Epicodus

Epicodus was exactly what I needed to determine whether I wanted to continuing expanding my web programming knowledge into a career. I chose the Part-time course as a wayfinder, which was affordable and fit with my full time work schedule. The instructor was attentive, helpful, and knowledgeable about industry trends. The pace was challenging but not overwhelming. The classroom space was great with state of the art computers and equipment. The in-person class setting was particularly valuable to me as I really enjoyed partnering with different classmates and learning from each other. Overall it was a good experience for me and a way to push myself to explore new career options. Thank you Epicodus!

If you're looking for a cheaper, quicker way to get into development or other tech career path, this program is for you. It's intense and a lot of work even outside of the 40-hour weeks in class. Your brain will hurt. You will be tired. You may be one of the students who sleeps on the couches. But it is all worth it!

I mainly chose Epicodus over other programs because it offered a React track and included an internship experience. For me, this was a mid-career change and paying for another traditional degree or graduate program wasn't going to work. And while it's not easy to pair program all day long, my classmates were some of the most supportive and enjoyable parts of this experience. Lunch talks are a great way to network, learn from those actually working in tech and hear about different paths you can take.    Epicodus is a growing family in the Pacific Northwest ... graduates are everywhere! During and after school, I have run into Epicodus students at conferences, at my current employer and on the MAX train.    If this is something you're considering, I would recommend checking out the Saturday open house or scheduling a visit. 

I attended the Seattle Epicodus part time to full time C#, .NET, and JS courses. It was about 6 months total, and I'm overall happy with my experience.

Although the curriculum was a bit rushed at times (our teacher was writing it the night before to keep it up to date, which caused some issues in class), I was still able to get a lot of knowledge out of the programs, specifically the JS/Angular course. 

I'm currently working a 6 month contract as a web developer for 23/hr. So much better than my last jobs! I landed the job about 2-3 weeks after my internship ended.

If you are dedicated and able to do the work, engage with the materials on more than surface level, and do extra work outside of class, Epicodus can work for you. 

I'm going to say that my experience here has been limited, as I only stayed in their PT evening program for 3 weeks, but here's my thoughts:

The bad:
-Epicodus is only designed for folks whom can afford both in time and money to attend 8-5PM M-F for months & put in extra work on the weekends too. There is a PT Intro class, but there is no other content available on an evening, weekend, or part time schedule. So if you're the "breadwinner" for your home, have children, or any other obligations in your life that prevent you from doing this, then it becomes exceedingly difficult to attend Epicodus.

-You're paired (you work with another student for the duration of the day/night) from the first class onward, and they mention in the orientation materials that sometimes you're "paired up" (meaning the person you're with knows more than you), "paired down", or you're equals. The problem there is that if you're in a "paired up" situation, the person whom knows more than you might not be interested in or good at teaching you...or might simply think they know what they're doing vs. actually knowing what they're doing. You're also placed in a potentially similar position if you're "paired down" as you're now the teacher and that may or may not be your cup of tea. I was never in a pairing that I enjoyed. I felt like the lesson for the day got completely muddled in the dynamic of the person you were to be working with. To give a specific example, one pair partner told me he finished all the classwork for that week at home, so he was going to zip to the next week's lesson. You share a computer, and so then it became a strange power struggle between what he wanted and what I wanted the whole night.

-For me the learning style just didn't work. You're expected to move at a pretty fast speed, and there really isn't room to help someone left behind like I was. Going into IT was a huge shift for me from being a therapist, and I had a lot of questions that were going unanswered...and then I got more and more confused as time went on & felt like there was no time for review, no one there to help and guide me, or the ability to go more in depth with an instructor on a topic I was struggling with to help clear up questions.

The luke warm:
-I was surprised by the complete lack of instruction by the instructors, whom are more like proctors than anything else. You learn by watching online video content, which is free and accessible online at the time I'm posting this: https://www.learnhowtoprogram.com/ There isn't enough time or instructors to provide you with in-depth time to answer your questions. There's a question queue system, and the questions are answered as quickly as possible and frequently the proctors didn't seem to know much about the content.

-If you're in the PT night Intro class, none of the staff outside the proctors are there, so you miss out on the lunch lectures and other experiences that the FT folks get. I asked if the lunch lectures could be taped, and although I was told this was a good idea, it didn't happen during my time there.

