Galvanize

Galvanize is simply the best data science bootcamp that exists. I'll walk through how I came to that decision, alongside sharing information and experience coming out of it. For you to get the most out of this program, you should be a rockstar with stats, math, and programming background and good work experience.   I knew about 1.5 years before joining Galvanize I would transition from my R+D engineering role at Intel to data science. I applied to every bootcamp, and chatted with members from:

• Galvanize
• Insight (PhD only)
• Metis
• NYC Data Science Academy
• Data Incubator (PhD only)

Additionally, I read blogs from members who had gone through the program. Below was the most influential blog I read from Ike Okonkwo. My blog detailing the experience is below as well. Zipfian Academy - All 12 weeks - Ike Okonkwo (Winter 2014 Cohort) Blog - Scott Cronin (Fall 2015 Cohort #9)   I went to Galvanize because it was:

1. The most intense 12 week bootcamp
2. The most well designed and iterated (now on cohort #12 as of March 2016)
3. Well rounded with additional focus on resume, recruiting, and interview prep

Coming out of Galvanize, I obtained 5 job offers within a 2 month spread and had my choice of what I wanted to do. Note -  you must be talented prior to coming into Galvanize. The interview process has 4 steps to verify you will be successful in the program as it is too intense if you do not have a background foundation in programming, math, and stats.   It is important to realize that you have to bring knowledge to the program so you can share with others. Likewise I learned a ton from others in my cohort. This is what makes the program great. Once you finish it, you are connected to the single strongest data science community in the world. Two of my job offers came from being connected to the Galvanize community.

I went to the 12 week program in 2015. They have a three step interview claiming the bar is high for the program, but these days there is a booming in number of student accepted and graduated, while resources are the same or even worse due to loosing experienced instructors. Students not being in similar level for a 12 week program is serious issue itself, leaving students with lower prior experience in more difficulties to catchup with the curriculum.

The material they teach is cutting edge with means of the programming machine learning tools, but not the most useful for industry if you are looking for an actual job in data and analytics. 

There is no real effective job assistance provided, there are so many graduates that the only person in charge of outcomes will not even get enough time to answer your emails. The most effective interviews that I got were not through Galvanize.

I went to a 4 week bootcamp and got a great intro into coding, however for getting career ready this is the place to go. Yes, its the most expensive bootcamp, however that money is worth it because of the exposure to technlogies, depth of language understanding and connections that you make here.

This program will be great for you if:

-> You are able to learn on your own (there is a mixture of lecture and on your own pace learning)

-> You are serious about wanting to become a web developer

 

I have just finished up with Hiring Day and am going into my last week here at Galvanize, SF in their Data Science Immersive 12-week program. I think that most of what I have to say will apply to nearly everyone in my class. Going into the program I was skeptical of what I was paying for and how much of what they were promoting is real. I'm hoping this review will clear some of that up. The program is exactly how they promote it and at the end of it most of my classemates and I were discussing how happy we were that we took the plunge.

I'm not going to describe the course work and week by week nature of the course, there are plenty of blogs online written by students who were in the course (the school actually encourages it). If you are looking for one, one of my classmates has been writing about their experience here: http://www.jscottcronin.com/blog/

I'm wanting to talk about what I think is the biggest reason to attend Galvanize in particular versus some other bootcamp, the Staff. I think that this is their strongest asset and one that they continually try to improve upon. The instructors and TAs (or DSRs as they call them) are constantly available for help and doing everything they can to help you succeed. I had plenty of struggles throughout the course and anytime I needed some help I could ask a classmate (all of which are super smart and want to help too), if we couldn't figure it out there was a TA or a Instructor ready to help. During project time, a classmate of mine had one of the founders of the original school come and assist them with a problem they were having trouble with. There are people behind the scenes working to make sure that you are ready to put your best foot foward once you are done with this program, whether is it coaching, resume review, interview prep, anything you need. It feels as if everyone one in the building is pulling for your success. 

As I said they are constantly trying to make sure everyone is getting the most they can out of the course. They give out assessments almost every week and try to talk to people who might be having trouble with certain topics. I've been the target of a couple of these. The only way you wouldn't be able to get help or assistance from the staff is if you went out of your way to avoid it. Even then, they'd notice and want to at least have a talk with you to make sure everything is going well.

When it came to presentation time, Hiring Day, and meeting with several companies I felt completely prepared. I know that I put in a lot of hard work myself, the course requires it, but the guidance and assistance I got whenever I asked was invaluable and something I know most, if not all, of the rest of my class can agree on. 

