Epicodus

2023 was a difficult year for coding schools like Epicodus. While the rest of the economy and other job sectors grew, tech industry headlines were dominated by news of layoffs and losses, and enrollment in schools like ours dropped. We adjusted to a smaller student body over the past few months, but we were unprepared for what happened this week. Our January 2024 class’s enrollment was less than a quarter the size of January 2023 – and our January classes have typically been the biggest of each year.

To make a long story short, we don’t have the money to keep our school running in these difficult times, and it would be reckless for us to gamble that enrollment turns around shortly. We’ve made the painful decision to cancel the classes that were supposed to start this week, as well as a part-time class that started in October and was scheduled to run until November of this year. These students organized their lives around enrolling at Epicodus, and words can’t express how terrible we feel about forcing them to change their plans. We’re working to find other schools where they can get the education they expected and make the career change they were looking for.

For our other students who are further along in their classwork, we’ll finish teaching their classes, including career services, with the same quality of education that they’ve had until this point. After they graduate, we’ll provide job-seeking support to set them up for a new career as best as we can. And of course, we’ll continue supporting our students who have already graduated in their job search.

Right now, we’re focusing all of our time on navigating this difficult situation and especially supporting our students through it. We turned 10 years old last year, and when the dust settles a little bit, we’ll take some time to reflect on and share what we’ve accomplished and learned. Thank you to all of the wonderful students we’ve had, the incredible staff who have worked with us, and all of the people in our communities who have supported Epicodus and our mission.

Data Engineering Track

We’re excited to offer a new cloud data engineering track in partnership with Data Stack Academy beginning March 14! 

This new track will run on the same schedule as our web development cohorts. It will have courses in Intro to Programming, Data Engineering Fundamentals, Big Data Engineering, and Cloud Data Engineering, followed by an internship. Like our Web and Mobile Development certificate, this track also offers a comprehensive career services curriculum, and after you graduate, we'll provide a year of career services assistance while you look for your first job in the tech industry. If you’d like to take a closer look at what to expect out of this track, you can check out our course overview here.

Of course, we'll continue to offer our web development track, which you can take full-time or part-time. And if you just want to dip your toe in, you can take our part-time Intro to Programming class. Sign up here for any of our March programs!

Don't Pay Until You Get A Job

Epicodus has always been committed to making tech an accessible career path. We now offer an income share agreement (ISA) for all our students: pay nothing but a small deposit to enroll, and only when you get a job after you graduate, then pay 9.8% of your salary. You can apply for the ISA after you are accepted to Epicodus. You can learn more about the program here.

The ISA is available to students in both full-time and part-time full length classes. If you’re interested, you can apply here and one of our advisors will help you through the process.

Epicodus is Launching a Part-Time Full-Length Certificate Program

As we continue to work to make a career in tech accessible, we’re excited to announce that our entire full-length certificate program can now be taken in a part-time format, starting January.

This new part-time certificate program will be 6-9pm Pacific Mondays to Wednesdays and 9am-5pm Sundays over 40 weeks. You will learn everything in the full-time program, including our technical and career services curriculum. After you complete the coursework, we’ll support you in preparing for and securing an internship, and once you graduate, we'll provide a year of career services assistance while you look for your first job in the tech industry

Our tuition and scholarship options all apply to both our part-time and full-time full certificate programs. You can learn more about payment options and total tuition here. Check out our financial aid page if you’re interested in information about scholarships or our program allowing students to defer paying tuition until they graduate and find their first job. 

Of course, we'll continue to offer our full-time program and our part-time Intro to Programming class. The part-time Intro class starting January will be on the same schedule as the part-time certificate format.

Sign up here for any of our January programs.

Free Computers For Epicodus Students

We know that Covid-19 has left a lot of people out of work, disproportionately impacting low-income communities, women, and people of color. For some people, losing work has been a catalyst to reskill and change careers by going to a school like Epicodus, but many people who would most benefit from learning new skills don't have access to the technology that would allow them to take advantage of online learning. 

That's why Epicodus is participating in Career Karma’s Reskill America campaign, an initiative to raise $500,000 and give away thousands of laptops to communities impacted by Covid-19.

Career Karma will consider you for a laptop if:

- You have applied and have been accepted into Epicodus.
- You come from an underrepresented background. This includes women, underrepresented racial and ethnic groups (African American/Black, Hispanic/Latinx, Native American/Alaskan, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander), low-income households, persons with disabilities, and veterans.
- You have lost a job, had your hours reduced or have been furloughed due to Covid-19.
- You do not own a personal computer/laptop.

If these apply to you, you can fill out an application for a laptop here.

Don’t need a laptop, but want to help further the cause? You can donate to Career Karma’s fundraising efforts here!

If you meet Career Karma’s criteria, you may be eligible for our financial aid option that allows students who are un- or under-employed to take our classes and not pay tuition until they find a job. You can learn more about how that works here.

Full Scholarships

The Washington state government has awarded Epicodus worker retraining grants that can be used towards a full scholarship at Epicodus. These scholarships are available for unemployed Washington residents taking our full-time classes. If you’re interested, you’ll need to apply no later than July 10th and let your advisor know during the application process. We hope these scholarships will help make Epicodus even more affordable.

