Le Wagon

I actually ended up looking for a boot camp on web development by accident. I had been in banking for almost eleven years in various roles related to risk management of structured derivatives but decided I wanted to work independently and set up my own company. My wife and I decided that, hey, this might also be a good time to emigrate to Chiang Mai Thailand, Thailand being my wife's original home country and from there I was planning to land myself a remote c++ developer role which I had been trained in. By coincidence, I met someone in Chiang Mai who was in dire need of web developers. Since this would suit me down to a tee, I decided I wanted to get up to speed in web development as soon as possible. After some research, Le Wagon easily came out on top for me. Deciding on Bali as a destination was easy too. Again my wife had been there four times before and had many good stories to tell.

 

From day one the course in Bali was very well organized. The team: organization, teachers, and teacher's assistants were all top notch and very friendly and helpful. I was super impressed by the backgrounds of all the participants, besides the fact that the group itself was very enthusiastic and energetic. Moreover, the whole atmosphere was very inspiring from an entrepreneurial perspective.

 

The course location in Canggu was truly one of a kind: stunning sunset views of the beach, which is only within walking distance away. Canggu itself has many great restaurants and places to hang out and Bali is fantastic for day trips, and hiking in particular: I climbed both Mt. Batur and Mt. Abang.

The course itself is very well set up: it kept you on your toes but was neither going too fast nor too slow. It overall felt I was learning the right things to create a web app from scratch. My teachers were also willing to discuss related subjects outside the course material, which I personally found very helpful. It inspired me to start learning React and React Native as well.

Daniel Bugge [3:02 PM]
I come from a mixed background having grown up in South America and holding 3 nationalities from Portugal, Norway and Argentina. I studied Geography at university and after that I decided to join a Sound Engineering course in Lisbon. My musical background gave me an interesting insight into the programming world and Le Wagon gave me the perfect introduction into coding that opened my eyes to the possibilities that programming could bring.

The structure and environment of the course allowed me to develop an idea that I had for a while, which was to bring musicians that are new to cities closer to the ressonmating world of music that is so prevalent in most capital cities around the world. JammBoxx is an app that I developed with my team during the bootcamp which allows users to turn their own living rooms into musical spaces by organising jamm-sessions with what musical instruments they and people who joined the jamm had available.

Beyond the unique opportunity to develop literally any idea you have ever dreamt of, Le Wagon offered an ecosystem of intelligent, interesting individuals from a wide range of backgrounds, which I feel have a strong effect on each others ability to imagine and innovate. I joined a batch in Lisbon and it is interesting to see where this type of innovation will take each and every one of the members of this batch in a city recently coined the growing ‘startup capital of Europe’. Le Wagon fits in this city like a techtris block :wink: promoting the idea that indeed anyone can enter this exhilarating world of tech by providing the right mindset and correct fundamental knowledge and skills to do so.

So here it goes:   I started looking for work after finishing my college degree in business communications, I knew from the start that it wasn’t going to be easy but never expected the job search to be so difficult. I went to a lot of interviews and sent even more resumes but it wasn’t taking me anywhere. So I wouldn’t stop working and keep my head up, I started to work in various fields different from what I was looking for, like gardening and washing cars.  During this time, I found that I needed to expand my skills, so I found some people teaching programming for free on the internet.  After some time studying on my own online, I thought it would be easier to find a brick and mortar school and that is when I found Le Wagon.   Some interviews and tests later, I was in and it all evolved really fast.   Of course I was nervous to start something completely new and with people I had never heard about, but what I didn’t know as well was that every one was almost on the same page as me and that I would have complete and full support from the teachers with every obstacle I found.   The first three weeks were probably the hardest thing I have done in a long time - for most of it, I was completely lost… But I kept going because I knew it would get better, and it did!   During the last weeks, we started our own projects and everyone was a bit nervous because we didn’t know what we really knew, if that makes sense… What happened was that somehow a lot of information sunk into our brains, of course, we didn’t know everything and we still needed help from the teachers, but most of us were able to implement features and code in ways were didn’t know we could.   At the end it was so rewarding seeing our web-apps working and not only my team’s project but the others as well because we all fought for the same goal during nine hard and intense weeks and it was there for everyone to see!

The decision I made to join Le Wagon was the best decision I have ever made. Previously I was working as an accounting-software-consultant and I had only 2 options. To continue the job which I did not like that much or to quit and be lost. But, Le Wagon changed my life in only 9 weeks. The course is super intensive and at the end of the course, I was able to build web applications by myself and ready to apply for junior developer positions. 

