Galvanize

I first went to Galvanize to complete their Coding Bootcamp, which was taught by one of my first professors at the real Immersive course later on. The sense of community and genuine care for a critical understanding of this material was very strong and apparent from the moment I got started. I knew that even though I didn't understand how to code, if I invested in the program they invest back into me. 

Also, not only do you get the education, but you get the entire network and community of people there who have experience and can help you with your work, or finding work. Which is exactly how I got my first job. 

A year after knowing very little other than some basic HTML and CSS, I am now working with one other person on a fully functional mobile app for a startup here in Phoenix. It was seriously a life-changing experience, and has given me the confidence to ride this wave of momentum and continue learning and growing and helping newer students as they arrive in the same position I was in. 

Great experience!  From my inquiry, all the way through the end of the Accelerated Java Script class, I felt well taken care of.  First of all, the intake staff are interested in getting to know you, your background, where you want to be, and helping to get you on the right track.  If you need help to get to the point where you can take the Accelerated class, they have a free online program to help you get started.  Once in the class, the instructor offered information in what I feel was several great ways.  Not only did he cover the basics of Java Script in an intelligent, interesting, and FUN way, making it so even total n00bies ( like me!) could understand and enjoy, but he also covered the material in a way you can't just learn anywhere; offering many many tips on best practices, what to expect in the workplace, and other tidbits you could only learn by listening to an experienced developer discuss the topic.  I definitely recommend this class!  Big thanks to Galvanize Phoenix!

This is a total career shift for me. (You can do it, too!) I have had a lot of different kinds of jobs over the last decade and discovered that wanted to become a data scientist. After looking at three clearest paths, self-study, bootcamps, and masters programs, I found that the bootcamp model fit my requirements and timeline best. I chose Galvanize's Data Science Immersive, and I couldn't be happier with my choice.

I evaluated several local bootcamps and masters in my area (Seattle). I read reviews, talked with industry people about their perspectives (relative to ROI), talked with recruiters (both at boot camps and tech companies), to narrow my field downI visited the campus and had an immediate feel for the place and culture; I felt like I was home, as the people were kind and inviting, and the facility was warm and welcoming yet professional and focused. 

My tipping point was, by happenstance, meeting a couple Galvanize DSI alumni at my local grocery store, and I asked them about what they thought. They were ecstatic about their experience, and that was my tie breaker data. I decided to apply. My friends and family thought I was being bamboozled. They asked about what kind of degree it was, and there is none. They asked about guaranteed job placement, and there is none. They asked how much it would cost, how long it would take, and why I would do this. I didn't care; I knew what I knew and I was confident that I knew what I was doing. Upon application, I was not accepted to the program, my first time applying, but was encouraged by the admissions advisor to try again as I was close. I ramped up my self study and got in on my second attempt.

From day one at Galvanize, I was supported, encouraged, and challenged to my limits. Every single person on the academic or administrative team embodied the life-changing nature of the program. Each day was its own and though my stress built up over the weeks, I was working my brain harder than I could remember in recent history. I was building towards my goals. Some days I wanted to quit. Some days I felt like I really knew what I was doing. Most of the time, I tried to focus on what the big ideas were and how I would use them ‘in the wild’, while not letting myself become too overwhelmed by the complexity and depth of the material. The students in the class were my support network; we were in it together. The instructors knew what we were up against, and mitigated our workloads and stress levels, as much as the schedule and syllabus would allow. There were no easy days. There were no wasted, throw away days. Every bit was valuable, but only so much could be integrated. Expectations were achievable, if you were willing work hard.

After graduation, I felt such a sense of accomplishment and pride that I was able to keep up with the extremely smart individuals I had come to call friends through the process, which includes staff. (The networking aspect of Galvanize is not to be underestimated; networking is how you get jobs, it seems.) I was very lucky to have been made an offer by a local, data analytics consulting firm just a few weeks out of the program. (This is not the average, but it does happen.) I couldn’t be happier with my experience at Galvanize. My friends from the program, as well as my instructors, have continued to keep in contact and have been amazing. These people are committed to your success.

