Epicodus

If you're someone who wants to get into web development but don't know how, Epicodus is the place to be. The transition from learning the materials, to internship, and transitioning into the web development world has been smooth! But due note, you get what you put into it too! If you're only here for a job and not putting effort with what you're learning, then you're going to have a tough time looking for jobs and learning the materials!  Employers will see that in your work/portfolio. Networking has been an important success for me. I met people who were in development during the course, volunteered to work on projects and etc..this helped strengthen my skills as an applicant for jobs.  I had a nice fancy portfolio to show with my proven skills - my current employer told me my application was on top of the stack! So don't forget to be driven and keep up with your skills no matter where you are. Even with my current job, I still code and keep up with other skills I don't practice at work. I'm just that driven! :)  I am happy with where I am now  compared to 6 months ago before Epicodus. I work close to home, great hours, have a nice and professional team! I am forever grateful to Michael and the Epicodus team! :) Thank you and I'd recommend this to anyone!

I went into Epicodus with about three years object oriented programming experience as a QA Test Engineer. My goal with Epicodus was to graduate from QA Engineer to Software Engineer, and given I just accepted a great offer with a local company, I'd say I was successful.

My take on Epicodus is that, for the current price of $3,400, it's a hell of a deal for those just starting out in programming. If you have more than a few years experience, this will likely be mostly review as it was for me. 

I found it to be a solid program with some great staff, but their curriculum has room for improvement. The job hunting help was very nice; getting a job, even with development experience, was definitely not easy, but it helped have a 'job coach' there helping me along the way.

Ignore most of these fake reviews. I attended Epicodus and it was the worst experience!!! They have no idea what they're doing, have no business "teaching" programming and don't really have many connections in the Portland community, which was obvious after today's announcement in class that they don't have enough internships for each student. Some things to consider before wasting money on Epicodus:

1) The owner, Michael Kaiser-Nyman, is a phony and somewhat of a scam artist. This is purely a business that takes advantage of people looking for a new career.

2) Teachers don't exist. Epicodus hires former students who don't seem to have any real world experience. And, it's 2 teachers for 60 students. 

3) So many students are unhappy with the course.

4) Epicodus uses pair programming, which means you learn nothing all day. How does one learn to program by spending half their days watching another novice try to code? For this reason, a number of people have already broken away from the class to do a self-study given the weakness of the cirriculum.

5) The cirriculum they provide is drafted by former students and is riddled with mistakes. Additionally, Michael is extremely arrogant and is incapable of constructive criticism from his students/customers. He can care less whether people learn anything or not. 

Overall, Epicodus merely provides a space to work (though not enough computers for each student) and charges $3500 for it. With no solid cirriculum, a lack of experienced teachers and inability to secure the internships (which is really the reason most people enrolled), this isn't really a "boot camp." And forget about Epicodus finding you a real job at the end. 

I moved across the country to attend Epicodus. Not because I was 100% sure it would be the stepping stone to a fruitful and fulfilling career, but because I had a feeling it would be a great place to grow and work on my programming chops. And it was. Epicodus isn't in the business of teaching you how to be the next "Rock Star" or "ninja," it's invested in creating a coding community of equality and kindness. There were a number of things that I especially appreciated about Epicodus and its team, including:

1. the emphasis on growth-mindset. You will never, and are not even able to know everything about programming. What's important is that you feed your curiosity and know that you're always capable of learning. To start learning with that mindset, and be surrounded by people who share it is incredibly encouraging.  2. the emphasis on kindness. In their code of conduct they point out that you will be working with people all day long, and should be able to handle that well. I'm an introvert, with a touch of social anxiety, but when I read about pair programming, I believed everything people said about learning more and learning quickly. Their call for people to at least try to be kind helped relinquish anxiety about being out of my comfort zone 40 hours a week.  3. the diversity. As a minority (an Asian woman), not being in a room full of homogeneous people and minds was important to me. Epicodus makes it a point to have a variety of students (in terms of coding backgrounds, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic backgrounds, race, and age) which makes for a welcoming and inclusive environment.  4. the team's responsiveness to feedback. In college, we would fill out end of the semester reviews about a class and its professor. At Epicodus, there was a survey every week about that week's curriculum and our teachers. Plus weekly one on one check-ins with the teachers. Epicodus is experiencing a lot of growth right now, and probably some growing pains, but I'm sure changes they make will be led by the relevant feedback provided by their students to better the program and grow right alongside 

Epicodus is not a sink or swim program. They don't expect you to have a background in coding. They do expect you to wake your brain up and put it to work! And along the way, they can help you actually understand how to be a coder, a student, a mentor, and a member of the tech community. 