Best things about Le Wagon is that you meet great people from various background, and they are all super nice guys! Also, all of them are highly motivated to sophisticate their programming skills so that you will never be disappointed.

After the boot-camp, I still work together with them to prepare for job hunting, go out for drinks (especially in Berlin you may experience intense Friday nights like I did but anyway) etc.  Events such as alumni talks are useful in order to prepare for things you want to do, for instance searching for jobs, freelancing and so on. 

One thing I regret is that, I should have done Le Wagon earlier in my life :(

 

Without going into my life story too much I recently quit my job working at a social media startup after feeling fed up with customer complaints day in day out and knowing I was capable of a lot more.

I had started to take an interest in coding since I was already capable of designing websites and I wanted to take it to the next level. For me, it was all about self-achievement I just wasn't getting enough satisfaction designing website anymore.

During my downtime from work, I tried to teach myself how to code but lacked the focus and was too easily distracted and didn't find myself making much progress. So started looking for classes/bootcamps on how to code. I found Le Wagon which had glowing 5 starts reviews (which made me a bit sceptical at first) and after researching them a bit more I decided to pull the trigger and go for it.

I'm still young but honestly, I have never made a better decision in my life. I learnt more in my 9 weeks at Le Wagon then I ever did in an entire year of college. No matter your age or background if you are even slightly considering doing it then seriously just take the plunge, you will look back at it in the future as a defining point in your life.

Having completed the latest batch at Le Wagon London, I can honestly say this has been the most incredible, life changing experience I've had. 

Before Le Wagon, I worked as a builder. At the end of Le Wagon I was a junior developer. It may sound simplistic but that's the case for everyone who completes this course. They give you the solid foundations, understanding and skills to perform as a competent junior developer and get a job in the real world. 

The course is not easy though and you definitely get out of it what you put in to it. If you're not commited, you'll drown. It's a demanding and intense course that takes up 45 full days of your brain power and stamina. Having said this though, it's also brilliantly fun and engaging. Ed Ward and the team at Le Wagon London make the whole experience worth getting up in the morning for. Every week there's an interesting event hosted either at the course offices or at Google Campus. They put on drinks every friday for the alumni and it this stuff that set's it apart from the other courses. 

In terms of job help, they provide several talks from industry leaders and past alumni to help you understand how to get your first job if this is your aim after the course. There is no need to spend a further 3 weeks and £2,5k getting this element like the other courses in the London area. You will get a job after the course and you'll have the demonstratable skills to prove to employers that you're worth employing. 

I would say that, if you are looking for the best course for your money that will give you the skills and understanding to get a job as a junior developer, then you've already found it.  

I originally studied Business, and worked in Marketing for a while until I realized it wasn't a good career fit for me. When I figured out that the tasks I enjoyed the most from my previous job involved writing some basic HTML/CSS/JavaScript, I decide to develop on those skills and joined Batch#125 of Le Wagon's bootcamp in Montreal. Like a few of the previous reviewers have mentioned, I was initially skeptical of the glowing reviews about Le Wagon's program. But after going through the bootcamp, I can definitely say that those reviews are more than 100% justified!

What attracted me to Le Wagon's program was how well structured the course content was: starting from with the fundamentals of programming, to object-oriented programming, to databases, to front-end and finally the group projects for the last 3 weeks. The last 3 weeks was especially fun because everything we learned in the previous weeks began to click, which provided the confidence for the groups in our batch to create some great-looking webapps in our final demoday!

The buddy system that every Le Wagon student goes through for the daily challenges was a GREAT way to learn programming, and I felt this was one of the strongest parts of the bootcamp's design. In my experience, this ended up being mutually beneficial for myself and whoever my partner was for the day.  If I felt that I was struggling with a challenge I could always ask my partner for tips and advice, and if my partner needed assistance I could help them out and explain concepts to see if I really understood them. Furthermore, I found it incredibly useful practice to work with different people when it comes to solving coding problems.

In addition, the teachers and TAs were super helpful with their advice and patient with their time. What I appreciated the most was that they TRULY understood that everyone in the batch had different learning curves/speeds. So regardless if you were doing well or struggling with the coding challenges, you never really felt alone or left behind. Le Wagon also has a TON of additional resources and guides which students can access during (and even after) the 9-week bootcamp!

Since the Le Wagon ended I've found myself building webapps for fun, and even managed to land several job interviews from interesting companies. I salute Le Wagon for providing me with a wonderful learning experience, as well as enabling my confidence to pursue a career in Web Development.

So if you're looking for an immersive, valuable program to learn web development, Le Wagon is going to be your best bet!

