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Epicodus News

We're Making Some Changes to Our Tuition

By Michael Kaiser-Nyman, President

Epicodus has seen some big changes in the last three years. Along the way, we've grown from just me, to two teachers and me, to now having a staff member dedicated to career coaching, three staff reaching out to employers, a staff member building out our student portal and related tools, and multiple employees improving our curriculum. We've also moved into a beautiful office in downtown Portland with views of the river, a large kitchen area, and plenty of couch space for hanging out. And we've done all this basically without changing our tuition even to keep up with inflation, not to mention the huge growth in the costs of providing a service almost unrecognizably better from when we started 3 years ago.

For a little context, the first Epicodus class in 2013 was 9 weeks long and cost $2,800, or $311/week. The second class was also $2,800 and 18 weeks, or $156/week. The third and fourth classes in 2014 were $3,400 and 16 weeks, or $213/week. In 2015, we increased our class length to 20 weeks and kept tuition steady, for $170/week. Now, we've added in an extra 2 weeks of job prep, bringing the weekly cost down to $157.

In other words, it's finally time for our tuition to keep pace at least a little bit with the improvements we've made. We are now and will continue to be far and away the cost leader among coding schools on a simple dollar basis, and an order of magnitude a better deal than anybody out there considering the length and quality of our program and job support. 

Individual classes will go from $1,000 to $1,200. Up-front discount will go from $850 to $975. (Total tuition for most students will go from $4,250 to $4,875.)

This change will be effective April 1. If any students want to switch from a per-class to a discount plan, this would be a good time to do so!
 

CEO Search

First stand up in Epicodus's current location.

First stand up in Epicodus's current location.

By Michael Kaiser-Nyman, Founder & President

When I taught Epicodus's first class at the beginning of 2013, the school was just me and one class of 8 students in a small room in a co-working space. 3 years later, we have about 150 students, 18 staff, a 13,000 square foot office, and a dozen courses. We're the most affordable and accessible vocational coding school out there, and we want to make our education available to as many people as possible. That means opening up offices around the country, starting with Seattle and then another city later this year. From there, we're looking to grow from 3 to 30 locations in the following couple years.

One of Epicodus's first classes.

One of Epicodus's first classes.

The skills and experience needed to grow a company from zero to 3 offices are very different than those needed to grow it from 3 to 30. I'm very proud of what we've accomplished so far, and I also know we need a different kind of leader in the next stage of Epicodus's life. Alongside opening our next two offices, I'll be focusing much of my energies this year on finding a CEO to eventually replace me.

We're in no rush to bring someone in, and the most important thing is to find someone who shares our values of making education accessible, prioritizing long-term student success over short-term numbers, and taking the time to do things right. When we do find our CEO, I'll work alongside them for an extended period of time to make sure the transition is smooth for our staff and students.

I'm very excited about bringing Epicodus to the rest of the country, and I can't wait to see how the next chapters of our story unfold.

P.S. If you think you're the right person for the job, drop me an email at michael@epicodus.com. You should have experience leading a company, organization, or department with 50+ employees and $10+ million revenue/budget. We also have a stand-alone job description.

Seattle Applications Are Open!

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With our 2016 courses officially underway, we're excited for what's ahead for the rest of the year. We just wrapped up our first full-time Intro to Programming course in Portland, and our PDX students are now studying specific programming languages and frameworks including PHP, JavaScript, C#, and CSS

What's next on the horizon? We added a bunch of new course dates for our Portland campus and opened applications for courses at our Seattle location. Our first Intro to Programing course in Seattle will launch on June 6, followed by C#, JavaScript, and .NET.

Each language or framework is its own course and will run for 5 weeks. Courses will generally run back-to-back. You can mix and match 5-week courses to learn the programming skills that meet your needs. On each course page, you'll see that we've made some recommendations about course pairings. After applying to Epicodus, all students will be placed in our full-time Intro to Programming course.

For a full breakdown of our courses at each Epicodus location, check out the Portland Courses and Seattle Courses pages.

Seattle Here We Come!

