Le Wagon

As a former student in a French business school, I tried for months but was not very successful in learning to code by myself. Last year, I met the driver of Le Wagon Montreal and a couple of students during my internship in Montreal. After having spoken with them, it became clear that it was something for me and so I decided right away to apply to one of the Le Wagon locations around the world.

The three things I enjoyed the most at Le Wagon Bali were :

1. The way our days were structured: a quick 1.5 hour lecture in the morning and the rest of the day was dedicated to practice, practice and .. more practice!

2. Coding in front of the beach! The balinese atmosphere is probably one of the best in the world, working hard and being relaxed at the same time. It helped me so much.

3. The amazing people I met there, from all around the world.

One of the best moments of the bootcamp is, obviously, the last two weeks when we work on our final projects. In those moments, everything really came together. And believe me, you really feel accomplished. 🙂

At the time of writing, we are few weeks after the end of graduating the bootcamp and I can tell you guys that jumping into this adventure was one of the best choices I've made. Le Wagon is a game changer and I'm a 100% sure that it will change my life. For those who are ready to work hard and are really interested in coding, I highly recommend Le Wagon.

Before Le Wagon, I was a student studying Business Economics and that is where I met a friend who introduced me to the world of coding. I immediately started studying on my own and tried to get to a solid level but quickly learned how difficult that is without any real guidance.    This is where Le Wagon Bali came in. I’m not going to lie, I was extremely skeptical before joining the course with major questions like “Can I really learn to code in only 9 weeks?” These questions were immediately shattered when the course began. Le wagon’s meticulously planned course, along with the incredible instructors, taught me more than I could have possibly anticipated. I learned 50x more in 9 weeks in Bali than I did in 3 months of studying on my own. I went from essentially knowing nothing to building my own fully functional web-applications.   I am extremely grateful for the experience they provided and I seriously couldn’t recommend Le Wagon any higher to someone who wants to learn to code. 

My interest in coding was always very high. I've been working in tech startups for the last two years, but only got a sneak peek at the product behind the scenes. This made me very curious and it finally helped my decision to sign up for the Le Wagon Bali Bootcamp. The main reason why I choose Le Wagon was the hands-on learning approach.

A typical day at Le Wagon starts at 9 o´clock sharp with a 1.5 to 2 hour lecture. Following the lecture every student is assigned a buddy using their awesome learning tool "Kitt". Together the two of you will tackle the challenges of the day on the terrace outside the classroom, always having the chance to ask for help from one of the teachers if you are both stuck. This is an extremely powerful and effective way of learning as it allowed me to find my own mistakes. In my opinion Bali was the perfect location for learning how to code, as it allowed you to focus while coding and stay calm when not. At around 5 o clock there will be a live code where everyone has the ability to show what they have learned throughout the day.
I would have never thought it is possible to learn so much in such a short time.

I definitely learned a lot in the last three weeks and we all did, while working in groups on our projects. This was not only extremely fun, but it also gave us a good sense of how to code in a team and showed how much more one can achieve when working in groups.

After these 9 weeks at LeWagon in Bali, I have met wonderful people and broadened my personal network and have also finally the gained the skillset to built fabulous products.

I am writing this review a month after completing the Bootcamp. At my time at Le Wagon, I learned how to make a static webpage, scrape data from other websites, build a full-fledged Airbnb clone, build FireEvents, and executed my final project, all in 9-weeks. It was intense but it was totally worth the hours put in. I came into this program without knowing how to write a single line of code and 9 weeks later, I am equipped to build full-stack applications. The teachers are so helpful and considerate towards the students and are ready to help whenever needed. The coursework is designed well to suit a beginner coder and goes all the way to an advanced level in a matter of a couple of weeks. Of course, there is the prep work that every student has to go through to establish their foundations before the Bootcamp, and this definitely helped me get a better understanding of things during the classes. This program has helped me attain the knowledge that I need to achieve the things I want to on a professional front. Coming from a management background and changing it up to learn how to code can be scary, and I am glad I overcame my fears and took this up. I am very grateful to Le Wagon and the whole teaching crew in Bali for all the support and the resources that were given to me. As for choosing to do the Bootcamp in Bali, the classes were on the top floor of the Frii hotel which had an amazing view of the beach which was relaxing while coding. There are several co-working spaces in Bali which cater to digital nomads and you would definitely run into other developers there and find some freelancing opportunities. There are also a lot of options for food and it's one of the best tourist destinations as well.

I'm from the Singapore campus that opened up this past summer and it was just last week that my team completed and showcased our MVP at batch #294's Demo Day.