Pick what is right for you; bootcamps are not all created equal, though there are some excellent programs out there. (There is more than one way to become a data scientist, as you know.) I would strongly suggest evaluating them on your gut feel, after doing your homework, of course. You will get out what you put in. Talk with staff and alumni. Read the reviews. Talk to your friends and family. Go for a walk and think about what you really want. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it if you trust the process and do the work, (you can do it!). For me, it was Galvanize and I’d do it again. Galvanize has changed my life, and I am happier than I have been in years.

Bottom line: Galvanize DSI offers great upside. However, even the best bootcamp is not a guarantee of job success.

I came into the DSI with minimal coding experience, a military leadership background, and a college degree in Ancient History. In other words, making the jump into a technical field was a tall order for me. Galvanize offered a phenomenal introduction to coding, statistics, machine learning, and Data Science practices. I was very lucky to move quickly into a contracted Junior Data Scientist role at a startup I had good connections with, followed a few months later by a Data Scientist position at Facebook. I couldn't be happier with my outcomes, but I have to be honest that they are not representative.

The instructors are all passionate, well-qualified, and supportive. The career assistance was exemplary. The curriculum is the best one can expect from a 3-month data science course, though I think it could stand to be expanded to 4 or 6 months in order to get more hands-on time with some data science fundamentals. The job assistance was great and really helped me prepare for the interview process. 

The most important thing to recognize, though, is that the course is demanding and to get the most out of it, students need to push themselves even harder than the baseline challenge. This is particularly true for those with weaker technical or STEM backgrounds. Do the readings every night for the next day's lecture. If you have time, revisit the challenging parts of each day's exercise. Ask the instructors for clarification on subjects you don't feel comfortable with. And be prepared to continue learning aggressively even after graduation. 

I'm enormously grateful to the Galvanize staff, and highly recommend the course to people who are interested. Just make sure you've done your research and are willing to put in a lot of work (and still job hunt for ~6 months after graduating).

As an engineer who had been out of the workforce for a decade, I needed some way to prove my skills were still relevant.  Galvanize had a good reputation and they screened their applicants before accepting them, so it was an easy choice to go with them.

HOWEVER, I got so much more than I anticipated.  The networking opportunities were absolutely one of the strongest boons of this program; getting to work on a capstone with an international firm has opened doors for me that I could never have accessed on my own.

The content is rigorous, and the instructors phenomenally intelligent and capable, but I could have learned this material by myself (though not as quickly).  The networking, on the other hand, was absolutely invaluable.

The Galvanaize Phoenix Data Science Immersive program exceeded my expectatios on every level. I am so glad I decided to pay the money to do this in person bootcamp vs an online experience. Having live instructors and other students to learn with is invaluable.

The program has been incredibly challenging. There is no fluff in this course! We learned two new algorithms or concepts every single day + an individual assignment after the morning lecture and a pair assignment in the afternoon. At first it was quite difficult to adjust to learning so much new information every day, but your brain expands with practice! We also did four case studies where teams were competing with each other to come up with the best model. Finally, there was an assessment or 'exam' every week, which forced you to go back and really make sure you understood the material (or at least as much as you could given the compressed time period). 

The course covers all the basics - python, sql, probability, statistics, hypothesis testing, a/b testing, supervised learning (linear regression, decision trees, random forest, boosting, support vector machines, k-nearest neighbors), unsupervised learning ( clustering, principal component analysis, recommender systems), some big data stuff (hadoop, spark, aws), natural language processing, web scraping, building an API (using Flask) and more. The only thing missing was neural nets, but hopefully they will include those in the future. 

The instructors were excellent. Because of the small class size, they really were there for you to give you as much support as you needed. They were constantly checking in to make sure we understood the material. I did not come in with a technical background so I needed  A LOT of help in the beginning to even do the basics. They work very hard and really care about the students.