We're excited to announce that Epicodus will be opening an office in Seattle! After almost 3 years and close to 450 students graduated from our Portland office, we've built a training model we're proud to take to new cities. Seattle, being our closest neighboring tech hub, is an obvious choice for our second location.

As you probably know, Microsoft is based just outside of Seattle (in Redmond), and so Microsoft's C# language and .NET framework are hugely popular in the area. Our first Seattle students will learn these technologies, as well as JavaScript and AngularJS. After we run our first series of courses and have some time to get settled, we'll expand our offerings to many of the other courses we offer in Portland.

We've started filing our paperwork with the state and begun looking for an office, and expect to have these tasks completed in the second quarter of this year. We're shooting to have our first class start towards the end of the second quarter.

Seattle's just the first stop on our journey ahead! Look forward to news about more planned office openings in the second half of 2016.

Epicodus 2015 Year End Report

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As 2015 came to a close, I thought a lot about Epicodus's mission:

Epicodus's mission is to help people learn the skills they need to get great jobs. For us, “great jobs” means jobs in growing industries that pay well and provide rewarding work. Beyond the particular skills needed to get these jobs, we aim to help our students become confident self-teachers who can adapt to changing job markets, and great communicators who will work well in teams. We focus on serving people who, by birth or circumstance, don't have easy access to learning the skills they need to get these great jobs.

Four years ago, the US economy was in a bad place, unemployment was high, and many people were struggling to even scrape by. At the same time, companies were struggling to find software developers, and were offering high wages and great benefits to attract the talent they needed. Epicodus was born to try to bridge this gap, helping people get these great programming jobs and helping companies find the talent they need, and three years ago we had our very first class of 8 students.

Today, the economy has mostly recovered, and the coding school phenomenon has exploded, with over 5 dozen schools across the country. However, many of the problems we faced 3 years ago still remain. Software companies still are desperate for programming talent. Many people are working part-time involuntarily. Wages for middle- and low-income workers haven't increased in many years. And while coding schools have made a dent in the problem, most are still inaccessible to the people that need their help most, charging 5-figure tuition and offering short classes that require coding experience before attending.

We've continued to evolve Epicodus to take these problems head-on. We've been adding courses in languages Java and PHP that aren't trendy but where many more jobs are. Our employer outreach team has grown from 1 to 4 full-time staff this year to connect with more companies. We added a new introductory course for people who have little to no background in programming. Our programs continue to be several months long, giving students more time to hone their skills, and our tuition always has been and continues to be a fraction of other schools', including community colleges'.

In 2016, we're excited to continue building on all of the progress we made this year. We'll be adding even more courses, including C# and design. We're defaulting all new students into our introductory course to make sure that everybody in Epicodus starts with a solid foundation (while still having the opportunity to test out for more experienced students). And we're getting ready to open up an office in another city. In the year end report, you'll find a recap of the highlights of our year, information on how Epicodus compares to the industry, stories from students and more. Thanks for being a part of our community! 

- Michael Kaiser-Nyman, President

Epicodus's New Office

This weekend, the Epicodus team picked up our iMacs and our standing desks and moved into a brand new space at 400 SW 6th Ave. With beautiful eighth floor views and lots of room to grow, we're excited about this next chapter. For the last few months, our three current classes have been in separate locations, so we're thrilled to have everyone under one roof again. Check out the video below for a sneak preview of the new office!

Join Epicodus for Demo Day on December 4

Epicodus is hosting it's first ever Demo Day, and we want you to be there!

Students from our most recent classes (Ruby/JavaScript/Rails, PHP/JavaScript/Drupal, Java/JavaScript/Android) and some of our alums will be showcasing apps they've built and answering questions about their projects. This is a fantastic opportunity to connect with Epicodus students as they show off their programming chops.

Join us for an afternoon of light refreshments and great apps, and as a bonus, you'll get to check out Epicodus's brand new classroom space where our next round of students will be learning how to program in 2016.

Join us on December 4, from 12:00 - 4:00pm! Space is limited, so please RSVP here.

