The past month welcomed a couple new faces here at Daylight, thanks to the Epicodus internship program. John Cech and Drew Seminara joined our team in May, providing us some much needed assistance on upcoming projects.
What is Epicodus?
Epicodus, founded in 2013 by Michael Kaiser-Nyman, is a hands-on web programming course. The course just completed its fourth round of classes but so far results have been astounding with 100% of Fall 2013 graduates receiving job offers within three months of graduation. The 4 month 40-hour per week course is designed to teach students “how to think like a programmer” and to work as a team, in addition to good programming fundamentals and how to build web applications from scratch. Daily classes are led by former graduates of the program and students work in pairs to code a new program each day. Most students begin with limited tech background or programming knowledge but through months of coding for 8 hours a day/5 days a week, students acquire over 700 hours of experience creating real programs, using object-oriented design and test-driven development.
Needless to say, the program’s goals are ambitious and so are the students’. We were excited for the opportunity to work full time with our new interns for 4 weeks.
Who Are The Interns?
John Cech, a SE Portland/Clackamas native, brought his love of technology and quality denim, and adventurous spirit to Daylight. John’s studies have included business, accounting, and aviation science. His passion for technology and software spurred his interest in the Epicodus program and his preference for accelerated learning sealed the deal. John hopes through Epicodus and his internship at Daylight to gain a better understanding of day-to-day web industry operations and solid skills to for employment as a junior developer. When away from the computer screen, John enjoys hiking, competing in Magic the Gathering, and trying new things - on a whim he once went to a sensory deprivation spa, which turned out to be an incredible experience and he has since returned several times.
Drew Seminara hails from Hawaii by way of Nebraska, where he attended Creighton University to receive a B.S. in Environmental Science and Master’s in Atmospheric & Environmental Science. His experiences working as a geospatial analyst prompted him to explore programming when he realized he could decrease his workload by automating certain repetitive processes. At Daylight, Drew sought to understand programming at a higher level and to become a better developer, making him more competitive for employment in web development. Away from the office, Drew enjoys being outdoors, spending time with his rambunctious border collie/husky named Blu, a good beer (or two), and obsessing over college football.
What Did Our Interns Do?
While at Daylight, John and Drew had their hands in a variety of projects and tasks, including implementing edits to current projects and developing an internal Daylight dashboard application using Node.js framework. (And a foosball match random generator because we take foos very, very seriously.)
John and Drew were wonderful additions to our group. They helped our team charge ahead on meaningful projects and we genuinely enjoyed working with them and getting to know them better during their time at Daylight.