I started in January 2015 with one (traditional style) intro class and one unix class under my belt, and no computer to do extra research or projects(I had to borrow one to do my preliminary work). I quit my job as a property manager and dove right in. (Due to the nature of my job at the time, this means I also lost my housing. That's right, I did epicodus as a homeless person. A very resourceful, couch-surfing, house-sitting homeless person) 

Epicodus has a seriously humble, pragmatic, well-spoken and politically conscious leader. Epicodus is truly queer and trans friendly and Michael is on the front lines of bringing and keeping women in tech. I am not a person of color, so I can't speak to the experience of folks that are, but basically, the code of conduct pretty much says that rude jerks will not be tolerated, (I am paraphrasing there...) and Michael means it. If you are feeling excluded or picked on, tell Michael and he will end it.

Pair programming daily is a part of the deal - and that can get really tedious really quickly. Not everybody matches up personality wise, BUT it also means you have an opportunity to see so many different points of view and work with all kinds of different ideas. (HINT: Always partner with someone new! It's very comforting to pair with folks you work well with, but you will learn more from the diversity of switching it up as often as possible.) Luckily, they also give you a break on Fridays to just focus on processing what you've learned all week.

They throw dozens of different technologies at you throughout the course... Scary right? Why don't they just teach you one language, like Javascript, in depth, so you can feel confident about knowing it well when you are done? The Answer - Because you would be completely useless in most tech companies.

The company I work for now, has no less than 20 different (and often changing) technologies that I touch every single day. If I was unable to adapt to the pace at which things change - I never would have gotten the job in the first place. I impressed my current boss during my internship by taking on a project they expected to be done in 2 weeks. I did it in 2 days. They extended my internship to give me a taste of a department I didn't have any experience in, and I had 4 projects to complete in 4 weeks. I did 3 of the 4 inside of 2 weeks, plus, 7 other side projects that happened to come up. My job offer was in by the end of the 3rd week. All because this program kept us hopping from project to project and tech to tech. I got used to being adaptable, thorough, focused, and communicative. Those skills, and a serious passion for programming, is all an employer needs from a junior developer. 

Finally, I appreciate that Epicodus really really wants you to get a job when you are done - and they do everything in their power to make it happen. They reach out to the community and they let folks know that the pipeline problem would be a thing of the past - if they hired folks out of bootcamps. (HINT: We actually have more relevant coding experience than folks coming out of PSU with CS degrees. Subjective, I know, but it was a senior dev I know that said it. That doesn't include folks who make it through the PSU internship program. We are not that far behind those folks either though.)

They make the internship thing happen for 60 people at a time. They host meetups. They bring in speakers from the community. They even brought me back as a speaker to talk about the internship process! They keep us engaged even after the program ends.

I recommend this program to all of my friends, and I will happily, personally speak to anyone interested the program. I am a fan, obviously, but if you have concerns, I will be perfectly honest about the struggle side of things. Nothing this good comes without a price, and mine was a few moments of mental and emotional exhaustion (which had a LOT to do with outside factors -which of course everyone has at some point and should reasonably prepare for) 

You can find me on linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/karvari- if you would like to chat about it.

Epicodus is one of the single best decisions I have ever made. My new career is more day-to-day enjoyable, more rewarding, the environment more relaxed, and yes, the pay is better, too. Meanwhile, I still regularly get together with my classmates, a remarkable network of friends. To understand just how wildly successful Epicodus is at what it does, there are a number of things you need to know, things that I personally found helped me.

Without their deferred payment option (pay $200 up front, the rest after the class is done), I simply could not have attended Epicodus. While the intellectual diversity of the class is something Epicodus intentionally aims for, it's the follow-through of things like deferred payment that actually make it possible for the school to cast a wider net and allow more people to attend. The pre-class work online gave me specific, actionable goals so that I would know I'd be ready for Epicodus. Before that, I'd been going it alone, having more trouble figuring out what to learn than actually learning it. 