Sneak preview of our new space at 400 SW 6th Ave!

Sneak preview of our new space at 400 SW 6th Ave!

2016 Classes: Frequently Asked Questions

We've been thrilled with the interest in our new class offerings for 2016, and with that interest has come a lot of questions! Below are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about admissions and our new course structure. If we haven't answered the specific question that you have, feel free to reach out to us at hi@epicodus.com.

1. What are the requirements for graduation?
We want to make certain that students wishing to go through our entire program, from the introductory course through the internship course, have a clear picture of the requirements and expectations for graduation. For students who are not attending our program on an a la carte basis and wish to complete the full program, please note that two courses from the Level 2 section will be required in order to be eligible to take a Level 3 class and then an internship. In other words, you will need to take a minimum of five courses to graduate: Intro to Programming, two Level 2 courses, one Level 3 course, and the internship course.

2. What does the whole program cost?
The discounted tuition for the complete track is $850/class * 5 classes = $4,250. If you pay the up-front discount, any additional courses are $850 apiece, which you can pay as you go. (Part-time Intro to Programming students pay a different rate for that particular class.)

3. Does the Internship course have a tuition price? Have you changed the cost of the program?
Yes, the internship course does cost the same $850 as the other classes. (The internship has always been considered a course with that tuition price, and dividing the program into its 5-week modules has simply made that more apparent.) What has changed is the addition of the Intro to Programming class, which lengthens the whole program by five weeks.

4. Can I call you or drop by to talk?
Since we are a small staff and are usually busy with the current students during the day, we offer a monthly drop-in hour for potential students to come by, meet with a member of the staff, see the facility, and ask questions. These drop-in sessions are usually held the first Tuesday of the month from 5:30pm to 6:30pm. They are well-attended by potential and newly-accepted students. Potential students who cannot come to the drop-in hours and want to speak with us in person or by phone should email us at hi@epicodus to schedule an appointment.

5.  What if the courses I want to take are not offered in the order I prefer? I don’t want to lose momentum by waiting 5 weeks for it to be offered again.
As you plan out your time with us, please pay attention to the dates courses begin to avoid having a downtime while waiting for your preferred class to start. (For example, if you are interested in the Winter 2016 Java track, it would be best to start the whole program in March so that you could take those classes in succession.) That being said, we encourage new students to consider all the languages we offer as viable means to creating a successful career transition into coding.

6. What are the Course Tracks? What classes should I take?
We no longer have prescribed tracks for students to take, as we have now divided the program into the 5-week course blocks, allowing enrolled students to choose among the courses that are being offered at a given time. Enrolled students are now also able to take more than the minimum required 5 courses, if their time and budget allow.

That being said, there are courses that combine well together, and students are certainly welcome to take the courses we've traditionally offered together, such as: Ruby, JavaScript, Rails; PHP, JavaScript, Drupal; Java, Javascript, Android; C#, JavaScript, .NET; CSS, JavaScript, Design. The frameworks do need to come after the base language, so you should expect to take Ruby before Rails, PHP before Drupal, Java before Android, etc.

What's Ahead for Epicodus in 2016

2015 has been an amazing year for Epicodus so far. By the end of the year we will have trained and helped find jobs for more than 200 students. Looking ahead to 2016, we're excited to switch up our course format and add some new classes to the mix. 

New Courses

Starting in January, we will be offering several different languages and frameworks including Intro to Programming (full-time and part-time options), Ruby, PHP, Java, JavaScript, C#, CSS, Rails, Drupal, Android, .NET, and design courses.

How the Classes Work

Each language or framework will be its own class and will run for 5 weeks. Classes will generally run back-to-back. You can mix and match 5-week classes to learn the programming skills that meet your needs. On each class page, you'll see that we've made some recommendations about course pairings.

After being accepted to Epicodus, you'll automatically be enrolled in our Intro to Programming class. To participate in the Epicodus internship program, you will have to complete prerequisites.

If you have any questions about the new program structure, feel free to leave a comment, or send us an email at hi@epicodus.com.