Here we are. One week after graduating from Galvanize / Hack Reactor and I have to say that I'm still in shock and awe as to what I just accomplished over the past three months (technically 7 months since I went through a prep course and a pre course prior to the boot camp). For those looking to have a big change in their lives with software engineering and / or data science and are curious about the pros and cons to each specific boot camp, I hope this review helps in your decision to look into Galvanize / HR. From the get-go, I knew I was in for a long and challenging road. I have absolutely no prior technical experience. My previous experience stems entirely from the arts, with music and film and a communications major from my college in 2012. Prior to late 2020, I had never written a line of code and I couldn't have even told you what a line of code would represent or how it worked. My first week of Hack Reactor was very tough to put it honestly. I considered dropping out the second day. I thought I would never be smart enough to learn this information. My self-doubt and 'imposter syndrome' was at an all-time high. It's also noteworthy to mention that I generally pick things up pretty quickly. Unfortunately I realized that coding was not one of these things. Through the current seniors (at the time, I was referred to as a junior), I was reminded and guided towards not giving up, not quitting and just pushing through. I was told that this feeling happens with practically everyone. Something that was actually later confirmed. I decided to stay in the boot camp and relentlessly study. Failure / dropping out wasn't an option. It's a reasonable assumption to think that I struggled as I went - this is true. While it felt like others were picking things up quicker than me, I used my hard work ethic to continue to do whatever I could to learn, absorb and grow, despite feeling like I wasn't learning quick enough. As time went on, I started to get into the flow of things and feel a bit more comfortable with the course. During the half-way mark about six weeks in, we had to take a gating assessment which allows us to move forward to the senior phase. I took the assessment and felt unsure about how I did. I found out that I passed and several days after, to my surprise, I found out I passed with flying colors. I started to get a little easier on myself with my self-doubt as I continued through the senior phase and towards graduation. **Don't let this gating assessment turn you away from HR. I've been told other boot camps have similar gating assessments as well, I think they're pretty common throughout the industry*** Along my journey, I realized numerous things that while I can't directly say whether or not other boot camps have this, I know that my experiences with them in Hack Reactor were some of the best of any schooling I've ever had (if not THE best). -The people - The group of people inside of my cohort were the most intelligent, humorous, kind, funny and well-rounded humans I've ever gotten to know. I was in awe every day jumping into our cohort and feeling the love and support and energy from this exceptional group of people. I don't think I could have (or would have wanted to) continue through the boot camp without this group. A group that I'm also proud to call friends. -The projects - I've been told some of the content that HR offers isn't offered anywhere else such as the SDC (systems design capstone), which is a project built entirely on the backend of a full-stack application, where you use databases, instances, load balancers, servers and much more to fully integrate the backend to a front-end website. I've also been told by further along HR alumni that this was the project that recruiters were the most interested in hearing about during interviews. -The community - I'm not sure exactly how this works at other bootcamps, but HR offers a wonderful opportunity for students who have recently graduated to stay another cycle of a future boot camp and be the "help desk" for current students, to assist them with questions and guide them towards their own coding discoveries (never directly giving them the answers). This is powerful for multiple reasons but a primary one being the continued growth and learning of recently alumni who may feel like they still have a lot to learn. -The goals - I attribute my success to this bullet point. HR is NOT just about your technical skills. It's much more than that. Generally they discuss the 'four pillars' including technical, social, hire-ability and self-management. As I mentioned that I have no technical background, what I do feel my strong points are include soft-skills with networking, hire-ability, self-management and social. This helped in my chance to actually shine in this course even though I wouldn't consider myself anywhere near my peers in the technical area. In summary, Hack Reactor of course may not be for everyone. Every boot camp I'm sure has something to offer everyone. But I can't say enough outstandingly wonderful and positive things about them. I'm sure I've left off a lot of information (even though I wrote a novel haha), but the gist is this - as I mentioned, I have no technical background. And to be honest, I still don't feel like the world's greatest engineer. I still have my self-doubts, I still have my imposter syndrome, I still wish aspects of what I code came to me easier, but the fact is, they don't and I've had to work twice as hard, if not 3 or 4 times as hard to have these concepts solidify for me vs others. But what's so incredible here is that if you're willing to work, work relentlessly and prove that you want it bad enough, you will succeed. Galvanize / HR saw this in me and after I applied, they offered me that position I mentioned above as a help desk staff, where I get the opportunity to continue to grow and sharpen my skills while helping educate students going through the program now. This proves their position that it's not all about the technical skills. Of course, those skills are important and I won't say I didn't work hard on them; I did and do every single day. But those skills are only half the battle into the workspace and into the interviews. Thus what I do offer is patience, fun energy and a desire to help students grow and learn in a fun yet challenging work environment, which is a sought after piece of the puzzle. YOU CAN DO THIS! LEARN FROM THE BEST AT GALVANIZE / HACK REACTOR :) | 