I'm going to keep this review short, sweet, and to-the-point. Galvanize (Seattle) was an amazing experience for me, and, below, I've listed why.

1) The professors:

I cannot stress this enough. Galvanize Seattle has some of the best teaching instructors I've had in all my years of education. They have an uncanny ability to make complex mathematics easy to understand - an invaluable resource in any data science curriculum. Additionally, one look at their academic and industry background (Microsoft, Allstate, PhD, etc.), and you can be confident that they know what they're talking about.

Having great professors was particularly important for me because I had graduated college a year before taking this class with a degree in Entrepreneurship (yes, that's a degree!). So, as you can imagine, I didn't have a great deal of stats, programming, or math knowledge from college. Most of what I learned came from self-studying for 5 months before applying to Galvanize, and the rest came from taking the Data Science Immersive. I say all of this because, if the reader is in a similar situation, I want them to know that getting into the program and succeeding is beyond achievable - it will just take a healthy dose of effort and discipline, but you can do that! On the other hand, there were students with Masters and Ph.D.'s in my cohort, so the class is by no means all recent graduates. 

2) The community:

First, the data science community. This is one of the aspects I loved most about Galvanize. Most of the students were really there to learn as much as possible and were invested in the material. This is HUGE for a productive learning environment. In fact, we have a group chat that is still considerably active for a cohort who graduated 5 months ago. This may sound like it's not a big deal, but having a support network to ask data science questions to and share machine learning blog posts is a game changer. 

PRO TIP!!! After graduation, myself and a couple fellow graduates competed in a couple data science hackathons and won! This led to interviews and job offers for myself and others. In fact, I've heard that we started a movement and that subsequent cohorts have followed suit. So, no matter which bootcamp/school you choose, do hackathons!

Lastly, the Seattle Galvanize community itself is amazing. Between the community manager, career services team, events team, and receptionists, you'll never be more than 5 steps from having a great conversation with somebody. 

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Strong curriculum, knowledgeable and dedicated instructors, great career services. Daily problem solving mixed with theory and foundational skills. Knowing your stats, linear algebra, and Python going in will enhance your experience. 

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As a long-time math teacher, I really appreciate the amount of thought and organization put into curriculum design and feel that it really helped us all to learn a huge amount in a short period of time. 

The instructors are kind and brilliant, and the cohort was really on it. I looked at a lot of other boot camps, but was so pleasantly surprised to find just how strong and mature this program is. 

Highly recommend!!

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Galvanize was an incredible experience for me. The value of a 6-month in-person course is incredibly high in my opinion. Being help accountable for being there every day, 9-5, is a huge part of why I was successful in this journey. Also, being surrounded by a community of people who decided to take the same life leap as I did was also great. Immersing yourself in web-development everyday for 6 months is the best way to do it in my opinion. Not to mention you are also surrounded by resources and instructors that can help you get unstuck and teach along the way. 

The style of instruction is great. There is a guided "curriculum" you have to work through to fulfill graduation requirements. But this was pretty much self-paced. Instructors keep an eye on who is keeping up and who is falling behind and offer instruction to those a little further behind in the coursework. There are regularly scheduled "break-outs" on concepts that students are struggling with and students can request these breakouts as well. The instructors are incredibly smart, helpful, and connected. They have a passion for helping students grow and learn and you can see this in their dedication and attitude.  

The community feel and style of instruction is awesome at Galvanize. That being said, I believe they are moving away from this model in the recent deal with Hack Reactor. Having half (or more) of the course conducted online is a mistake in my opinion. Being there for 6 months straight and putting the rest of my life on hold was what made me successful. They also used to have open beer taps everyday after class which fostered a great community feel within the program, bringing together newer students, older students and employers within the building, but I think they have sadly moved away from this as well. It was a great experience for me, but I believe they are moving away from the system that I loved so much. :(

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For over five years, I was a very stereotypical struggling web developer. I worked brutally long hours every day, seven days a week, desperately trying to gain the skills and experience needed to take me to the next level in my career and help me get a job as a full stack web developer.

But despite my best efforts, I was stuck in this plateu that I couldn't get away from. I had heard about Galvanize, but kept telling myself that it was only for inexperienced or brand new developers, and something like that wouldn't add value for where I was. Eventually, I decided to shadow for a day to see what it was about. After sitting in one class, I was hooked.

Less than two weeks later, I started at Galvanize in April 2018. Nothing could've ever prepared me for the experience I embarked on. I learned more than I could've ever hoped for, as well as developed the closest, life-long friends and connections I have ever developed in my life.