  4 months ago I was working as a product planner at an infosecurity company, in a team managing an enterprise web application security product. With a BA and the only formal training in computer science being a semester's coursework of "Intro to Computer Science Java Programming", the learning curve on the job was extremely steep.   While my job gave me some background in how applications are attacked, many concepts were understood only up to the level I'm able to communicate with engineers and seek their confirmation of what is possible. Imposters' Syndrome is real for any non-technical PM. What are these web applications my product is supposed to protect? I knew what websites were, but not how they were built, whether securely or otherwise.   These past 9 weeks gave me the opportunity to to finally, finally get my footing in what I thought I'd needed years of personal study to understand. I'm now closer to the product than I can ever get by learning how to build my own, and with friends.   At Le Wagon we started each day off with lectures followed by almost a whole day of coding to solve challenges of increasing difficulty. It's a solid curriculum that pushes you to use what you've learned right away, all the time, and alongside what you've learned and what you'll learn next. Very quickly you become so familiar with Ruby, everyone starts bonding over how much we miss it during the JavaScript portion of the bootcamp. Code puns of course start appearing during lunchtime which Dirk (Le Wagon Singapore's founder!) says is always a proud moment for him.   What was really impressive for me is realizing at the Airbnb Clone and Final Project weeks that we can build from scratch a fully functional, feature-rich application using just what we've learned.   For my team's final project, we built an issue tracking web app for construction and facilities management. A core feature was to allow users to for pin issues directly on user-uploaded maps to automatically capture a bunch of location information with zero text input. We could have gone the route of creating a draggable pin icon that could transfer data to be stored — which would be complicated by not impossible to implement. However, we found a much simpler solution inspired by the Minesweeper exercise we did a few weeks before, and built a clickable grid over the maps with the AJAX techniques we've learned.   My take on what's special about the Singapore campus is that over here we have a mostly local crowd and I guess therefore the demographics could be more diverse. A few of us were overseas Singaporeans, entrepreneurs, fresh graduates, mid-career changers — and that's just between 9 people. I love that I'll be able to see most of them around after the bootcamp, and a few of us will even be entering a hackathon together (watch out for the 'Wagoners'!).   Because we've all shared in this special Le Wagon experience, the alumni network is pretty strong across the global campuses with active channels for job openings, project launches, and of course further learning.   I'm saying this last because it's been done to death but Le Wagon has THE BEST INSTRUCTORS. I cannot understate how much respect and admiration all my peers have for them. They are passionate, supportive educators and have clearly all fallen hopelessly in love with coding. From the lips of one instructor, "...yeah and we can have a bonfire and sing code songs".   A special shout-out to our instructors this run: Prima, Forrest, Guido, Gianluca and our TA Quan (and also our lovely yoga instructor Perolyn!)   These short 9 weeks have shown me that I can code, I deeply enjoy coding, and learning to create with code, much like learning to write or speak, opens up a world of opportunity in bringing ideas to life.

Hello, I am 51 and I have been working in the software industry for over 28 years. Back in 1990, I received a Master of Engineering from EFREI in Paris. I started my career as a Java developer and then evolved to a Software Product Architect position and finally to a Product Owner one at Cisco. I was still coding for my personal projects on the side and in 2018, I decided to get back to coding on the professional plan. Therefore, I joined Le Wagon to upskill myself by learning state-of-the-art programming languages and quickly becoming up to date.

During the bootcamp, I enjoyed everything: from the pedagogy to the people, including the yoga classes and the diversity of the network.

Afterwards, while I was teaching classes at Le Wagon, I also learnt React and started a freelancing career as a fullstack developer. As Raphaëlle Giordano says: “Your Second Life Begins When You Realize You Only Have One” and I feel like I’m starting this new life after Le Wagon because even if it’s not easy, I want to do (only) things that I enjoy. I am grateful for now being able to fulfill this wish

Very fluid and efficient way of learning code. I had zero experience. Everything is made to facilitate the student process of learning code from scratch. I was expecting an intense bootcamp and let's be clear, it is intense but i would redo it anytime. You don't feel lost even when it's hard, all thanks to the professors and the staff. They are so patients and always tried to lead us into the right way.  Le Wagon invited also many actors of the developpement sphere and it was so fulfilling to project what we learned into something real. 

To summarize, Le Wagon is a well designed bootcamp, everything is fluid and the 9 weeks are flying very fast. One of the better decision i've ever made was to sign up, not just for the code aspect of it but also because it is a wonderful human experience. 