-If you're in the PT night class, you're expected to make the transition to the day time full time schedule after the intro class. So that'll involve a lot of planning for most folks to be able to pull off.

The good:

-The PT night class is a more affordable option if you're unsure whether to commit to the full program during the day or not after Intro is over. At the time I attended it was $400 for the PT night class.

-I feel their customer service w/ admissions was fantastic.

So do I feel like Epicodus gives you much more than say, a $25 a month Team Treehouse account? No I don't. You're basically only paying for a place to learn to program vs. getting hands on experiences that you couldn't get from a learn to code site & info from an instructor with experience under their belt. I felt like writing this would help to balance out the super positive reviews with perhaps a more...realistic outcome? Epicodus wasn't for me.

 

I attended Epicodus after working as a project coordinator for 5 years after college. I had some experience of basic HTML and CSS which intrigued me to want to learn more. I had heard great things about the code school from an alum and former coworker. If you want a quick way into the tech industry Epicodus can help you get there, but you definitely need to dedicate yourself and put in a lot of work on your own if you want to be successful.

Teachers are there more so for moral support and to help you learn better. It is up to you to do the heavy lifting, which is what it will be like in the job world. The initial curriculum can be overwhelming for someone with no experience. I would highly recommend trying to code on your own through free online resources to determine if this is something you are truly interested in pursuing before signing up for Epicodus.

Also, Epicodus focuses on pair programming; this is when you work with another person, sharing the keyboard and mouse daily. You can choose your partner. I would suggest trying to work with everyone in your cohort at least once. This will help you learn different work styles. Sometimes you will have a bad day with a partner and you may choose not to work with them in the future. Take that as a learning experience, but also keep in mind you can’t always choose your coworkers so learn to work better with different people, which probably means learn to communicate better.

Job search help is pretty good but again, you need to do most of the heavy lifting. Top three tips: network at meet ups/hackathons/friends/linkedin, work on side projects (not cookie cutter Epicodus projects, keep an open mind (the most important thing is to get your foot in the door.) Also, find code challenges and do them daily and pick up some resources on basic computer science concepts, Epicodus is only going to scratch the surface.

 

 

I had a great time at Epicodus, and I was very lucky in that I had a kickass group of people in my cohort and many of them became good friends of mine. I learned a ton, was definitely challenged by the coursework, and I found a job soon after the program was over (though I was in the minority in my class in that regard--just trying to be honest. And I was nowhere near the most skilled coder in the cohort! Luck, timing, and a good attitude go a long long way).

If you're reading this review, you're probably trying to figure out if this is the right career path for you. One thing that kept putting me off is the snobby elitists who kept saying things like "you'll be a great engineer if, when you were a kid, you loved taking apart radios/toasters/VCRs/insert-random-mechanical-gizmo-here and then putting it back together again! If you didn't show a strange fascination in boring electrical gadgets as a child then surely you can't enjoy coding!"

I am telling you now, I think that's bullshit. I never did that when I was a kid. I hung out with friends, read books and played sports and never ever had the slightest interest in that kind of thing. BUT, I love coding and I love love love love my job as a junior software engineer. Don't let the grumps get you down! 

Also, I tried to teach myself coding through codecademy and treehouse prior to starting Epicodus, and I kept getting so frustrated and I thought it would turn out to be a dead-end...but Epicodus was such a different experience. Yes, it was hard. Yes, I learned a ton really really fast. But I also got to talk to people in person, and talk with my pair programming partner every day, and ask questions of other real live humans! It was great. Epicodus was a fantastic experience and literally changed my life. 

Epicodus's strength is in their classes, their methods, and how much you learn. Their weakness is in getting you a job. The market seems to be becoming a bit more saturated with bootcamps so finding a job is tough and you have to just kind of luck out, honestly. I had a wonderful experience but doing a bootcamp (any bootcamp) and expecting a job at the end of it is a huge gamble.

Good luck to all of you!! I hope it all goes well!

 

 

 

After spending years in customer service, I finally decided to take the leap and attend a coding bootcamp. I was pretty skeptical that 6 months could lead to a new career. It seemed like all of my other choices were to go back to school for another 2-4 years and tens of thousands of dollars. I did a lot of research before choosing Epicodus and I'm so glad I did. I really believe that Epicodus is the best option.