Less than one month after graduating, I (along with two of my classmates and closest friends who had no prior programming experience) signed the offer letter to start at not just any development job, but my dream job. I am eternally grateful to everyone at Galvanize. And I couldn't possibly give it a higher recommendation. If you want to change course in life and take on web development, attending Galvanize is an absolute must.

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Intro:

I am a graduate from the Galvanize Denver (Platte) Web Development Immersive program. This program was life changing for me coming from Audio Engineering. We were led by Kyle Coberly for the first month of Galvanize and he inspired and set a good trajectory for our cohort.

Curriculum:

Our curriculum is different from the cohorts following us. My cohort, g90, had a drill-based grading system where you had to complete the drills at an acceptable level to be passed. The new Learn curriculum is slightly different. It seems to be designed with an approach that is a lot more problem based with projects thrown in between. Both designs do what I feel is intended. Which is to give you a broad spectrum of knowledge on development. I do, however, prefer the drill based system.

This program is designed in a way that encourages, if not demands, you to work with others. We had many groups in our cohort that would get together and study everyday. Our success and experience in the program was definitely tied to working together.

With that said this program will not teach you in depth concepts. You must search that out yourself. Which is not a bad thing. It teaches you how to learn, and how to find information on your own or collaborate with others to find a solution. In the real world that's what you are going to be doing. 

The Teachers/Staff:

The instructors in the program are very approachable. Every instructor has shaped me in some way and has gone out of their way to inspire me. They are driven and want to see you succeed. 

Career services is something Galvanize offers. We worked with Chris and he gave us an amazing tool set to work with. From networking, to marketing ourselves, and interview advice, this alone made Galvanize worth it. 

Closing:

This program was everything I wanted. I was able to work with many intelligent individuals in a fast paced environment. I learned how to better present myself to employers. As well as be inspired by the many friends I've made and the instructors and staff that surrounded me. This course definitely lived up to the expectation of an immersive program.

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Galvanize was an incredible way to learn the in's and out's of Web Development. The community at the schools helped me stay motivated throughout the immersive program, and there was never a lack of support. The material was thorough and I graduated from the program feeling not only prepared for work, but also for interviewing. Career services are there to help with interview prep, leads and resume crafting.

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I graduated from the Web Development Immersive at the Platte (Denver) Campus on October 5th, 2018. I am currently invterviewing for a React Developer position in downtown Denver.

The Web Development Immersive is a full-time, six-month educational program. With over 700 hours of coding, the Web Development Immersive teaches students how to create innovative, real-world applications using languages, frameworks, and computer science fundamentals.

The experience is very demanding and very rewarding. I learned many different technologies (Javascript, React, Vue, PostgreSQL, Express, Knex, Node). My capstone project was an IoT project that utilized a Raspberry Pi and an image processing library Tracking.js to count items in the refrigerator - technologies outside of the curriculum. I was prepared to take on these challenges thanks to the core of the Galvanize curriculum - learning to learn.

If you're ready for a career change - and you're ready to put in the work - this is the best coding bootcamp out there. I emphasize that this is a difficult program; it takes a lot of focus, self-motivation and grinding. If you're not 100% sure about this, I recommend waiting or finding something else.

I ultimately chose Galvanize over other bootcamps, because I felt that Galvanize's career services were worth the investment. Chris and Angela (Platte campus) are fantastic, and they have prepared me to find a job in the tech field. I am confident I will do well in my interview because of their tutelage.

I highly recommend Galvanize.

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My time at Galvanize was both fun, and very challenging. After completing the program, I received a job offer as a Software Developer at my top choice company within 3 weeks.

You can learn everything we learned at Galvanize in many other places, and you can even learn it on your own if you're dedicated enough. What you won't get anywhere else is the knowledge and help that a Career Services manager like Maria Montoya will bring. That knowledge, along with going to school in an tech start-up enviroment like Galvanize, will allow you to network and make connections that will make finding your first job much easier. If you continue to apply that knowledge while developing your programming skills, you'll always have a bright future in Software Development.

Maria builds relationships with hiring companies, giving us opportunities to meet/interview with them, which lead to several of us receiving job offers from those companies. While making your decision on which school to attend, make sure that school has a great Career Services program, along with networking opportunities, as they're the reason I'd still pick Galvanize Phoenix if I had to do it again. 

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I am a current student here in Denver and the product here sucks.  We've lost so many instructors to the point we are down to 6 instructors (for the last 15 weeks) for over 110 students.  At the worst point, we were down to 4 instructors when 2 of them took vacations.  Half of the instructors are resident instructors, which do not have enough experience to walk through coding questions without them asking for help themselves.  The queue for asking questions on coding blockers takes over 3 days to get a response. 