I chose Le Wagon based on the #1 ranking on this site and also because I wanted to start from scratch (vs other bootcamps that pre-qualify students) and to get to a certain level in as little time as possible. Le Wagon was a clear winner here, and my interview with Alex only cemented my impression of Le Wagon as being a friendly, supportive, and welcoming community. I really appreciated the way every day was structured: lecture in the morning, challenges throughout the day with full TA support, and a live code in the evening. You got the sense that teaching staff really cared about student development and also just enjoyed being there. There was an emphasis on community at Le Wagon: they're an active participant in the local tech ecosystem and regularly host events that students and alumni are encouraged to be a part of. There was yoga once or twice a week (I never went although other students raved about it). There were boundless opportunities to socialize. I've never seen a more diverse group of people band together in such a short amount of time. Overall, a great experience on every level!

I came to le wagon to change carreers and learn as much as possible without commiting to several years of studying again. It turned out to be a great choice, because now I feel able to build a web app myself from scratch.
More important, I now feel pretty confident I can continue to learn on my own what I need to learn to keep getting better.
Two great months, time just flies, we learn a lot, make new friends, and leave the place excited to see what is coming next. 
Teachers and staff are great, and we can feel that the syllabus and the way things are taught here have been updated and improved with each new "batch", making really it practical. It still is pretty dense, and some things are hard, but we don't lose time on anything useless, and focus on what we need to know.
I would make the same choice any day !!

Before deciding to join to Le Wagon, I was taking a Python Bitcoin development bootcamp where I met an alumni from Le Wagon. His story and experience with Le Wagon was so intriguing, I had to stop everything I was doing and dig deeper into the Le Wagon bootcamp and what it had to offer. I came to Le Wagon with a background in IT and had a few minor roles in college as a junior web developer and as an intern as a iOS developer, so I thought surely the bootcamp couldn't be that intense. I quickly found out in the first three weeks I was wrong. Looking back, my favorite thing about the structure of the program was that all the teachers always reitterated one thing: to trust them. Even at times when I felt defeated the instructors at Le Wagon always made sure to help guide me in finding a solution.

I really began to appreciate the structure of the program when things slowly started coming together as they promised. And as someone with an entrepreneurial mindset, that really resonated me because sometimes, you just have to trust the process - just don't stop! I'm still blown away by the level of depth and engagement of the program, goin as far as to say I feel like I learned more in 9-weeks than I did during my four years in College. I'm eternally grateful for the amazing experience that the Le Wagon Bali family shared with us and would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how to code and build product-focused applications.

This review has been a long time coming, but it's well deserved.

I had been teaching English as a foreign language in Poland for the better part of the last eight years. I had always been interested in coding and IT in general, and over the years I had managed to learn some JavaScript, HTML, CSS and Python. However, with the responsibilities of a family and working long hours, up until a year ago I didn't have much time or energy to focus and learning how to code.

Last year, things had changed a bit for me, and I was given the opportunity to stop working and focus on self study. I wanted to transition to IT work, as that was the type of work I was doing doing before I had moved to Poland nine years ago. At first I thought working on my strengths, I'd already had a lot of experience with Linux and was interested in working for local telecom companies, most of which required some experience with ITIL (Product lifecycle management methodology) and spent the first 6 months of last year, training and working towards both a Linux and ITIL certification. I learned a great deal about both, but wasn't really passionate about either. 

I then decided that what I really wanted to do was code. and so for then following four months, I decided to self study Python programming. I completed "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python" and found that I was much more interested in coding and decided that while I was learning a great deal more about something that I had felt more passionate about, that my window of opportunity was closing soon.

My wife and I discussed about finding a coding school that I could attend. I applied and was accepted to Le Wagon.  Le Wagon was a really great experience for me. It was difficult being away from my wife and children so long, and I spent most of those two nine weeks studying and coding, but I had learned more about coding in those nine weeks than I had in all those years before.  I would have to say that the best asspects of Le Wagon's Program is the structured curriculm, the tools that are made available to you, and the Teachers and Teacher assistant whom were highly skilled and always helpful. My only regret is that I hadn't decided on going much earlier. 

With the rapidly expanding digital market, all professions are subject to digital transformation. As a lawyer, I wanted to learn how to code in order to participate in this digitization in the legal field. The two months at Le Wagon allowed me to learn how to code and work in a team to create a web application from scratch. During this intensive training, we feel that we are progressing every day and the teachers are very competent and attentive.

Moreover, the atmosphere is great and a strong effort is made for everyone to progress hand in hand.

Don't hesitate.