Galvanize

My time at Galvanize NYC had paid off almost exactly a year after starting my 6-month program. I was accepted into an apprenticeship program at a big company directly through my connections at Galvanize. It was a bumpy road, but I was able to go from knowing very little JavaScript, to learning enough tools to create full stack applications. Most importantly I learned the value of teaching myself and not being afraid to speak up and communicate. Ultimately Galvanize was able to provide a dynamic learning environemnt and prepare me for the world of web development and beyond. Career Services was able to give me the confidence to present myself and my skills in an interview setting. I left the program feeling that my curiosity, not my virtuosity, with coding was most valuable to me and potential employers.

Long review short: If Galvanize is still doing the 24-week length course, then chances are you will receive quality instruction with good instructors who care about their students. HOWEVER: If Galvanize has gone the way of Hack Reactor (which they acquired), then that means they've shortened it to a three-month program, to which I'd say "stay away" and shop around for another school. As a graduate of Galvanize AND a graduate of a 3-month program at the now-defunct CodeCraft, lemme tell you: 3 months isn't enough. I know because I entered CodeCraft with already 2 years of experience as a web developer, and to go from HTML basics to building full-stack apps with modern front-end frameworks in 3 months isn't enough. Even if they're only accepting people with previous web experience or a computer science degree and decide to make a 3-month program that starts with an intermediate understanding of JavaScript, I've heard they're still wanting to charge almost $20K for those three months, which is a total ripoff. I have no idea what Galvanize has in store for the future of their programs as far as length is concerned, so that's why I give those two scenarios. 

If you're wanting to get your feet wet into web development and need the structure of going to a classroom with other students and getting live instruction and help (which I did), then I recommend their 6-month program, with the proviso that they let you observe one of their classes for a day. And network like hell, early and often. 

I have decided to update my review on Galvanize due to having been out of the program for longer at this point.  Updated 11/1/2018

I'm a relatively recent graduate of the Galvanize Web-Development immersive program (coming up on six months since graduation) and I will tell you to absolutely stay away from the program right now, at least the Denver campus.

For starters, I would be extremely leery of any data you see from Galvanize on their job placement rates.  The last data the website shows is from 2017, and puts their job placement rate at 83%.  This might sound good, but bear in mind their job placement rate for 2015 & 2016 was 87%.  Assuming both those years were 87%, that would require a drop off of 12% in their placement rates to now have fallen to 83% average.  Even with those not terrible numbers, I would be highly skeptical.  As far as I know, from my cohort of 20 graduates, only 6 have solid paying full-time jobs, and of those six, one had the job lined up prior to graduation through a friend, and the other works for Galvanize.  Of the remaining four, all came into the course already having very strong coding backgrounds.

Their admissions process is a joke.  You solve a logic problem, submit "code" (which can be basically anything), and make a simple animation on a website that is designed for children.  The interview portion is hysterically easy.  Once the course actually starts it gets even more absurd.

Galvanize's whole idea now is that they aren't a traditional 'school' anymore.  They give you a bunch of various drills and projects you have to complete and throw you out there to go do them, with instructor help if need be.  There are no tests, no quizzes, no grades, no homework, essentially no real checks to make sure you actually understand anything.  While this might be ok for someone who already has a solid foundation in JS and coding, it's basically the equivalent of giving someone an essay written in a foreign language and telling them to go translate it when they don't speak a single word of the language.  Without the fundamentals, you may as well be trying to squeeze blood from a turnip.

This wouldn't be so bad if they were staffed well, but they aren't.  Instructor turn-over is so frequent it's almost comical.  During my time in the course, we lost around 5-6 different instructors, and we lost both the Faculty Director and our Lead Instructor (as far as I know, they were forced out).  On top of that, the vast majority of the instructors are people who just graduated from the course, and have never actually worked as Web or Software Devs.  So half (or more) of the instruction you receive is from people who only learned this stuff themselves a few months ago.  Hilariously, they'll also tell you all about what to expect at your first Dev job when they've never actually had a Dev job.

