Galvanize

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.

Let me start by saying that I've heard similar reviews to this by people from all bootcamps (I spent a month in an internship with ~30 people who came from bootcamps and we swapped stories). Also, I came into the program from a graduate program in STEM and got an internship quickly after - overwhelmingly because of the MS in a STEM field - so these things influence my views.

The top five problems that I found (I am sure I am missing some):

1. Calling it a "bootcamp". Bootcamp implies speed and rigor. This program was easier than a lot of the *single* classes I took in undergrad, not all of the classes I took in a semester, a singular class.

The first quarter was frighteningly basic. I could not understand how you could decide to change careers without that basic level of knowledge and experience. It's about the level of the frontend part of FreeCodeCamp. If you're thinking about basing your life around this career, shouldn't you know what it is first?

The second quarter was painfully slow. It was four weeks. I had worked through 3/4 of the material in a few days in the break week after quarter one (not all of the week, mind you). It was so slow people were going home in the early afternoon every day. (2-3pm) What?

The third quarter actually picked up enough rigor to take up 8-5 work (not evening hours, but at least 8-5) and was the only quarter that wasn't frustrating.

The fourth quarter had that "summer's coming let's chill out vibe" a lot of the time. Frankly I think there was a lot of people giving up on their expectations of a bootcamp by this point. A lot of resignation to the fact that you put a ton of money into something that just didn't deliver a quality education.

Also, Fridays were mostly a waste. There were no lectures on Friday, only a review and "lightening talks". This review consisted of going through the bullet points written into the lectures and writing them on the board while a few sentences were said about that bullet. The lightening talks were supposed to be five minute (always much longer) talks about a tech topic so that people could get used to talking about tech topics in front of a group. Less than a quarter of the lightening talks met those qualifications. The lightening talks were primarily people talking at length about things they were interested in kind of like show and tell, but you're paying $4.2K for it ($21K / 5 days). Almost everyone goofed off after lightening talks ended at three making it hard to accomplish much of anything on that day. Seriously, that means $4.2K wasted to one-line reviews and people gushing about something completely off-topic.

2. The instructor situation was chaotic.

There were four instructors. One was supposed to have been in the field for a long time (the primary instructor). Two were supposed to have been in the field at any point ever (including small contract projects). One was a student from the cohort before.

The first primary instructor we had really didn't know a) how to instruct and b) javascript in a meaningful way. There were warnings from the students in the cohort before ours (who he did a practice lecture with) and from the instructor himself *not to hire this guy*, but they did anyway. It went so badly that they fired him before the first quarter was over.

THEN they took one of the few instructors from the other cohort and made him into our cohort's primary instructor, leaving the other cohort with only one instructor (the other two instructors having gotten jobs/left). The instructor that came to us had just started an MS program, so he was really busy already. The one instructor for the other cohort had a serious family emergency soon after the fiasco with us losing our instructor and we had one instructor left between the two cohorts. The really good instructor had to be shared between the two classes leaving him exhausted and us worried about asking too much of him.

Near the end of our cohort the instructor who had the family emergency before left. I don't know the details, but there's definitely a fight between corporate, who seem to be concerned primarily with money, and the instructors, who seem primarily concerned with education. There were mumblings in the hallways were of this clash pretty regularly. At the end of our cohort, our primary instructor left, likely because of the same concerns. This was the last of the really quality instructors I had known at Galvanize.

3. The pedagogy reflected a complete lack of understanding of teaching/learning. I had been in some sort of teaching/TA/tutoring role for the previous eight years. There's a huge difference between instructors that try to improve by studying educational reasearch and those who do it just through experience or through books the latest fad book with zero citations. Galvanize chose to do the later.

They were dogmatic in their use of "Teach Like a Champion" which included such gems as having the students read outloud the lectures to the class. These lectures (which were actually, more often than not, well put together) were written by someone in corporate, occasionally edited by the instructional staff. This often meant that the instructors themselves didn't really see it as important to read through the lectures ahead of time and anticipate what questions might be asked (like any good instructor knows to do). There were a shocking number of times that the instructors (one in particular) didn't know something was in the lecture they were supposed to be teaching or, even worse, would start to give a half-baked-in-the-moment example of what the material meant only to make the situation FAR worse. These were rookie mistakes that every instructor should make once (I definitely did) and then they should be guided to see that they have to plan ahead. That didn't happen here. Up to the last day, there were painful lectures where there was clearly no planning in advance.