They are there for you even after the program is done and their alumni even comeback to give guest lectures on various topics trying to help more people succeed the way they did. Knowing now the attention and energy the school, alumni, and building staff, puts into the success of their students, I would HIGHLY recommend anyone who is even thinking about doing this program to go ahead and take the leap. I loved my experience here and want to keep that going wherever I go next.

I was a student in the San Francisco cohort and I made a big change leaving my job to come to SF. My experience was that if you were willing to put in the work, Galvanize would provide everything you need to come out of the program as an exceptional developer with multiple job offers. My overview of the program:

-Good teachers with excellent knowledge base who were supportive and fun to be around.

-Interesting projects and excercises, with exposure and opportunity to contribute to real world projects.

-Great campus - community, fun environment (always so much going on - constant exposure to start ups and active companies looking for developers).

-Professional introductions made by Galvanize to potential employers through Hiring Day.

For me the decision to attend Galvanize Full Stack was lifechanging. I feel like I completed the program and joined an ongoing community of support and opportunity. I couldn't be happier with my decision. 

 

I'm in the Full Stack Immersive Web Development Program at Galvanize San Francisco (http://www.galvanize.com/courses/full-stack/san-francisco/). Attending this school is one of the best decisions I have ever made.

I'm a woman, and let's just say I'm over forty and leave it at that. The point is, I am not the typical web developer demographic, so I was a bit aprehensive coming into the program. 

My experience has been better than I ever imagined. I have never looked forward to Monday mornings more in my life.

Our instructors explain concepts clearly and succinctly; they are tremendously encouraging to everyone, and if there is ever any issue (and with people working this hard, encountering so many new concepts every day, there are bound to be issues) they address them in a calm, caring manner.  

Did I mention I'm female, and over forty? Thought so. Yet, every day, I'm encouraged and treated as an intellectual equal by some of the smartest, most talented instructors I have ever had the good fortune to learn from.

I may be the person Tony mentioned below, that our lead instructor helped last night at 11:30pm. I certainly did get help as soon as I reached out, at that time last night, but I wouldn't be surprised if our instructor was helping other people at that time as well. He helped me solve my issue in 15 minutes; it was wonderful. 

Students are constantly working in informal groups and pairs; we are encouraged to help each other succeed. I feel like I'm making life long friends in this program.

I am so thankful I am in this program. I'm sorry it ever has to end.

 

 

I am a current student in the full-stack program and want to respond to the previous person’s post and share my experiences.

1. So what if the instructors are from GA? What matters is that they are professional, know the material, and teach it well. I understand it that Galvanize poached GA’s 2 top instructors and having been in many a classroom, I can tell you that they are very good.

2. The classroom is in no way competitive and there is no pack mentality other than the mentality that you have to bust your butt to be a developer. We constantly work together with our fellow classmates and actually like each enough as people to spend time outside the classroom together. We don’t pair program and anyone who pines for it at our current competence level only wants to mask his/her programing shortcomings behind his/her pair partner. No way does the course discourage anyone from not working with your classmates on labs and classwork, but it is ultimately up the individual to work through each assignment to best best learn it for his/herself.       

3. “If it was easy, then everyone would do it” 

    You are supposed to spend hours on HW, get stuck, look up documents, ask the instructors, and use your classmates as resources. However, learning web development is achievable and the instructors make themselves very available to help us. The lead instructor even responded to a student’s homework question on Slack at 11:30pm last night. They hold us to a very high standard, do not sugar coat how difficult the material is, and how much we would have to work sacrifice to learn it well. Some individuals would interpret this sort of tough love as a personal attack where it is meant to teach us self-reliance. To say that any of the instructors are the gatekeepers is a patiently absurd statement and whoever feels like that is just passing the buck when it comes to his/her education. I guarantee you that whoever feels like that is not still in the classroom with me at 10pm in an honest effort to finish the HW.  

4. End of rant. Galvanize is an excellent program, but you get what you put into it.

For both the people attending and looklng into programs like gSchool, I imagine the main thing that concerns them is the kinds of skills or training they will recieve to help them break into the software development field. I was no exception to this. I spent my days attending gSchool, obsessing over whether I was truly "getting it" and worrying myself sick about my potential ( or lack thereof ) as a developer. Yes, the class is intense and there is a lot of material to take in during your classes.

A situation like this can be stressful and can harbor frustration not just with yourself or other students but with the instructors as well. However, despite the situation or headspace you may find yourself in as a result of this struggle, let me be clear that you will find no better support, understanding, or patience like that of which I personally experienced in my time with our instructor.

That instructor essentially inherited a classroom of students who had lost their initial instructor a few weeks before, leaving them confused and concerned about the course ahead of them. Despite these concerns, from the moment of his arrival from GA he was hands-on, focused, and more than capable of guiding us through the next six months. Having taken the time to seek his help and/or setting down with him to talk, I was not only able to get my questions answered, but I was also able to take a step back during those stressful emotional moments and process my victories and failures with the guidance of someone who has experienced these same things themself.