Because there are no exams or grades, it's pretty much impossible to fail the course (which is hilarious because they act like graduating from the course is some sort of amazing accomplishment).  If you can't figure out a coding drill, they'll eventually just walk you through it and then decide that you  "understand" it because you've seen it done one time.  If you tell them you have no idea what's going on and are falling behind (like I did nearly every day) they'll insist that you're doing fine and keep pushing you through.  Since there are no grades or tests or any real way of knowing how well you're doing, you take their word for it.  Then suddenly you're graduated and you realize how little you've actually learned.  To give just a few examples:

-During our last week, we had people who had not even started on the Back-end portion of the program, so the instructors just came over, hand-held them through the entire thing and basically did the work for them, and then declared them "complete" so they could graduate them on time.
-During my 'final interview', I don't think I answered a single technical question correctly.  They acted like it was no big deal and graduated me anyway.
-We would do 'coding challenges' in the morning, which were supposed to simulate Tech interviews.  I literally never solved a single one, but they didn't care and kept telling me not to worry about it.  Now post-graduation, I've tried example coding challenges, and I can't even do the most absolutely basic ones.  Six months of "teaching" by Galvanize, and I can't even get through the basics.

The course organization is atrocious.  Ideas start (like remedial training, advisor groups, etc.) and then either get tossed aside or end up getting altered constantly because there's little to no planning by the staff.  There's no syllabus and the curriculum seems to change like the wind; it's just sort of chaos.  Ideas are also just sort of chucked in at random.  We didn't get a "breakout" (a lecture) on the basics of how the internet works until halfway through the course.  We didn't even touch basic computer science concepts until about a week prior to graduation.

Finally, they are WAY too crowded.  There are 3 classrooms in the basement (the primary area for the Web Dev program), and there are so many people in the course that they've converted what was originally a break area into a classroom.  They call it an "open air classroom".  Please.

The only real positive I can say is that Career Services is actually very good.  They clearly care a lot, work hard, help you improve your resume, LinkedIn, cover letters, etc.  The problem is that without strong coding skills to back it up, a good deal of that is just window dressing.  Oh, and the coffee, snacks, and beer are good.

Before anyone thinks that I was just lazy and this review is sour grapes for not getting handed a job after graduation, I arrived every day about 2 hours early to work ahead, and stayed late every day to work some more.  I worked weekends and break weeks, sought help whenever I needed it, and anyone in the class will tell you how much effort I put in.  My reward?  We were told that the average Galvanize grad "applies to 55 jobs, gets 4 interviews, and accepts one".  I've applied to 150+ jobs, and I've gotten 2 coding challenges (which of course I couldn't make a dent in, since G-school taught me next to nothing), and 0 interviews.

 Apparently there will now be some big changes coming to the G-school curriculum following their acquisition of Hack Reactor.  Hopefully this fixes their issues, but they have a LOT of work to do if they want to prove they're worth your time and effort.  If nothing changes, stay far, far away from this program.  You'd be better off spending a few hundred bucks on Udemy courses and teaching yourself.

I am a graduate of Galvanize Phoenix in December 2017 and I recommend the course to anyone who wants to take the dive into web development. My goal was to graduate the course and to find a career within six months of graduation and I was able to do just that with the help of Galvanize, their wonderful staff, my classmates, and some of the professional working out of the building. 

Curriculum: This was not an easy course by any means. This course really requires your full attention to be successful and you have to have a drive to want to learn. The course is broken up into four quarters (front end, back end, react, and final project). While, there were some growing pains with the course as this was the first year that Galvanize Phoenix was open, it was a very collabrative environment and I felt they took our suggestions as students to heart and course corrected some issues. For quarters three and four, be prepared for a little less lecture from teachers as learning on your own is really stressed to prepare you for the future outside of Galvanize (that said, it's not that they don't teach these quarters, it's more that they allow you to teach yourself first before they clear up any misconceptions and problem areas).

Instructors: All the instructors seemed very knowledgable and were willing to help at just about any hour. While some of the teachers were getting their sea legs as teachers, they seemed to get better with time. With that, they all are very personable and I was able to generate a good relationship with all the instructors.