4. There was a complete lack of ability to deal with behavioral problems.

(To be fair, there shouldn't have been behavioral problems in a classroom setting of 16 adults.)

One student was verbally abusive to the instructors and, occasionally, other students as well as being loud and disruptive during lectures. Rather than dealing with this right away, we went through the first quarter and a half with the instructors walking on eggshells around and giving special attention to this one student, greatly decreasing any question or lecture time for the rest of us. It took most of the student body having to set up a meeting with the main instructor (who was beat for the reasons listed above) for anything to change. To his credit, after that the situation in the classroom became more reasonable. He has amazing interpersonal skills and solved the problem, but he's not around anymore, so don't expect someone to know how to handle a similar situation (not that there should even be this situation in an adult classroom).

5. The numbers aren't trustworthy.

Early on in every bootcamp more people were getting hired because the marketplace wasn't saturated with bootcamp grads like it is becoming more and more every day. The hiring rates are inflated from the first group. In our cohort, we definitely haven't hit the "91%" hiring rate the website is currently claiming, despite having been out for six months. And among those who get hired the majority are hired on short contracts which, despite offering little by way of stability, Galvanize doesn't distinguish from more stable sitatuions (which most people are looking for).

Take note of this line on their website: *Placement rate and average starting salary based on 2014-2015 Placement Data

Likewise, they've conviently used the average salary in their reporting. Anyone who has taken a statistics class can tell you what's great about averages compared to their more honest peer - the median. It can make the numbers look more extreme than they actually are. If a few people get really high paying jobs, they drive up the average tremendously.

Additionally the salaries are not what most people might assuming because these jobs are contract jobs so they don't include benefits. That means that the employers have to pay a bit more to entice people to benefit-less jobs.

When I brought this up in by posting an article about other bootcamps agreeing on a common standard in the alumni slack channel, there was a quick move to defensiveness by people who were currently employed by Galvanize signalling to me that it's not likely to change.

To be fair, here's a list of the five positives I can think of (once again, I am likely missing some):

1. The career services person was constantly reminding us of the most important part of the job hunt, which is networking. Of course I knew that this was very important, but having someone there to not let you brush it aside (because you hate it) was really good for me.

2. Galvanize being a longer bootcamp means that you get to go to a lot more networking events during the program. I went to about three a week, on average. The program being six months rather than 14 weeks meant I went to ~70 events rather than ~40, which helped.

3. The career services person pushed me to put what I really wanted to do (work with data) on my resume even though I was nervous I wasn't prepared. Now I have an amazing position doing exactly what I want. (Go Gina!)

4. There are a lot of events at Galvanize and its surrounding businesses, so getting to networking events is very do-able.

5. There are a lot of snacks. I gained about ten pounds because I love snacks. ;)

I can't speak to the experience of job hunting because I was lucky enough to get an internship directly after the program, but I can say that the feedback on why I got that internship points to the idea that the bootcamp was not even a factor in getting it. The impression I get is that I got an opportunity to interview largely because of my MS in a STEM field and that I got the internship because of a combination of having spent the last seven years working through math/science problems generally and having spent the summer before starting Galvanize working through Cracking the Coding Interview specifically (aka - I did well on whiteboarding).

The only thing the bootcamp experience did for me was expose me to more people, and if I were to go back to me when I was trying to figure out what to do I would have just networked more and learned on my own time (much faster). I honestly think that, being profit-driven the whole system tends to take advantage of people who are desperate for jobs and that there is a good chance that the bootcamp system (like academia) will end up leaving a lot of people in debt without jobs when the bubble finally bursts, which it will because this is tech.

If you're wondering why I am one of the only negatives among a sea of positives, it is likely because those who have a positive experience have nothing holding them back from posting it. I waited six months until I got hired (not just intern) to post just in case I made people angry and ruined a networking opportunity. If you haven't found a job, you're even less likely to post because you *definitely* need everyone in your network. Keep this in mind as you search through the reviews.

The three month Data Science Immersion course was a great experience.  While being very demanding I do not think I could have learned more in such a short time.  The instructors where good and really know what they are doing making difficult concepts understandable. Take the interviews seriously and make sure you understand and as much of the pre-course material as possible.  The more comfortable you are starting the easer the work will be and the more you will learn. 

