Le Wagon

I’ve attended Le Wagon in Paris three years ago. When I look back now, this is the best decision I have ever made. The 9 weeks program is really well shaped: you start with painful days of Ruby programming, doing everything from scratch. Every week you add a layer: database, front-end, rails, until the last three project weeks. The teachers are 100% committed, always friendly and willing to help. Students are super international and the network brings you great job and after-bootcamp opportunities. What could have been better: Back in the days, we didn’t have so many community events. But this is something they worked on really hard. Now I am proud to be a Le Wagon alumni! What I loved: The content, the product and entrepreneurial approach!

I was working for Apple and realise that I wanted to do something that would allow me to be more flexible with location. I decided to quit my job and join the January batch at Le Wagon in London. It was highly recommended by friends and family members who work as developers.

It was the best decision I made and the best investment I made in my life. You will learn so much and the team is fantastic. Great fun and definitely worth it. I cannot recommended enough. I was worried about leaving a job but I would do it all over again in a heart beat. Thank you so much.

I’m an Olympian and former professional swimmer and I finished Le Wagon London’s bootcamp in March 2018 (batch #123).  I had taken one coding class at university almost ten years ago and forgot everything with that bad experience. I moved to London to explore new careers and find a job and it was hard to find the right fit when lots of industries require some sort of technical skill or relevant experience. Le Wagon solidly put me on a path towards achieving that and solving this problem, and it was up to me to take it where I wanted. I think Le Wagon is a great fit for any entrepreneur wanting technical skills. If you want to get a developer job after, you will also be in the right place to achieve that. I just got a job as an Associate Engineer at BCG Digital Ventures and couldn’t be more pleased with what has happened!

Goals

Before Le Wagon, my goals were simply to learn and obtain technical skills that I could rely on as hard evidence for finding a job. What this job would be, I didn't know. But, I knew I wanted to equip myself with skills to be able to launch a digital product myself in the future and be a better entrepreneur. I never intended to work as an engineer and still can’t believe what has happened!

Why I chose Le Wagon

Le Wagon was a great fit for me because they teach beginners from non-tech backgrounds with a bigger picture business perspective and with a purpose of making you a self sufficient developer. Le Wagon is much more interesting than a developer factory and they don't make money from recruiting fees when you get a job. They don’t force you to be a developer or pressure you when you finish to find a job as one. It is up to you to take your different background (from a tech industry point of view), your new skills and use it as a strength and get what you want in true entrepreneurial fashion.

Curriculum and teaching

Le Wagon’s curriculum is designed to teach you something hard very quickly, so inevitably there will be growing pains on the course and some aspects prioritized over the others. There is no such thing as a perfect curriculum; you will always have to fill in gaps yourself, as with anything. However, I thought Ruby/Rails was such a great choice by Le Wagon to get me started with software engineering. Given the course is nine weeks, the curriculum makes sense and its now unsurprising why such companies like Airbnb and Github used Rails in the first place. You’re trying to learn something hard like coding (or launch a fully fledged webapp/business like Airbnb) very, very quickly. This curriculum (and Ruby/Rails) teaches you to do that in a fun and entrepreneurial way and not to be a developer who will just build what they are told to build without questioning (no problem if that is what you want!).  

Having the opportunity to pitch product ideas to your classmates and teachers was amazing. It's a very product driven bootcamp; awareness to keep your ideas or features in line with the value proposition you seek to deliver is drilled in to you. During the project weeks, this was really important to be mindful of. There are not many better ways to learn than by creating a product you like, getting your creative juices flowing, feeling ownership over it and blowing yourself away with what you can build in ten days.

All of the teachers were great and most of the TAs were as well. They didn't just simply give me the answer or code it for me. They were all patient and tried very hard to explain in multiple ways so that I would understand. There was a holistic approach to learning which I appreciate a lot - "remember to eat properly, get enough rest and sleep" etc.

You will spend less time on some things (like testing and javascript), but in my opinion you leave Le Wagon with a solid core foundation that you will then be able to decide how to add to yourself (as is in life or on any job). If you compare this to other bootcamps, less impact on learning testing/javascript is a bit of a drawback, but Le Wagon is different to other bootcamps in a very creative way. You will leave Le Wagon with knowledge on how to go fill in the gaps, what to look for and with a big community to back you as well. Le Wagon is great value for money and time. I still cant believe 9 weeks jumpstarted the process and eventually lead me to land an awesome job.

