Le Wagon

Back in January, I decided to leave Carrefour, where I had spent almost 6 years at different positions, the last one being Commercial Director. I needed fresh air.
After a few months doing consulting in change management, helping leaders of big companies find ways to involve their employees in cultural or organizational transformation processes, I decided to attend Le Wagon Bootcamp from July to September!
To be honest, I never really told myself I wanted to become a web developer, but I was more interested in experimenting something completely new. And I must admit that I got the fresh air I was looking for! Not only did I enjoy learning coding languages and tools, but I also loved being part of an incredible 9-week adventure, along with students with very diverse backgrounds and projects, and coached by amazing teachers. I thought the pedagogical experience was fantastic, and everything is done so that we can step into the tech world and its very own culture : the adorable staff that helps us with anything including job search, the wild place where we study every day next to actual entrepreneurs, the enriching professional meetups and lectures that are frequently organized, and of course the memorable afterworks!
As far as I am concerned, I am not sure yet about my next move, but whether it is a personal project or a job in a start-up, I know that what I learnt at Le Wagon (not only the code itself!) will be an extraordinary resource!
In a nutshell, whatever your profile is, whatever your plan may be, Le Wagon is an adventure that I can only recommend. You won’t regret it!

Le Wagon has been a life changing experience for me. I used to work at Conde Nast in New York City then moved to London. I was starting an app with my sister and got frustrated not being able to understand the web developers we were working with. I decided to put the project on hold and enrol at le Wagon London. At first, the program was hard but after a few weeks all made sense. During the program, I met my business partner, with who I now have a company called Socialive TV. We launched a little under a year ago and couldn’t be happier. Without le Wagon none of this could have happened!

I had the opportunity to create a website back in 2012 with WordPress and was successful at developing an audience and driving a good amount of people to it. The website turned out great, it did everything I wanted but it was really painful when I had to jump on the backend of WordPress for example to adapt the PHP code.

After studying marketing I got to discover the wonderful world of growth hacking. In other words how marketers accelerate growth by using digital marketing. "Unfortunately", for both product and growth hacking strategies you need to code and I didn’t know how (frustrating!). As a freelance web-designer and digital marketer coding is essential to succeed and provide your clients with the best service possible.

Hearing about Le Wagon as the best coding bootcamp in the world, I started looking around at each one of the numerous camps dotted around the world. I thought to myself if I learn to code, the ideal environment is where nobody is going to disturb me, plus if I spend 2 months in front of a computer, well let’s at least pick a great place to study. This is why I chose to go to Bali.

As you may expect, Bali is a little paradise, but what I didn’t know is how many digital nomads and coworking spaces you can find here. And right in the middle of this tropical tech scene you'll find Le Wagon Bali on top of a rooftop looking straight at the blue lagoon. We were a group of 25 students from all around the world of 14 different nationalities, different backgrounds and ages. We teamed up with a different person every day to face the coding challenge of the day.

The first 3 weeks were the biggest challenge for me learning the core concepts and how to program using Ruby. Some days are frustrating but you will feel you are in the same boat as everyone even if you don’t know anything about coding. You will be able to ask the teacher as many questions as you need to solve the challenges each day. What is really impressive of Le Wagon is the platform they developed which is common in all Le Wagon bootcamps around the world. We all have the same program and tools to drive us through exercises and give us feedback on how well we perform. It's simply genius knowing if you made it with style or not (you'll understand this one once you are student)!

In the 2 months you will become autonomous and get through fundamentals of programming, databases, Ruby frameworks, API and many more amazing skills needed to become a junior full stack developer. All this until you arrive at the project stage. This is where you learn how to create an Airbnb clone in only 5 days and then jump into a project you or your campmates had pitched in front of everyone like you would have done in front of a VC or an incubator.

When you start coding your own product, it is where you discover how much you have learned but also how crazy these super powers are now. In 10 days you create amazing functional products - it is your MVP. We were all really proud of the products we created when we presented them at the end of the camp during demo day. Believe me, I was so surprised by how great everyone’s projects came out.