I attended the data science immersive program for three months in 2017. Galvanize has an amazing community feel, and the instructors are great at explaining concepts to 'naive' students. Through the program, students collaborate with one another which really reinforces concepts taught through lectures. Python and statistics are a must for this program, which is why Galvanize puts students through a screening/interview process. I would recommend this program to anyone who has a high desire to learn and transition into an exciting industry. Galvanize has changed my life through a well thought out course.

After 3 rounds of interview including Python, SQL, Statistics and Machine Learning, I was admitted to the Data Science program in Austin. The syllabus covers a extremely broad topics, not only coding, machine learning algorithm, big-data tools, but also business insight, which was practiced during 4 case studies. I finished 5 online courses related to machine learning, and 3 online courses related to coding before I attended the program. During the program, 30% content are what I already knew, 30% content are familiar to me but I cannot explain the details, and the leftover 40% are what I haven't heard about. The morning and afternoon assignments everyday help students practice the algorithm just learnt, which can enhance the understanding of the algorithm. Btw, the afternnon assignment is finished by a pair of students, providing the chance to practice communication, which is a very important capability a data scientist needs. One of my favorate parts is the review section after all class were finished. Every pair of students were assigned a topic and gave a presentation about 5-10 minutes. Other studens can ask questions, and instructors will help answer questions if needed. It is a very good practice. 

Galvanize DSI - Austin Campus

Galvanize completely exceeded my expectations. The instructors at the Austin campus are superior to any college professor that I had during my time studying engineering. 

When comparing bootcamps, I looked at several options. After speaking with some peers who attended other bootcamps, I know that I made the right choice. These include a competing tech bootcamp and also a major university in Austin that offers some bootcamp programs.

One thing that seperates Galvanize is it's selectivity. The admissions process is pretty rigorous and requires a baseline mathematical knowledge, as well as plenty of studying, and the ability to communicate clearly in technical interviews. At no point in the process did I feel that Galvanize was pushy or trying to 'fill seats'. My peers included several PhDs, many engineers, programmers, an actuary, and many other accomplished individuals.

The curriculum is extremely well designed. The learning style is far superior to a typical college schedule, allowing you to 'drink from the firehose' and absorb a massive ammount of information in a short period of time. I believe the bootcamp format will eventually take over formal education due to it's efficiency. The immersive program feels like a year (it's only 3 months), and has greatly accelerated the rate that I am able to pick up new tech skills.

Our instructors were extremely passionate, well qualified, and great to work with. It was not uncommon for them to spend time with students outside of class to attend workshops and programming meetups. 

Throughout the program, students become connected to the local tech industry, through a combination of campus visits, career services efforts, and the variety of events that take place on campus. I have been fortunate to meet a number of hiring managers, tech employees, and entrepreneurs. At the end of the program, I've built a substantial network in the Austin tech arena. 

If you are smart, ambitious, and value a quality education - Galvanize is the top choice. 

Far and away the best experience in education I've had the pleasure of experience. Thanks to their rigorous interviewing and prep process, every student is brilliant, tenacious, and dedicated to learning more. The instructors are even more so. The environment is collaborative too. We were constantly tapping on each other's shoulders asking for a little help here or there, and never once was anyone annoyed or unhelpful. I can't recommend this more. Whether you're an experienced data analyst or a bright graduate looking to up their skill level, this program is fantastic. I can't recommend this more to anyone looking at upping their skills in data science. 

Galvanize web development immersive is for the people who truly want to learn. The instructors go a great job guiding you throught the thick woods and mountainous terrain of web development, and they really know their stuff. But they won't hold your hand. The best way to get the most out of your time there is by keeping up with the curriculum, and finding extra ways on your own to build on what you have learned. Cultivate your own natural curiousity. Galvanize web dev teaches Node.js/JavaScript, but my cohort had several people do projects in Swift, and pretty much everyone used some large framework or library that wasn't part of the curriculum. If you're ready to take the plunge and do a mixture of instruction and self learning, Galvanize is an atmosphere that will enable you to go very far.

I feel Galvanize is more of a complete learning eco-system than a school. Galvanize's primary focus is on learning and building technical skills. In the process howerver, relationships and soft skills are developed as well. From creating projects to giving tech talks to networking with actual businesses in the building, I feel its been a great springboard for preparing me for a job in the tech industry.

