Galvanize

One of THE BEST programs I have been a part of. The amount of information that I learned during the course and retained is unbelievable. I went into the program with some HTML and CSS experience and I tried to learn as much JavaScript as possible before the course started. This course truly is a rocket ship into programming. 

Instructors- We had 4 instructors at the beginning of the course. 1 instructor ended up going to another classroom to teach but then we were given 2 more top of the line instructors for 26 students. All the instructors are very knowledgeable and have several years under their belt with programming and teaching. 

Galvanize also has an instructional team that develops the course and structures what the students learn in regards to what is trending in the job market. This team would sit in on the class to make sure the teachers were affective with their teaching style and make changes if needed. 

Students - all the students are there to learn and to do their best. It was not unusual to see students working at 7 am and stay until 10 or 11 at night. The students all come from a different background but are brilliant, outgoing, critical thinkers. I believe that in my cohort all the students had at least a Bachelors degree and some had their Masters.  

Platte St. Campus - Is a place you want to spend all of your time at. This became a home away from home. The entire basement is for the students with a full kitchen, study pods, conference rooms, and class rooms. The rest of the 4 story building can be utilized as well. There is a gym, kitchens on the other floors, a barista on the 4th floor with a keg and also plenty of white board tables to study on. There are always events happening at the campus with free food, talks, networking events, and drinks. I have met many business owners just being at Galvanize including the owner of Comedy Works as well as American Furniture Warehouse. The basements where the classrooms are at have snacks and fresh fruit that is stocked in the kitchen 2x a day. 

Kelly Kawa - Student Success - will meet all of your needs and is someone that makes your experience at Galvanize one of the best. 

Career Assistance - Galvanize has a career service team as well as companies that they partner with to place students. Several people get placed into these companies which are very well known corporations. The career service team not only helps place students but also helps with interviewing, whiteboarding, resumes, and are ALSO available after you graduate and have office hours two times a week. 

I recently graduated a few days ago and joined a startup as well as took a freelance job. While I am working on these two projects I am interviewing for a full time position. 

I would highly recommend EVERYTHING about the program, the teachers, and the staff. 

If you are interested in applying and have more questions - molson303@gmail.com 

 Michael 

I was accepted into the Full Stack Web Immersive program in November of 2015. I spent around 6 months (still working full-time and living in Florida) trying to learn as much as I could before starting the program in April 2016. I believe there was a direct correlation between the time I spent before the program started and how much I was able to learn during.

Right from the beginning of class I was impressed with the structure and cirriculum. Software languages, frameworks, tools, processes, etc RAPIDLY change and Galvanize does an excellent job with staying current. That's one of the things I noticed right away that was different from a traditional education - they can change the cirriculum and content on the drop of a dime while a conventional college can't. So while that got got hectic and wasn't perfect, they did a great job. The instructors I had were some of the best all around people I've ever met: Kyle Coberly (Lead Instructor), Danny Fritz (Associate Instructor), CJ Reynolds (Associate Instructor), Roberto Ortega (Associate Instructor), and Elana Kopelevich (Full Stack Resident). Notice that's 5 instructors to our cohort of 25 students which was a good ratio.

The class was VERY fast-paced and difficult. I will say that if you are thinking about coming into this because it looks like a shorter or "easier" way to get into software development, that is not the case. It took extreme dedication and endless long days to make it through. The reality is that learning full-stack development in 6 months is colossal task. One of the most important things was I learned to learn. 

Galvanize offered far more than the in-class learning hours. The Platte campus where I studied is a four-story coworking space. Tons of start-ups and even larger companies rent space within. Pivotal Labs takes up the entire second floor. Basically what I'm getting at is the networking and opportunities were unbeatable. They hosted multiple events on a weekly basis where I was able to get to know the community better. The culture was awesome.

Another piece that made the Web Immersive program stand out was they offered a career services portion of the cirriculum. We worked on our resumes, LinkedIn accounts, did mock interviews, whiteboarding, etc. They really blended us right into the dev community.

I got an offer a few weeks before the program ended and now work as a Software Developer. Clearly it was a life changing decision for me. You will get out of it what you put in. If it's something that sounds like a good fit, I highly recommend Galvanize.