So, if you are looking to know more about all this magic that makes the web such a wonderful place or want to develop web projects or like me gain more knowledge and learn new skills to realize your own ideas and work in growth hacking or any other tech job, you definitely should think about joining Le Wagon. You will simply treat yourself to being future proof. Just be aware that these 2 months will be anything but chilled and instead expect to spend around 10 hours a day coding in an amazing environment with dedicated and passionate teachers and other hungry students who want to master web development.

At the end of these amazing two months, you get lifelong access to Le Wagon’s Slack channels and all the exercises you have done, which if you like you can reset and redo them all. Plus, you get access to tons of resources to continue the journey of becoming a coding rock star.

Before I joined Le Wagon bootcamp, I already had some curiosity regarding coding for some years. However, I never persued it as a career.
I studied business and finance, and later worked at a consulting company for a couple of years. I was very unsatisfied with my life as I was not enjoying what I was doing and was having a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do with my life.
Then Le Wagon came up. I saw an ad on Instagram, and started reading some reviews. I eventually found out that a previous classmate that I had worked with in uni (Manuel Reis) was doing the bootcamp, and so I texted him and he recommended it greatly.
So then I applied, doing Codecademy on my spare time, reading about tech careers and talking with people in the industry.
At the beginning, I was not expecting to get hired directly after the Bootcamp. I saw Le Wagon as an opportunity to get technical skills to build my business, as I thought that that was I would be doing next, since I already had business studies.
But as the classes started, I fell in love with coding. The mental stimulation, solving problems, thinking out of the box. Everyday felt like I had new puzzles to solve. And I was very excited to solve them. The teachers, the collaborative atmosphere, the learning methodology, everything that Le Wagon provided on a daily basis was essential for this crazy and rewarding learning adventure.

Would I recommend it? In one word: absolutely.  A life changer!  Totally worth the money (I know it's expensive, but it will pay off). And it is much more than coding. It is about making the students believing that they are capable of anything. The community is great, and I feel that the students and the teachers are my friends and are there to help me, even after the bootcamp.
I'm definitly hanging out with them after my working/studying schedule, which is super cool. Good job!

The experience at Le Wagon has been fantastic overall. The bootcamp is very well structured, working on daily coding challenges with a different classmate each day was fun and all teachers as well as teaching assistants have been nothing but great. One of the biggest assets of Le Wagon, and this is where I believe it differs most from other coding bootcamps, is that it has a truly global reach. Since Le Wagon currently has around 30 locations and a very tight-knit alumni network one can easily get a foot into the startup or tech ecosystem of exciting cities on every continent (except Antarctica). Another benefit of Le Wagon is the permanent access to its materials and video lectures, which are of exceptional quality. All in all, I cannot recommend Le Wagon enough and would go through the bootcamp again in a heartbeat.

After university, I realized that I lacked some coding skills that would be beneficial for my career. I searched for a program that would allow me to pursue my dream to become a full-stack web developer and found Le Wagon. After deciding to join Le Wagon in Tokyo, I was really eager to start learning and to start following the 9-week course. Although a bit difficult at the beginning, I really enjoyed the pace and how well made the program was. We had lectures every morning and then later applied the new concepts we learned by doing exercises in pairs throughout the day. I really appreciated the fact that each day we built our knowledge on concepts we had learned the day before. It was a gradual progression and even though it might seem like it is too hard, it eventually “clicks” at the end and it is one of the most rewarding feeling ever! The staff, teachers, and TAs were so helpful, kind, professional and really knowledgeable about the material. No matter what questions I had, they were always able to help. I learned a lot and met great people who had the same ambitions as I had and shared a similar international background. We also have access to the material even after the Bootcamp has ended, and to a network of over 3,000 alumni, teachers and TAs, which is great to find resources, job opportunities and more! Overall, it was an incredible experience and I strongly recommend Le Wagon to anybody who wishes to learn how to code and switch careers!