I attended the C#/.NET track at the Seattle campus earlier this year and it was a fantastic experience. It was hands on learning and the instructors were incredibly kind and helpful. It really felt like they wanted all of us to succeed. They also give you tons of help in finding a job after graduation. The internship was by far one of the most valuable aspects of the program. I didn't get a job with the company I interned with, but I was able to get real world experience and recommendations on my resume that helped me get a great junior web developer job at a local startup. 

As for advice before you begin the prorgam, I would say it is very valuable to learn the funadmentals of Javascript before you start. I knew nothing and I made it through just fine, but it would have been so helpful. Most of my class had studied Javascript on their, which made me feel left in the dust in my second week. If you feel like this during your program, just know that it gets better. You will get the hang of it and start working on material that no one has seen yet. Some people say that a coding bootcamp is going to take over your whole life but that wasn't the case for me. I was able to go to class all day and still have a life when I got home. It was exhausting and fun and super rewarding. 

Thank you Epicodus! This was the best investment I've ever made and I will always be grateful. 

I'd been trying to teach myself C# and failing, due to a lack of motivation. I heard about Epicodus from a grad, and saw they had a C#/.NET track, and I knew that I would be doing that asap. I withdrew my enrollment from PSU (just 2 days before class started), and paid for Epicodus. I had some background with Web based Programming, and video game development, but what I needed was a positive and open space to dive deep into the .NET stack. Having an instructor that knew the curriculum well, and (more importantly) was willing and able to learn with us when we found difficult problems, really went a long way. She was an excellent mirror for our collective excitement. I graduated this past October, and within 3 weeks was hired.

This worked so well for me because the curriculum was challenging but fair, and I loved doing the work. I happily devoted as much time as I could, because I knew that I would reap the rewards after graduation. I highly reccommend this program for anyone looking to delve into Web Development.

Its not a real review without at least one negative comment. The only one I can think of was that there were a few hiccups with the internship process for my cohort. It is a mercurial process, dealing with businesses and students. My cohort was part of a double group, Design and C#, so there were 40+ people to place.

This was one of the best things I have ever done. 

I chose Epicodus after researching a few different fast-paced coding programs- some were shorter (and still cost more), some were longer. I picked Epicodus based on price, location, and the pair programming.

Though I didn't think I would enjoy pair programming, I thought it would be valuable to learn how to collaborate, not just have a role on a team, but actually build something together. It ended up being far more enjoyable than I had thought! It was fantastic to learn from, lean on, teach, and support eachother through our courses. I rarely had any issues with others, and in fact made some very good friends. 

The staff is great. The teachers do not hold your hand- they are there to help you learn, not provide you answers. That said, there were times I found such devious ways to baffle myself and them that Loren (my instructor) and I would spend hours learning new things to tackle the issues. They are friendly, capable, and more than willing to help you through the tough spots. The internship/employment staff is also very supportive! When I had opportunities to interview before we had done the in-class prep, they took extra time to help me practice before hand. 

The only thing I see wrong in the curriculum was that I wish there was more of it! It IS a short program though, and they can only put so much into everyday. There are many further exploration links and suggestions provided in addition to the daily lessons. 

If you are attending Epicodus, a few suggestions: 

• Follow up on as many of the extras as possible. Do the optional second assignments on your own time if you don't have time in class. 
• Do not make assumptions about your pair until you have worked with them- preferably more than once! Everyone struggles with different parts of the program, and they may lag in one area only to be the expert you need in another. 
• If you are struggling- I certainly did- remember that the things that looked hard a week ago seem easy a week later. Keep at it and chances are whatever seems impossible today will seem easy in another week.
• Keep your github clean and your readmes up to date - it will save you a lot of time later!
• Learn all you can about tech interview/algorithm/BigO notation and PRACTICE solving coding challenges/whiteboarding as much as possible. These are essential for the interview process and are not covered except very briefly in the coursework. Codewars.com is a great place to practice. 
• Network! Go to events, make yourself talk to strangers. It is how you get most opportunities in this field. 
• Don't wait until graduation to start looking/applying to jobs- and don't let a 'failed' interview bother you. (I failed a few!)  Many jobs take a while to get back to you, you want a head start, and the interviews are TOUGH- but they are a skill like any other and practice is the only way to get better. 
• You can get hired! There were a few of us that had jobs even before our internships ended- some through regular application/interview, some through introductions (networking!!!).