The experience was amazing. Teachers were great. I made lifelong friends, and got the tools I needed to begin my career as a Web Developer. I am currently coding in different languages than we learned at Galvanize, but the initial training was all it took for me to have the skills and know how to learn and adapt to my environment. 

Every offer I've recieved has been more than 80k per year, with full benifits.

This was worth every penny, I'd do it again in a heart beat.

I rated Galvanize SF's fullstack program highly because I got everything I wanted from it, with greater results than expected. It doesn't disappoint because I knew what my minimum expectations were for a bootcamp, what I wanted out of it (aside from a new career/job), and made a well-researched decision to attend this 6 month program.

Learning and career transitioning cannot be done in a one-size-fits-all approach. By documenting my experiences and observations, I empower you to judge whether or not Galvanize SF's Fullstack program is best for your learning style, your career transition plan, and your life situation.

Here is a summary of what most people wanted to know from me up to this point.

Who is Galvanize Fullstack for:

- People who value sleeping at least 6 hours. I transitioned from the healthcare field and health is important to me. I don't think my friends in 3-4 month bootcamps prioritize their well-being as highly as I do. Three quarters into their curriculum, they look pretty awful and sickly to me. On top of that, Galvanize has break weeks to help prevent burnout and allow those who fell behind to catch up. I found this very helpful and used my time to learn new skills.

- Disciplined people willing to work past dinnertime to finish assignments and polish their projects. The majority of assignments won't have you staying up past midnight, but you can't attend classes like a regular University, where you just need to do the bare minimum for your letter grade. The effort you put in will have exponential results. 

- People who value 1:1 interaction with the lead instructors. When I asked various bootcamp students from other schools about their student-teacher ratios and 1:1 interactions, they told me they're "really paying thousands of dollars to be put in a room to learn with 20-30 other amazing people". They might see it as a selling point. I don't. For the money I'm paying, I want ample opportunity to ask for insights from knowledgeable, experienced engineers with strong fundamentals. 

- People who enjoy a flexible program and freedom of choice. In my experience, the first three months consisted of JS web dev fundamentals and was highly structured. After the first three months, my instructors insisted we all dip our toes into the job pool because we already knew enough to get hired (true). The last three months is focused on making yourself market-ready and a higher-in-demand developer. 4th month is where you start feeling the pressure because lectures will be shorter and the instructors will allow you to focus on whatever will most benefit you during your job search. After all, your goal, the program's goal, and the instructors' goal is to get you a job. Some people used this time to start to build portfolio pieces. Some back-end people focused on codewars and extra time with datastructures and algorithms. Some front-end people spent time bettering their CSS skills or polishing the CSS of past team projects. Despite the stress and uncertainty of picking your own adventure, I really enjoyed being able to choose what I wanted to do and tailor the experience to what I needed. This sounds like self-study, but having the ability to check-in with instructors several times a day really helped me streamline my supplemental learning to help reach my career goals. 

- Self-starters. Example: people who want to gain insights from instructors and apply their skills towards side passion projects during break weeks. During the second break week, I created a pure JavaScript Google Chrome Extension for vision therapy after 2 months in Galvanize! And so could you.

Who is Galvanize Fullstack NOT for:

- People who won't approach instructors or other students when in need of help. The instructor help is the program's greatest resource. Their real world production experience makes all the difference. Sure, you should learn to lookup Stack Overflow and Google first, but don't get too crazy. When you're so junior, you have to know when to stop going down all the rabbitholes and ask for some direction. 

- People that just want to do the bare minimum to not get kicked out the program. Your skills and portfolio just won't be job ready in time. Well, maybe within 6 months after the program. 

- People who are not inclined to make their education their #1 priority will fall behind and have serious issues catching up, even with break weeks. I've seen people with side jobs fall behind and struggle to catchup. Galvanize is a fulltime commitment. 

Suggestions for the Galvanize's interview process:

- Study beginner JavaScript. That's the basis of all modern web development. Galvanize will teach you everything from scratch, HOWEVER going through a single beginner's JavaScript book will prepare you far beyond the not-so-selective application process and give you a good idea if coding is for you. 

