Galvanize

I attended the Full-Stack Web Development Immersive at Galvanize-Boulder, and graduated in mid-January.  Prior to Galvanize, I'd spent 4-5 months self-studying with some basic HTML, CSS, and Javascript via online resources.  The onboarding process for my g32 cohort was smooth; we received the pre-course work (about 40 hours' worth) about a month in advance of our August 1 start date.
The pace for the program is fast; a lot of material is covered in lectures and assignments, and even the fastest students in my cohort sometimes struggled to keep up. The upside of this is that we covered an impressive amount of subject matter in a (relatively) short 6 months.  I found the second and third quarters most challenging, as I had not had much prior experience with Node.js, data bases, and the back end.  I loved the end-of-quarter projects; especially working on small teams to create full-scale applications with tools that we had just learned (like Angular.js).  I worked hard in this program and put in a lot of hours; at least an additional 20 hours per week, aside from the 40 hours in class.
Our instruction was top-notch; my cohort was particularly fortunate, as we had one lead instructor, one associate instructor, and two residents for 15 students.  Our lead instructor had 17 years of experience as a developer and many years as CTO of different startups.  His fluency with the material was important, as the associate instructor and residents were more recent graduates of Galvanize cohorts.
The main piece of constructive criticism I have is with the curriculum, which had some flaws and gaps (in particular the Angular curriculum).  These were being corrected during our program, and I imagine they are now not an issue.  We were always encouraged to explore outside resources, which makes sense, as material changes and more becomes available at a rapid rate.
I feel extremely fortunate to have accepted a job as an associate software developer within a week of graduating from the program.  I now work for a Boulder startup, on a two-person development team, with our CTO.  Our stack is relatively new to me, but I feel that Galvanize prepared me extremely well to be able to learn and implement new technologies quickly.  The program was extremely challenging, but I feel that it was absolutely worth it.
 

Where to begin...
I did a lot of research on Austin code schools before I applied to Galvanize. I'd attended one of Galvanize's info sessions and was "that" person who asked all the tough questions. Scott, the program director, answered all of them graciously in detail, and I suspected from that night I may have a good experience at Galvanize.

Fast forward six months. I graduate tomorrow, and while I'm excited to go out and get a job (and have already informally been offered two, by the way), leaving Galvanize as a student will definitely be bittersweet. Besides the remarkable cohesion and synergy of my cohort, the technical learning experiences have been the most & fastest I've ever learned in any academic program...ever.
(Coming from a former school teacher) The main instructor for our particular cohort, Zubair, is not only hilarious, but, as one of my classmates put it, "a pedagogical savant." He's somehow made things like complicated computer science algorithms actually fun to learn, and he's got loads of experience in the industry coupled with business wisdom. And, by the way, the tech recruiter from Google who attended our career day was impressed that we'd even studied various computer science concepts in the first place.

We also had Oli and Louis, associate instructors, with our cohort for the duration of the program. Both are sweet, helpful, have put in extra hours to help me or classmates with coursework, and bring a variety of skills and prior industry experience to the table. 

Galvanize's support/career services are also top-notch. Nicole, career services person, has gone out of her way to help me on multiple occasions. She helps with interview and job search advice, books guest speakers, organizes events...the student success person, Jessica, also held a survey with students once per quarter about our overall experience, and the feedback we gave her seemed like near-immediate implementations. I could go on...even the facilities staff at Galvanize is friendly and helpful.

I chose Galvanize because of its six-month plan, knowing I'd need some time to both have a life in the evenings and complete my homework properly, and it's surely been the right decision, as we had the time to go much deeper into concepts than I've heard my friends from other code schools have.

I will say if you’re not willing to commit to the necessary hours of practice and grit, this program may not be for you, as it's not easy to master, nor should it appear as such. I did struggle a bit with concepts at the beginning, but then again, that's probably standard at any level of programming and I never felt unsupported or alone. By the third quarter of the cohort, some kind of new confidence had arrived when I was able to look back at even a few weeks prior and identify the immense amount of knowledge that had soaked in since, and at that point began building with technologies and libraries that had never been explicitly taught to me. Galvanize does publish its intended curriculum, which seems to be equivalent to or more comprehensive than most of the other ATX code schools, but I feel as though I could learn and use any technology out there at this point.

Every single person in our cohort successfully used an unfamiliar new technology that was not explicitly taught in the curriculum to build our capstone projects, and it's because Galvanize delivered on its promise of teaching us to "learn to learn." Overall, I highly recommend this program and have been trying to evangelize my friends to enroll for months...