Epicodus takes advantage of a "flipped classroom," where your homework is to watch a class lecture/introduction to new material, and your classwork is the actual coding, right there where you can check in with instructors and other classmates. Pair programming helps accelerate everyone's learning. On my very first day I paired with someone who understood the command line and took the time to teach me; I was soon passing that information along to others. Ideas and discoveries ripple through the class as the environment allows for an easy dialogue. And this is where the diversity of the class really adds something special, a magic that I can't very well describe here. Where else can a writer and an MBA pop over to ask the meeting planner and mechanic how they solved that code challenge? Growth mindset is something you'll hear about a LOT at Epicodus. Taking a cue from the growing body of research that talent is more of an illusion than we realize, Epicodus has the attitude right to help you fight through the frustration of tough days (which everyone will have when learning something new). The best part for me personally was that the instructors have taken this to heart; when they come to help you with a problem, they're not really concerned about getting you an answer for That Problem. Instead, they use the problem as an example to help you figure out HOW to figure things out. They are constantly adapting/evolving. You'll have weekly one-on-one check-ins with instructors, and they're actually listening. The Epicodus team is constantly revising the curriculum to improve the experience, so each new class benefits from the one before. Some of those changes can be immediate; our class began to have more two-day projects during our Rails unit due to my and others' feedback that we wanted to dig deeper into some of our projects. 

The internships offer direct, immediate experience as the final quarter of the class. (Mine led directly to my job!) Epicodus is constantly growing its web of connections within the Portland coding community, and this means they constantly have a number of partners who take interns, come to job fairs, speak at events, and co-host other events. There's a team dedicated to helping place students into both internships and, afterwards, help them on the job hunt. In an industry where job openings for senior developers are sitting unfilled because there simply aren't enough experienced people, Epicodus is helping companies figure out that they're going to have to grow their own...and providing a number of us a leg up as we step in and say, "We're new, but we're ready to learn." Quite simply, Epicodus was a remarkable, positive experience, and it set me up for my current success, and more.

I knew very little of the programming world before I attended Epicodus. In fact, I knew nothing at all. 
I was a poker dealer in Montana for 10 years and realized that my career path had no future. I have a child and I own a house so I needed something more secure for my family. I was soon scouring the internet for code schools that would be affordable and worth it to spend that much time away from home. I came across http://bookertrex.tumblr.com/ and I was convinced after reading her blog about her experience with Epicodus. Next thing I know I'm standing in front of 64 other kids that all shared the same goal... All I can say is that it's very difficult coming from no programming background. Difficult, but doable. Try hard to keep up with the day to day projects, absolutely do the homework every night and no matter how you feel or if things aren't making sense, just keep at it and it will click at some point. Stay positive and and have fun and you should have no troubles. Oh and sleep sometimes too. 

I will always consider my time at Epicodus to have been a key turning-point in my life. I drove alone in Winter across the country, from Baltimore, Maryland to Portland, Oregon, because Epicodus was one of the few schools who had a payment deferment program for students who couldn't afford to pay upfront, which I really needed in order to even be able to attend. I actually couldn't even afford the gas money to get there; I'm blessed to have generous friends who sponsored my trip on GoFundMe. Web development and art are two subjects I'd always been interested in, but also considered myself not good enough, or smart enough, or privileged enough to pursue 'seriously', and limited myself to just doing work with them as a hobby.

I worried constantly that I still would never be good enough, even after I was accepted and started the program at Epicodus. Thankfully, I was quickly overwhelmed by how welcoming and engaging Michael, the director, and the rest of the staff and teachers were. They took a very positive, progressive approach, and strongly discouraged any negative talk - including negative self-talk. I have PTSD, severe anxiety, and morbid depression, and I'm endlessly grateful for the positive, empathetic, and inclusive support that the educators at Epicodus provided to me. Sometimes the stress and anxiety would get overwhelming and trigger migraines, but the classes are set up in such a way that you can access everything online, and Michael and my teachers were very understanding and flexible in allowing me to work from home when I had especially challenging days.

The classwork and program itself was excellent. Michael takes great pains to listen to and respond to student feedback, and refine parts of the program to make them more effective. Everything for class is conducted online and organized into units that build on one another, and the materials include video lectures, video and text tutorials, and links to outside resources, which is especially great if you want to revisit certain things or get ill. Videos are also transcribed, which I especially appreciated. I'm hard of hearing and having a textual reference to refer to when I missed something was fantastic.

In the end, I of course didn't need to worry about whether I'd ever be good enough. Before I even finished the program, I had secured a job back home in Maryland, working as a web designer. I didn't even do the internship portion of the program at Epicodus - I just went straight to full-time, with-benefits work. I'm so grateful that Epicodus was able to give me the training, preparation, and above all, the self-confidence I needed to finally begin a career that I'm happy to go to everyday.

