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Epicodus is closed
This school is now closed. Although Epicodus is no longer accepting students or running its program, you can still see historical information and Epicodus alumni reviews on the school page.
Epicodus is a coding bootcamp offering part- and full-time courses online and in Portland, Oregon. Students learn everything they need to know to get a job as a web developer by learning JavaScript, C#, .NET, and React. More important than any particular skill, cohorts are taught how to think like a programmer, write good code, and pick up new languages and technologies in this fast-changing industry. Epicodus focuses on collaboration and inclusivity. Students work together in pairs and teams almost every day, and a diversity, equity, and inclusion approach is a core part of the program design.
Epicodus's courses also include job search preparation for students. Career advisors meet one-on-one with every student to review resumes and cover letters, practice interviewing, and even go over job applications in class. After completing the coursework, students are placed in hand-selected internships with tech companies at no extra cost, allowing them to begin their job search with coding experience already on their resumes.
I took and graduated from the August 2015 PHP cohort. Before enrolling into the class, I had zero professional programming experience, although I had done a little bit of learning on my own thru Treehouse (teamtreehouse.com, a paid site where you can watch videos on the programming languages you want to learn. Ironically, Epicodus gave free treehouse subscriptions to students which I didn't need or use at the time, but I wish I had now that I am not a student). This is not a review of just...
I took and graduated from the August 2015 PHP cohort. Before enrolling into the class, I had zero professional programming experience, although I had done a little bit of learning on my own thru Treehouse (teamtreehouse.com, a paid site where you can watch videos on the programming languages you want to learn. Ironically, Epicodus gave free treehouse subscriptions to students which I didn't need or use at the time, but I wish I had now that I am not a student). This is not a review of just trying to bash Epicodus or the opposite of saying how awesome they are. I am going to give my entire experience, a lot of it will be good and some of it not so good.
I heard about Epicodus thru someone I had met at a CodeOregon meetup group. I had expressed interest in going to a programming bootcamp and someone at my table told me that she had done a lot of research over the past few months and handed it to me. Being the beneficary of her research, and with Epicodus being the cheapest and connecting students with an internship at the end, I felt this school was the one for me.
When I contacted them, I was excited to find out that they offered a Java/Android class, as I really wanted to make apps. But later, that excitement turned into discouragement because, being a male, I was excluded from that opportunity because they only let women take that class (I don't believe that is the case now, so don't worry Android enthusiasts!!). On a side note, while I think it was a good intention what they were trying to do, make women not feel intimidated to code, but I wish they would have done it when they grew the class out so that men still had a co-ed class to take when women could take the women only class (anyway, end rant). Also, the Ruby class was full (I was told it filled up fast the last few cohorts), so my only option if I were to goto Epicodus was to take the PHP track (I believe they now offer a c# class, but that wasn't availabe in August 2015).
So they gave me a coding challenge, which was super simple. I literally did the javascript part of it (ping-pong challenge) on my phone while watching tv one night and the css part the next day on my computer. Not that I knew that much about javascript or css, but it was really, really simple. I read below other reviews and find out that Epicodus had a problem with people turning in the coding challenge and still not understanding anything about programming, maybe this is the reason why? It was too simple? Other code schools had much harder coding challengess. But I believe this is an extension of what Epicodus is trying to do. They are trying to make programming as non-intimadating to people as possible so that all who are interested can succeed.
I remember turning in my code challenge and couldn't wait to hear back if I were accepted or not. I kept bothering Audrey, one of Epicodus' employees, if she heard any word back on my acceptance. She probably was sick of hearing from me!! But she was very professional. Looking back now, maybe they accept everybody and make it seem like you have to be approved. I don't know if that is the case or not, but the PHP class didn't quite fill up so maybe they did?
When class finally came, the experience was positive, but it took a lot of learning and it wasn't easy. Programming isn't easy. Well it is easy in the sense that I believe anyone who wants to do it can learn it, but it is tough in the sense having to think like a computer, constant problem solving, and dealing with the frustration when you don't understand why your program isn't running the way it should be. Our class size was almost 60 (I don't think the PHP class acutally completely filled up to 60 but I am not exactly sure), and we had 2 instructors. One of the instructors had a lot of experience in the industry and the other was literally a student from the last PHP cohort. The lack of experience of the other teacher and some of the negativity of some of the students from the ruby class who I talked to made me a little scared in the beginning. But for what I needed the teachers for, which was the motivation to learn and for help when I am stuck, both teachers did great.
