Le Wagon

Have you ever felt like you have good ideas, but you don’t really know how to make them real?

Let me tell you, I was having this exact same feeling for over one year.  As founders of a no-web start-up, my cofounder and I were feeling that to grow we needed to make our ideas accessible to everybody through web apps.  The option we had to do this was to hire tech guys or an agency to develop our ideas.  The problem was that as a start-up our budget was very restricted, so we were always getting to those typical questions:  What if the “magic” idea we have is not that good? What if the people we hire steal our idea?  What if they take more time than expected?  All these questions took us to the next question: why don’t we become the tech guys by learning to code? That was it!

I started the coding learning process through free online learning platforms.  But after a few months, I realized it was taking me nowhere.  I found two problems -  
The first was that I didn’t know what courses to choose.  What’s the first language I should learn? What should be the next one? How are they supposed to be linked?  
The second problem was that I was solving the challenges on their platform and if I was getting stuck I could just click the solve this exercise button and the platform was solving it for me.

Those two problems where the ones that brought me to applying for Le Wagon Lisbon.  

And let me summarize my experience there in few words: Le Wagon has been the best learning experience I have had in my life so far.  I truly believe it’s a game changer.  Everyday I was attending a two-hour lecture until 11 am.  After that I was solving challenges for five hours base on what I have had just learned, helped by teachers and assistant teachers. And, from 5pm to 7pm, I was discussing with the teaching staff and with my classmates on how I had solved the challenges and what could have been a better way.  The pace was perfect for me and after nine weeks I’m proud of my new knowledge in five different languages and in one framework.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, Le Wagon gives you solid bases to develop functional web apps and test them in the market in agile way and if the market doesn’t validate your idea you still have the knowledge to create another one and validate it again and so on.

If you feel like you have good ideas, my advice for you is that you learn to code.  Is the most effective way to test those ideas.  For me, Le Wagon was the best way to learn how to code, maybe for you is the same.

Great experience these 9 weeks at Le Wagon Lyon.

The teaching materials and monitoring tool are simply enormous.

My objective was to be autonomous in the web project design : to be able to concretize and materialize ideas of projects. And this is largely achieved with the bonus of tons of good practices to be super efficient and do a quality job.

Beyond learning the code, it is also teams of teachers and organization who invest themselves at your side and encourage all alumni and project leaders.

Le Wagon is not only these 9 weeks, it is also and especially a very strong community that accompanies you long after...

My name is George, and I’m a farmer looking to change how we buy our groceries. I work with my mum, on our 52 acre organic farm near Byron Bay, Australia (Check it out on instagram @farm.and.co ). However it wasn’t always as easy and idyllic as it sounds. For a long time, we were selling to wholesale markets, and struggling to make a profit.

Not long ago we changed our business model, and now sell all of our products direct to consumer, at our doorstep. In this model, we see an opportunity for customers to buy direct from the farmer whilst also providing producers with a fair wage.

I want to bring this model to more farmers and food makers. So I decided to go to Le Wagon.

At Le Wagon, I was lucky to meet some amazing people from all around the world. Some of which I am still working on projects with today. Each day we worked on projects and challenges, and 9 weeks later we each know how to code. The bootcamp was amazing, including patient, caring teachers, awesome facilities for all the students and yoga each week as promised.

It’s still hard to believe I can now code. I feel like a magician. Almost anything I want to create, I can. Currently I am perfecting my idea and will be launching on the 12th of May. You can view it at farmandco.com.au

Before joining Le Wagon, I had never had a relationship with computers. Any problem I'd have I'd go running to my boyfriend for help. I had been a teacher before joining and at university I'd studied Art History, nothing related to computers at all. I didn't think I'd have it in me to be good at web development. What was web development?

After meeting lots of self- taught coder digital nomads and hearing some good reviews of Le Wagon I decided it was now or never to try to change my career. Time to try something new, put my brain to work like it never had before and learn how to code. I was lucky that Lisbon had a Le Wagon school and even luckier that I was able to get the resident's scholarship which made it much more affordable.

I did Batch 122 which started in January, in the cold, wet winter months I thought were perfect for hibernating and coding away. And that's what I did, all day, everyday. 