Job Assistance: Maria is the best. She is willing to help anyway she can to help you get a job, by helping you search, giving you leads, role playing, helping with your resume and so on. The job that I accepted was found on Galvanize's job board, so that tells you that they are able to get good leads for people that are looking to enter the field. Also, they have networking events and recruitors frequently coming to the building. Most of my interviews came directly from recruitment events or Galvanize's job board.

The reason why I'm so high on Galvanize is that they helped me achieve my goal in starting a career as a web developer.

Note: I have a bachelor's degree in a unrelated field.

I chose 4 out of 5 because 5 would mean perfect and there are just a couple of things I would change, or adapt. But for someone who has the drive, determination and aptitude to succeed, I would rate this program very high and I am very proud to have succeeded and to call myself part of the G-community! I can't imagine a more complete and intense program given in the time allotted. This course allows students to become aware of all the topics in data science and then drive home to focus on their individual interests.

I just graduated the Data Science Cohort in Boulder, CO.  It was awful.  I would never consider it if I were looking to pursue Data Science.  I feel like asking for my money back.

Curriculum - Nothing different, more insightful, or better than the free online courses through Harvard.  The instructors were not helpful, poorly explained the ideas and concepts, were not knowledgeable (having just graduated themselves from the program).

They run through everything too fast even for those with graduate degrees in stats and computer science.  We all finish and said "did we even learn anything".  Many students applied for the TA position so they can retake the class.  There is no real learning here.

Career help - don't expect anything.  Our career advisor quit (I hear the one in Denver did as well) so we had a couple of mediocre presentations and then were told good luck.  No follow up or any additional help.  

DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE...THIS IS A COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY!!!!

I’m still in the middle of my cohort at Galvanize SF. I have to say that the overall quality of the courses is great. The width and depth of the course materials match or even go beyond the industry standards. I’m also a big fan of how they design the courses so that there is a natural flow of the knowledge. They make sure you build a solid ground work, then more bricks, and eventually skyscraper (if you wish). The courses is very intense, but I love it as I’m work very hard on something I care about, with great guidance. Galvanize DS is perfect for someone who is passionate about being a real data scientist, and also with good basic knowledge of statistics and python.

I went through Galvanize's Web Development Immersive (formerly full stack immersive) program last year, graduating in mid-December. The first thing that I'll say about them is that the classroom environment was excellent. My instructors were intelligent, knowledgable, funny, and friendly, and I can confidently say that I learned a lot from the course. That said, Galvanize's stated end goal is to get it's graduates jobs, and in that endeavor they have failed pathetically.

When I applied for the program, one of the aspects that most interested me was the fact that the course culminates in "hiring day." I knew from friends who had been through gSchool previously that hiring day was an incredibly important event wherein a huge number of graduates found jobs immediately after graduating. 

About halfway through my cohort, our lead instructor made a comment about how Galvanize no longer does hiring day, and every student in the class looked at him with a baffled "what do you mean they don't do hiring day anymore" look. He informed us that career services had decided to replace hiring day with "Capstone Showcase," and nobody had bothered to tell us, despite the fact that we had all spent $20,000 on the promise of hiring day. It's worth noting that at that point, I went to galvanize.com and found that they were STILL advertising hiring day as a major component of the course. 

Once capstone showcase rolled around, it was painfully obvious that it was NOT a good replacement, and that career services had put little to no effort into organizing it. First of all: they combined my cohort with another one from a different campus, meaning that there were somewhere between 50 and 60 presenters in one day. In a not at all shocking turn of events, most employers who came to see the presentations left long before the day was over, because who the hell wants to sit through 50 presentations? This meant that my capstone presentation was done in front of a room full of fellow students, which isn't exactly the most productive way of going about trying to get a job. 

Speaking of employers, it's worth noting that there were almost none at the event, and there was only 1 person between the two cohorts who managed to get a job as a direct result of capstone showcase. To call it a miserable failure would be a massive understatement, and it's certainly worth mentioning that one of the people from career services was actually fired as the result.

We are now less than 2 weeks from the 6 month since graduation mark, and there are no jobs on my horizon. I've attended the "alumni anonymous" meetup that Galvanize holds for graduates looking for jobs, and it's nothing more than a couple of overpaid people endlessly editing resumes and giving you deep insights like "just keep applying!" 

