| As someone who attended that program, the statistics are rosier than they're reporting. I have examined the employment claims, and know the program pretty well. I believe the 90% claim, historically, is close to valid. A fairer representation might have been 5 in 6 (83.3%), but it was pretty close to the mark. You can see where people in the early cohorts are working, and the success rate is very high. What has changed?
(1) Job market is more competitive. There are more "graduates" of "boot camp"s out there, as well as graduates of accredited degree programs. (2) Admissions standards have dropped. With more boot camps, there are more students attending boot camps everywhere. Galvanize used to admit half as many students. Correspondingly, less qualified applicants are attending boot camps than before. More than half the reason prior Galvanize graduates succeeded in obtaining data-scientific positions was because many of them were already very well qualified for many STEM jobs _before_ entering the program. (3) Hiring standards have tightened. With a body of data scientists out there, organizations don't need to hire newbies. Boot camps can augment your résumé, but can't substitute for lack of relevant experience. A data science bootcamp will have great difficulty in magically taking a person from 0 to a data scientist job offer in the absence of relevant experience. Many of the people I've seen struggle to obtain employment had thin résumés before entering the program or had weak interview skills. |