Hey Pedro,

So I am officially done with gSchool, and graduated about two months ago. Now I am on the job hunt.

gSchool (now going by just the parent company name, Galvanize) was an experience I would not have missed out on if I had to do it again.

In six months, I learned more than I definitely could have on my own. I am pretty amazed with my own ability and skills coming out of the program, and what I can create now. Now that I am on the hunt for a job, I am definitely gaining traction and feel like it is only a matter of time before I land one.

That being said, the program is not perfect. As only the 2nd cohort in SF, and one of the first cohorts learning newer curriculum ( more JS and Node, less Ruby ), we definitely ran in to pacing and instruction issues.

Pacing in that when students got behind, either from personal issues preventing them from keeping up or inability to grasp a concept, it was difficult for them to get caught up. The program moves so fast, and if you get lost early or miss out on critical foundations, there’s not much time to back to it because you’re constantly learning new stuff.

Instruction issues came from our lead instructor being spread too thin. Towards the 2nd half of the program, he was barely giving lectures, instead dealing with admin issues and writing curriculum for future cohorts. He was probably one of the senior most instructors in the Galvanize family, and ended up leaving when our cohort graduated.

Because of time management and the lead instructor having too much on his plate, I definitely think our cohort suffered a little. Some things that were promised to us never really got fulfilled. We did not get to work on a “company project”, a real world project contracted to the program. We didn’t learn any ReactJS. And we didn’t get a lot of traditional computer science education.

That being said, the instruction that we did have was of the highest quality. I also believe that Galvanize learned from their mistakes, and have hired a ton of new and quality instructors, at least in San Francisco.

Overall, my experience was very positive.

The thing about Galvanize, or any coding school, is that ultimately you are going to get out of it what you put in. You also have to know before you go in that you enjoy writing code and problem solving. If you are wanting to get into the field because of the promise of a high paying job or job security, you may struggle. If you want to go to a bootcamp because you genuinely enjoy sitting at a computer for hours, creating cool things or searching for answers, than you probably will do well. Galvanize will teach you the skills, but you have to have the passion for it.

One word of caution I would give to you is that the program in Seattle is probably brand new… which means there are likely a lot of kinks that need to get ironed out. We definitely experienced this as only the 2nd cohort in SF, and I heard the cohort before us had even more problems.

But Galvanize is super unique in respects to a lot of other bootcamps. The environment you are learning in, the coworking space of startups and larger companies, combined with the many many events hosted by Galvanize, really does offer unique networking opportunities. I’ve interviewed with several companies located in the Galvanize SF building, and have made some valuable contacts as well.

Sorry if that was a little long. The tl;dr is:

Galvanize(SF) is a great experience and, to me, was worth the money. It offers unique opportunities that other programs cannot match. You definitely need to be sure that web development is what you want to do, however, because six months is a long and tiring (and expensive) commitment. You will get burned out. But you will also learn a ton and have real potential to land a job as a developer.

My experience is based on Galvanize in San Francisco, and your experience may differ being in Seattle.

What was your experience like? I am considering enrolling at Galvanize in Seattle

Full disclosure, I just got accepted to gSchool’s SF cohort for April 2015, but I do not have any hands on experience with their curriculum yet.

That being said, I did several months of research before selecting what I thought would be the best program for me. I chose gSchool over the many options in the Bay Area because there were some things gSchool offered that other schools did not. The big ones, for me, was the amount of scholarship money they awarded relative to the cost of the class. They offer up to $5000 off the $21k initial price, which was way more than any of the other schools I talked to (two of the more popular schools in the Bay offer a max $500 off their $17k ish tuition).

In their open house I went to, gSchool stated their commitment to creating more diversity in the industry. As a Latino US Army vet, born and raised in SF but seeing some of the diversity leave the city, their mission was important to me.

What also attracted me to gSchool over other options was the ecosystem they are creating. I am pretty sure that all of their classes are in buildings that are owned by the company, and also house a large number of tech companies of various sizes. I think Galvanize is an incubator and venture capital company, as well as educators. As you go to school you are constantly surrounded by networking opportunities with tech companies that work in the same space as you. For example, I know IBM has some office space at the SF campus, and I think they have even hired gSchool bootcamp grads.

I feel these connections, at your finger tips for six months, would greatly increase chances of getting hired. When I complete the program in six months, I’ll come back and update this post with my findings.

gSchool’s first twelve weeks are similar to other coding boot camps. The second twelve weeks are about learning to collaborate on a team project, i.e., to close the “junior programmer gap” in which new hires need 3-4 months to get up to speed at a new job.

How much discount? Do you have any additional information to add to your school description? Maybe a better introduction? Please email it to me to info AT bootcamps.in

Hardware sales is hardly a booming business, hah.

Students who are coming in with an acceptable Apple laptop (>4gb ram, <1 year old) have had their tuition discounted.

would you like to submit your school’s info? Click “Add new boot camp” at the top of this page. Thanks!

Perhaps the question could be directed to gschool’s founder? Well at Polycademy you won’t get a laptop, but instead get to use a shiny new all in one! (That is if you join this year)