Galvanize provides an unparalleled experience. Locating the school inside a tech startup/meetup space creates an immersive experience where students are exposed to hundreds of professionals in the field.The curriculum at Galvanize is outstanding with very up to date information, practices, and opportunities to delve deeply into related material, libraries, or frameworks. Like anything in life, you get out of the experience what you put in. Look at the time with Galvanize as a major investment in your life, and you will receive a steadfast partner in making your dreams a reality. But, do not take this lightly as you are ultimately responsible for building your new life.

The format is a code-along experience where topics are explained in lecture format while you are coding and trying out each concept as it's presented. The instructors constantly check to make sure that people are getting the concepts and tutors assist those who need it with minimal impact on the pace of moving forward. This is not a school where they teach to the lowest common denominator. Those who are struggling will have to spend extra time to catch up but will be given all the assistance they need to do so. At the end of each day, a project is assigned that reinforces the daily code alongs and allows you to truly lock in the material. At the end of each quarter, a project is assigned that builds on the topics of that quarter and all quarters before it. When you leave the program, you have many projects, notes files, and working programs to use as examples for your future career.

I highly recommend the program for anyone who is motivated and willing to make the sacrifices necessary to change their lives.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Galvanize is a BootCamp which is a type of educational institution. It is organized in a different way than a conventional collage or university. Its educational program oriented to teach theoretical part of data science in very quick way, so that students will learn only what is necessary to move on to the next step in leaning. The next step is hands-on practical experience when students lean how to use what they leaned in class by implementing it in practice. I would say that it is highly important to do as much as possible pre-course work yourself and even try to go beyond. The program is short, 12 weeks, and very intensive, so that even if you have background in one of the STEM fields, you still need to put a lot of effort into the data science immersive program. If your background is not one of the STEM fields I would say that you might consider to join master of data science program at Galvanize U instead of data science immersive.

The learning atmosphere at Galvanize is pretty non-formal, instructors are easy to approach and ask for any help student needs in understanding the material, the amount of time instructors spend with each student one on one is probably the greatest if compared to conventional collages.

Galvanize provides great support to students in the job search after graduation. This is the place where a student will find a lot of direct connections with employers in many companies, including the ones that are at the top in their fields of industry.

Overall, if you are planing on switching your career to data scientist and you feel like you need some training, I would definitely recommend to obtain that training from Galvanize.

I am only 4 weeks into the Galvanize full stack Web Development program and I love it.  I knew it was going to be an intense learning experience, but I had no idea I would have learned so much so soon.  The instructors are great at giving you IT knowledge but also at keeping you from panicking from the intensity and being overwhelmed.  At the end of the week they ask us what we've learned this week, and when they list it on the board, we are awed that we learned something only on Monday, when it seems like we've had that knowledge for much longer.  I alread feel like I can do some pretty cool things and we're only just starting.  I've also talked to a lot of people from the other classes who are much further along than our cohort, and they are just as thrilled about the program as we are.  There are some things that don't work for us, but they have a daily feedback and incorporate changes to accomodate those needs the very next day.  It is a fantastic learning environment, but it is intense.

Let's get started by talking a little bit about my background. I am a woman from Asia with a Master Degree in Mathematics and Computer Science. Before coming to Galvanize, I am an independent researcher in Machine Learning and Cognitive Science. I curate online content from open source and education sites to gain more knowledge as well as serve for my purpose of seeking knowledge. The reason why I come to Galvanize is to upgrade my technical ability in Data Science and expand my network in Tech Community in Bay Area. 

I think most of you guys when deciding to go to a Bootcamp is to get a job or transfer into Tech Industry for a higher salary. Well, it would be a good motivation but lack of thoughtful considerations. How do you define a good job? Are you gonna like it because of a reward, not the fulfillment? Do you believe that three months of an intensive practice would make you a competent worker for an entry level with a salary of 100k+++? Do you believe that you are really a genius to master a whole bunch of things which are supposed to learn and pratice in many years?

Let me tell the ugly truth.

No, no, no ....NO!

Never ever believe any body tell you that kind of guarantee to make decisions.

Learning is an accumulative experience. Depending on how you absorb knowledge, slow and analytical, fast and responsive, you have your own way. Three months are never enough for you to make yourself as an expert, however, it is enough for your to establish a habit and a mindset to prepare for a job search.  So, how do you really get those after three months? You need a curriculum to know right things, instruction to do right things and enviroment to find the right resources and reinforce all of those.

Everyday at Galvanize we have two main sessions to learn with lectures and practices. Those basically tell you some of the most should-to-know things and enhance it by working with the others. But what I would like to point out is that the structure of curriculum is very well-organized and practical. Plus, it is contributed by many students and members which allows you do and play around on top of new things. Congrats, you have the newest map and you won't get lost!