Mid-2017, after 7+ years working as a consultant in the banking sector, I felt like I needed a fresh new start. Tired of endless meetings and committees, looking for agility and dynamism, I also took the decision to start working on my own projects. For that, I needed a new set of skills: coding!

A friend of mine – now a freelance developer - had undertaken Le Wagon bootcamp in Paris 1 year before that and convinced me to do the same. So I joined the London batch mid-January 2018 for two months… and it was insanely great! Best experience ever, from my point of view. It was like going back to school but this time I loved it!

But you have to be committed, I mean really committed! Learning something new 9h hours a day is not easy, especially when you left school 10 years ago like me (I am 33). But it is so cool solving puzzles all day long with people that eventually become your friends!
In Le Wagon, I met incredibly rich and different profiles: an Olympic swimmer, a former consultant, a ski instructor, an investment banker, a chocolate producer, a teacher, an electrician… And that’s what makes the beauty of it! Here, everyone is different but we are all doing the same thing. And that variety comes really handy when the time arrives you have to be creative, especially the last two weeks when you have to build your own app from scratch.

Every day starts with a 1h30 lesson on a specific topic. Then you are paired with a buddy and you have to go through as many exercises as you can together, leave no man behind! 
It is actually a great system since explaining or being explained something is always useful for both parts. And if you get stuck, you can raise a ticket and one of the teachers will come to help you within minutes.

The two last weeks are dedicated to building your own project with a team or joining a team with a project. By group of 3 to 4 people, you build your app from scratch until the final demo day during which you present what you built in front of 100 people at Google Campus. Both scary and awesome!
If you want to have a look at what my team and I achieved during those two last weeks, go to www.journease.online, a one stop shop for your journeys.

As a conclusion, I absolutely loved those 2 months in Le Wagon. I wanted to learn the basis of coding and I did, more than that actually. I wanted to meet people (I am new in London) and I actually made some very good friends. I wanted to build something, my team and I built an app I am really proud of. I wanted to have fun and I most certainly did :slightly_smiling_face:
Le Wagon is not the cheapest coding bootcamp (nor the most expensive either actually) but it is definitely worth it from my point of view. Their promise is “change your life, learn to code” it is more than fuffilled.

Why Le Wagon?
        
  I've always been interested by computer sciences. I decided, a few months ago to apply at Le Wagon Bordeaux... And it was one of the best human and educational mission I have experienced so far.

    This training has been structured in such a way, it gives a maximum of technical knowledge in a minimal amount of time. It has lots of advises, in order to give us a great autonomy in order to be efficient after the ned of the Bootcamp. The community worldwide approach is just perfect. That's mainly why I recommend Le Wagon.

    In order to help you to understand what we are able to achieve after the nine weeks, I will explain more about the final project, which has been elaborated by Joseph Binyoum Bayemi and myself during the last two weeks in the Wagon.
Our project named Bookmate is a web application. It connects (using a messenger) readers through literary taste and allows them to communicate. https://www.bookmate.club (if you are curious). Say it sounds simple but believe me, seven weeks ago we would have been unable to do it.

If my experience could help some to make choices, I can only recommend that you go on (https://www.lewagon.com) to register, for the undecided I invite you to go read other feedback. See you soon  

I was a third year Business Cinematic Arts student with no idea of where I wanted to proceed. Though I have had ideas in the past, I lacked the hard skills to bring them to life. Frustrated, I took this semester off, eager to explore the topics I been intrigued by. As I researched different bootcamps, I was drawn to Le Wagon’s approach of bringing coding skills to creative people. Little did I know, my decision to join Le Wagon would also jumpstart my understanding and career in UX Design, Web Development and Product Management.

The first three weeks were tough but the Teaching Assistants were always around to answer questions and explain a concept again. While I was managing to complete the challenges, I did not take full advantage of what Le Wagon had to offer. I would leave before Live Code and spent little time with my batch. It wasn’t until the forth week that I was partnered with a buddy who insisted I stayed for Live Code and drinks. I stayed and my experience at Le Wagon changed for the absolute better. I got to know the Teaching Assistants on a more personable level, making it easier to ask questions during lecture and inquiring how to move forward from the bootcamp. I became more engaged as my buddy of the day would be a fellow coder and a friend. We would spend the day debating the best method to solve the coding challenge and joking around in between. I became eager to stay after I completed the challenges and even Live Code-d in front of my whole batch. If you allow it, this experience will not be a lonely nor purely academic one. Le Wagon is a warm space for learning wholeheartedly, asking a ton of questions, making friends, creating business partnerships, and coming up with ideas.