I loved this school, and would do it again in a second. If I could get paid to attend, I would never have left! Highly, highly recommended. 

 

I would not be where I am now if it was not for Epicodus. Prior to Epicodus, I worked as a support developer as a startup and I always felt lost and suffered from imposter syndrome. Epicodus helped me to develop the right mindset to to become a problem solver, and not just a developer who remembers things. I learned to recognize patterns across many technologies which allowed me to familiarize myself with the unfamiliar with confidence and speed. That alone is huge in the world of software development. On top of that Epicodus covers a huge bredth of knowledge. My only complaint would be some of the later Javascript curriculum which covered Ember.js which you just don't encounter that much. I know that Epicodus plans alleviate these minor problems in the future though as they are pushing more Angular and React which are much more prominent in the industry. I now work as a UI Engineer at a large company and though I do not know everything going into this job, I know I can pick it up much more quickly and confidently due to Epicodus. I give Epicodus my full recommendation.

Epicodus changed my life. 

I started my professional life out as a Firefighter EMT in Bellingham WA. I couldn't finish college due to a health problem that required a lot of time and a lot of money to fix. So public Service was the best option for me since I couldn't afford to finish my degree without accruing immense amount of debt....or so I thought. 

After being injured and not able to fulfill the duties of my current job I latched onto writing code one day and never stopped. Eventually I started researching code schools and I discovered Epicodus. I had a phone interview with Debbie and she a warmly accepted me into the Java/Android March 2016 cohort and I headed to Portland.

 My experience at Epicodus was great. The teachers are hard working and busy but most of them are always there to help when needed. However, please make no mistake about how much of a challenge this school is. You will be learning code 50 - 70 hours a week for about 27 weeks. A strong third, if not close to half of my cohort(many of whom became close friends) had to leave the school for various reasons throughout the program. This is nothing short of a "bootcamp" and you should treat it as one. Coming in with the right attitude is everything. Probably one of the biggest pieces of advice I can offer is once you finish the courses you must treat the job hunt just like any other course. Everyday send out as many quality applications and cover letters as you can. If you are like me and don't have any credible certs, degrees or past work experience in the software industry, your hurdle is a little bit higher than everyone else and being persistent is everything.

The good news is that if you are tough, don't make excuses and work hard every single day you can make it through. After about 2.5 months of job hunting and interviewing I landed a position at New Relic working as a Java Support Engineer and I couldn't be happier. 

Bottomline, I wouldn't be in the position I am today if it wasn't for this school. You too can find success through Epicodus as long as you work hard and stay focussed. 

Epicodus is a mixed bag.  It delivers on its promise to get you from no coding experience to being a coder.  That said, your job prospects and general educational experience really depend a lot on your general aptitude for coding, your experience going in, and the route that you choose to go (front vs back end).  Here is some advice that I hope will be helpful to you...

The coding mindset

Make no mistake - you WILL be a coder at the end of this program.  Your knowledge will be limited in many ways, but you will indeed have the "coding mindset" that Epicodus focuses on - namely that you will have the aptitude to have an easier time learning new languages and understanding web dev concepts.

Instruction

One would expect to be instructed when one pays to go to a school, right?  This is missing at Epicodus.  Instructors are largely unavailable - day to day, they are not a presence unless you are having an issue, and you must put a "ticket" in to see them in that case.  You get a weekly code review, but it is short, and doesn't make up for the lack of instruction the other 39.5 hours each week.  Also, most instructors have no education training at all, and there is a difference between knowing how to do something and knowing how to teach it.  

Pair Programming

So who DO you learn from?  Pretty much up to you and your daily "pair" student partner, utilizing the online lessons that you follow each day.  Pair programming is a cool idea in essence, but has some serious problems.  If you can find a partner who is similar in level, approach, speed, learning style, and personality, it can be very useful, as you can really help each other through challenges and problems.  The down side is that with the lack of instruction, you are basically learning from your partners, and they are just students like you, and almost nobody has any education background.  It would seem that finding a coder better than you would be really helpful in learning, but in reality, those students are the worst teachers.  They are either such naturals at it that they can't get on your level when they try to explain, or they are snooty and condescending, and basically annoyed with anyone not on their level.

