end, I got a great job and am very happy with my decision to go to Galvanize.

I was a bit skeptical of the boot camp approach to learning to code, but having just graduated the Galvanize Seattle 6-moth Web Dev immersive, I couldn't be more pleased. The instructors (Wes, Roger, Scott & Charile) and the support staff at this campus are incredible. I could really tell that it was more than a job for them; they seem to be really invested in trying to make the course the best it possibly can be for the students. They are knowledgeable, approachable, willing to listen and go out of their way to help, and have real work experience. The material is thorough (I don't think we could have possibly jammed anything more in, but on the few occassions where any of us got a bit ahead, they had plenty of additional stretch exercises to keep us going). On my last day we tried to write all the topics we covered on a whiteboard and completely filled it (having likely missed a few things). The coursework was a mixture of online lessons (custom designed by the Galvanize staff), lectures, and lab time. It worked out to be a really nice mix. We used real world tools from day one to write and deploy our code and learned a lot from each other. We not only covered the essentials, but also practiced white-boarding (for job interviews) and delved into some of the computer science topics typically left to the university courses (Big-O, search trees, etc.). There's an additional emphasis placed on learning how to learn so that you are more comfortable picking up new topics beyond the scope of the course. So, for example, while we covered JavaScript thoroughly in class, along with frameworks such as BootStrap and React, I also had the opportunity to pick up some Swift on my own. Others in my cohort learned GraphQL, React Native, assembly (to write kernel code for a Raspberry Pi), and numerous other topics during their indepedent study time. A couple more details: Yes, there's a lot of work and you'll work hard, so be prepared for that (but know you'll have a really solid support network from both the teachers and your classmates). No, a job is neither promised nor guaranteed, but they do everything short of that: they help you tune your resume, learn ow to network, what to expect in an interview, bring in guest speakers, and pass along any job openings and connections they become aware of. I'll finish by repeating what I said at the beginning: the staff at a school will make or break your experience, and the Seattle Galvanize Web Dev tem is simply amazing. They made the experience for me.

The workshop will cover the following topics:

• A High Level Introduction to Docker and its Current Use in the Industry.
• Executing Commands and Programs Inside of Docker Containers.
• Investigating Your Docker Workspace.
• Understanding Docker Images and Building Your Own.
• Running Docker Containers Using Docker Compose.
• Running Development Containers Using Docker Compose.
• Running Multiple Services During Development Using Docker Compose.
• Development Database Using Docker Compose

What they really excel at

* The instructors are superb

No, listen, they're incredible. The level of respect and professionalism was really high, in fact, the instructors were really more like CTOs and project managers, especially in the second half of the program. I have to give a shoutout to Josh Wyatt who was the lead instructor for our cohort, one of the most masterful teachers I’ve worked with. Especially with the small class sizes, it just concentrated the level of support and the quality of teaching. The teachers excel at transparency, really great, direct, thoughtful communication—during lessons, about expectations, industry standards, meet ups, events, etc.

* Great space

It feels much more like an incubator or co-working space rather than a school (in part because it is!). There are a bunch of opportunities to meet people in the space and network, if that kind of thing comes naturally to you. There’s a group that does exercise on the roof once a day, and that was super fun.

* Project-based

There are assessments, but it’s much more structured in terms of building things, and learning the technologies by applying them. This is much more realistic experience

for how the real world is for developers.

* Duration

The program lasts for 6 months, and it was really worth it to stay for longer. I don’t feel like I would have been ready after just 12 weeks like most bootcamps, and I’m no slow learner.

* Full Stack

The program covered frontend legacy technologies like HTML, CSS, jQuery, and simple frameworks like Materialize and Boostrap; we learned backend by writing RESTful APIs using Express and Postgres; we went deep into modern in-demand frontend technology like React and Redux. They really tailor the curriculum based on what’s popular in the area, and iterate form cohort to cohort. Very smart.

Places they could improve

* Scholarships: There are some scholarships, mostly targeting women and minorities, and during my session Adobe was offering one with an internship attached to it. I would like to see more company partnerships like that which provide a clearer path to career after the program.

* Making even better use of the space: One of the great opportunities available at Galvanize is that the campus hosts a bunch of startups and company satellites. it could do more to facilitate connections between companies and students.

My Advice

* Must have coded before

Before the program, you absolutely must have some experience in coding, with either JavaScript or a similar language like Ruby or Python. Take a couple of CodeAcademy courses, watch some YouTube videos (Fun Fun Function, Learn Code Academy, and Taversy Media are all worth checking out). Basic coding skills like familiarity with for-loops and functions, HTML tags, and CSS classes will help you out a lot.