While both teachers helped everybody during class time, each teacher got half the class to mentor and talk to individually. Every week, they would sit everybody down individually and privately and ask how things are going. I remember explaining my nervousness every single week of being able to find a jr dev job after the process was over because I heard so much about how the market is flooded with jr devs and it appeared online that most jr dev jobs were asking for 2 years experience. My teacher told me not to worry and that almost all of the students that make it thru to completion end up finding jobs. Although, looking back, I don't know how much I trust their statistic on their website of how many students found jobs after class. I am not saying I know for a fact it is wrong, but I say this because while the three August 2015 cohorts were still in their internship, they updated that stat to include all of us as finding jobs when almost none of us found jobs yet. I wonder how they are coming up with that data when they did that and then after the process was over they didn't even talk to all of us? Please don't misread me, I am not saying they are lying, but I do have doubts about it.
Every week they had a guest speaker come and talk during lunch to whoever wanted to come. I never went to any of the guest speakers because my brain was feeling overloaded doing programming 40 hours a week plus some homework that I wanted a break during lunch hour. Also it didn't help that the speakers always spoke in the ruby class. While everyone is in the same building now, the ruby class was a few blocks down from the php class.
During morning standups, they talked about what that day was going to look like and how the preceeding day went. They also talked about meetups going on in the area, who went to what, what experience they had there, and what meetups were coming up. I feel Epicodus did a great job of giving everybody the opporunity, even to the point of strongly encouraging people, to get connected with the local tech community.
Throughout the weeks and talking to other students, I was very suprised to find out that it seemed like almost every student had moved to Portland from out of state. And from all over the country. Florida, California, New York, Philly (they didn't have a philly school at the time), to new a few places. Many of these people researched boot camps throughout the nation and landed on Epicodus, packed up and moved here. Many were struggling finding housing (there is currently a rental housing shortage in Portland), while others were moving from couch to couch via AirBnB while studying here. I felt lucky as someone to accidentily land on this school doing no research of my own and living in the area (I live in West Linn, so commuting to school everyday wasn't fun for me but I didn't have the housing problem that many had).
They also helped us set up our LinkedIn profile, prepare resumes and cover letters. This was from someone else who specializes in that and was not one of our instructors. Further, our instructors did two mock technical interviews with us. Additionally, on Epicodus' student website that is open to the public (learntoprogram.com), they have a list of things to study and make sure you know before you go out on interviews. I was advised to look at it by my instructor before going on the internship interviews and I sorely regret being lazy and not doing it, because one of the places I really wanted to intern at asked me several of those questions and I did not know the answer. Sad to say they didn't want me, but everything turned out good.
Monday thru Thursday, we pair programmed. Meaning that we would find a partner (the first week they assigned us partners to give us a chance to get to know each other), and we would work on the same computer doing the problem (the computers were huge Macs, I wish I could take one home with me!!). Pair programming was a great experience to learn to explain what you are trying to do in regards to writing your code and/or your plan, because this is what you do in the real world, and it is also a good experience to learn from others and their points of view on the problem. Because there is more than one way to do most problems.
Every Friday was a code review. Instead of pair programming, we were given a problem to do on our own and we had to turn it in to the teacher. The code review was the same type of problem as we learned during the week. The time to ask for help is Monday thru Thursday, because we weren't allowed to ask for help from teachers or other students on Fridays. In fact, after the first week, the teachers didn't even show up on Fridays. For that matter, most students didn't show up on Fridays either, they worked from home. If we failed the code review, we had to turn it in again. The program was very relaxed and you don't need to worry about grades, but you need to make sure you are getting the material if you want to move on. If you are not, the teachers are availabe for extra help.
