Le Wagon

After working 1 year in a startup as a growth hacker, I realized that I lacked skills in web development to progress in my job. It was difficult to know how to start to learn these skills, so I decided to join Le Wagon, the best web development bootcamp.

During 9 weeks, I learned the basics of web development (Ruby, CSS, MySQL ...) with other beginners like me and... It was an amazing and intense experience !

Today, with this new skills, I am better at communicating and managing developers at work. Moreover, I am more independent and productive at work, for my personal project, ect

Coming from a business background, I worked with automization and digitization in mulitple internships. However, what that actually entails was always a blackbox to me. Hence, I wanted to gain an in-depth undrstanding of how coding works and how I could use these skills in a business, be it as an entrepreneur or advisor to companies. I particularly enjoyed that the curriculum is adaptive, meaning that you will always be challenged no matter what level of coding proficiency you have before or throughout the coding camp.

My personal highlights were the demo day and starting to rebuild Airbnb. In the week in which you program your own Airbnb you realize how much you have learnt and how everything, front- and backend are comning together. The demo day is an amazing feeling of taking an abstract idea and building a full-fledged product in two weeks and presenting this to a crowd of >100 people. In these moments you truly realize that LeWagon is worth the time and resources you put in.

Barcelona is a great city and a good combination of beaches, a vibrant startup community and amazing food. The team running the camp is very engaged in helping you succeed in coding but also ensuring that you are bonding with your batch and having a great time in Barcelona.
Think about what you expect to get out of the boot camp and validate your expectations with the team in the interview process.

Coming from a product and entrepreneurial background - I wanted to learn to code to up-skill myself technically so I could both work with engineers more effectively and validate new product ideas quickly. I am someone who needs to understand the core theory behind what I’m working on in order to fully grasp and expand upon it and that’s exactly what the Le Wagon curriculum and program format enabled.

The majority of your days throughout the course are spent on challenges which enables you to practice what you’ve been taught but also instills in you an engineering mindset which is based on a strategizing, executing and testing iteration loop. From my experience, the most important part of learning to code is getting comfortable with failing and the process of learning from that failure which is exactly what the Le Wagon format instills in you.

I would highly recommend the course for anyone who is both looking to transition careers but also open themselves up to a new way of approaching problems.

A 9 week-program is intense but totally worth it. Do not hesitate.

Regarding the program : 

- great content and great platform (kitt) 

- you can access the content after having finished the program --> to keep practicing and learning

- first three weeks are intense but then you get into the rythm

- no need to know how to code before starting the program. The level is more or less even between the students at the end of the 9 weeks

Regarding the people : 

- teachers and staff have different backgrounds which means rich and diverse encounters. They are all accessible, patient and can become good friends

- same thing for the students : diverse backgrounds which is great to broaden your horizons and perspectives on how to do / think things.

Regarding the network : 

- the alumni network is extremely active via slack

- by active I mean : job search / tech awareness / dev tips / ...

I have a strategy consulting background and wanted to study at Le Wagon to acquire tech skills to :

1/ Be autonomous to ship small products / concepts 

2/ Understand what tech people I work with are talking about

==> the program totally matched and surpassed my expectations!

I followed the wagon right after my Business School. Thanks to le wagon's pedagogy, I learnt fast how to code and get the most valued skills in the job market today.

More than hard skills, I also learnt a new way to learn and build products. I met great people there and I'm still using this network today, composed by amazing wagoners.

Now, I'm a product manager and even if I'm not a web developer, I do recommend it to any curious person.

In 2019, learning to code is accessible to anyone and no longer reserved for men graduated from engineering schools, Le Wagon offers to anyone this opportunity, it's up to you to seize it ;)

I decided to learn coding primarily because I was paying coders to code my own projects and honestly I had little to no idea what they were doing, what was taking them so long and why I was paying them SO MUCH!

After a few years of employing them I figured I needed to learn a lot more or else I'd probably spend a lifetime having other people code my visions. So I signed up for the bootcamp to learn how to code but also to learn how to manage coders I contracted.

It was an amazing experience from start to finish! You were completely immersed in coding and Le Wagon makes you feel like your being welcomed into a family across the globe. A family of coders of course. They allowed you to move at your own pace. If you were coding for the first time they made sure you kept up with the pace of the class and if you caught on quick they ensured you never ran out of new material and challenges for you to work on. They pretty much gave you the opportunity to learn whatever you wanted. It was an endless learning experience in the class room and the possibilities simply expanded when you stepped into the city of Barcelona.

