Epicodus

I have my degree in Marketing and worked in an office for a few years before deciding I wanted to move on and try something else. While going back to school, a friend of mine told me about her experience at a web development bootcamp. After a bit of research online, and a lot of support from my husband, I decided to apply to Epicodus (it had a more diverse curriculum and for a much better price than the other programs I found online). The choice between spending $50K and 3 years earning a second degree or attending a 4 month long bootcamp for a fraction of the price with skills I could use right away, was easy.

Prior to the program I had basic HTML and CSS skills and by the end I had a well rounded full stack familiarity. The program is challenging - 8 hours every day paired with a partner trying to figure out programming problems can be wearing - but the effort is definitely worth it. We had access to Michael and two instructors when we had questions. They do a great job of giving you the space and encouragement to solve things on your own, but guide you in the right direction when you really need help.

Michael and the instructors spent countless hours setting up internship opportunities for each Epicodus student. I got a three month long summer internship with a great company in downtown Portland when the program was complete. I am now working alongside my husband, a senior developer, on our own web development company as well as working on our first consumer web product. I would highly recommend Epicodus to anyone considering a career in programming.

Epicodus is a fantastic bootcamp. The cost is very competitive, and the quality of instruction is absolutely first rate. I joined the program in the spring of 2014, and got my first paying programming job 2 months after I graduated. It wasn't an easy walk in the park though. When I finished the program I spent most of my days developing a side project and most of my nights sending out applications until I finally landed that job. But Epicodus was right there by my side every step of the way even after graduation. As long as you're willing to put in the work the staff at Epicodus is willing to support you as best they can. They're just as invested in your success as you are.

I had a great experience at Epicodus in Portland. The instructors were top-notch and it cost less than most boot camps I’ve heard about. Folks pair pretty much every day, which I thought I’d find annoying, but I came to really appreciate the benefits of pairing—especially in interviews!

Within three months of graduating, I was a full time junior developer making 50% more than I made before I attended bootcamp. My educational background was in the liberal arts before I went to dev bootcamp, so I was starting pretty fresh with just one programming class in C# to call my name! I never coded outside of class (though I am sure I would have come out even stronger if I had--many did that), which some people worry about, I guess. I would say there can be an unstated peer pressure to do it, BUT the staff/instructors are REALLY good at trying to persuade folks not to learn and do it all outside the classroom. They wanted us to learn together. I took them at their word and rested my brain at night (after watching any brief homework videos)! I still dreamt in code! I was a slow mover, and I rarely drove when we paired, but I felt I learned more on days when I didn’t finish everything. I was perfectly fine with not being one of the fast ones who knew ALL THE THINGS!

Epicodus wasn't very selective when I joined (thank goodness!), but even so, only two people that I paired with were clearly weaker programmers, and we worked with new people just about every day for three months before our internships.

I was hired by a company that came to our job fair. So, my current success is really all about Epicodus, and I am so glad I did it. Changed my life! 10/10, would attend again!

Attending Epicodus is one of the best decisions I have ever made. Everything about the class perfectly prepares you for the working world. The learning environment emulates the workplace so well that transitioning to a job afterwards was effortless. The curriculum heavily focuses on programming concepts and learning how to learn that even if you are studying in Ruby on Rails (as I did) you can easily pick up another language to excel at whatever job comes your way post-Epicodus. Last, and certainly not least, are the people. Every member of the Epicodus team helps to create the perfect environment, built to challenge you on a personal level, as well as foster incredible connections with your classmates and the programming community as a whole. All of which will last long after the Epicodus class has ended. Anyone who is remotely interested in programming would greatly benefit from attending Epicodus. 

As a seasoned product manager and marketing business owner, I always wondered what it would be like to program every day and improve my skills in web development. I took the opportunity and time to invest in myself during Summer 14, and chose to come to Portland and Epicodus after comparing them to SF Bay Area alternatives.

Epicodus was less established than some well-known programs in the Bay Area, but offered both a longer 4 month and more “sane” program, with a 9-5 type schedule and an amazingly affordable price. After speaking with MIchael in a phone screen and reviewing their program online, it seemed like the best choice for me.

The experience was amazing, in that I paired with a variety of fun and diverse people from all kinds of backgrounds. I had some programming experience, but learned much more about Ruby, RAILS, TDD, and Javascript. Because of the flexibility and gradual buildup of the curriculum, people could move at their own pace and choose to pair with different or the same people who were at the same place in the curriculum, while being helped by a talented teaching staff.