I got it into my head that I wanted to learn computer programming and so I set out to learn it on my own. This proved to be wildly difficult as I had next to no direction at all in what to learn or how to learn it. After quite a bit of time doing this, Epicodus showed up on my radar, and I am really happy that it did! The format of the class, learning by doing, was a huge attraction for me when deciding on which coding school to go to. The idea of learning day by day with a partner (pair programming) was also a really great sounding idea, and it turned out to be quite a lot of fun, too! 

You will mentally taxed learning the concepts and sometimes you will feel like you just don't get it, yet. Press on! Many of the concepts will become clearer and clearer to you as time goes on. You are not alone and there is nothing wrong with you. Reach out to the staff and your fellow students, and you will do just fine. A month will pass, and you will look back at previous projects, laughing to yourself that it seemed difficult at the time. That feels great! You will make friends and encourage each other through learning, the camaraderie of the students is a really awesome social experience :)

More than just learning how to program, Epicodus placed a very strong emphasis on landing your first job in the industry. After they place you in a five week internship as part of the curriculum, the awesome staff  also provide leads on companies wanting to hire new grads, job interview techniques, as well as info on the local tech communities. By taking advantage of these resources, I was able to quickly get hired at a really great company downtown with a great dev team. Highly recommended!

I attended Epicodus last summer. I had very little coding experience. The first day of class I felt completely overwhelmed with the amount of information. It is now a year after I began attending Epicodus and I have had a full time salary tech job for three months. Epicodus was a quick way to get the skills necessary to get a job as a developer. One difficult thing about it is the student to teacher ratio. When I attended I think there were 60 students and 2 instructors. This meant that you didn't get a lot of one on one time with instructors. However every day you pair with another student. Some days my partner was more advanced, some days less, some days we were about even. If you want to learn the skills you can learn a lot from other students in the program.

Working as a developer is a culture and I think it just takes some time to get used to the culture and decide if you want to be a part of it or not. As a developer you spend a ridiculous amount of time in front of a computer. My first exposure to this was with Epicodus where you are in front of the computer at least 7 hours a day 5 days a week. There are meetups every week, different languages and frameworks that people use and are involved with etc. I didn't start doing well in interviews until I became interested in coding and the whole culture. I have found that it is not really just a job. I think I would have had an easier time in Epicodus and my internship if I was already excited about and committed to being a part of the culture. So what I'm saying is that Epicodus is a great program. I learned a lot, but I would recommend studying how to make websites, write code etc. on your own for a while before attending.

Also, they will put in a lot of work to help you find a job. They worked with me for months after the course was over, making introductions, helping me set up interviews. I really appreciated that, and overall I thought it was a great program.

I had a great experience with Epicodus. I moved from out of town to attend the program and it provided a great environment for making new friends. The teachers were very helpful and always pushed students to ask meaningful questions. This formulation developed thought patterns that allowed us to grow as students from helpless to empowered. Cooperation and communication are core values of Epicodus, and the pair programming reinforces these fundamental programming skills. I can’t imagine diving into programming any other way than with a partner. Having a partner allows you to learn how to talk about programming and it also keeps you focused because you are accountable to your partner and less likely to goof off. Pairing with a different student each day diversifies your communication skills even more. These by products of pair programming were vital to the success of the program, and I wholeheartedly back Epicodus as a proponent of the method.

The space itself was very nice. Bright, high ceilings, everyone in one big room chattering about programming. It gave me energy to work everyday.

The program is also very focused on helping students get placed in internships with companies on the Portland area. They bring in a bunch of companies and you get to interview with a couple of them that you found interesting. After the internship phase ends, they continue support by helping you reach out to companies looking for jr devs.

Anyone looking to get into web development, this is the code school for you.  

I worked for 7 years as a meeting planner. I had a good job with good pay, but knew it wasn't the right fit for me in the long run. I knew I wanted to go back to school for awhile, but the thought of going to class for a few years and spending loads of money for some sort of new degree was in no way appealing. Fortunately I found the Epicodus program. No one talking at you from the front of the room (yay!) - instead you are living the life of a programmer from day one, which in itself is the biggest lesson one needs to learn when starting this line of work. The growth mindset that Epicodus helps preach has helped influence multiple aspects of my life and I am grateful to have been (and still am) surrounded by the support and positive/healthy attitude from everyone affiliated with the program. The class goes by fast and moves quickly through content, and it can be mentally and physically taxing. Knowing I was doing this for myself and my future definitely helped me through, and it helped develop a frame of mind that one needs on the job. You can only learn so much in 5 months, so being able to prove your ability and mentality to learn on the job is a huge aspect that I was able to take away from this experience.