As an ex-journalist already in my mid-30s eager to reinvent myself in a new job - developer - I couldn’t afford enough time for a computer science school. Spending six months to educate myself was not even a possibility, not mentioning the 3+ years courses. I grew interest for Le Wagon and their short, summer-long bootcamp, though I was a bit worried it would be too light to get a job as a developer.
But when I got there, I was amazed by one thing in particular: the quality of the educational method. It is really intensive, but more than that, it teaches web development in a very smart way. You learn languages, software architecture, databases… and you get your hands dirty with what you learn from day one. And then, one day, around the sixth week, everything starts to assemble and you find yourself coding great applications you would never have guessed you would be able to develop a few weeks ago.
I loved it and, if I have conscious of everything I still need to learn, I gained confidence to apply for junior positions as I feel that Le Wagon gave me a rock-solid background to become, I hope, a great web developer one day.

I heard from Le Wagon a few years ago, in 2014. At that time, I was working full time, just started to work in 2012 after graduating from a business school, some entrepreneurship classes and an exchange program in Canada.  The bootcamp already caught my attention, I thought that the bootcamp format, 9 weeks, and the fact that it was actions/results oriented was attractive. In my mind, the coding part was somehow mysterious (I was working in the retail industry) and I was interested in knowing more about it. I felt like this was one of the knowledges that actually gives you power when your familiar with it.

At the time, I was just starting my career after 6 years of studies, it was not the time to jump in something new but more the time of paying back the school debt 😊 but it stayed in my mind… until this spring 2018. I crossed Le Wagon rails once again. And this time, after 4 more years of successes, failures, doubts and beliefs, challenges and surprises in my personal and professional life, I was convinced that learning was to me the way to get energy, get inspired, and be free!

I was working on a start up project and, after one first try the previous year, I knew that I needed to understand the technical part of the product I wanted to create. I wanted to be able to talk, hire, negotiate, invent, create with developers to build a better product and make it succeed. The tech part is critical, understand it allows you to go faster, further.   

Hence, joining Le Wagon, in Casablanca where I live now, was obvious! I needed to get involve! I jumped in! What did I discover? An amazing bootcamp perfectly built, which must have evolved with its students since the tools, learning processes and methodologies are well designed and very efficient.

The program uses fully the 9 weeks, is quite intense and makes you acquire the global methodology for building a web/app product. Back end, front end, databases, frameworks as well as group working methodologies and practical steps to build products’ architecture are covered.

Apart from the technical part of the bootcamp and the efficient methodology, Le Wagon allows a great group dynamic. The atmosphere is stimulating and makes you enjoy the group and each one of the personalities within thanks to the teachers who make you feel you’re now part of a real community.

The best asset is the people met during the 9 weeks and I am sure we will realize great things together at some point in the future, all of us being now Wagoners!

Thanks Le Wagon, I would do it again! for sure!  

Before I joined Le Wagon I was working as a mathematics teacher at an inner London sixth-form college. I had always been interested in coding but didn't know how to use it. I heard great things about Le Wagon (from Christos!) and I decided to go for it.
The first few weeks of the bootcamp were fairly intense with lots of new ideas each day. The "buddy" system allowed me to meet everyone on the course quite quickly - very helpful for someone as socially lazy as I am! Everyone on the course was great to work with and the Teaching Assistants were no different. Leonard was particulary helpful throughout. This being said, I do recall him once asking me (a maths teacher) if I knew what a recursive function was. The nerve. Like leonard and everyone else, the TAs went above and beyond what was necessary - sometimes working with me past seven o'clock to fix a bug. Everyone genuinely wanted to help.
The full-time teachers (Phelim, Ben, Sandrine and Arthur) were incredibly useful. They had the required patience of a teacher and the determination to help. I remember the second Monday of the final project. We changed our routes and had a new front-end goal. Sandrine spent a good 2 hours helping us make the necessary changes. This sort of dedication was commonplace throughout the bootcamp.
Le Wagon was an amazing experience and one I would recommend it to anyone wishing to find a career in coding!