The “discovery” learning approach that Epicodus uses puts the emphasis on learning by trial and error, driven by your own motivation rather than lots of time listening to someone talk at you about programming. This is very similar to working in the real world, you have to just jump in and do it, and build your problem solving and debugging skills. I think that this approach allows them to successfully mix students with very different backgrounds and skill levels.

For students who prefer a lecture type format, with everyone at the same experience level or lots of continuous instructor interaction I would not recommend Epicodus. It will also not be a good choice for those who like lots of structure and metrics in their learning as with the academic computer classes.

Things I would have liked more of in the curriculum: algorithms and data structures, design patterns and refactoring, and optimizing code for performance and maintainability. But that is too much to ask from a 4 month curriculum, better for a boot camp level II.

I was impressed by how fast many students new to programming were able to pick it up and produce working code, and learn the skills of collaboration, pair programming, daily standups, interviewing, and eventually got job placement.

The office is convenient to the excellent public transportation and bike-friendly streets here, and there are some great food carts all around the office for lunch. Each student shared a stand-up desk (which I really miss), and the office is close to the riverfront for lunchtime walking.

It also turned out that we really like Portland. We moved our consulting company here, and  I am now working in a senior role at a small company, and we have hired a total of 4 Epicodus graduates who are actively developing both front-end and back-end code for our e-commerce company.  

The many tech resources in Portland include frequent meetups, lots of tech startups, and a growing number of large tech companies who are opening offices here. Leading tech companies like Tilde (Ember JS), New Relic, Intel, Salesforce, and Nike all have offices here. At Epicodus we had weekly lunch presentations from several of these companies, and job “fairs” to help graduates make the employment connection as interns and later as junior programmers.

The thing about programming is that getting good at it requires daily practice and time, and I think that the 4 month program gives you more time to develop skills and apply the concepts to small projects. Many of the other programs are much shorter, and only focus on one language like Javascript.

None of the bootcamps will make you an experienced developer, that is up to you to build skills every day. I do believe that bootcamps are more effective than many of the academic programming courses that I have taken in building real-world programming skills, especially using some of the newer technologies and approaches like pair programming, agile development,  javascript frameworks and TDD.

I would highly recommend Epicodus.

I was interested in coding for a while and started teaching myself, but wasn’t making very good progress until I came across Epicodus.  Two of the factors that helped me decide to take the plunge and enroll were price and location.  I can easily say that this was the best decision I have ever made.  Last year I gambled, left my job and moved to Portland in the hopes of becoming a developer.  Epicodus took what I was teaching myself and pushed it into overdrive.  

What is the secret recipe?

1 - Start with one amazing instructor

2 - Sprinkle in former students with great knowledge and experience in the program

3 - Add an excellent curriculum and 

4 - Supplement with eager students that come from different walks of life with the common goal of becoming a developer

Michael Kaiser-Nyman is extremely talented and invested in ensuring that everyone has a great experience at Epicodus.  He truly cares for everyone’s mental as well as emotional state when going through this bootcamp.  There is a genuine sense of family when you are at Epicodus and that is sparked by Michael’s leadership and values.  It’s not just about learning it is also about becoming a better person.  Michael tirelessly worked to make connections for every student in the Portland tech scene.  Michael set up internships at Portland tech firms which led to employment for many students and scheduled weekly talks from industry professionals and former students.  Michael also always kept students in the loop about meetups and encouraged our participation.  All of this immerses you in the field so much more than just learning the concepts on their own.  

One of the strengths of Epicodus and a testament to this idea of family is that Michael has employed former students as teachers in the program to assist him in explaining concepts and also as a constant visual reminder that - yes it is possible.  The team assisting him is approachable and are a TREMENDOUS help in navigating the daily waters of learning at Epicodus. They had a knack for guiding us all towards the answer we were looking for without just telling us so that we could work through the issues and understand better.  The feeling of accomplishment when reaching the solution to a difficult problem was great. High fives around the room once a difficult problem was solved were not uncommon!  The idea is that, to be a programmer, you have to think like a programmer and the only way to get there is to fight through the tough problems and come up with a solution on your own as much as possible.  This I feel is one of the things that prepares Epicodus students so well for success in the real world.

The curriculum is great. It was accessible for someone like me who had never programmed in their life before coming to Epicodus, but was also challenging enough for other students who came to Epicodus with experience in programming. The curriculum always starts with the basics and then takes this concepts and continues to build upon what you learned the day before.  We covered many topics and were given great challenges to learn a concept.  We were always taught how to create something from the ground up so that there is a firm understanding of how and why something works.  There is a strong emphasis on testing and writing clean, DRY code.