* Be proactive

Be ready and willing to learn. If you want to get the most out of the program, you have to be the kind of person who a lot of questions and is comfortable asking for help. Not a super social person, or an extravert necessarily, just willing to be proactive and connect with other people.

* Learn to learn

What they aim to teach at Galvanize is more than the tools. Rather, they try to help people learn to learn, so that, as they gradually release responsibility from actively helping you on things, you are able to pick up new technologies and work autonomously.

* It’s a big time commitment, but it’s worth it

It’s much more than full time (think 6 days a week or more), but they do deeply care about us, and the dedicate resources to checking in and supporting us.

That’s also in the context of this model which supports people being proactive. It’s very much a “you get out of it what you put into it”.

There are break weeks, and in the first two quarters you can use them for a break, to recharge after working really really hard for 5 weeks, and, in the next two quarters, using them to network, to catch up on career services work, etc.

Choosing Galvanize has been a life-changing experience not only in my career but also in my personal life. The instructors and staff here are supportive in everything we do as students and aspiring developers. They are constantly guiding and feeding us the knowledge we don't even know that we need. There are events every day in the building that are connecting students with people who employ developers or people who code for a living. If you really want to give yourself the edge over students at other boot camps then Galvanize is a must. 

Background: Retail customer service and sales in the tech/electronic industry, no prior software experience. Some general education teaching experience. 

Now: Just hit 4 months in as a software engineer for a ed-tech company that services students around the world. 

My review could just be those two lines up there and it would speak for itself but that would be an injustice to both Galvanize as a school and it's staff. From the admissions staff to the career services director, everyone there is working constantly to see you, the student, suceed. I went in interested in learning software development and hoping for a career change, I left with those hopes fulfilled and an insatiable drive in continuing my education as both an evolving engineer and a possible instructor in the future. 

Contact and communication is constant. Seminars and teachings galore beyond the course material, on subjects as: how to get a job as an engineer, how to grow and groom your social network in the tech community, what we're interested in learning, and actual speakers from existing tech jobs. Not to mention the tech employees and recruiters who come during the course of the cohort to see what you're working on and to network/provide opportunites for employment. It's incredible. 

Of course all of that is a side to the meat and potatoes of the main curriculum, so no review would be complete without mention of the instructors. I wish I could look you, the reader, in the eye as I say this; despite it's clichéd nature: I've never had a better teacher than I had while I attended the Austin Galvanize location. Zubair Desai is the instructor you should look for and the teacher I aspire to be. Having some teaching experience I know how difficult the concept and act of teaching.....anything really... to anyone is, it might honestly be the hardest damn thing to do. Bar none. Zubair handles it effortlessly. It's honestly almost wizardry at how much he knows but more than that, how much he can impart on another human being. 

He can take a classroom from nothing and turn them into accomplished software engineers. Period. Every single person in my cohort is working in the programming field as I write this, a literal 100% sucess rate for my class. It's insane. I hope that I can get this across in words as vehemently as I would if I were in front of you, he doesn't just teach you how to learn Javascript or Rails or Java or sorting algorithms or any of a million other things, (Spolier Alert: he does), he teaches you HOW to learn these things. If that doesn't make sense I implore you to enroll and see how you go from knowing nothing as an aspiring developer to being able to teach yourself an entirely unfamiliar language WHILE learning the languages and frameworks that make up the Galvanize curriculum. He's a credit not only to the tech community, in shaping the developers of tomorrow, but a credit to teaching as a profession. Learning from him is a means of unlocking your full potential as a software engineer and I honestly don't know to give higher praise than that. 

During my time there we had the pleasure and privlege of workng with a pair of assistant instructors as well, Oli and Louis; that brought invaluable skills, experience, and humor to the class. From learning the intricacies of Ruby on Rails with Oli to the finer workings of Swift with Louis, ALL of the instructors at Galvanize put the time and effort in making sure you succeed. If you have questions, they're there to make sure you have answers. 

Every moment of my time at Galvanize was spent learning something. It was frustrating at times and blissful the rest but every moment made me the developer I am today and I have this school to thank. For those on the fence, do it, you won't regret it. 

Galvanize offers a complete overview of data science theory and application. The program is very intense but the instructors are amazing at breaking down core concepts into coding building blocks that explain fundamental mathematical underpinnings as well as how to implement in a range of examples. The acceptance rate is pretty low, because the application process is strict, but this maintains a high class standard and ensures quality students will help each other effectively. Career services are top notch and really help career transitions from other industries to effectively stand out. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at Galvanize.  