Curriculum

The quality depends upon the class.  The modules for CSS and Design classes were easy to follow, with a good pace, and really great videos and articles.  The intro curriculum was awful - the section on JavaScript goes from zero to 100 and can leave a beginner's head reeling.  It's like being a beginning swimmer, dipping a toe in the water, and the suddenly you're trying to swim in the middle of the Pacific.  

Internship

I found this to be the best part about Epicodus.  Getting some professional experience at the end of school was great - I learned a lot about client/coder relations, which greatly affects how you approach a project and what pressure there is (or isn't).  Getting the idea of a workflow and how a pro team works was extremely beneficial.  

Be careful which path you choose

In speaking with professionals, other Epicodus grads, and in my own experience, I've discovered that if you want a good paying job fairly quickly after graduating, it's a whole lot better to go the back end route.  The front end market is super-saturated in Portland, and the farther you align with the design side of things, the harder it is to find entry-level jobs.  Nearly all UI/UX design jobs were asking for 5+ years of professional experience, for instance.  I'd suggest that if you go the front end track and wanna maximize your chance for a nice-paying gig, concentrate on JavaScript.  I really wish that I had known about this before starting at Epicodus.

In the end

I wouldn't have the job (SEO Specialist) that I currently have without Epicodus.  A year ago, I would have had no chance whatsoever to get any tech job, and now, that is an option for me, which improves my future career options.  I enjoy Sass, and love Sketch, and have fun with my hobby projects.  I've been very disappointed by the lack of decent paying jobs for my design-oriented interests, and I felt that I could have learned a lot more if I had some better instruction.  But, despite the many issues that I believe Epicodus has, I still have come out with a new job skill, and a new job.  I feel that I paid too much for it, but I did get a fast education in how to do web development and design.  

 

While the curriculum I saw (May-Dec 2016) seems a little dated, there's no real problem with this. The real value of Epicodus is learning to communicate well with other creative thinkers and to solve problems in teams. It is an amazing school for building this skill.

My path through Epicodus started with the Ruby track and then I switched to the Design track. I feel unusually qualified to compare these two series of courses.

1. They both teach fundamentals of Github, HTML5, jQuery, Gulp, Angular2, Ember
2. Ruby track uses Capybara, not Cucumber, and introduces Sinatra before Rails (which I personally find maddening but your results will vary-- no one I've met beyond dev junkies knows what Sinatra is)
3. Design track offers a different curriculum that barely focuses on algorithms, data types, etc and instead teaches InVision to create functional prototypes without code; also teaches Sketch (which is a cleaner, easier-to-learn Adobe Photoshop)

Because of this emphasis on prototyping and improving the user experience, I graduated with a better grasp of the frontend than full stack world. If you want this result, you can definitely learn tons of Sass and Bootstrap and Sketch on your own... the Epicodus curriculum is 100% free online, so purchsae Sketch and subscribe to InVision and you're ready to blast off. The school may still provide a 50% discounts on Sketch, however, so contact Debbie at Epicodus to confirm this and any of what I'm writing here.

The pair programming ethic felt amazing while in the Ruby track, because learning challenging new concepts with a colleague is helpful. Yet once I changed over and was asked to co-Design the frontend projects, it didn't seem as effective, and often felt needlessly frustrating. Again, your results will vary.

Life-changing experience, if you're ready to work for it. The skills I'm starting to build are deeply satisfying and I am very grateful to this program. Also, this seems the best value for an onsite code camp right now. Try their lessons remotely for free, then work through a few with a friend in person, and if you are even slightly engaged then don't hesitate to apply!

Because if you do apply and gradute you won't regret it. I'm in the midst of my first junior dev job hunt, and Epicodus staff check in weekly to provide tips and have already helped me network quite a bit. Everything here is 5-star except the choice of Ember instead of React, but feel free to brag about how you learned a more difficult framework in bootcamp just so that you could teach yourself React faster. ^_~

I also posting this same review on Switchup - I had a great time at Epicodus. I was always interested in programming and web development and decided I'd give learning it a shot. My instructor was great - very knowledgeable and supportive, and an all around pleasant guy. I really liked my classmates as well. I spent a lot of time studying, and made sure my time in class was productive and focused. I received a job offer upon completing the program, as well as an offer to be an intern for a company with the idea of becoming permanent after 3 months. As some of the other reviews say, I think if you are ready to put in a good amount of work and study (and be sure to pair with people, even if you don't really want to every day!), you'll get a well-balanced and valuable background in entry-level web development from Epicodus. The tone at the top seems to be supportive and encouraging, and that shines through with all of the staff that I've interacted with.