The lead instructors stopped requiring us to complete all the course work due to the majority of students falling behind, further robbing us of coding experience in other technologies. 

They have decreased our hours of operation because instructors are getting burned out due to being over-worked since there is a lack of instructors.  Many of the students across several cohorts are experiencing learning issues b/c there is a lack of teacher/student interaction. When asking for help we are told to figure it out ourselves in order to prepare ourselves for the working environment, even when we have been stuck on a project for almost 2 weeks.  It is a disgrace b/c this is supposed to be an educational environment and many of the students have been talking about walking out even when they are just 3 weeks into the course. The overall product here has been slowly deteriorating b/c Galvanize spent all their funding acquiring Hack Reactor, their biggest competitor, and can't afford to hire lead instructors from the development field.  Instead of being honest, the lead instructor and program director have lied to us several times about the untimely departure of all the instructors when they tell us they just found out about them leaving just days earlier.  Only to be secretly told through innuendos by resident instructors that they would be leaving 5 weeks earlier.

Not only can they not hire qualified instructors in a timely manner, they cannot resolve internal issues with course support programs, ie: advisory groups.  They just scrapped it b/c instructors could not communicate effectively with the others.  For $21,000, this course has definitely lost its value.  It seems that they have become like the majority of colleges around the country where all they care about is the almighty dollar from student tuition and not care about the quality of education and quality of coders graduating from the course. 

The only people I truly feel like they are doing their job is the career advisors.

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I studied in the 6-month Web Development intensive program at the SF Galvanize in 2017. Overall, I had a very positive experience. Here's the break down:

• I started with no programming experience except for what I crammed pre-course.
• There were 13 students at the beginning of the cohort and 10 of us graduated at the end.
• We studied Javascript across the stack (React on the front-end, Node/Express on the back-end).
• Our lead instructor had 20 years of experience in the industry. A serious JavaScript expert.
• Six weeks after graduation, I had a job as a full-stack developer in San Francisco.

More than any other reason, I chose to study at Galvanize because it was a 6-month program (with excellent student/teacher ratios) and I really felt like the 3 month programs wouldn't have given me enough exposure to get to a professional level as a developer.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. Galvanize helped me reach my goal exactly as promised. The only advice I'd give to prospective students is to ask yourself these two questions:

1. Are you ready to put your life on hold and dedicate yourself to studying full time for six months? Like most things, the more you put into it, the more you'll get out of it.
2. Why do you want to be a web developer? The salaries sound great, but if that's your only motivation, it won't keep you in the game.

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I rate my experience as a student and graduate of Galvanize WDI a 9 out of 10. I give Galvanize a 9 because I believed Galvanize did a great job in teaching me how to build a fullstack web app, unlocked the ability in me to learn and implement new technologies quickly, and strong career services support. Galvanize Web Development Immersive will teach you most of the basics in building a web app, including the front end and back end development. My only complaint in the curriculum was the lack of emphasis on CSS, which is really important in the real world. In the later portions, Galvanize also fostered an environment of self-learning, which is a really important skill required to make it in the real world. Galvanize also provided a strong career service department. They want you to succeed!! 

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Highly recommended if you already have some quantitative background and want to get your foot in the door. Career services are phenomenal, curriculum is mostly things you can learn online or through self-reading. Solid instructors. Make sure to take 1-2 months before the program to study, do pre-course, think about capstone, brush up on python and stats.

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Galvanize offers a great blend of talented instructors and chill co-working space to provide their students get the best of theory and true industrial practices in tech. They offer great pair programming exersises as a part of their Data Science currciculum which not only enables students to gain insights on different appoaches to problem solving, but also includes the gamification factor by learning to team up and tackle different parts of the same problem individually.

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I found Galvanize kind of randomly. I thought long and hard before attending the school. I feel lucky that not only that I found Galvanize but committed to go through the program. Learning to program was a butt kicker, but being surrounded by great teachers and people passionate about coding -- let alone the other companies that work out of galvanize -- got me through the program and got me in the professional world. I am much happier in this new career field.

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When I attended Galvanize at the Phoenix campus my experience was a rollercoaster of emotions in an awesome way of course because you are constantly being challenged and I loved that! Here are some of the top things I loved about my experience with Galvanize! First, the instructors are very knowledgeable and right away you can tell that they are passionate about their student's success and they will do anything from staying late to coming in during weekends to give their students extra help if needed. Second, the environment is very nice! I had access to tons of networking opportunities and most events provide food (lol). Third, I was able to gain many skills such as public speaking, networking, resume building, time-management, resourcefulness, branding, working under pressure and much more. Having a growth mindset is a big one at Galvanize and they helped me with. The career services manager will meet with you monthly to help you improve most of those skills, which is awesome. Fourth, I left with many long life supportive friends and with unforgettable memories.