Overall, the time I spent in SF at gSchool may of given me the skills and knowledge to go out and get a job that I actually love. But far more important is the fact that the instructors that led the 26 of us developers-in-training provided me with the feedback and re-enforcement that helped me completely change my life and grow not just as a developer but as a person as well. It was my experience that this was exactly what our instructors wanted for us every step of the way.

But, changing your life can be alot like becoming a developer. It takes patience, empathy, and the understanding that you dont know everything, you dont have everything figured out, and chances are you never will. It takes this mindset and approach to truly appreciate the entire experience, and if that's just not something you can come to terms with, you have no idea what you are missing.

 

Sometimes people have opinions and concerns, some other times people just try to find a venue to complain without solid foundation.

 

If you're thinking to join Galvanize to become a full stack web developer, you need to know that you just landed on the best bootcamp that San Francisco has to offer.

 

With websites like code academy or treehouse you can definitely teach yourself how to code but at Galvanize they put their heart in it.

 

The team of instructors is a very qualified and talented group of people who bends back and forth in order for us students to be happy and to be 100% comfortable in our learning process.

 

The lead instructor, as defined by someone else right before me, is not a starter at all. He has a Computer Science and Marketing degree with years of experience as instructor. I’m not involved in the instructors team but from my point of view it seems like he tries his best to make sure that everyone around him is happy and comfortable. It doesn’t really get better than that.

 

The other two instructors are as good, very motivated and very inspirational for us students.

 

It’s always silly when someone talks about years of experience in this industry because, if you really know what you’re talking about, you know that this is a constantly changing environment where all you know right now might not be useful anymore in few years.

 

Wake up people and start appreciating what you have because being in this program it’s a blessing, it’s a lifetime opportunity to completely change your future, but you’re still the one who has to do the most of the work.

 

If you’re expecting to be held hands for the all process, this might not be the right option for you.

 

But if you are you should definitely consider to apply, stop by and fall in love with the building.

 

The rest of the staff is awesome as well and everyday when walking in here it just feels like walking in your own home with your own family.

 

I will never be able to thank this team enough for their hard work and effort.

 

.MD

i'm in my late twenties and sit in my class and watch the lead instructors basically single out those  that are older and not like them (young, white , male) and hold them out to a different standard than they do me of the rest of us. The lead instructor is someone who should not be lead, there are two other instructors with real world expeirence under their belt and show the ability to patiently explain concepts in a calm way.They are able to explain the why behind the do ,having done it in real time. The lead instructor was a general assembly student, that became an instructor at GA and then came to Galvanzie which caused alot of us pause, since we specifically steered clear of GA for a reason. The lead instructor tends to try to push the pack mentatility and turn things unecessarily competitive and us against them. we were promised pair programming and as of yet, not once has it been done. having become aquainted with some of the previous class, this was not uncommon, and the general concencous was that the lead instructor was not emotionally mature enough to remove self from buisness and played gatekeeper(meaning if you weren't like him, you had no business doing this type of work and he was aimed at making sure you did not meet your goals set down by the school for their money back deal. ) and that does seem to be the case. there are different expectations put forth from talking with my fellow cohort depending on who you are and if the instructor likes you. 

The bright spots are: the environment of the school itself. it is a hive of networking and information. its vibrance is definitely inspiring.   The opportunities that present themselves for learning outside of the classroom with all the different events that occur on a daily basis. the support staff, take care of the students. they are like our guardians always making sure we get the best of leftovers from the events. making sure we're always included in networking events an dpulling strings to get us into industry events that otherwise would be to cost prohibitive.

Hey all,

You might already know me from my weekly blog on CourseReport, but if not, I am certainly glad to give a first-hand account of how gSchool helped me get to where I am now. I want to acknowledge that this was a great decision for me personally and I will talk very highly of this program but will also provide some feedback that I think could have been better. 

From start to finish gSchool has surpased my expectations. From the beginning, the interivew process was seemless. For me, most interview processes can be a little disjointed and confusing, but gSchool's process was very fluid and filled with communication. Once accepted into the school I was contacted by their admission staff and was walked through their payment process. Since it is such a sizable commitement, their staff was adamant to anwer questions you may have. That was a huge plus for me! I moved from DC to attend gSchool in Denver so I sent an email or two to some staff members to inquire about possible living locations and they offered to pick me up from the airport since I did not have a vehicle. 