That's because you get what you put in. It doesn't matter if the bootcamp is $5K, $10K, or $15K; if you don't put effort into it then you won't succeed, period. Epicodus and probably many other bootcamps will provide you the environment and fundamentals in programming, but the rest is up to you. Don't expect to get a job so easily if you only spend 40hrs a week coding. Epicodus doesn't make promises; rather, it creates opportunities for students to get into coding habits, connect you with peers, prepare you with sufficient coding skills (based on your effort), and allows you to have a taste of real world experience through internships at an affordable price.

- Instructors: I liked all of my instructors even if not everyone are senior developers. When my partners and I are stuck on specific problems, our instructors would go over our errors step by step just like they are another coding partner. Even if they know what the problem is, they'll still ask us questions until we answer the problem ourselves, which I do appreciate. They don't just help with coding errors, but they also give advice on how to handle situations where you and your partner might not be on the same wavelength. In other words (honest words), you will not like to work with some of your classmates, but they'll still help you out when you need help. I would like to thank Leroi, Summer, Diane, and Michael for being awesome instructors during my time at Epicodus. 

-Code Reviews: I'm ok with the weekly code reviews. They don't ask too much from the students, but I always go above and beyond for most of my reviews. It's always good to do more than what is being asked, and that is what Epicodus wants its students to do.

- Curriculum: It's understandable that the curriculum is what it is because of code deprications. There will always be newer codes, methods, and efficient ways of programming. However, I do think the curriculum should always be a top priority at Epicodus, which it might be, but it didn't feel it. The Design course could use some improvements from when I left. The design tasks for weekly reviews, I think, should be more complex or more strict. That would help me build a stronger portfolio. In the JavaScript course, we had three days to work on Angular 2 and two weeks of Ember JS. I prefer a more balanced schedule because I like Angular more.

-Job Assistance/Internships: I think communication between the staffs are clear and comprehensive. The internship, for me, was ok. It's not the best, nor do I feel like it's worth $1000 because it's a one person startup, but it's good experience in a way. I would recommend trying to find an internship on your own before going for the internship course because you know who you'll be interning for. At Epicodus, you'll be matched with 1 out of about 3 or 4 places, which could be awesome or not depending on where you are matched with. After my internship, I studied by myself at home for two months then applied to several places and landed a job. So I guess I didn't rely much on the assistance part. They offered to do weekly checkins, but I was lazy on my part.

Overall, if you have the motivation or looking for more motivation, then you should try Epicodus. Don't take Epicodus if you're the type of person who doesn't want to commit to doing extra coding work outside of the classroom. Again, you will only land a job if you put effort into it.

I went into epicodus because I was curious. They introduced me to programming and I was instantly hooked. You start with the basics of learning a markup language (HTML) and applying basic styles with CSS. You will gloss over a lot of fundamentals of programming like how to make a for loop, or basic debugging techniques. You will get to know a little bit about everything. 

The rest is up to you. You need to study on your own time. You need to make programming your whole life while you are at Epicodus and the only person holding you accountable is yourself. Because Epicodus covers a little bit of everything, you need to take the time a learn a lot about one thing. As an example, they'll teach you basics on JavaScript, but to really harness the full power of JavaScript you're going to need to study a lot. 

Don't expect to work while attending epicodus as this is a 40 hour a week program. If you have the talent, you can do contract work while attending Epicodus to help pay for classes. 

The coding challenges they have every friday are too easy. I left many of them feeling like they were not pushing me hard enough to learn more and just passing me because they could. I would have liked a more strict coding challenges that would have pushed us to the limits. 

The course material was great, however, there was frequently errors in the material. This is ok though, as it will help you identify bugs. 

Through epicodus, I was able to land a job at a creative agency and I am finally doing fulfilling work. I do not regret Epicodus at all as they provided an environment for me to learn something new, work with others, and help me achieve my goals. If you are dedicated and are willing to spend many hours outside of this program studying, you will succeed. The work you put in will reflect how soon you obtain a job after the program.