The program is indeed quite fast and intensive In Galvanize. So we do have assessments to evaluate students, however, the main purpose is to help determine who we should pay more attention to support than the others, like more practices or more assessed reviews customized by observations from instructors to help you improve your ability. They are also there when you need help to understand a problem. However, not so trivial problems which you can Google by yourself. But they are really there when you need. I still remember the day we learn about technology like clustering computing with Spark, one of my instructors stay all day to help us set up things and answer all questions. I know some of them staying late to spend time on discussing how to help students, which I appriciate very much.

Finally, one of the last things I have to mention about Galvanize is that this is not school. Though partcipants in a program are called students, but actually, we are members of a learning community. We work together and we share knowledge while practicing and helping each others. Not only students in a cohort, but instructors, other students from other cohorts, career service staffs, or other people with whom have a chance to share your experience. That is a true network, not a group of people you socialize at some meet-ups when bragging about what you (might) do. They are really great and gonna help you much after you graduate.

Update: Right after graduate I did get an offer from a start-up, which is also a member of Galvanize Community. Since I am an international applicant and do not stay in the states, I still receive some support from career service. Keep in mind that, to get a 100k+++ salary or a good match, you might need to apply over hundreds companies in a couple of months to get 3-4 job offers relatively. It is quite painful and time-consuming but gonna help you grow a lot AFTER three months. Good luck!

My experience at Galvanize was above and beyond my expectations. The program covers a great deal of what you’ll need as a Data Scientist. The instructors are way better than in academia (I know that may not say much...). They are super smart (also in how to teach a topic) and they care about their students. The lead instructor brought some of his Data/Computer Science industry experience to the program which was a great plus. I am very pleased with the amount of experience I acquired with all the individual programming and pair programing Galvanize offers, and the environment helps so much mastering it (all the help we can get from each other and instructors from 9:30am to 6pm for 3 months). It was such great investment for my career!

Galvanize is having a hard time finding qualified enough people to join the program (specially the level of programming skills required to pass the entrance exams). That is why now they also offer a 8 weeks on just Python programming (twice a week at night), and the money invested on that can go towards the Data Science immersive after. Such a great idea to solve the need of have students starting with already a good level of programming to be able to survive the course and keep the high quality of the immersive.

I finally reached the end of my tolerance of not having a fulfilling career. After considering many different paths, I landed on software engineering. Galvanize was suggested to me by someone who worked in the building, who witnessed firsthand the transformation the students were going through. 

Expect to work. This learning environment is simultaneously approachable and challenging. You make friends. You push yourself in terms of how much information you can absorb in a set period of time. I had a great time getting back into a classroom and getting to focus on this one topic for six months instead of trying to learn in my free time. I don't know that I would have ever felt confident enough to apply for a "real dev job" without a program like this. 

The classroom is energetic. The instructors push themselves to keep current with the market and provide timely content to students. Each instructor has an interesting value add, whether it be game development, serious front-end chops, or devops interests. 

They also provide job hunt assistance, in the form of getting your online presence in order for the job hunt process, resume & cover letter help. They also get students in front of potential employers as much as they can while maintaining a sustainable pipeline for students. 

I am super glad that I did the Galvanize Full Stack (now Web Development) program. I am proud of how much I've "leveled up" this year. 

Galvanize surpassed my expectations. I joined because I knew that I wanted to be able to build applications. Going into the program I had only a little bit of exposure to/experience with programming.

Galvanize provides access to thousands of github repos, which are essentially thousands of mini-applications that you can access to build, practice on and learn from.

It is a bootcamp, it is intensive and you will get what you put into it. So the more hours you can dedicate to programming throughout the course, the better. Don’t expect that this is a 9a – 5p program.

Each of the instructors really cared about our success with the material and often went above and beyond to work with us. They stayed late, listened to feedback and had patience. That said, they were also good at simply being realistic about the fact that they are there to help you learn how to learn - on your own. They will not give you all of the answers and you are expected to struggle – because when you leave the program they earnestly want you to be able to manage continuous learning on your own from that point forward.

The range of how much prior experience each student had coming in was very wide. Some of us had next to zero experience, while others had several years of industry experience and a CS degree. All of the students I knew from my cohort and the other cohorts were very supportive and Galvanize does a really good job of creating/fostering community.

Being from a college town, Galvanize was incredibly overhyped. My analytics professors swore this would be better than my current classes and the programming here is "top notch." While the teachers were all great, the people in charge of Galvanize are a hot mess. There were multiple miscommunications about which classes were being offered, it took me two months to be registered in the right class, and the people in charge were downright rude to me the entire time. I really didn't feel like that was warranted since the mistake was on their end. My Hack CU friends were going to take classes here as well, but I will be suggesting they look elsewhere where college students aren't treated like second class citizens. They'll never care if they see this though, they only care about your money! Oh well Galvanize, you fooled me! Lesson learned the hard way. The instructors were good, but everyone in charge at my location needs to be fired. What a mess. 

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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