First off, I'll start this review by telling you all that I didn't end up graduating from the SF Galvanize bootcamp (the only one out of 13. I'll also state that I graduated UCSC with honors, so it's not like I'm completely dumb). Despite my own personal situation (more on this later), I share many similar sentiments with the rest of the cohort about the school.

Secondly, I'm trying to leave a fair review despite not graduating; however, this review is subjective and, of course, is based off my personal experiences at Galvanize. 

A typical day unfolded like this:

9-10: warm-up algorithm
11-12: Reviewing the algorithm's answer, and then lecture.
Lunch from 12-1
1-2: Another 1-2 hour lecture.
3-Rest of day/evening: More work to be done; projects, homework review, etc (typically with other classmates, with some instructor assistance - in other words a lot of pair programming. In fact, if you're anything like most of us, you won't get by without working with other people.)

There are 4 quarters at G:

1) Front end (HTML/JS - lots of working with dom manipulation)
2) Server side stuff/back end (our stack was Node, Express, and Postgresql)
3) Computer science stuff (algorithms, data structures, trees, linked lists, etc)
4) Learning a few front end frameworks (React and Angular - more on this later), as well as "self exploration"

Each quarter had its own project:
1) A front end app that requires an api call
2) Connecting an app to a server and database
3) Something computer-sciency
4) A final capstone project in culmination of the cohort, bringing together most of the ideas throughout the school. Must be full stack, and requires a new technology not taught in the cohort (a different database, for example, like mongo db). 

I guess I'll start with the pros of Galvanize:

1) Our personal cohort had an student:instructor ratio of about 13:3 (more on this later), which is a very good ratio as far as bootcamps go (from what I've heard).  Also, the instructors stayed from about 9-6, so we had them for almost a full 8 hours. 
2) The instructors and staff were all enthusiastic and supported us. They truly did care about our success (which I've heard differently about other bootcamps). 
3) The campus itself was pretty cool. Kinda like a tech hub, with a whole bunch of tech companies in the building, as well as Galvanize data science cohorts. 
4) We also had a lot career support. A few times a month, our homework would instead consist of networking, resume building, targeting companies, how to present yourself, stuff like that. We even had our own personal good docs of all the career things we were supposed to keep on top of (which was a lot - a lot).
5) Lots of events on campus - tech companies coming in to present there stuff, networking events, and companies (like IBM) coming in to give presentations and talk to potential future employees (us, hopefully). 
6) At those events - there was a lot of free food. Lots of pizza, booze. A lot of delicious, fancy food as well. Most of the events are open to students - as long as you sign up on Eventbrite (sign up for as many as you can to network and eat awesome food). If you go to them, even if it's for the free food, at least pretend to care about the event, and give people time to do their spiels. 
7) Getting to know everyone for 6 months was a pretty fun experience - we were from all walks of life (more on this later), and had a lot of different experiences. A lot of us became pretty close throughout the cohort.
8) The cohort was 6 months; most other bootcamps are much less than this (more on this later).
9) They preached a growth mindset. Look it up if you're not familiar. Quite necessary, however more on this in a bit.
10) I ended up receiving two scholarships, for a total of 4k off the admissions price (bringing it to 17k from 21). However, I'm not sure if they're still offering these scholarships. 
11) The staff is pretty receptive to our suggestions and complaints. So they may be working on some of the things I'm about to list below.

Ok, a lot of good stuff, but there was definitely a lot that could be improved upon (the bad):