Before joining the Le Wagon bootcamp I was working at a company called TicketSwap, a tech company in the ticketing industry. There, I managed the support team. I joined TicketSwap as the first employee, so during the first years I witnessed a lot regarding the development of the product. I liked talking to the developer colleagues and figure out how things, technically, work. After 4 years my time at TicketSwap came at an end because I wanted to change course and learn more about coding. A good friend of mine told me about the bootcamp and after a short holiday I hopped on board the Wagon. During the 9 weeks I learned so much. It’s incredible to see what you can do in that period. Even though I shouldn’t, I tend to compare it with my bachelor degree. I wonder; why did I need 4 years to get this diploma while I only needed 9 weeks to learn how to code and set up a working web app. In our final project we created a platform where people could recommend podcasts to their followers through donations. It’s like a Twitter on steroids where your feed contains the recommended podcast (not sure if it’s still online: mendio.co). Working together with other people was a great experience as well. Now, after the bootcamp, I’m doing a traineeship of 3 months at a company called Ace & Tate. I’m working on the back-end of this webshop, not only maintaining the webshop but also things like inventory and order management. Pretty complex stuff, but I know my why around thanks to Le Wagon.

I’m an engineer, 6 years of prof. exp, with previous knowledge in algorithm theory and a quantitative mindset. I wanted to learn code the way entrepreneurs do. Not the old style, theoretical code I learned in school

Pro: - Fast pace - Excellent ratio teacher / student (about 1/6) - Amazing fine tuning of the cursus: each daily lesson follows exactly the previous. Zero redundancy! - Great community & alumni network

Cons: - Warning, you will not be satisfied at the end: you will want to keep learning ;)

I always wanted to know how to code without really knowing where to start. My several attempts to learn as an autodidact has always failed so I decided to look for training. This is how I found Le wagon Tōkyō. 

The courses are given in English, which seemed, to me, more reassuring to learn new concepts.

It’s a training that mainly focuses on the exercises.

The bootcamp not only taught me how to code, but it also instilled a methodology and a new way of thinking. Teachers and teacher’s assistant are obviously always there to help you but they will also entice you to be autonomous by finding the solution by yourself.  They will show you how to find the solution efficiently on the online documentation.   

During the bootcamp i used a lot of new tools like Git, Postman, Airtable. 

And the School learning platform is quite cool too. With Training videos, flashcards, etc.

Le Wagon Tokyo boot camp is also a community, with many meet-ups and speakers. Recruitment firm, Specialist in marketing and cyber security comes to provide advises and recommendations .

I found a job just before the end of the bootcamp thanks to the management of the boot camp that put me in contact.

What emerges from these two intensive months is an immense satisfaction that I highly recommend to anyone looking for a career change or simply getting new skills .

I attended Le Wagon in Paris during summer 2017. It was an intensive but great summer. I was surprised by how much I was able to learn during such a short period of time and couldn't have imagined before the bootcamp that I was going to really be able to code for a living after the summer. I got hired by a startup as a backend developper right after Le Wagon and even though it was though in the beginning compared to other more experienced developpers, after a while I was fully operational. Great overall experience at Le Wagon, teachers and assistants that take time to help and are almost always available. Great methodology for teaching with only a few courses and a lot of exercizes. Highly recommended. 

I lived in the US for 9 years were I pursued my undergraduate degree in Business and later on my MBA and Master's in Science of Finance. After 2 years of experience in the steel industry I worked in process management and business development for a private business group dedicated to Retail and Real Estate (3 years) were I got to travel to places like: Portugal, Brazil, South Korea, Switzerland, Ireland, China and Hong Kong.

Joining Le Wagon has been the best decision I have made and would advice a younger me to have joined this industry years ago. Now that I'm a FullStack Programmer I can freelance, join any industry or startup I want.

The community of Le Wagon is friendly, collaborative and connected to high-profiles that can open doors everywhere. Lose the tie, put on your Nike's and come join Le Wagon.

Since I always had enjoyed cooking at home I decided to try myself in the culinary arts industry as a side income while studying. Ever since that day my life was all knives and flames, scars and stress for the most part of the year except the wakeboard instructor job I had in summers when I could recharge my self again for upcoming part of the year in the kitchen. I had always been determined and unafraid of hard work so I quickly excelled from cook to chef in small but interesting places, restaurants and projects.

As the years passed on, the novelty of my career faded, the urge to prove myself in the kitchen became pointless, and it became increasingly hard to understand or justify the choices I had made. At some point, I realized 10 years of culinary experience on my resume could only lead to 10 more years of culinary experience and  60+ hour work weeks in the kitchen  was something I did not want to tolerate any more.

So last year I quit my job abandoned my plans to go to culinary school in Italy to become a master chef of Italian cuisine and I set off on a journey of self-discovery that lead me to code. I started to learn from online courses by myself but since coding was something completely new to me and there are so many deferent things you can learn I needed some kind of basic structure where to start from. So searching in google lead me to LeWagon page. I immediately found a lot of amazing reviews about this boot camp and as I wanted to meet like-minded people and learn as fast as possible this looked like perfect opportunity to kick-start my career as a developer.  So I enrolled in LeWagon coding bootcamp in Amsterdam.

So about the LeWagon in Amsterdam-

Usually people have the image of coders as boring, lonely, weird people who spend their days in front of screens and don’t want to communicate with others, but in Le Wagon you see that coding actually can require a lot of collaboration with diverse group of amazing people, with different age, backgrounds, experiences, nationalities and you all work to gather as equals to learn and create something amazing.