We also have a dedicated career services person whose job is to help us get a job! In fact, we have an entire 'career services' curriculum that runs alongside the data science curriculum. Our career coach would come in each week and do exercises with us on things like how to talk about our Galvanize education, resume writing, interview coaching, linkedin networking, etc. They are very very serious about making sure you get employed once you are done with the course. In fact, the last week of the course is dedicated to job hunting preparation.

And finally, we do a capstone project and present it to a public audience. My capstone is tomorrow! I can't believe I have come this far in such a short period of time. The capstone was very challenging, but a great learning experience.

If you are serious about getting into data science and live in Phoenix and are ready to work really really hard, then I cannot recommend Galvanize Phoenix highly enough. 

I have just finished my first quarter at the Galvanize immersive web development program. It has been a great experience and I'm glad I chose Galvanize. I've learned a lot in a short amount of time, begun to build a portfolio, and met some great people. Both teachers and support staff are very approachable and knowledgeable. In the first five weeks of the program I became a lot more comfortable with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, and got my first experiences using JQuery and Materialize and working with API's. I've also gotten the chance to meet with their career advisor, redo my resume, and learn about the industry. I'm excited to complete the next three quarters and see where this leads me. 

So far it has been great. I have learned so much in such short amount of time. I feel very confident in being able to speak about different topis which I didn't before I started this program. The instructurs are always making sure that we understand where we stand so we can get ready to attack the next subject. I will admit that this is no walk in the park and you really have to practice a lot in order to understand what you are doing, but it all comes together. The job career assistance is great as well -making sure that our resumes and social media are just right for when we are ready. The staff in general are always very nice and making sure that we are taken care of. The facility is awesome as well. Now that the temperature has dropped a little they have been opening the "garage" doors and its a really nice atmostphere when they are open. Coffee is always available. And some people bring their dogs and everybody is always very friendly. If you are thinking of joining Galvanize in Phoenix I would totally recommend it.

My experience thus far as a student in the Immersive Web Development program (including pre-work & informational sessions) has been exceptional at every step. Communication can be a little disorganized at times, but considering we're only the fourth cohort to go through the Phoenix campus, small bugs are to be expected. I can say without hesitation that the team truly cares. Several of the staff and instructors are on campus until late into the evenings, over weekends, and requests for extra help outside of class have only been met with enthusiasm. I had almost no experience with coding prior to entering the program at Galvanize. Going through the interview process, I knew I was in for a ton of hard work, but the full support of the instructors (as well as support from the other students in my cohort) has been & will continue to be absolutely crucial to my success.

I've had the opportunity to learn from three of the instructors, and while teaching styles differ, each instructor has been professional and displayed thorough understanding of the subjects they've taught. That said, they are also incredibly humble; every instructor has expressed that there are multiple ways to solve the problems we're presented, and they are not afraid to Google things they might not know immediately - I actually find this to be incredibly helpful as far as being able to apply similar problem solving skills once we leave the program. 

Academics aside, the community that Galvanize has cultivated is incredible. Between happy hours with member companies and frequent industry meet-ups, we students are given every opportunity to mix and mingle with folks in the local tech field. Which brings me to career services. Students are not simply lectured on the importance of refreshing our resume and cleaning up LinkedIn; we're coached on best practices and encouraged to take 1:1 time with a seasoned career services professional to bring our personal brand and technical interview skills up to par.

If you're serious about jumping into WebDev, Galvanize will give you every opportunity to succeed at becoming a full-stack developer. 

Pros:

• It's Hard. (which is a good thing!)
• No R, No SAS. All Python, Pandas, Numpy, SciPy, and the cloud... OH MY!
• Staff, Instructors, Members, and Community are fun and welcoming
• The campus is lively and only going to grow.
• I got a job and had fun doing it

Cons:

• The curriculum could use a more ubiquitous experience and face-lift, such as Jupyter Hub, nbgrader, and Python 3, LEARN (internal site with some content)

Job Assistance:

• Half our cohort had recruiters contacting before half-way through the curriculum. Or companies pitching datasets and projects.
• They will give you the tools and techniques, it is up to you to use them.
• Around the same time interviews, we starting and most of us had offers weeks before the end of class.