Suggestions for getting the most out of Galvanize Fullstack before start date:

- Same as above. JavaScript, JavaScript, JavaScript. Code along through 1-3 JavaScript beginner books and you'll be so much more ready to take on the higher level concepts. The more you know before coming into the program, the more you will excel and grow as a result, and the more you stand out from the regular bootcamp crowd. I can't stress this enough.

Suggestions for getting the most out of Galvanize Fullstack during the program:

- Base your projects on technologies you hope to use upon graduating. You can attract companies that use those technologies. Companies that had data visualization features in their product, were interested in me on hiring day because I showcased a d3 dashboard.

- Build a side project in a field you're interested in or hoping to get hired in. Shows passion and interest, but most importantly shows that you're a self starter with the capacity to learn new things on your own. Companies were impressed by the fact that I used one of my break weeks to create a Google Chrome Extension.

- Polish your previous projects or assignments to build a job seeker's portfolio as you go. Or build side projects to accomplish the same goal.

- If you're interested in back-end: learn to build apps with test driven development and get those datastructures and algorithms down pat. 

- If you're interested in front-end: React and Angular are easy if your JavaScript fundamentals are strong. CSS is what makes or breaks your enthusiasm for front-end. Don't rely on Twitter Bootstrap for every project. Anyone can master it in a day, and if you can only do BootStrap on the front end, you will only get hired by companies using BootStrap. Learn how to implement your own grid system using positioning and floats, and then learn how to use the newish native grid system, Flexbox. Going without a CSS framework will teach you how to master CSS.

- Put your resume out early (3 months) and start interviewing, so you can fail fast and get early feedback from the extensive support offered at Galvanize: soft skills coaching, negotiation practice, technical/whiteboarding interview practice with instructors, etc. A lot of these amazing career-support opportunities are available by appointment, so you have to know what you want to focus your afternoons on. 

That's about it. If you follow these guidelines as I did, you'll probably think Galvanize Fullstack is a 5 star program too.

My time at Galvanize SoMa (South of Market, San Francisco) has been life changing. The program provided an environment not only condusive to learning code, but also for networking with startups and leaders in Tech. We were regularly asked to give 100% and rewarded for those efforts with increased confidence, building wide mixers, hackathons, community lunches and a number of weekly events.

I came to the program having prepared thoroughly--I recommend focusing on JS--but found it hadn't prepared me for how thorough and rigorous the course was. One of the things I really appreciated about the experience was my instructors emphasis on not only understanding how something worked but why and what was happening under the hood.

They also paid particular attention to soft skills and the job hunting process. I felt the career services team was proactive in my job hunting process providing me with leads and a job interview with a startup in the building. We were also provided with one on one and small group sessions to discuss the obstacles we faced and ideas to overcome them. I was grateful for the opportunity to vent and be heard. 

In the end I would recommend Galvanize to anyone who genuinely wants to be successful in tech and is willing to work hard for it. They will help realize your potential by pushing you to push yourself.

I can proudly say I'm now two weeks away from my first day at a company I'm excited to be apart of with a salary more than three times that of my previous and it's due in part to my time at Galvanize SoMa.

in short: loved it! well worth the investment!

more detailled overview: I tried to underline the points I remember being curious about

* material: you wallk out of there with a strong grasp of machine learning algorithms. there are tests to help you check your understanding

*instructors: great team, they are available to talk one on one or with a smaller group if you have questions

*campus: perfect place to work (I studied there many weekends too)

*cohort: great mix of people, all motivated, from various background. You spend quite a lot of time programming in pairs, so you really get to know the others

*capstone projects: great few days when you get to use everything you learned. We are split up in smaller groups (with an instructor to coordinate) and give each other feedback.

*post graduation: meet-up every week to help you stay focused and organized. We all share interview experience, practice whiteboarding, etc... Extremely useful!

NB: be ready to work, the more you do so the more you get out of it! I studied most evenings and most week ends.