Overall experience was nothing short of incredible. I’ve probably never learnt so much in such a short time. Every day you are surrounded by inspiring teachers that are there to help when you hit the wall. In nine weeks you learn a solid introduction to all the necessary tools you would require to reach a productive level, how to put them all together, and how to collaborate in team and make MVP product from scratch in 7 days. There is almost no time to rest. It’s difficult but completely worth it!

Be aware that the bootcamp will not do the work for you. To get anything out of it, you’ll have to give it your full commitment. So if you are planning to do this, the main thing to get the most out of it is to prepare your self properly. Do all the prework that is given by the LeWagon and do it twice if possible. Take a vacation and try to arrange everything so you don’t get much distraction during the 9 weeks. Prepare your self physically as well - be in good health, well rested.

If you are looking for bootcamp experience then LeWagon is the one!

P.S.

After bootcamp I went back to my home country Latvia and started to apply for jobs. I was looking something ruby or frontend related. All the frontend positions where asking for PHP knowledge so I started to learn that. After a month and a half of actively applying, doing test works and going to some job interviews I finally found a job opportunity that I really was excited about - frontend developer in a digital agency that is one of the best in Latvia. Long story short - two days after my job interview I got the job as a junior web developer. Right now it is the end of my second month there. All the knowledge I gained in LeWagon is a huge help in learning and understanding the new work environment - cause right now I’m working with php Laravel. So my recommendation - if you find a job opportunity that makes you excited and by description, it may be over your skill level, but you still know you want it - go ahead and apply for it - you still could get it!

I decided to pursue a career in coding after almost of decade of having an interest but never taking the leap. I started researching bootcamps about a year before actually enrolling. Once I discovered Le Wagon and read it's mission, I knew it was the right choice for me. I Immediately enrolled for Batch #144 in Montreal.

I have BA in Anthropology and I worked as a research internship coordinator before coming to Le Wagon. You absolute do not need to have a maths or coding background, although a large amount of commitment and motivation is required. Le Wagon has quenched a thirst I had for challenging myself. It is intense program that pushes you to your limits in the best way possible. The support system in place is well thought out and geared towards ensuring that each student will find their flow and to provide the resources needed.  I am now brushing up on skills learned, creating my own portfolio, and will hopefully begin freelancing in the near future. 

When I started with Le Wagon for Batch 144 in Montreal, QC I had a career as a Head Chef/Baker that I was starting to get very tired of after 10 years. I had been taking University Classes for Game development that did not seem to be getting me where I wanted to go and that’s when I researched coding boot camps in my area and found Le Wagon. 
I was amazed at what I became a part of after that. A community that my online classes could never give me, along with the hands-on teaching that would give me a true understanding of what I was programming.
I remember looking at job posting for web development and seeing the list of languages and libraries, thinking to myself how in the world you learn all of those and now I look at those lists and feel confident in going into interviews and discussing each item on that list. 
Right out of the boot camp I had two interviews with companies and one being from a recruiter from LinkedIn that because of this boot camp wanted to recruit me. Along with the interviews, I create my own projects and am starting to do freelance, successfully completing my career change.

I used to be a graphic designer with strong knowledge of print media and marketing. I had made website designs and prototypes before and had worked on the visual side of web applications. I knew some HTML and CSS, but I had never any experience with the servers and backend part of the projects. Never had I opened Terminal before.

At the age of 39, I felt that I had to make a change.

Learning how to code is to our generation the same as was learning how to read and write to people two hundred years ago - the illiterate ones will never catch up with the faster ones in their career.

So I looked for the best coding bootcamp in Europe and came across Le Wagon. The reviews were so good that I decided to apply. 

After graduating from batch no #124, I can assure you all that the positive 5-star reviews do not lie. It really is just as good as it reads!

The curriculum is excellent and its web-based online learning environment is super-useful. There is so much to explore and it's being updated on a daily basis. I still use it regularly to find answers to my coding-related questions today.

The teachers are very professional, confident, natural talents - all of them. My favourite was Alice. She just kept the whole thing together and was such an inspiration. On our final project week she spent hours trying to restore my petty Javascript animation. Not because that it was such an important feature, but because I as a student had worked so hard on it and she thought it was important.

In addition to teachers, there are a number of assistants. You will get as much help as you ask - they are there for you all the time. They sit long hours with you solving a problem and later relax together with you and have a beer. Very, very positive vibe indeed.

What I liked the most, was the product-centered, entrepreneurial mindset an bias of the curriculum - we had product pitch sessions and brainstorms and everyone, who wanted, had a chance to shine.

Surely the best thing about Le Wagon, is the large, worldwide community of like-minded entrepreneurial, helpful cool people that you will have a connection with after graduating.

Everyone is always invited back for demo days and cocktail nights to have a good time together.

Five stars out of five. Period.