At first the weeks were extremely hard for me, I'd never used my brain like this, I was tired, some days I did not understand how to solve the exercises, I thought I'd never be good enough...There were days I went home sad and frustrated, others however,  when I felt on top of the world excited about the new things I had learnt and what I was able to achieve. Understanding the challenges, working out the code for myself was both elating and inspirational!  As the weeks proceeded I realised that it wasn't sustainable worrying about understanding every single line of code. You have to trust in yourself and even if you have trouble doing so, trust in the system and the course and at some point you will  start to realise that even though things don't get easier, you can solve them as your confidence increases. At some point you think: I can do this! It's a wonderful feeling.

The challenges are never easy, from Day 1 you go through a baptism of fire but with the help of teachers and the other classmates you will feel very proud getting through it all. Le Wagon achieves this in 3 primary and essential ways:

1. The teachers and TA are an absolute dream-team. Extremely knowledgeable,  helpful, supportive with unrelenting patience and the desire to make you understand and more importantly to empower you how to achieve results for yourself. They also have an amazing energy and a great sense of humor making them so much fun to be around - Superteachers!

2. The buddy system - everyday you are set up with a new buddy, this helps immensely because some days you are being helped by a stronger student and other days you find yourself being the stronger one, mentoring your buddy. Then you feel you've really understood. The buddy system allows you to find your strengths and weaknesses and form strong bonds with your classmates.

3. The community and the atmosphere. Le Wagon is a family and you really feel that from Day 1. Our manager and community-manager Shannon and Maria were superb at making us feel at ease and involved at all times. We would have a weekly Friday dinner and many other activities which allowed us to bond with each other and the teachers. Beer pong, dancing, doughnuts and snacks, hugs, you name it, we had it!

Now that my Le Wagon experience has ended I am still very much tied to the community and I would be very sad if that were not so. These are bonds made for life and I know that if I ever have a programming problem I have tens of people I can turn to for help. I am hoping to find a job as a Junior Developer and really achieving my goal of changing my career and my life. 

Extremely highly recommended course and experience and a special shout out to the Lisbon school. The people involved have a big heart and it shows in their teaching, organizing, the ability to motivate people and make it fun!

Among all the bootcamps, I think this is one of the best way to learn about web development. Le wagon Lyon provides high level training with very talented teachers. I highly recommend Le Wagon to anyone looking for a career change or for technical skills to develop a business. It's definitely not easy, but you wont regret it!

One more important thing: Le wagon is a human experience too, you’ll have the opportunity to develop great friendships and networks. All the staff cares about the happiness of the students and are willing to create a supportive environment to help you achieve all the goals of the training.

Among all the bootcamps, I think this is one of the best way to learn about web development. Le wagon Lyon provides high level training with excellent teachers. I highly recommend Le Wagon to anyone looking for a career change or for technical skills to develop a business. It's definitely not easy, but you wont regret it!

One more important thing: Le wagon is a human experience too, you’ll have the opportunity to develop great friendships and networks. All the staff cares about the happiness of the students and are willing to create a supportive environment to help you achieve all the goals of the training.

Thanks again Matthieu, Kevin and Joseph!