Terrible experience.  Tyler good.  Rob bad Parker bad.  Instructors not care about students and leave early even if you struggling.  Program poorly designed and almost all students waste of money.  Past cohort try to warn me not to come but I did not listen.  Career service helpful but it difficult to get job when not prepared.  Job statistics seem like lie.  We told by instructor past cohort all have jobs but this not true.  They tell me.  15 person start our cohort and only 10 finish.  Out of 10, I guess 5-7 will get job.  91% seem like lie when you look at this in front of your face.  Not good at all.  

Like most things in life, you get out what you put in and this program is no different. The curriculum, the instructor staff, the projects are all designed to take you as far as you can push yourself to go.

As others have said, I also put in 20-30 hours a week outside of the core classroom time and I'm glad for every bit of it.  I wanted to be successful at this.  I wasn't just looking for a new job, I wanted to recreate myself and start building a career around being an effective sofware developer.

What I appreciate most about the curriculum is that it's more than the typical "here's a standard stack, let's learn it".  I loved being immersed in both back and front end development, but more than that I appreciated also being tossed into unfamiliar environments.  We got very comfortable at being uncomfortable.  Knowing that even if we hadn't learned what we were working with, we had the skills to figure it out.

So when I started my first job as a software engineer and I was put in front of a codebase that was written in both Coffeescript and Typescript (I only knew vanilla javascript), the database was Mongo (where I had only seen Postgres), the front end was Angular 1.2 (where we had learned on 1.6) I still was able to release new functionality to prod on day 3.  

Galvanize taught us those skills.  It was not just about which languages, frameworks or libraries to use, but also how to learn.  How to be effective at troubleshooting.  How to plan and break down work into approachable pieces of a larger solution.

I appreciate the instructors for not taking it easy on us. They brought their best every day and expected the same from each of us, pushing us to be better and better, knowing that we could.  I'm also glad they never slowed down the pace because in this industry, things move fast and there's really no choice but to keep up.

I’ve been immersed in some of the “top” education available for tech since middle school. I struggled to fit into an education system that demanded mastery of a concept, but provided no motivation to master said concept due to lack of application. It also discouraged people who were maybe a little more right-brained or allotted brain power to wondering about the application of learned concepts to projects, etc. Therefore, the standard for succeeding in the tech industry meant fitting a specific, stereotypical brand of “tech nerd”. 

Galvanize was a platform that proved all of this wrong. It is a 6-month intensive boot camp where people from all walks of life come together and enter the tech world by building full-stack web apps. By promoting a collaborative and supportive environment, we all learn together that it is by being open-source as a community that technology really becomes something more. Programming ultimately is just a tool. It isn’t some unattainable skill that only introverted tech prodigies are able to master. 

The people who will thrive in this program are those who embrace this philosophy that knowledge is that much more powerful when it’s open-source and everyone is able to bring something different to the table. If you are someone who is looking to level-up their life, Galvanize is the program for you. All you need is to be thirsty for knowledge and always be learning from those around you. Understand that what you’ll be gaining is a true understanding of the importance of community in tech and the confidence that whatever seemingly “unattainable” skill there is in the stereotypical image of the tech world is something you can achieve. 

I graduated from a university in 2012 with a bachelors in psychology and no clear career path. After a few years of traveling and exploring graduate school options for psychology, I decided I wanted to take a completely different route. I found a love for coding and spent 2 months researching ways to learn how to be a developer. I compared many different options including 4 year degrees, online schools, teaching myself, and bootcamps style schools. I discovered Galvanize in the spring of 2016 and was accepted into the program beginning that summer.

I cannot say enough good things about my experience at Galvanize. The instruction team consisted of highly knowledgable, experienced, and passionate teachers. The entire education team at Galvanize cared about every students' success. They truly wanted to help us succeed in the course and after. Their career team and curriculum is not only focused on getting you that first job, but setting up your long term career path.

I graduated from the web-imerssive program in mid-January 2017 and was offered a job 2 weeks later. My salary is above the Galvanize graduate average and I am incredibly happy at my job. My work-life balance is amazing and I am learning more everyday. I am so happy I went to Galvanize and highly recommend it to anyone looking to become a developer.