The final three weeks at Le Wagon were my favorite - Project Weeks. This is when I was introduced to UX Design and Product Management. We started with Figma, an interface design tool, to map out what we wanted the web-app to look like. We spent the day brainstorming the user journey and dreaming about the website’s features. At the end of the day, we showcased our initial designs. The projects you will build with your team mates are a testament to how well Le Wagon prepares you. My team ended most days surprised and impressed with the work we have done. The workspace turns into a mini hub of start-ups. Each group vigorously coding away, enthusiastically brainstorming and collaboratively working. I was exhilarated from the energy I felt each day.

The results? By the 6th week at Le Wagon, I secured a job as a UX Designer and Front End Web Developer at a Tech Start Up I am truly passionate about. Le Wagon gave me the coding skills I needed to be in the creative spaces I never dared to dream about. I am now able to have a career that is an amalgamation of my creative and analytical side. 

I have just graduated from Le Wagon, an intensive 9 weeks coding bootcamp. It was my first time programming and I absolutely loved it. These are my key take-aways from it.

Three Broken clichés:

• Coding is lonely:

Before joining Le Wagon, I had the image of coders as lonely, weird people who spent their days in front of screens, by themselves in a dark garage, eating cereal. In fact, what I discovered at Le Wagon is that coding actually requires a lot of collaboration. I think all the students from my batch will remember the day we started a group project on GitHub. In 90% of the cases, you will code with others, and being able to communicate efficiently is one of the key skills of a good programmer.

• Coding is boring:

Once again, let’s return to the coder-caveman cliché. From an external point of view, he seems to constantly do the same thing, with the same bored expression. That’s a lie. When I was coding, I experienced rollercoaster moods that led to this kind of train of thought: 1. Getting stuck on something: “I hate coding, Ruby is wrong, my code is obviously perfect, anyway I despise it so it doesn’t matter” 2. Finding the solution: “Coding is amazing, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done, I’m the best, Ruby is the best, everyone is the best.” Until I got stuck again. Coding is challenging, tiring, frustrating but definitely not boring.

• Coding is for boys:

The coder-caveman cliché from the movies is useful once again. Sadly, there are not a lot of coder-cavewomen on screens, which is a shame. There is a need for more developers in every industry, and a simple way to fix this is to encourage the other half of humankind to learn coding. We were ten women in our batch and we did just as well as the other 30 men. When it comes to coding, everyone is equal which is why more women should learn to code — and more tech companies should hire them.

A travel Chatbot:

During the last two weeks, we worked in teams to bring an idea to life. Celia, Hen, Ben and I created Voyagr, a Chatbot and associated web app which asks a series of questions to provide a user with personalized travel inspiration. Building a product in two weeks was very challenging but very interesting. The hardest part was prioritizing and making sure that we were focusing on the right tasks every day. In the end, we obtained good results and we have had almost 100 unique users since we launched it two weeks ago (check it out: voyagr.co.uk).

Three amazing teammates and many more friends:

There is nothing better than struggling on the same challenges during nine weeks to form friendships. I have met amazing people during these two months, from the students to the teachers. Le Wagon manages to bring together a very large variety of people in the same place, from those who have 20 years of work experience to freshly graduated high school students. This combination is a large part of what makes the bootcamp such an enriching experience. I personally became friends with an Olympic swimmer from Hong Kong, an experienced consultant, a Canadian former school teacher, a VC fund owner… and many more.

Coding and Product management skills:

You learn a lot in nine weeks and there is no time to rest. I felt more braindead during the bootcamp than I had ever felt during the course of my Bachelor or Master degrees. It’s difficult but completely worth it!

I have worked in Business Intelligence for 6 years and became interested in product management as a career change, however I felt that I lacked in-depth tech knowledge in order to be able to hit the ground running in that role. I then searched for bootcamps in London and Le Wagon really stood out in terms of their positive reviews online and offline.

The course is structured really well and it is certainly challenging, no day is the same and you surprise yourself at the end how far you’ve come after not being able to properly write a line of code at the start of the course. The day begins with a lecture and followed by coding challenges that you need to complete with your buddy as you get paired up with a different student from the course every day. This is not only a great way of meeting everyone in the class but also means that sometimes you learn from your buddy and sometimes you get to teach and therefore give yourself the opportunity to improve and solidify the knowledge. Most importantly, throughout the day there are always teaching assistants to hand that are able to answer your every question and make sure that you have grasped all the concepts properly.

After the course ends, Le Wagon provides a support network of talented alumni that share jobs, advice and tips which is really invaluable. Le Wagon is not just a bootcamp, it’s a community that inspires, teaches and supports. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this experience to anyone.