The first thing that impressed me about Galvanize was how thorough their enrollment exam was. It took me two tries to get accepted, even though I have degrees in math and AI and a decade-spanning career of programming and database support. Talking to the other students in my cohort, I was far from the only one who'd had to apply multiple times. But the entire cohort successfully completed the program, with no one failing or dropping out, which proved the validity of the application process. 

In my case, I was new to the Python programming language, so I took the one-week Python pre-course (free for Data Science Immersive students). That really helped me get up to speed and become fluent in the language, instead of stumbling my way through it and constantly checking reference manuals. The goal was to be able to focus on the data science we would be learning, not the programming, and it succeeded. I also felt more confident by the end of that week. After all, I'd been out of school for nearly 30 years at that point, and I was a little concerned about how quickly I would be able to learn things, compared to the much-younger members of my cohort.

The lessons were clear and straight-forward, with lots of real-world examples from the careers of the instructors. The concepts built on each other in a sensible way, so that after spending a week on different elements of statistics, it was easy to understand the algorithms incorporating those statistics. Frequently, we would code our own versions of algorithms, really understanding how all the pieces went together, before we applied the commonly available versions of the algorithms. This made us far more knowledgable than simple analysis monkeys that could only drop data into an algorithm and turn the crank. 

I also want to commend the knowledge, patience, and care of the teaching staff. They made what could have been complex and confusing, easily understandable and entertaining. Also, they did a great job of shifting their teaching styles to match the personalities of the cohort. Apparently, the cohort prior to ours had a lot of students that wanted the instructors to give them the answers when things got difficult, so the instructors would basically just show them how to Google the right question. Our cohort was fiercely independent, so the instructors had to almost beg us to ask them for help, rather than wasting our time trying to figure things out ourselves. They still wouldn't give us answers, but they'd point us in the right direction, or tell us where we'd made mistakes. And when they noticed a number of students having similar issues, they'd put together a special session to go over that one specific concept.

We did solo work in the morning, pair programming in the afternoon, and towards the end of the course, broke into teams on Fridays to work on bigger projects. Then, of course, we had to do our capstone projects. The instructors were very helpful with giving pointers for things to look at as we developed our capstone ideas. One of the members of the cohort started his capstone work the first week of class. I was able to spend most of our Spring Break working on mine, which helped take the pressure off to produce something from scratch in the final few weeks. (I'd definitely suggest to students to start developing an idea as soon as possible.)

There were additional reading assignments for each day, to be done before class started in the morning, as well as solutions to assignments given out at the end of the day to be compared to what we'd done. There were also "extra credit" assignments on most days, that we could do if we finished early. After we complained about the massive workload, they explained that the idea was no one should ever feel like they had "nothing to do". There was always more to learn. But we weren't expected to learn it all or do it all every day. That took a lot of the pressure off.

We had multiple practice sessions for our capstone presentations, and I was impressed by everyone's work at the Hiring Day presentations. There were an equal number of hiring companies and students at Hiring Day, which was nice, but it did not seem that they were very well vetted. Some were early stage companies that did not yet have funding (one basically offered to pay people with IOUs, convertable to money when their funding came in) or did not have any current openings (one was a recruiting firm that seemed to just want to add names to their roster). I was encouraged by the instructors to turn my capstone into an hour-long presentation at the Denver Datapalooza conference, which was an additional feather in my cap proving my abilities for potential employers, and got me some great contacts within the industry.

I had an additional hurdle that most of my cohort did not have. Because of my age, many of the companies -- even those that requested that I apply for their open positions!!! -- never contacted me. I've since been told by someone who works in this arena that the HR departments in large firms protect themselves from age-discrimination lawsuits by refusing to interview older candidates. It wasn't until I removed any mention of age (dropping graduation years, removing the first 10 years of my experience, and not stating how many years I'd worked in the industry) from my resume that I began getting calls. This really should have been addressed during the resume preparation workshop we had, as well as during the resume reviews.