As I mentioned the teachers there are casual and make the process non intimidating. If you want to take a break, you are more than welcome to do so. Me and my partners had a habit of taking 3 or 4- ten minute breaks each day and it worked out great for us. There was one student in our class who came, laied on the couch all day long and just had his music headphones on. I remember one time the teachers were talking sternly to him that he needs to finish whatever material by the end of that day, but he was an extreme example. That student, by the way, while he finished the class, he did not end up with an internship and he is currently not coding.
Three times throughout the course, we were given a week to pair up into groups and make a group program or app. This was a great experience to learn how to program as a team (which you will be doing when you are actually working in the real world). I definately had problems stepping on the code of others and them to me during this time. I was glad I got this experience during a school environment instead of at work.
Regarding their internship debacle that many other people below have complained about. Yes, it was a setback that many of us didn't get to do internships in Decemeber and had to wait to January. But, I am satisified with the way things turned out and how the company handled it. Let me tell you why. First, early on (I want to say late October but I could be wrong on the date), when it became apparent to Epicodus that there was going to be a shortage of internships for the students, Michael (the owner of Epicodus) was upfront about it and told everybody right away. Next, he gave everybody an option, either take the internship in December as planned or take it January and you can take a free class in December. I am not sure about the other classes, but everybody in the PHP cohort that insisted on doing their internships in December, did their internships in December. There were still lots of internships, just not enough for everybody. And there was more than enough internships in January. I decided to take my internship in January and take an Android class. I really wanted to learn Android and I got the opportunity to make some Apps in December, so it worked out for me.
At the end of the class, they had a Demo Day. Basically, students got to show off a program or app they had to actual employers. Think of it like a job fair in reverse. Instead of the employers setting up a station and the job seekers going to each employer, the students set up a station and got their app up and running to show off, and employers went to them. The location you are at while at this demo day is very important. Some people were overwelmed by the amount of traffic they got while others were lucky to have one or two employers step up to them the entire time. I think I got somewhere in the middle. It is a big room and they had lots of students demoing from all three cohorts. While they segregated us by cohort so employers could go to a section that they wanted to fairly easily, I think it would have been better if they had a demo day for each cohort because I think most employers start out thinking they will see all of the students no matter what type of student they are interested in, and then leave without seeing everybody because there are just too many students for any one employer to look at. It was a great experience, though, there were lots of people there that day, including prosepctive students who wanted to see what the end result was. I noticed they also had students from the prior cohort there who were having a hard time finding a job, also demoing an app. It was comforting to me to see that Epicodus was still involved in the process of helping them find a job even though it had been 4 to 6 months since these people had finished their internship and Epicodus was no longer receving any more money from these students. Actually, as I am typing this I remember a student from the previous ruby cohort that was struggling to find a job, they gave him a free php class to continue bettering his skills to help him out (so he was in our class for 5 weeks). They don't guarantee you will find a job and they don't want to be on the hook for it, but I have noticed, not from them saying anything to me, but from seeing other people they are helping, that they do a lot to help you if you are struggling.
Two of the technologies that the PHP cohort learned was PHP and Drupal (among other things, but they don't pertain to what I am about to say). The ruby cohort learned ruby and rails. The java cohort learned java and android. Rails is a ruby framework. Android is a java framework. Drupal is not a PHP framework, but a CMS. I really wish that they followed the pattern of other cohorts and taught us a PHP framework like Laravel, Codeigniter, or CakePHP, instead of teaching us a CMS like Drupal. I also get that they cannot teach us everything in 3 months.
The internship process started off by giving everybody a list online of all of the companies and a description of what we were going to be doing at each company. We were instructed to assign each company a color indicating if we wanted that company: red (no way!), yellow (meh), or green (please this company!). I think it was a requirement to have a certain number of greens but I don't remember what it was. After turning that in, I got four interviews to go to. Two of the companies I had placed as red and the other two I placed as green. When I went on the red interviews, it made me more convineced I didn't like those companies. One of those companies was a joke amongst the students and others of us we telling our interview stories of that company. I don't believe anybody ended up interning at either of those two companies but I could be wrong. The other two companies I had placed as green and had a positive experience about both interviews (although one of them didn't like me because I wasn't able to answer some of those questions I had mentioned above!!). I made it very clear to Melodie which companies I wanted and was very involved in talking to her about it. She was super helpful and did a great job making both me and the companies happy during this process.