I was amazed with how much I was able to learn in such a short amount of time.

Part of cohort g66,

Jessica Anais Duarte Cabrera

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The Galvanize Data Science Immersive Program (DSI) was a wonderful experience to go through. I loved the structure and the content of the program. I come from the standard university background before this and comparatively, the DSI program was where I learned the most given the time. The structure was very tailored to the student actually learning as opposed to getting a grade. There were a couple times where I did not do well on an assessment and the instructors were encouraging me to not to feel bad but learn from it. The content of the program was also well made. All the instructions for assignments are clearly written and explained. Additionally, the content is open to change which means the student learns not only fundamentals but also new technology and algorithms that are cutting edge. Overall, I loved the program!

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Prior to enrolling at Galvanize's NYC campus for their WDI immersive, I had done a fair amount of research into the various bootcamps. What mattered to me was the curriculum (was it up to date with what the NYC market demanded from developers). student to teacher ratio, and success rate in finding jobs post graduation. 

When I went on a tour of the campus, the first WDI cohort was already in session as the campus was brand new. I observed their class and felt comfortable with the environment. I also learned that they had hired a woman to lead the next cohort that began in late August 2017. That excited me the most as the other bootcamps in the city did not have any women on staff as teachers. 

As I went through the application process, it became clear to me that they were concerned with accepting students that understand foundational JavaScript and were eager to learn and learn quickly. I was accepted after 4 interviews and started on August 28th 2017. 

My experience in class was intense and challenging. The pace is extremely quick even for a 6 month course. We learned front-end development in the first quarter then went into server-side and backend development for the second quarter. The third quarter was focused on React.js and the fourth quarter we focused on interview skills, building our portfolios and finishing our capstone projects. 

The education I received was current and competitive in content. The career support I received from Arthur Chisholm was incredible. He dedicates himself to working with each student and making sure they are confident going into interviews.

When I was going through the interview process in the 4th quarter, Arthur and I had many 1:1s to go over interview questions and the ways to be a strong candidate. I ended up getting the job before I even graduated. My first day as a software developer at an advertising agency in Times Square was a week before my cohort officially graduated in February 2018. 

Now that I've been in my job for a little over a month and a half, I can say that all the principles of development that I learned in the WDI course helped me understand all that I've learned thus far in my job. It's beyond difficult and not for everyone but if you really devote yourself to furthering your education in software development then you should enroll in this course. 

Overall, I would recommend Galvanize. There are ups and downs to every bootcamp and it's ulitimately up to you on what is important and which bootcamp aligns most with what you want to get out of it. If you're going into a bootcamp thinking that you'll learn literally everything you need to know to become a software developer and have your hand held in the learning process, then it's not for you. You need to be self-sufficient to a point and not be afraid to ask for help when you need it. You get out of it what you put into it. 

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I'm not even sure where to begin with this review. Attending Galvanize changed my life and it was the best possible decision I could have made. 

A bit of background: I did have a fair amount of technical training, a B.S. in a STEM field (biology) and exposure to coding/computer science from an early age. That said I never considered majoring in CS in college and definitely did not code "for fun" as a kid or young adult. 

My more recent background had me working in a retail environment where I struggled to find a challenge. After a few years working the sales floor I moved into a marketing role where I managed social media, web presence, and advertising. This role reminded me that coding was something that I kind of enjoyed, and made me think about a career switch. Fast forward a few years, I got laid off and it was the right time for me to make the switch.  

All this to say that a) I had a fair amount of background in technical areas and b) I knew that this was what I wanted to do. I would say that a coding bootcamp is not for someone who is code-curious. You should have a good amount of coding experience (side projects, Udemy or treehouse or FreeCodeCamp or whatever classes, etc) and be sure that you enjoy it. 

The curriculum focused entirely on JavaScript, which I think was a good thing as it enabled us to learn front end, back end, functional programming, and the React framework, without having to relearn syntax. I did do my capstone project in iOS/Swift, which I think significantly impacted my job prospects after graduation, as I am on an iOS team now. 

In short, I loved my 6 months at Galvanize and I'm a bit sad that it's over, but I landed a dream job at a major corporation working on an iOS application with millions of daily users, making more money than I ever thought I would.

