Guest Post: How Epicodus Became The Most Affordable Code School

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Last Updated: June 11, 2019

Hi there! I'm Michael, founder and president of Epicodus, a coding school in Portland and Seattle.

People are often surprised to hear that Epicodus only charges $6,900 for a 27-week training that includes a 5-week internship with a local tech company. They're often even more surprised that we offer the first 5 weeks of our course for free, and only charge $100 for our part-time evening prep course.

I want to share with you how we've become the most affordable code school, and help you decide if Epicodus is right for you.

Background

I started Epicodus 6 years ago with a mission to create the most affordable, accessible pathway for anyone wanting to launch a new career in the tech industry. Throughout the life of the school, we've always tried to make sure our school is welcoming to people who, by birth or circumstance, might not have easy access to learning the skills necessary to get tech jobs. Over 1,500 students have come through our full-time courses and gone on to work at hundreds of companies, from tech firms like Mozilla, Microsoft, Intel, and HP, to technical roles at otherwise non-tech companies like Nike, Toyota, and Comcast, and many more.

Classroom Format

There are two unique things about Epicodus's classroom that set us apart from other schools: pair programming and our flipped classroom model.

At Epicodus, students practice pair programming: two people share one computer, taking turns using the keyboard and mouse. By working together, they catch each other's mistakes, teach each other new skills, and come up with ideas together neither would have had alone. It also allows students to constantly practice communicating about their code, a skill necessary for almost all professional tech roles. Pairing like this is increasingly used by tech companies (like Facebook and Square), and we've found it also helps our students learn programming concepts faster.

Epicodus's flipped classroom approach is nothing like a traditional classroom: it's 100% hands-on, building projects and writing code all day, every day. There are no in-class lectures, breakout sessions, lightning talks, or anything like that. Homework is typically 30-60 minutes of video or text lessons from our curriculum at www.learnhowtoprogram.com. These lessons introduce new concepts by explaining the principles and then showing examples of how to apply them in code. The next day, students use what they learned from homework in the exercises given in class. Our coding instructors are there to help out when students are stuck or don't understand something. Not only do we find this hands-on approach to be very effective for most of our students, it also allows students to graduate with a portfolio full of examples of their work to show employers.

Who Isn't Epicodus Right For

The Epicodus classroom is so different from other educational programs that we encourage people to make sure Epicodus is right for them before applying. If you are the kind of person who prefers watching to doing, or somebody who likes to work alone most of the time, then Epicodus is not for you! But if you like the idea of working together with your classmates each day, and you don't feel the need to listen to a lecture every day, Epicodus could be your cup of tea.

Our unique classroom format is also what makes Epicodus so affordable. With our curriculum standardized online, teachers don't have to spend time crafting each day's lessons, and can use that time focusing on students instead. And when students work together, they have fewer problems than when working alone. As a result, our classroom is much more efficient, and we pass the savings on to our students.

Trying It Out

Of course, sometimes it's hard to know if something is right for you until you try it yourself. Since we're so different from other schools, we've worked hard to make it easy for students to try us out with next to no risk.

For our full-time classes, students can take the first five weeks for free. If at any point during those first five weeks you decide Epicodus isn't the right fit, you can withdraw and not pay a thing.

If you aren't quite ready to take the plunge into our full-time program, our part-time evening Intro to Programming class is only $100. This $100 can also be applied toward your tuition if you continue to our full-time program.

But before you make any decisions, I'd suggest you watch the video at www.epicodus.com, which will give you a taste of what our school is like. And we also offer free monthly workshops in both Portland and Seattle for students to see what we're like in person.

I hope we'll see you in one of our classes soon!


This is a sponsored post by Epicodus.

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