Pair Programming is central to the experience at Epicodus and was a huge help to me.  At the start of the day we would select a pair who we would program with for the whole day and we were encouraged to select a different pair as much as possible.  This is great because by working with someone new everyday, you get to see different perspectives, work on skills together and push each other to places you probably would not have gone on your own.  It also places a great focus on the value of communication with your pair which helps you learn so much quicker.  There would be days where I was stuck and would learn from my pair, there were days where my pair was stuck and by virtue of explaining my thought process and talking about a solution I got a better understanding of the concept too.  Finally, there were many days where both of us would be stuck and we would fight through the problem together.  I cannot fully express how valuable pairing was and how much it helped me learn in such a short period of time.  It was great!

I am very happy I took the gamble and enrolled at Epicodus.  Without Michael and his team, I could have never jumped into the career I wanted and changed my life.  Epicodus not only gave me the knowledge base but also helped created connections and helped me to start thinking like a developer which all contributed to me currently being employed as a software engineer.  I highly recommend Epicodus.  It was an amazing experience!

Epicodus is inexpensive without compromising on value. The class size is one of the largest of many bootcamps I sampled. Honestly though, this was not an issue when you consider that you learn by grappling with programming concepts in pairs and have 3 instructors available to guide and point you in the right direction. 

The location of the bootcamp was right in the center of the city. Its close to several well know tech companies and a good number of technology meetups. The technology community here in the city was amazing, take a peek here - http://calagator.org.

I didn't have or need a car while I was in Portland. The city has really good public transportation and its cheap.

I am a graduate of the Epicodus Spring ’14 class, and I can honestly it changed my life. I was working as a business analyst (translation, spreadsheets all day every day) and found myself itching to get into more of a development role. I knew some SQL from my data analysis experience and I had taken a semester of C++ in college so I knew how much I was drawn to the beautiful logic of coding, but I really felt like a kid playing in the sandbox when it came to writing usable, efficient code and never dreamed I could actually gain the skills necessary to be a real live software developer. Going back and getting a second bachelor’s degree in Computer Science was out of the question because I didn’t want to spend 4 years and tens of thousands of dollars. I looked at self-directed resources online, but none of them seemed to have the real hands-on training necessary to actually land a job and it required more self-discipline than I knew I was capable of. 

Then I found Epicodus. After only 4 months and only $3400 in tuition (much less than CS degree programs and even other code schools), I went from barely knowing any code to being employed as a contributing member of a software development team as an intern (I was later promoted to a full-fledged developer). 

How did I learn everything I needed to know in 4 months? Well the answer really is, I didn’t. Four months was enough to get a grasp of Ruby, Rails and JavaScript, but by no means was I an expert in any of those by the end. What I really took away, was the ability to figure out anything I came across that I didn’t know.  If we didn’t know how to do something, or couldn’t figure out why something, we spent 20 minutes googling, or reading documentation, or asking our peers before any instructor swooped in to give us the answer. If I had been trying to learn on my own, those moments of frustration could easily have turned into giving up. But because I had the support of 59 other people in the same position as me, learning with me, I pushed through those moments of frustration and got to experience the moments of elation when you figure out what you had been missing.

In addition to having the support of classmates, the instructor support at Epicodus is amazing. Not only was I supported throughout the course while I learned, but once it was over, I knew they had my back in finding a job. I was lucky enough to be hired by the same company where I was placed for my Epicodus internship, but I know they did everything possible to make sure all of my classmates found positions as well. 

Ultimately, because I chose to attend Epicodus, I am now in a career that is immensely gratifying and intellectually stimulating and I would recommend it to anyone looking to get into software development. 

Epicodus is a wonderful program at an incredible price. Immediately after graduating I received multiple interviews at established companies and have already received two job offers. Your mileage may vary, but this seems like a pretty common outcome for Epicodus grads.

Michael has done a great job of designing a curriculum that emphasizes best practices and technology used by actual software development companies. Anyone can learn how to hack around with a programming language or two. Epicodus, through behavior-driven development and pair-programming, teaches you how to solve problems using best practices as part of a team. That's invaluable.

I can't stress enough how much of a bargain this program is. Michael, Maureen, Dustin, and the rest of the staff are all doing an amazing job. Highly recommend.