Like their interivew process, the first couple of weeks was very open and visible. Insturctors keep you in the know about upcoming lectures, assesements, and schedules. This level of transperancy was paramount to me because I came from a company where transperancy was not a priority for their employees. Once I was settled in Denver and started school and was impressed by the support and curriculum made by the instructors. For the first couple of months the days were structured with exercises in the morning, lectures before and after lunch, and then code reviews in the afternoon. The expecation is about 20-30 additiaonal hours outside of class, which is definently the case. If you come into this program, be prepared to work hard and study. There are also several requirements that must be statisfied before you graduate. Along with weekly assessments, there is a personal project, and a class project that must be completed by the end of the program. If you still have questions about those assignments check out my blog. I got into more detail about the expectations of class there.

As we got closer to the end of school there was more of an emphasis on personal/exploratory time where students were allowed to explore other languages, front-end, and other challenges that would assist in the interivew prep for when job-hunting became a factor. I felt that is was harder for me to do because I enjoyed the structure of the program at the beginning and found it harder to focus when given more free time. This is the reason I rated curriculum the lowest out of all the rating categories. I rated instructors and job assistance the highest because no one does this better than gSchool. The insturctors are top notch and can assist students with any problem they might encounter. Also gSchool has a job guarantee which ensures students that they will get all their money back if they cannot find a job that pays more than 60K a year, who does that, right?! To help do this, the instructors work hard to bring in local employers into the office to recruit. For people like me, who are not looking to stay in the Denver area, the instructors helped us by reaching out to their personal network and vouching for you. Since our instructors are top notch, a vouch from them carries a lot of weight to employers and most always guantees a first and second round interview. 

I was truly lucky to attend this school. Along with the curriculum, gSchool also provided a lot of opportunities to grow socially as well. I came from another part of the states and left this school with about 30 new friends because of the events gSchool helped plan. I would recommend this school to anyone who wants to make a change to their career. For the first time in my life I bring a unique skill to the table and having these skills make me feel confident and secure when thinking about my future endeavors. I hope you enjoyed reading this and it gave you a unqiue look into my experience. For any more informaiton please take a look at the gSchool page and see the blog posts that I have written. 

We're now in the last couple of days of gSchool and I can honestly say it was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

The first three months were very intense and were mainly dedicated to lectures, workshops, exercises and pair programming.  We mainly learned ruby, javascript, html and css.  Most days had a similar schedule where we'd start with a warmup problem to challenge our brains, learn some new things or solidify techniques we had previously learned, next we would listen to a couple of lectures or presentations.  After lunch, we would normally pair up, work solo or in small groups on exercises that could take anywhere from one to eight days, depending on the project.

The last three months, we split our time between pairing on production code for real clients or working on our personal projects.  The personal projects were an opportunity to really stretch our minds and skills by introducing completely new technologies of our choosing.  You could chose to push your personal project as far as you want and had the help of the instructors if needed.  We also all worked individually on a required class project so that we would have a complete project implementing many technologies to show employers of our skills.

Outside of class, my cohort was very social and we had many events such as Soup Sunday, a fantasy football league (which I'm still determined to win), barbecues, a prom party, twice weekly fitness bootcamp led by another student and many other things.  I can honestly say that the people I met at gSchool will be not only my colleagues but also some of my best friends.

We also gathered once or twice a week to learn topics that weren't covered in class like computer science topics, algorithms, and code challenges.  This was first created to just prepare us for job interviews but turned out to be tons of fun and really pushed our knowledge and skills.

The instructors at gSchool are all top notch and were absolutely amazing.  I will say that gSchool is what you make of it.  I had an amazing time and think that I am fully prepared to go into any job situation and will be able to perform at a high level and learn quickly BUT with that being said, if I had just done the bare minumum and not taken the initiative to push myself, I don't think it would have been quite as good.

If you have the chance to go to gSchool, you should absolutely do it.  

This is their new "untested" python bootcamp  they say is designed for beginners with 0 coding experience. The instruction you get as someone who has no knowledge of coding coming in is brutal. The instructors don't actually explain anything. They just put code on a screen and say here it is. No explanation of logic or why things are the way they are. They just expect you to memorize everything you see on screen, if you ask what is going on they tell you to go look it up. Do not spend the 20 grand they are asking for this product. You are better off self learning because that's essentially what this is. 

I would recommend the data science immersive program to anyone driven and hard-working who wants to transition into data science. The network and resources are top quality, and you are surrounded by startups and companies all within the San Fransciso campus. 

The curriculum is challenging, and I would recommend anyone interested to brush up on statistics, probabilities, and modeling in order to get the most out of the program (Bayesian stats, common distributions, common machine learning algorithms, etc). I would even recommend finishing a free data science MOOC before starting the program and you will be well prepared for the material.