I did not end up with the job title I was hoping for. However, I did get a 'Data Analyst position with a big company that only hires Ph.D.'s direct into Data Science roles. Which is something a prospective student should expect coming into this.

Just like the Software Engineer field is half Computer Science degrees and half self-taught dropouts. If you're chasing a title, this is not going to be for you.

Nevertheless, the company I signed with knew this and offered a healthy salary and bonus to compensate. Thus, I can accept the "Title" for now and reapply once I can flex my Data Science muscles in the position.

I recommend Galvanize to anyone truly interested in the "Data Sciences'.

Galvanize has given me the tools to go from a minimum-wage job to a dream job.

I do not speak for any Galvanize other than the one in Phoenix.

Pros:

- Galvanize staff are SUPER friendly and knowledgeable. If you have a question that they cannot answer they will find someone who does or search until they find the answer.

- Galvanize campus is tidy and clean. Facilities are always neat and I have yet to run into an empty soap or bath tissue dispenser, nor an overflowing garbage can.

- Galvanize career service staff work very efficiently in getting students in contact with employers as well as preparing students for applying for jobs. This includes reviewing resumes, searching on linkedin, as well as conducting mock interviews.

- Galvanize curriculum prepares students with current technologies that are penetrating the software market.

Cons:

- Galvanize 4th quarter with it's computer science curriculum was disorganized for the most part save the OOP languages.

- Galvanize career services tasks are a google drive full of spreadsheets and documents. Not having a central hub for submitting work makes it almost impossible to remember to do anything without putting reminders in your calendar.

Summary:

Galvanize gives a great moderate to deep understanding in their chosen language stack. Originally we were going NEAP (Node.js, Express, Angular, PostgreSQL) and then changed to NERP (Node.js, Express, React, PostgreSQL) and it allowed us to find more jobs in our area as React had more market penetration in our area than Angular. The staff adjusted quickly and, without missing a beat, began teaching the new stack with the same quality as the previous technologies. Galvanize also does not inherently teach Rails/Ruby. It primarily focuses on Javascript. The program brings in presenters to talk with students and allows them to figure out what positions they may want to fill in the future. While it does not teach C#, Java, or OOP in depth it does give you enough to continue if you enjoy the content.

Hope this helps you make your choice!

This review is from my perspective of having just completed just the first quarter of this 6 month course, but I wanted to put this review out immediately because just a few weeks ago there were no firsthand accounts of the brand new phoenix branch. I will update/alter this review as the course progresses at least one more time. I came into the course knowing no one, with a fair bit of skepticism, but being highly optimistic about making a lot of progress in little time. After 6 weeks I have found that whatever doubts I had before starting to be unfounded. The group of instructors, faculty, admin, and other students that currently exist is phenomenal - the curriculum seems to be the right balance of being well-structured and flexible to capitalize on trends and opportunities. It also balances breadth with depth. Fundemental/current technologies with the new and shiny ones. Galvanize consistently holds events that are great for networking (and with awesome catering/beverages ;) and are a lot of fun. The first cohort of students from this program is now graduating and seem to be in a good position to find a job if they don't have one already. There's lots of training and coaching for the job search that graduates will face. I've been amazed at how quickly I have evolved from being stuck in console.log land while slogging through basic JavaScript by myself to having a level of skill designing web apps that let me express my ideas and design logic/functionality in a way that seemed completely inaccessible just 6 weeks ago. If youre on the fence, do yourself a favor and chat with the good people here about how you might fit in. It's definitely not for everyone, but if you're willing and able to commit to following this path, Galvanize provides a direct route to get you where you want to go.