Black Lives Matter

by Michael Kaiser-Nyman, Epicodus President

We live in a country full of inequalities. Two of the greatest determinants of how your life plays out in America are your skin color and your parents' wealth. I started Epicodus because I wanted to help in some way to make job opportunities available to all people regardless of their background, but I've always known that Epicodus's contribution would be small compared to the problems of race and class inequality. Nothing makes this starker than knowing that police kill black Americans at 3 times the rate of white Americans. The police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade are only the latest in a long legacy of violence.

Black lives matter, and because they matter, we shouldn't put up with this awful disparity. I'm also horrified by the police violence that has been visited upon people protesting that very violence.

If you also believe that black lives matter, I urge you to do something: protest in the street (safely, given the pandemic) or in your car, write letters to your elected officials, donate money to racial justice organizations, or find some other way to support change.

I also want to acknowledge that Epicodus as an institution has a long way to go in terms of combating racial inequalities. We've worked hard to create a welcoming environment for people of all backgrounds, but despite our mission to level the playing field, a large majority of our students are white, and we serve very few black and Latinx people. I'll be the first to admit that, as a small organization, we haven't yet been able to figure out how to build a more diverse applicant pool. We will keep trying, and I welcome any suggestions.

Racial inequalities are embedded deep within our American society and police killings are only the tip of the iceberg. We will only make progress in mending those inequalities if we acknowledge them and take action—especially those of us who are more socially, economically, and politically powerful and have benefitted from the current social structure.

You're welcome to email me your thoughts at michael@epicodus.com.

Stay-At-Home Special Class with COVID-19 Scholarships

We know a lot of people are staying at home right now, and we’ve heard from many of you that you’d like to take a class with us before our next start date on May 26. So we are pleased to announce that we will be running a special Intro to Programming class beginning April 27th to May 15. If stay-at-home orders are extended and there’s sufficient interest from students, we may extend the class length. You can sign up here.

Class will run Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Pacific time) for three weeks. Much like our in-person classes, we emphasize collaboration and community in our online classes. Classes communicate on Discord (a text and audio chat app), and pairs use Discord to talk with each other while they work on code together using Visual Studio Code’s Live Share extension.

Tuition for the class will be $850. We know COVID-19 has had a profound impact on the lives and livelihoods of many, so we will be offering a limited number of full and partial scholarships. In order to apply, you will just need to submit a short written statement on the impact the COVID-19 crisis has had on your working or studying situation.

If you’re still deciding whether Epicodus is for you, we encourage you to join us on April 25 from 11am-3pm for our free online information session and workshop. The workshop will use a similar format to our online class. You can sign up for the workshop and information session here.

If you’d like to use this time of staying at home to learn a new skill, we hope we’ll see you at our workshop and in our class shortly!

Epicodus Online is Here to Stay

It's been two weeks since Epicodus has gone fully remote in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and we've been pleasantly surprised at how well our online program has turned out. In our weekly anonymous feedback survey, one student said "I really never expected working remotely to feel so positive and social! It's terrific!" While we're looking forward to seeing our students and colleagues in-person again, we're also excited to keep offering our online program regardless of when social distancing is relaxed. 

You can now sign up for our May 26th full-time online classes. Of course, if you're in Portland or Seattle, you can continue to take our classes in-person as soon as we're able, but students from anywhere in the world are welcome to join our online program (provided you can be online from 9am-5pm Pacific) with the security of knowing we'll continue to offer it regardless of stay-at-home orders.

We've carried over much of what makes the Epicodus classroom unique into our online format. We start each day at 8am Pacific time with an all-class video call, and then students pair program for the rest of the day. Since we can't physically share computers, students use Visual Studio Code's Live Share extension, which lets two people write code together in the same file at the same time (much like Google Docs). Pairs talk in a "voice channel" on a Discord chat server. Teachers drop into each pairing channel throughout the day to check on the students, and also monitor a Discord "text channel" where students can write questions. Teachers also have one-on-one meetings with students by video. At the end of each day, we have another all-class meeting to wrap up.

All of our part-time and full-time classes are now available online for our next start date on May 26. You can sign up for our online classes here. On April 25 from 11am-3pm, we have a free online information session and workshop that will use a similar format to our online class. You can sign up for the workshop and information session here.

Epicodus's Coronavirus Response

Epicodus has decided to hold all its classes remotely in response to the coronavirus pandemic. While most of our students aren't in a high-risk demographic group for coronavirus, anybody can be a carrier of the virus, and we need to do our part to slow its spread.

While we're proponents of in-person classes, we've held several remote class sessions over the past two weeks and have come up with strong systems for creating community and facilitating collaboration. Our flipped classroom format has made the transition to remote work especially smooth: we've never been reliant on lectures, instead delivering our content online through learnhowtoprogram.com. We continue to practice pair programming, using Visual Studio Code's Live Share extension and Discord's voice channels. Teachers drop into pairs' voice channels to check in with them throughout the day. We also have multiple daily all-class meetings to bring our students together and make sure we're all working as part of the same community.

We'll follow health authorities' advice about when to return to our offices. Whether online or in-person, we're committed to creating an environment where all of our students can collaborate and learn together.