All of this is to say that anyone reading this should not attend Galvanize. I learned a lot, sure, but I'm out an awful lot of money with nothing whatsoever to show for it, and have received little to no assistance from Galvanize post-graduation. I constantly regret not screenshotting the "hiring day" portion of their website when it was still posted, as I would absolutely be pursuing a lawsuit against them at this point if I had. Galvanize lied to me, promised things that they had no intention of delivering on, and has left me in the dust, endlessly applying to jobs that have no interest in hiring a bootcamp grad. 

Do not attend Galvanize. 

I finished my Galvanize DSI program during the first half of 2016.   Others have already commented extensive on the methodology they use to cram about 1 year's worth material into 3 months.   I will only say that I don't think this is a very effective or even efficient way of teaching/learning because it is difficult to retain anything when things go so fast (even though the intructors are generally good).   What I want to focus here is the post-graduation job hunt.  

More than 6 months after graduation, out of my cohort of about 20 students, 4 are still looking for work and 2 went back to their old job that is unrelated to data-science.   Galvanize still galantly touts their 91%  placement rate, which came from 2014-15 statistics.   I know they have the statistics for 2015-16, because they have surveyed me and everyone else.   I wonder why they are still using the old statistics.

I have noticed that my peers that are still looking for work tend to be younger or fresh out of college, whereas the ones who found jobs tend to have had some experience and even PhD, albeit in another STEM field.   The industry seems to prefer to hire those with experience, even if it was not in data science.  I think that is misguided, because my observation was that the younger classmates tended pick things up faster and are better at coding.  However, it is what it is, so I am just sharing this as a caution to those new college grads who see this as a quick stepping stone into a data science career.  You might be better off staying in college for another year if your tuition is < $16k.   You will probably learn things better at a more reasonable pace.

Before graduation day, the career staff showed us a list of employers who were scheduled to come and interview us.  This list included big names like Uber, Salesforce, Facebook, McKesson.  However, the only companies that actually showed were small start-ups that no one has ever heard of.   Still, some of us did get hired by these start-ups (including me).  My advice to those applying is to ask Galvanize specifically for a list of *all* the campanies where its graduates have found jobs (they surveyed us and so they have this info!).  Don't be satisifed by their cherry-picked list.   On the other hand, I have to say also that I am working in a start up that no one has ever heard of and I am very happy, so don't just focus on the sexy, big names. 

Finally, I have to say that I got great counseling from Michelle Lai on job hunting.   She went beyond the regular resume writing and interview skills.   She explained to me how stock options work in a start-up and how to negogiate for what I wanted.  Unfortunately, she literally left with a week or two of me finding a job.  I hope they have found a worthy replacement for her.

In summary, I am using the skills I learned at Galvanize every day as a data scientist in a start-up, so the program is legitimate.  A clear majority of my cahort did find jobs in data science, albeit it is nowhere near 91%.   At the end, I think Galvanize paints an overly rosy picture of the job prospects for their graduates. You not only have to possess (or learn) the right job-hunting skills, but you also need to have the right kind of experience that employers want.  I don't think their program is for everybody who qualifies for it.

I came into Galvanize with two years of work experience in biostatistics research under my belt, wanting to launch a career as a data scientist. I couldn't be happier with my choice! You need to be prepared to work hard each and every day, but the rewards are tremendous: I feel like I learned more in these three months than I would a year in college. There's a few main things I want to point out. 

First, not only will you learn a lot about data science, but you will learn how to learn, and how to learn at an accelerated rate. This means that afterwards, you will feel much more comfortable teaching yourself about a topic that you currently might not know anything about, which is an invaluable skill.

Second, people in the program come from a variety of backgrounds, which means that you can learn a lot not only from your instructors, but also from your classmates. So any area that you are weak in, it’s likely that someone else is stronger in, and you can use them as a resource. Likewise, you will have the opportunity to help others based on your strengths.

My final point is that Galvanize teaches you not only how to use data science algorithms, but how they work. So, what you learn is more than surface-deep, and this gives me great confidence going forward on my job search, since I’ll actually be able to explain the algorithms to potential employers.

I highly encourage anyone interested in pursuing a career in data science to apply!