1) Of the three instructors, one was really not fit to be an instructor at all. His lecturing skills were bad, and we're all convinced he actually didn't know anything he was talking about. However, it sounds like he's changed his ways since we left, as we did quite a bit of complaining about it.
2) The next cohort turned out to be much bigger than ours (20-something students), and right in the middle of their cohort (somewhere near the end of quarter two I think), Galvanize ended up firing two of their better instructors, meaning for about 30-something people, we had 4 instructors or so trying to help us finish up our capstone while helping the new cohort. Since then, they've hired two instructors more, and might bring back one of the fired ones. The newer cohort was pissed about this situation, and did a lot of complaining (as did we). 
3) Some of the students felt as though the career services came too early; the lectures and homework weren't really relevant early on in the cohort while we were trying to bust our butts coding and really had no prospects or thoughts of getting a job. I, personally, didn't mind a break from the extensive coding. 
4) The school (and even some teachers) claimed we'd only be working 40hrs a week due to the fact that the school was 6 months long. This was entirely untrue. Don't expect to be working under 50 per week. 60 is more like it (for 6 months don't forget). It's LONG. There isn't time for a part time job, relationships, partying, etc. A lot of normal life things will be pushed to the side. Keep that in mind.
5) This school will kill you if you don't get good rest and have mental stability. I, personally, was going through a lot of stressful situations throughout the cohort, and was averaging around 5 hours per sleep, with 10 hour days for the entire 6 months. It's entirely possible that, had my mental state and life circumstances been better,  I would have faired much better in school, and would have an entirely different outlook coming out of G. 
6) A lot of the homework didn't sync up with lectures, which made things confusing. A lot of times, there wasn't time to do the readings either, as there was just too much homework. In addition, a lot of the tests in the homework were simply wrong; we'd spend hours trying to fix our code when it was right in the first place. Hours lost over this stuff. 
7) Galvanize dropped the ball entirely in quarter 4. We were supposed to learn at least one new front end framework (we voted for React). It turned out we had only one one-hour lecture on it, and many of us were hoping to create our capstone with it. This is possibly the reason I didn't graduate, as I tried to use React and didn't quite understand it. The instructors also pushed me to use it, despite me being very uncomfortable with it. This is what I'm most pissed about. Also know that you will be cut off from campus resources (career support and instructor help) if you don't graduate. I'm now basically alone in my job hunt, minus some help from fellow students.
8) Ok, this is a big one: it seems the ONLY people that did really well were people with prior experience in some way. Someone with years of database experience, an MA in engineering, a grad from another bootcamp with a couple years of experience, and two with prior coding experience in some way. For those of us from different walks of life (this includes me), this class was ten times the struggle - and it showed. Everything came slower. Some of use still can't center divs correctly on a page. Our projects looked ten times worse than everyone else's.
9) Speaking of centering divs, our time with CSS was pretty rushed. A lot of us don't have good foundations with it, and there weren't many lectures on it. We were basically given some links to check out to get a better understanding of it. 
10) At some point throughout the cohort, we found out our area's market (SF) only wanted senior devs, and we were told it'd probably be a good idea to look out of state. Yikes.
11) I was accepted to the bootcamp even though I didn't pass the entrance algorithm. Had I not been accepted (and rightly so), I would not have taken out a $20,000 loan with no prospects of getting a job. Were they just trying to fill seats? It's possible, as I did hear rumors of this floating around at some point. 
12) The reason they fired two instructors possibly due to the hiring of a new CTO, who possibly wasn't a good fit. Whoever it was made cuts in the wrong spots, and some of this landed on us. This made me remember that G, along with all bootcamps, are still a business (non-accredited btw) at the end of the day, and saving/making money is what it's all about. 
13) Multiple people (outsiders watching) I had talked to claimed the students didn't get enough support. They felt as though we needed a few more tutors/mentors. I suppose this is the nature of the bootcamp however. 
14) Many of these negative sentiments are shared not only by me, but also by the previous and proceeding cohorts. In this case - the bad points may not just be a manifestation of my personal situation, but are a true reflection of the school. The upside is that Galvanize is aware of many of these sentiments, and is trying to correct at least some of them.  Again, I'd like to remind you that much of the staff does truly care about student success. Many of them even made themselves available to me personally even though I had not graduated. 
15) In regards to instructor situations, the current cohort just had their best instructor randomly get placed as a student in a data science class. This doesn't really make any sense, especially since the current cohort was so upset over the previous instructors getting fired. To be clear, this particular instructor was already promoted to another position, but that was still a teaching related position I believe. Now, the current cohort is completely without his help. In regards to all this instructor movement/loss, I've heard this about more than 2 other bootcamps, so it's not necessarily just a Galvanize thing.
16) One final point, which is definitely a big one as well, which I hadn't thought of at the time for some reason... Why are we paying money for a personal exploration quarter? I came to school to be taught, not to learn things on my own. In this case, what am I paying money for? The school might as well have been set in trimesters instead of quarters, with a smaller tuition fee. Remember, for a 21k tuition, that means you're paying $5250 to learn things on your own for a quarter.

Not sure if this is relevant or not, but I'll list it anyways as just something to ponder. The prices people paid to get in were kinda all over the place. Like I said, a few of us got 2-4k off, one person got their entire tuition paid for (I think by some foundation, so that may be irrelevant), and one student got half the tuition off upon threatening to go to another bootcamp. Now, from what I understand, there were no scholarships given for the current cohort. 

My personal conclusion:

Galvanize wasn't worth it. Or any other bootcamp for that matter - unless you already have a previous related background and you know your brain is trained to think like a programmer. The market (at least in Silicon Valley) does not want entry level programmers. The risk of not getting a job is too great (unless you plan on moving out of state), especially if you're planning to take out a loan, like I did (and now feel pretty screwed in my situation). 