My internship was at Multnomah County (one of the companies I placed as green). We were part of the process that built their bridge app that tells the public if one of the four county owned bridges (hawthorne, morrision, broadway, and burnside bridges) were either up or down. I worked on their drupal backend. It was a great experience to learn to work with a dev team while not too intimidating because there was another student intern from my PHP class (this is by design, Epicodus requires companies to take at least two students so we can feel more comfortable being together. Epicodus really wants to make people not feel too intimidated and it shows but a lot of what they do).
I learned a lot from this experience at the county and it helped me to get my first dev job, which I got my first dev job from the epicodus jr dev job board that they compile from many different sources. The specific dev job I got was put on that board because the employer called Epicodus and said they had a good experience with prior Epicodus students so they wanted to hire another one. This employer didn't even post the job on any job boards. I had only worked at this job for three months because of something bad that happened to his business, but I got some good PHP experience on the job (also working with the PHP framework: Laravel). My second job I got from knowing a student from the ruby cohort, which I met that student at the Epicodus demo day (and knowing Laravel helped me get that job too). Do you see a theme there? It is very important to be connected in this industry. Epicodus does teach you to code, but they also help you to get connected. They don't make you do this, if you do not take them up on things you will not be connected and have a harder time. This will not be Epicodus' fault, but your own.
The school obviously had growing pains. As any business that doubles or triples in size, it is expected that they do not do everything perfectly. But they still treated me good, taught me to code, and helped me find a job, which is all I needed. And for $3400 (they might be a little bit more now), that is dirt cheap. At the time, I was told that other Portland code schools were charging $8k-10k (which I think they are a little more now too, maybe closer to $12k).
Another thing I wish to mention, during the time of my classes, another code school in Portland closed down. They did so without telling anybody over night. The teachers came to school surprised their keys didn't work. Many people who paid a much higher price than me (because that school costed more) now found that they didn't have anymore classes. Epicodus provided facilities for their teachers and students to still conduct class but over at Epicodus. It really made me feel proud to go to a school that would help out a competitor like that.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me at epicodusgrad@gmail.com.
Before joining Epicodus, I made a market research about coding bootcamps in Seattle area, and Epicodus was one of the best options on the market with affordable pricing for 27-week intensive program, curriculum including front-end and back-end technologies as well as the opportunity to have internship experience after the course.
In Epicodus, I went from basic knowledge in programming to being able to write code in such widely used languages as C# and JavaScript. And by the end o...
Before joining Epicodus, I made a market research about coding bootcamps in Seattle area, and Epicodus was one of the best options on the market with affordable pricing for 27-week intensive program, curriculum including front-end and back-end technologies as well as the opportunity to have internship experience after the course.
In Epicodus, I went from basic knowledge in programming to being able to write code in such widely used languages as C# and JavaScript. And by the end of the course I learned how to build complex web applications from the ground up using different programming tools. But most important, having 5 weeks of real world work experiences was worth the value of the course.
I would say that Epicodus is great start for prospective developers and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants a career in tech industry.
I started Epicodus with a goal of learning enough about coding to create opportunities to change my career. Naturally, changing a career means that I need to know enough to get a job doing this. I can say upfront that Epicodus helped me accomplish that goal. I graduated from Epicodus in June of 2019 after having completed an internship and the company with which I did the internship offered me a position within the next few months.
I was brand new to coding when I started at Epic...
I started Epicodus with a goal of learning enough about coding to create opportunities to change my career. Naturally, changing a career means that I need to know enough to get a job doing this. I can say upfront that Epicodus helped me accomplish that goal. I graduated from Epicodus in June of 2019 after having completed an internship and the company with which I did the internship offered me a position within the next few months.
I was brand new to coding when I started at Epicodus. I had never worked in the IT industry. The majority of my career I spent in the medical industry. Like other students with no coding experience, I found the subject of programming to be extremely challenging with plenty of days full of confusion. In fact, I had thoughts at multiple points that I wasn’t going to be able to do this. However, I am proof that having the right educational opportunity and support system as Epicodus provided makes it possible.
