Le Wagon

Le Wagon, what an adventure! I did Le Wagon in Montreal from October to December 2019.First impression, that got reinforced during all the bootcamp, is that every teacher and person working at Le Wagon is really here to accompany us and make our experience as beneficial as possible.Everyone is really patient and is willing to spend time with us, giving us useful tips so we get good practices while learning web development.The program is well-thought, so we understand how every technical aspect of building a web application relates to each other. Especially that the bootcamp is product-oriented, as we have to develop a web application from scratch at the end of the program, to put into practice everything that we learnt. It felt really rewarding :)In short, I recommend!

I signed up to Le Wagon’s full stack web development bootcamp with the intention of understanding how to develop my own ideas in to functioning applications. I can say with confidence that I met my learning objectives thanks to Le Wagon’s amazing teachers, curriculum and online learning platform. I was incredibly satisfied by what I was able to achieve by the end of the bootcamp where I built a platform to enable customers to order and pay at a range of restaurants through a single application. Overall I wouldn’t hesitate to give Le Wagon 10/10 and would recommend it to other entrepreneurially-minded people who want to be able to build their own digital products.

The experience at Le Wagon was really fantastic! First of all, I was finally able to acquire skills that I had been aiming for for a very long time, but first I had to finalize my studies to enable me to follow this training. Le Wagon allowed me to remember that I really enjoyed creating things and putting my creativity on paper. Indeed, my studies and the different internships or jobs behind them had taken me away from all the creative aspect that the web could represent. I also had to question my skills and face frustrations but also moments of happiness! Coding is a discipline in its own right and the learning and outcomes can be far from what I could have done before! It was a real challenge and I have no regrets about having followed this training that I wanted to start since 2017 !

Until not so long ago, I used to be a journalist. After a few years working in that field, I decided to take some time for myself and travelled around the world.
That gap year made me realise that I wanted to shift my professional focus. After exploring different options I started to believe that learning to code was part of the solution to find a path that would lead me to a new career. 
Even though the bootcamp was really intense and that I've learned a lot, now that I've finished Le Wagon I've realised this was only the beginning. Being a developper means I will have to keep on learning new things all the time (which is really exciting and scary at the same time!).
All that I can say is that I am grateful for what that experience brought me on so many levels and today I am more convinced than ever that I want to become a developper.

 

After university, I had a stint in a startup where I got a taste of programming in Java. Following that, my career took off and I joined global consulting companies. My career pivoted towards product management and the more commercial sides of technology. As the years went by, I found myself further and further away from coding. I had the pleasure of managing and working with developers, but I always felt that they got to do the fun part of projects - building them !

Half a year ago I started to code again and built some projects in Javascript. This really ignited my love for coding and I decided to switch careers to become a developer. I knew I would have to start my career all over again, but I felt it was worth it as I could spend the rest of my life doing something I enjoyed. It was lonely to code alone and I often questioned the quality of my code. To learn best practices, industrial standards and work with other developers, I decided to enrol at Le Wagon.

At Le Wagon, I felt like a knight in training. Everyday we were given pedagogical challenges to shape our understanding of object orientated programming. Ruby was a new language to me, but after a few weeks I was surprised at my own fluency. I trusted the process and let Le Wagon carry me through databases, front end, ruby on rails, and then onto independent projects. The last few weeks of the course, I worked in a team of four to build two web applications. It was challenging to work with others, but after a day of Github chaos, it all fell into place. In our final project we built an app that ‘gamified’ eco-challenges (i.e. plastic free, ride a bike, etc) and there were features such as collecting points, competing with friends and tracking your progress. It was a fun and challenging project to build, and we’re incredibly proud of what we have achieved.

The best thing about the experience at Le Wagon is definitely the Teachers and TA Team. Everyday on the course, they were there to rescue us, guide us and teach us how to write clean code. They were truly ruby and javascript ninjas and the speed at which they could understand our problems and debug was impressive. Without them, I would not be where I am today - with a job as a software engineer working with the Python stack !To anyone who is looking for a career change, wants a challenge as well as seeking guidance, I recommend enrolling at Le Wagon. It is one of the best decisions I made in my life and the knowledge and community support I received was invaluable to my success.