I choose Barcelona because it is one of the best places to drink wine in the world, I have always been intrigued by Spanish culture and rumor has it Barcelona is a great place to party. The city easily delivered all that and more the entire 9 weeks I was there. And most importantly it fosters an environment for creativity and freedom of self expression. It reigns high as my favorite place in the world right now.

My favorite part of the curriculum was that this coding class had an entrepreneurial twist to it. So in addition to the technical skills to code I took information away on how to start a business and go about launching a product. That was one of the most valuable things I learned.

The best part of the entire course was the people I got to be around and work with. So my advice to anyone considering it is don't hesitate, take on adversity head first, find every new experience you can and live in it to the fullest, it's 9 weeks that will last you a lifetime get everything you can from it. Oh and try a Catalonia Tempranillo while you're at it! 

Before Le Wagon, I spent 4 years working as a Graphic Designer / Art Director in New York / Philadelphia but have consistently felt dissatisfied with the day-to-day. A career in front-end web development seemed like a logical expansion of my skill set, so last fall I began researching bootcamps. I quickly realized that a full stack program would leave me with the most options afterwards and allow me to explore all aspects of web development without keeping me in the “designer” box.

I chose Le Wagon for a few reasons:

1. Le Wagon is a fraction of the cost of most U.S. programs but offers the same education, value, and outcome.
2. The application process was approachable and unpretentious. The staff seemed interested in getting to know me personally and selecting individuals who would fit the culture.
3. It’s tailored to beginners. Most people have no coding experience going into it.
4. It’s highly rated and reviewed by alumni which is telling not just for the quality of education but also the culture.
5. I knew if I wanted to go to a full-time bootcamp I would have to leave Philly for a few months so I would be lying if I said the opportunity to travel was not a huge part of why I chose Le Wagon Barcelona.

And thank god I did because it was a great experience and an ideal learning environment. I liked that the first few weeks are dedicated to learning and truly understanding Ruby, that the work was both individual and collaborative (and extremely hands on), the exercises were challenging but actually so fun, the teachers and TAs were encouraging, helpful and patient, the community was strong and diverse in terms of professional background and interests, and I left with the experience, motivation and toolkit to build web applications from the ground up.

Le Wagon was exactly the experience I was looking for and I’m extremely grateful to have had it! Would definitely recommend!

I joined the Wagon thanks to a friend, Nicolas Schweitzer, who followed the program a year ago.
I’ve been doing the same job for almost 10 years, and I’ve been going around for a while. So I signed up. The goal was not directly to change career. I have always been interested in coding and have taken some basic courses on Khan Academy (HTML, CSS).

So my work agreed to free me on weeknights so I’d be able to follow the lessons of the Wagon. I have all been seduced by the field and especially Le Wagon pedagogy. The course of the days is well thought out and allows to progress quickly.
In the end, out of Le Wagon, I asked for my contractual resignation. Left my job at the end of April, I have a few days as a TA at Le Wagon Paris. I want to continue to train myself (I did the track REACT and do two days this week on VUE JS in a school called SFEIR), and I’d like to try to work freelance to see where it goes.

To summarize: I did 10 years in a great job that brought me a lot. Le Wagon arrived at the right time to give me the impetus to change. To be honest, I dive a little into the unknown but I have the chance not to be forced to resume an activity directly, suddenly I have time to train and I hope that Le Wagon will allow me to evolve in this new activity.

After my studies in Biomedical Science, I visited a technology conference where I realized how important it is to have some technical skills. A friend told me about “Le Wagon”, a coding bootcamp which is famous here in Paris and has the best reputation.

It was a great opportunity to learn how to code with le Wagon. The courses were very well-designed. Every day, we were solving problems with a partner to immediately apply the new knowledge. Every day, I was working with a different person. This way I could get to know almost all of my classmates more closely. Most of my classmates were awesome with all different kinds of backgrounds.

At the end of the bootcamp, we had our own real project with a team. Our project turned out better than we could have dreamed of.

During the bootcamp, I disappeared for all of my other friends. Many evenings, there was a program at le Wagon such as talks and afterworks. And usually at the week end, I was really exhausted and sleeping all day.

Now, I just finished le Wagon and I already sad and miss the team work. I am searching a job as a Ruby on Rails developer to deepen the knowledge learnt at le Wagon (at the moment I prefer coding to medical research). Since I am a bit afraid to forget everything, I review some lectures and exercises (I have lifelong access to videos to all lectures and to all exercises J ). Even now, le Wagon is helping me how to proceed with my job search. Also, I feel optimistic with my new huge network.

In summary: well-designed courses, meeting amazing people and making the impossible possible