I really enjoyed the learning environment and especially that it was onsite. It’s very helpful to have the support of others around you who are going through the same learning curve and the same challenges. Epicodus structured our program by having us work directly with others in a project-based learning environment and this naturally encouraged the formation of relationships that were important for me to make it through this program. The pair programming was often very helpful because there are people with varying degrees of experience and this enabled those of us with less experience to learn from them. Additionally, I thought it was helpful learning to work in real-life scenarios where we as people sometimes agree and sometimes don’t. It definitely helped me learn how to get the work done regardless of the difference in perspectives and to deliver on time. I also really enjoyed the support of the instructors. They were very friendly and encouraging at all times. This goes a long way when you are having a rough day learning to code. They had enough experience to help get me on the right track when I got lost.
Throughout the week there were other real-world skills that we were learning including how to work with source control (Git), how to conduct a scrum stand-up and practice solving algorithms on a whiteboard. I needed to know something about all of these aspects in the various interviews I had. There are times when I would have liked a little more one-on-one coaching but there was a silver lining to that. I was increasingly getting used to the idea of relying on myself to find the answers. Each day as I go to work now, I find that the ability to seek out and find the answers yourself is a crucial skill to do this for a living.
After I graduated, I had no shortage of interview opportunities around the Seattle area. I applied to just about everything even when I wasn’t sure I was qualified for it. Epicodus helped me polish my resume and my LinkedIn as part of their career support. This was especially helpful since I was new to IT.
All said and done, Epicodus was a great value especially for the price and I would recommend this school to others who are looking to get their foot in the door. Key things that you need to know before you start this is that determination and grit are the most important things. There will be days when you are sure that this is too hard for you. It will be much easier to quit. The important thing to understand is that you only need to survive. You will learn enough to open doors if you don’t quit. If you’ve never done coding before, expect it will likely be the most challenging educational curriculum of your life. When you get your first job, it will feel worth it. And I want to say it’s very nice to make the most money I’ve ever made while having a career that allows me to be creative on a daily basis. I really appreciate the opportunity that Epicodus created for me.
Employed in-field | 58.8% |
Full-time employee | 44.1% |
Full-time apprenticeship, internship or contract position | 8.8% |
Short-term contract, part-time, or freelance | 5.9% |
Started a new company or venture after graduation | 0.0% |
Not seeking in-field employment | 2.9% |
Employed out-of-field | 0.0% |
Continuing to higher education | 2.9% |
Not seeking a job for health, family, or personal reasons | 0.0% |
Still seeking job in-field | 17.6% |
Could not contact | 20.6% |
How much does Epicodus cost?
Epicodus costs around $8,700. On the lower end, some Epicodus courses like Intro to Programming (Part-Time) cost $100.
What courses does Epicodus teach?
Epicodus offers courses like C# and React, C# and React (Part-Time), Intro to Programming (Part-Time).
Where does Epicodus have campuses?
Epicodus has in-person campuses in Portland and Seattle. Epicodus also has a remote classroom so students can learn online.
Is Epicodus worth it?
The data says yes! In 2019, Epicodus reported a 72% graduation rate, a median salary of $75,000, and 59% of Epicodus alumni are employed. Epicodus hasn't shared alumni outcomes yet, but one way to determine if a bootcamp is worth it is by reading alumni reviews. 181 Epicodus alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Epicodus on Course Report - you should start there!
Is Epicodus legit?
We let alumni answer that question. 181 Epicodus alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Epicodus and rate their overall experience a 4.68 out of 5.
Does Epicodus offer scholarships or accept the GI Bill?
Right now, it doesn't look like Epicodus offers scholarships or accepts the GI Bill. We're always adding to the list of schools that do offer Exclusive Course Report Scholarships and a list of the bootcamps that accept the GI Bill.
Can I read Epicodus reviews?
You can read 181 reviews of Epicodus on Course Report! Epicodus alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Epicodus and rate their overall experience a 4.68 out of 5.
Is Epicodus accredited?
Epicodus is licensed by the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission and Washington Workforce Board.
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