I always wanted to backpack across Asia. Just over a year ago I left my job to hike the Himalayas and at the same time I started a travel blog to share my experience. Out of fun and curiosity, I tried to get into web design. I signed up to a few online coding courses to try to teach myself but I quickly realized that paradoxically you need to know how to code before you can learn to code! I ended up getting lost in the mass of information and wasting a lot of time.
I was determined to change things so I bit the bullet and paused my travels to enroll in the immersive coding bootcamp Le Wagon in Bali where I heard the climate was warm and the culture magical. I have not regretted it ever since.
To summarise the bootcamp experience in a few words is not easy but I can say for certain that it far exceeded my expectations. The amount you learn in such a short time is incredible.
The course fed us wave after wave of new concepts everyday but the teachers, the structure and the course platform make the learning process simple and effective. We were taught the back-end language of Ruby and its framework Rails, then covered 3 front-end languages, database management and a wealth of other material. We learnt through a combination of daily quizzes, exercises, live codes and even flashcards after class to reinforce the lectures and we did this endlessly over five weeks. By the sixth week, we were able to create an Airbnb clone. It would have been impossible for me to do this by myself, let alone in such a short time.
By the seventh week, the bootcamp builds up to the apex of idea pitching, project selection and definition, using the sprint methodology to build a working prototype from absolute scratch in 10 days. I am pleased to say that our team performed tremendously and the app looked amazing. We presented the project on Demo Day as you would to an investor but in our case in front of a packed room of tech enthusiasts living and working in Bali who asked me some tough queestions! There is no better training ground than this.
But because we all know we can never fully master the infinite world of web design let alone in two months, the point of difference with other bootcamps and the power of Le Wagon is exactly this – 1. it gives you the ability to transform your ideas into a working web app that is ready to be shown to the world by the end of the bootcamp, 2. you will feel you are able to code independently, solve your own problems and 3. be ready to enter the tech world and embark on new undertakings. Right now, I feel nothing will stand in my way of coding and learning more coding which is exactly what I came to Bali for.
Less than a month since I finished the bootcamp, I am working on the project I built at Le Wagon with the hope to launch it as a startup soon. At the same time, I'm studying React with no major problem. I have also already been contacted for some freelance contracts.
To put it in a nutshell, at the age of 29, Le Wagon gave me the ability to start a new career. I could not have asked for anything better. The motto of Le Wagon is "Change your life: learn to code", and I guarantee you that it could not have been more appropriate. If you want to learn coding, Le Wagon is the best investment you could make!
And did I forget to say if you take the course in Bali, you will love your time spent mixing coding with an early-morning surf or a sundowner beer on the beach, all for a fraction of the price elsewhere. That is why I am calling Bali home for a little while longer.

I've always been an entrepreneur and my own boss since leaving university 10 years. I used to run a fast food business an grew frustrated with the scalability of it. So I tried some online coding and realised the power of it. Fast forward 9 months, the week I left Le Wagon I started a web agency with a friend from the course and we got out first customers that week. 

Le Wagon was genuinely one of the best things I've ever done. I am now my own boss again. Apart from the odd meeting, I can work anywhere I want, whenever I want, as long we deliver for our customers, which we are doing. 

Le Wagon is not just for entrepreneurs. The speed at which my class mates landed developer jobs is faster than any other industry I know. The level this 9 week course can get you to is unimaginable until you actually do it. All my classmates are happily employed either full time or freelance and loving their new lives. 

Software is eating the world. Don't get left behind. 

I have been working as a Digital Project Manager/Interactive Producer for the past 12 plus years at quite a few interactive Digital Agencies in Southern California.  Until 3 years ago, I quit a solid full time job of 6 years because I was simply burnt out.  Late nights, weekend work, and no real social life… I had to do something. When I quit my job, I really did not have a plan, but knew I wanted to have my own business, travel more, and to be in control of my time.  

After traveling a bit, I decided to start a small interactive agency.  Things picked up quick and a big issue I was facing was finding reliable talent.  I decided to learn more about the current state of the web development world to enhance my understanding and become a better Digital Project Manager.  I needed to get up to date with front end development(started in digital as a web developer years ago) and have always been intimidated by the backend.

I came across Le Wagon after going through a few dev bootcamp review sites. After checking out some of the Youtube videos and all the locations around the world, I knew I had to go. But which one?

Next thing you know I am in Barcelona. First time in Spain and learning full stack development at Le Wagon. The curriculum covers everything you need to know to get started with front and backend development. Each day you are challenged and building up to create your very own web application.  Of course you are not building it alone, you and your comrades you have been training with through the course are coming together daily to make it happen. And we made it happen!  

Teachers are awesome, course content is well thought out and presented well, and the support is exceptional. It was a good choice and think that taking the course was long overdue.  I wish I would have signed up sooner. The digital world is moving fast, and if you want to stay current you have to be sure you are around the right people and resources.  Le Wagon has been that place for me and has provided the knowledge upgrade I needed to take my skill set to the next level. The skills I have attained through Le Wagon have assisted in enhancing processes in my business as well as locating and hiring more reliable talent.  I also have a newfound love for backend coding.  

Thank you Le Wagon!