A total game changer! I loved my time at Le Wagon and I can honestly say that after completing the course I feel like I see the world through a new lens. You may think that's a bold statement, and you're right. However, Le Wagon's well thought out curriculum and helpful instructors allowed me to gain an understanding of coding, start-up culture, and full stack web development. The course changed that way I think about the internet and software, and most importantly it empowered me and gave me to skills necessary to become the creator I've always wanted to be.

I am writing this in hopes to help others that are searching for a coding bootcamp. Do not believe the positive reviews - do not go to Le Wagon!!

The  curriculum is outdated - you will learn Ruby and Ruby on Rails . Upon completing the bootcamp two months ago, I have met with over a dozen potential employers, all of which are shocked that we learned these programs. One of them even told me they thought it was unethical. I now agree with him. I met with one recruiter that has access to thousands of developer positions across Canada. He did a search in his database for junior positions with Ruby on Rails. Zero jobs were returned. He was doing this to prove a point to me and told me I should start learning other languages.

When I expressed my frustrations to the people running the program, they tell me that employers are looking for junior level people that are "willing to learn" and that it doesn't matter that we learned Ruby. Maybe this was true five years ago, but it is not true now. The market is getting saturated. 

There is also no career support. I get occasional emails about junior level positions in Montreal from someone that works there, all of which require that you know React or some other language that we didn't learn. 

If you are in Montreal, you should go to Decode MTL or Lighthouse. They are both Javascript based courses and will teach you Node and React. Decode also assigns a TA to each graduate to help them with the interview process and looking for jobs. I really wish I had done that one. Don't make the same mistake as me!

I wish I could give this program less than one star overall - but it looks like I'm required to give it one. I chose this bootcamp because of the reviews, which after completing the bootcamp truly baffle me. 

Before going to Le Wagon, I was working as a marketer but have been wanted to do something else as my career.  After 3 months of Le Wagon's bootcamp, I realized this is what I want to do as my career since it was so much fun learning coding. It actually changed my life! Teachers are great, and I noticed after I got a job, but the curricuram is also great. It's made to make sure everybody understands how pure ruby works and also it covers about database and oop as well.  Now I got a job as a backend developer, and I really appreciate they covered those concepts as well since thanks to that, now it's so much easier to get my tasks done.

 

I did Le Wagon in Montreal in the Winter 2019 batch, and presently my brother is doing Lighthouse Labs. Comparing the two side-by-side I really wish that I had done Lighthouse instead.

Le Wagon teaches mainly Ruby, and you learn no JavaScript frameworks. The class size is around 25 students, as compared to less than 10 for Lighthouse. The curriculum at Le Wagon is provided for them by the organization, the founder of the Montreal branch has never worked as a programmer, and the bootcamp is much less rigourous. Lighthouse will really throw you in the deep end, but Le Wagon if you are on the task you can finish all the content most days.

Career-wise, there is some support from an administrative assistant, but the job I found was not at all through their assistance. They offer very little interview support and no training on technical interviews - because they say they are "startup" focussed. Almost all of the jobs listed on their placement board are in Europe, most in Paris. If you want a certificate, sure, do Le Wagon, but if you want a heavy-duty bootcamp experience, look elsewhere.

A few short months ago I sat in office in Sweden and I realised I needed a change from the monotony of my daily life, I work as freelance art director and have years of  design and graphic skills in my toolbelt.  I always believed if I could help build clients websites I would be the full package!

After speaking with some friends who worked with coding they recommended I look into Le Wagon bootcamp. They also believed that with my strong design background that I could excel at coding. My mind was instantly  opened to world of possibilities. I figured that it would be smart to investment of  my time to enter into a full stack developer course where I could quickly Learn this new skill.

I knew going into the bootcamp that it would be hard but it was way harder then I thought, and surprisingly I loved every minute of the challenges that I was presented with!  During the course I received so much support from the TA and teachers. Everyone is there to make sure you succeed and will spend hours with you to make sure you grasp the 9 week curriculum. I am very thankful for all extra help I received! I finished the course have a strong knowledge which I continue to build upon.

Now I can say that I’am recent graduate of the le wagon Bali batch #253 I have successfully learned:

-Ruby on rails

-How to api are used, as well as JSON, and scrapping

-Relational databases, SQL, Postgres

-HTML,CSS, Bootstrap

-ES6 Javascript

-wireframes, prototyping, UI design

-test driven development

-git, GitHub, and technical workflow.

In additional to all these amazing new things I have learned,  I have also gained a new community of friends and peers who I will know for the rest of of career/ life!