The Outcomes group did not do a great job preparing us for the realities of a job search. We were under the impression that 1/3 of our class would get offers from Hiring Day, and the rest would get jobs within a month -- two at the outside! -- of graduation. So when I couldn't even get anyone to return my calls within that timeframe, I was distraught and felt like a complete failure. It took me nearly 2 months just to figure out which sorts of companies I should be applying to, that would reward my job history and experience instead of wanting the lowest cost provider of data science skills. I would have liked an acknowledgment that one path toward success is to take short-term data scientist contract positions, building up your resume, while you search for a full-time position, and to get some help finding those. Instead, the only options that were covered were joining a start-up or working full-time for a well established firm. Since their success is measured by how much money the students get when they sign their employment contracts, their motivation is skewed in a way that is not necessarily helpful for the students. Also, the official job prospect software was a joke. They stepped up to the task after graduation, and began sending out job notices to the students who were looking for positions. But it felt like a fumble and a recovery, not like it had been the plan all along.

Galvanize graduates have a very good reputation, and companies that have hired one often want to hire more. There are also lots of networking opportunities, both during the course and in the months following. There's even one specifically for women who have gone through any of the Galvanize programs, and who sometimes feel that the tech industry can be a "boy's club", to help you find female mentors in the industry.

Overall, I really enjoyed the three months that I spent in the data science immersive. If I'd known how long it would take to get a job, I would have signed up to be a TA for the following cohort, so that I could stay in that wonderful environment. I highly recommend the Galvanize program for anyone interested in Data Science. 

Overview:

My experience in the Galvanize Full-Stack Immersive was highly productive, engaging, and enjoyable. I went into it hoping to maximize my learning and trusting the process would help me build the tools to find the "right" software engineering job for me. After three months of interviewing and talking to a variety of companies, I recently accepted a great offer from a fantastic company.

I chose to attend Galvanize after researching bootcamps for about a year, and I was most compelled by their instructors and curriculum. Having six months of class (vs. three months, which seems to be far more common) was also a factor, since I knew more time immersed in learning would result in a deeper and broader set of skills come the end.

There were some bumps along the way, as other reviewers have mentioned (Associate Instructor turnover, unproductive hiring day), but I'm honestly not surprised by this, given how new the industry is. For me, the core experience of being and class and learning was excellent.

Instruction:

Schools are only as good as their teachers, and Liz Howard and Tyler Bettilyon were a fantastic instructor team. Their lectures and assignments were focused and well thought-out, they were always open to my questions, and they often worked with me individually when I asked for assistance. We regularly were asked to provide feedback through surveys, and I know both Tyler and Liz were genuinely interested in using this to gauge their past instruction and plan for the future. They're both fansatic individuals, and it was a pleasure to spend six months in their class. 

Curriculum: 

Prior to Galvanize, I spent a year and a half teaching myself, and during the program my pace of learning was far greater than what I achieved on my own (meaning, per amount of time spent learning, I was much more productive in the bootcamp). The curriculum was scaffolded such that new concepts built on those we previously focused on, and they were paired with meaningful exercises that allowed us to practice implementing them. I was able to build the tools to create full-stack web applications and to continue learning on my own. This skill is arguably more important than the specific technologies I learned, given the current pace at which new technologies are being adopted throughout the whole industry.

One area I would like to have spent more time was computer science fundamentals. This feedback was given by me and many members of my class, and the cohorts that started after mine now have more CS built in.

Jobs:

Michelle Lai, the Career Services Manager, and I communicated regularly thoughout my whole search process, and she connected me with a number of companies that I eventually interviewed with. She was a great sounding board for thoughts and ideas on search strategies, interview preparation, and negotiation. After my course ended, Michelle hosted weekly group meetings for alums to help support our respective searches in whatever way was needed.

Recommendations to Individuals Researching Bootcamps:

Before commiting, spend a bunch of time coding to a) find out if you like it, and b) prepare for a bootcamp: the more you come in with, the more you come out with. Nearly all the work you'll be doing builds on your basic coding ability, so a shaky foundation will result in a shaky experience.

Ask lots of questions before committing. This is a really new industry, and it's easy to get excited about the hype. Make sure your idea of what you will get from a bootcamp is in-line with what a bootcamp will teach you and provide for you.

Ask lots of questions once you're in class. This is how you can advocate for yourself and your own learning. If something doesn't make sense, ask about it. Many times my mental model for a concept was initially incorrect, but by asking questions about things that stood out to me as not making sense, I was able to quickly correct my thinking.