If you're sure you want to do it, and you know that you *can* do it (impostor syndrome aside, we ALL get that) - your investment will pay off. You will have to work your butt off before, during, and after - but I think it's worth it.  

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I went to Galvanize knowing nothing about code and now I'm entering hackathons with fellow classmates. 

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I originally started my bootcamp experience at Turing. It was a rough start and I liked it, but I struggled like hell. I refute any claims that you can walk in off the street and fly. This program is hard! Not in a bad way- I met some amazing people and found that I love this stuff. However I struggled in MOD 1 and ended up repeating it. I took the summer off for family reasons.  I then sought Galvanize to complete my journey, this time uninterrupted. I initially visited Gschool first, but didn't go. This time it all worked out. I had amazing support from teachers and staff. I got what I needed as a learner. No one said no, or was too busy. I had an incredible cohort as well. I feel like any program is as good or bad as you make it, however my experience at Galvanize changed my life and my career. I am expensively grateful. 

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I took a lot of time to do my due diligence when selecting a bootcamp.  I had to stay in Seattle and I knew an online bootcamp would not be ideal for my learning style, so my options were a little more limited.  I checked out every single one, in person.  Even after all of that work and effort, Galvanize only barely looked better than the rest.  Their campus was nicer and the people seemed great but they were the most expensive.

In the end, I have no regrets with my choice.  Galvanize was worth the extra money.  I feel like I learned things permanently and was able to apply my knowledge to real world applications.  My instructors were Wes and Roger.  I feel like I got lucky because getting two lead instructors is rare.  On top of that, both Wes's and Roger's teaching styles fit my learning style great.  I have 0 complaints about the instructors and feel that these two really put my experience above expectations. 

The curriculumn was a little clunky.  My cohort was the first of a new curriculumn, so there were a lot of bugs and errors.  The students were the ones that discovered a lot of these errors.  Additionally, the curriculumn was not standardized between writers.  This largely came into play near the end of the course, where the content suddenly became very dense and hard to absorb.  Despite these downsides, I still enjoyed the program.

The non-instructor personel were very friendly and helpful.  They frequently solicited feedback and I felt like they genuinely cared about the students.  It also seemed like they were always available for us. 

In the end, I got a great job and am very happy with my decision to go to Galvanize.

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I was a bit skeptical of the boot camp approach to learning to code, but having just graduated the Galvanize Seattle 6-moth Web Dev immersive, I couldn't be more pleased. The instructors (Wes, Roger, Scott & Charile) and the support staff at this campus are incredible. I could really tell that it was more than a job for them; they seem to be really invested in trying to make the course the best it possibly can be for the students. They are knowledgeable, approachable, willing to listen and go out of their way to help, and have real work experience. The material is thorough (I don't think we could have possibly jammed anything more in, but on the few occassions where any of us got a bit ahead, they had plenty of additional stretch exercises to keep us going). On my last day we tried to write all the topics we covered on a whiteboard and completely filled it (having likely missed a few things). The coursework was a mixture of online lessons (custom designed by the Galvanize staff), lectures, and lab time. It worked out to be a really nice mix. We used real world tools from day one to write and deploy our code and learned a lot from each other. We not only covered the essentials, but also practiced white-boarding (for job interviews) and delved into some of the computer science topics typically left to the university courses (Big-O, search trees, etc.). There's an additional emphasis placed on learning how to learn so that you are more comfortable picking up new topics beyond the scope of the course. So, for example, while we covered JavaScript thoroughly in class, along with frameworks such as BootStrap and React, I also had the opportunity to pick up some Swift on my own. Others in my cohort learned GraphQL, React Native, assembly (to write kernel code for a Raspberry Pi), and numerous other topics during their indepedent study time. A couple more details: Yes, there's a lot of work and you'll work hard, so be prepared for that (but know you'll have a really solid support network from both the teachers and your classmates). No, a job is neither promised nor guaranteed, but they do everything short of that: they help you tune your resume, learn ow to network, what to expect in an interview, bring in guest speakers, and pass along any job openings and connections they become aware of. I'll finish by repeating what I said at the beginning: the staff at a school will make or break your experience, and the Seattle Galvanize Web Dev tem is simply amazing. They made the experience for me.

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The workshop will cover the following topics:

• A High Level Introduction to Docker and its Current Use in the Industry.
• Executing Commands and Programs Inside of Docker Containers.
• Investigating Your Docker Workspace.
• Understanding Docker Images and Building Your Own.
• Running Docker Containers Using Docker Compose.
• Running Development Containers Using Docker Compose.
• Running Multiple Services During Development Using Docker Compose.
• Development Database Using Docker Compose

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