My personal recommendations:

Do your research. I thought I did enough, but now I don't feel as though I did. I'm not talking about research on just bootcamps, but research on the market, what stacks are most wanted, what camps teach these stacks, and which camps will give you the most support. Research tuition prices, potential scholarships and deals, connections the school might have in terms of job placement, etc. Possibly most importantly, talk to previous grads to get their experiences. Was it worth it for them? Pros? Cons?

Finally, do plenty of soul searching before you fork over thousands of dollars. Do you even want to be a programmer, or are you in it for the money? If you're in it for the money, you might not survive. I personally was in it half way for this reason. Yes, I wanted better pay (how else can one afford a living in Ca? If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Also I had back surgery, so I lost half my job opportunities right there). However, I also knew that I liked solving problems and making things work (better). I also wanted to upgrade my resume. In this sense, it's possible I might not even end up as a developer, but I may end up utilizing my full stack skills in some other way. Combining them with previous work experience? Possible. 

If you don't know if you want to program - take online courses first. Make sure you do enough - not just a few free ones off CodeAcademy. Take full stack courses off Udemy or Udacity, places like that. Even if you spend a couple hundred bucks on online classes, this move can potentially save you thousands of dollars if it turns out you don't wanna program. It's even possible you'll get a job with just online courses if you're that adept. 

Finally, trust your gut. I was very hesitant to fork over the 2,000 tuition fee; I should have taken this as a sign. Throught the first quarter, there were many times when my gut was telling me to drop out. I should have trusted my gut again, yet I listened to instructors that told me I should stick with it.

Remember, my experience at G was subjective (as everyone else's). Read more than just my review. Do your research and soul search!

Good luck in your bootcamp prospects!

Hi Everyone, 

Greetings!

The perspective I am sharing is that of an individual who moved to SF just to join the program, from another country.

I moved here from the Philippines in September, three days before the start of Week 0, the "intro" to the "intro to Python" (I highly recommend it). I chose Galvanize because as early as 2013, I was already aware of Data Science and Zipfian, and read so many good things about the program. Because of life circumstances, I could only join after June 2016. This April 2017, I am just about to start my career in Tech at IBM - working on Data Science and Artificial Intelligence projects. I can honestly say that none of this would be possible if not for my experience at Galvanize.

I have two main points for this review that I am writing:

1. The Galvanize Data Science Immersive Program is transformative - there are so many things today that I could not have done in Sep 2016, and I largely attribute these to my phenomenal growth rate as a result of the instructors and curriculum
2. The DSI Program at Galvanize is not a magic pill. What you get out of it depends on you.

Point 1: The Galvanize Experience
The instructors were excellent. They were all very hands on in terms of coding and teaching, very insightful in terms of mentorship and guidance, and very amicable and approachable. The curriculum covered mathematical statistics, linear algebra, machine learning, nlp, network analysis, recommendation systems, big data tools, and app development. Galvanize works closely with many different companies in order to match graduates to opportunities and job requisitions. Because of the program's design - which intends to get you to be as comfortable with code and concepts as quickly as possible, I am now able to: build machine learning pipelines in spark, code recommendation systems from scratch, transform log data into events and apply time series analysis, push apps to the cloud in order to host prototypes users can interact with, and have the tenacity and aptitude to read documentation and pick up new languages.

Point 2: What You Get Depends On You
Individuals who join the program come from all kinds of backgrounds. Mine was not tech related, data related, or USA related. I managed a chain of supermarkets in the Philippines for eight years and I do not have a MSc in a STEM field. I had to make my own reality check, adjust my expectations, and do the best with what I had. However, Galvanize exposed me to an excellent network of people - I was able to hit the ground running in terms of making friends and getting a chance to talk to companies (like IBM) because of the may different career talks that happen on campus. I had to make the most of it by going beyond myself, making connections, and maximizing my skills by picking up two side projects after graduation in order to build up my portfolio and make myself more marketable. Thankfully, it paid off. 

My Galvanize experience was great. Partly because of Galvanize, and partly because I made the most out of it. I highly recommend this program to anyone - but just make to understand that it is not going to be a walk in the park. To get the most out of it, you have to work very hard.

Cheers, 

Brian

Galvanize is a great community to be a part of. I took the 8wk night class on Javascript first and it really helped me prepare for the bootcamp, I highly recommend it, especially since they reimburse you for it if you end up taking the 6 month program. I learned more than I knew was possible in 6 months there. There is so much support, instruction, exercises. There are also a lot of events at galvanize so you can network and get some food when you need a break from studying. They have career services to help you on the job search. One thing I really enjoyed here was the third quarter on data structures and algorithms, it was interesting and useful!