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In an increasingly crowded universe of development training programs, Galvanize has been a trail blazer and leader. The six-month intensive program with its focus on leading technologies and discipline around  best-in-class engineering process vaulted my capabilities exponentially. This learning was fueled by an instruction team that was excellently qualified with both professional and academic experience. Galvanize's entrepreneurial ecosystem and top-notch instructors make it an excellent choice for anyone looking for a career in software.

Galvanize is a great school.  The students are intelligent and driven, and the intensity of the course seemed to force us to engage with each other in an extremely goal-oriented, intellectually honest manner.  I cannot tell you how satisfying it is to work with others who operate on such a mature plane.  The professors and DSRs are knowledgeable and dedicated to helping students actually understand the material, but you need to seek them out if you need help outside of the classroom.  I found Lee Murray (then DSR, now DSI) to be particularly helpful and very sharp.  

The course is well-paced and decently orchestrated until we got into the Spark, AWS, Hadoop, Hive and Pig week.  If you know anything about these pieces of software, you will know a week is not enough time to cover them.  This week should focus only on the skills that are most attractive, to the majority of employers; and those skills are Spark and AWS.  Students should be taken by the hand and walked through every step of setting up an EC2 instance on AWS, as it's actually not that hard, but admits of many pitfalls.  The remaining time should be dedicated to Spark.  Overall, given the immense depth and breadth of the topic, the instruction, course material and coursework are well crafted.

The classroom time dedicated to all the job/hiring stuff after we got through with the data science bit was far too short.  However, Katie's (then the Director of Outcomes at Galvanize) assistance was outstanding.  She can and will walk you through everything; from organizing the job tracker to how to write a cold email.  She is also an invaluable source for finding job opportunities and will give you warm introductions to people.  However, you must be patient and persistent with her, as she is a very busy women who simply cannot do 100 things at once.

In short, Galvanize has a great deal to offer, but as with all things, it's what you make of it.  It was one of the best decisions I ever made, in part, because I was determined to make it so.

I enrolled in the full stack program with a little bit of insider info. I had been working for Galvanize, part-time, so I was looped in to their internal updates on student placement and curriculum development. I recognized that the company was really focused on student success and that the data backed it up. Despite that insight, I still looked into a few different programs (it's too much of an investment to make a biased decision). I quickly narrowed the finalists down to the two well know six month, fully immersive programs in Denver. I decided that part-time wasn't going to cut it. Ultimately, the deciding factor was the community experience that Galvanize would offer me. 

From day one of the program, I was happy with my experience. Between the curriculum, the instructional team the community experience, Galvanize was a perfect storm of life changing experiences.

The curriculum was relevant, responsive and very fast paced. The reality is that learning a full stack of web development is an enormous endeavor. It gets stressful and overwhelming at times. The industry standards are in a constant state of flux and even the foundations of problem solving go deeper than most people are used to in their day to day lives. 

That being said, I cannot imagine a more efficient way of delivering the information than what I experienced at Galvanize. The program segmented front-end, back-end, frameworks and computer science cooncepts, but also allowed us to spiral back and gain a deeper knowledge after we had spent a fair amount of time with material.

Beyond the curriculum, the class culture was amazing. Not only did I leave this program with twenty something new friends, the comraderie in the classroom encouraged helping and teaching each other and removed the fear of looking stupid when asking questions. Developing that environment was a conscious effort of our instructional team and I'm grateful for that. 

Outside of our classroom, we also reaped the benefits of the community space. Rather than learning in a silo and having to go to networking events to, not so subtly, ask employers for jobs, we got to share a space with working professionals that were intersested and curious about our experiences. After six months in the same building, we had all made personal connections with developers and euntreprenuers that advised us, hired some of us, and became a natural part of our networks. 

Finally, I want to add that the program was really fun. Aside, from the fact that I got a job (I'm now working for Galvanize), and that I got new skills, it was one of the most fun six months of my life. I absolutely recommend it to anyone who loves learning, wants to be challenged and needs some help transitioning into the tech world.