Before joining Le Wagon I was in my penultimate year of reading Biochemistry at Imperial College London. Throughout the year I had tried to teach myself how to build websites using online courses will little success. Struggling to find time in my schedule to code and not having any support when I got stuck made learning inefficient and frustrating. I decided to attend a coding bootcamp to accelerate my learning. Le Wagon immediately stood out to me because of its great reputation. Now, having completed the bootcamp, I can confirm that it certainly lives up to it.

During the first few weeks the learning curve was vertical. However, because I was surrounded by likeminded students and enthusiastic teachers I never felt as though I couldn't make it. The Le Wagon buddy system helped me test and consolidate my knowledge and allowed me to meet great people from all walks of life. There was always a teacher present to answer any questions I had which allowed me to gain positive momentum and not get stuck on trivial issues. By the end of the first six weeks I had acquired all the skills needed to develop a website with Rails, something I would have deemed impossible before the bootcamp.

During the last three weeks you get in teams and create two products, one of which is presented at Google Campus. During this time, I learnt just as much about planning, designing and prototyping product ideas as I had previously about coding. The last three weeks are what make the Le Wagon experience truly unique. As an aspiring entrepreneur, learning to build your own products from scratch is empowering and has opened many doors for me. Completing the Le Wagon bootcamp has been one of my most rewarding and enjoyable experiences and I would recommend it to anybody who wants to fast track into the world of tech.

After struggling for years with my own discipline to learn programming autonomously via online courses I found the opportunity to learn Ruby on Rails at Le Wagon. I had doubts about the reviews I found on the web since there are no complaints from any student on any of the review sites. I thought there has to be a catch, no way it’s that perfect. Wrong! Absolutely complete bootcamp, agile and practical teaching system. Yes, it’s hard but I couldn’t get enough of it. I was so motivated to learn every day from 9am to 7pm and the time was flying. The platform is so solid, the teachers and TA's are perfectly prepared to answer any question and also have the pedagogical skills to keep you engaged and make sure you understand the new concepts.

I am a cryptocurrency and Blockchain enthusiast. Through Le Wagon I can now not only realize my ideas and build web apps but also have fundamentals and tools to go on to teach myself any additional coding languages out there.
And what can I say about Bali, Indonesia? Spectacular! Sea, sun, surf, and coding .... can you ask for more in life?

BTW: if you have doubts about the reviews as well I recommend you look up the people in LinkedIN and see what they are doing now or even message them. If you want to speak to me you are most welcome to contact me: linkedin.com/in/wecalderonc/

Le Wagon was brilliant. First and foremost, I joined Le Wagon because I'm interested in business. So coding appealed to me for two reasons. First from an entrepreneurial perspective: if I can code, then I can design, iterate and fix my own MVPs. Second from a wider commercial perspective: I thought learning to code would empower me to speak a new language; to be able to have fantastic conversations with other tech enthusiasts about where the world is headed. That's why, after graduating from Cambridge University with a philosophy degree, I enrolled on Le Wagon London's 9-week intensive course as an investment in my career.

I'm happy to say that the product-oriented bootcamp fulfilled my expectations. By week 6 we were generating mini-apps from scratch every day. Not only were we able to launch websites that are live *right now*, we could also make them look really fantastic by implementing a few simple design principles. I'm continuing to work on the MVPs we built during the bootcamp, and my techy friends have since approached me asking to collaborate on new apps and websites. Learning to code is SO empowering. It changes my whole relationship with the internet and often other people too. Even friends who studied computer science at university, or other programmers, are astounded by what's possible in a 9-week bootcamp!

Other good stuff: the course is designed exceptionally well. The Le Wagon team have worked hard to create funky, productive vibes in the office; the culture is uplifting and intelligent, and after the bootcamp I felt like I'd 'joined the family'. The design of the day-to-day learning is outstanding - clearly they've been tweaking and perfecting their teaching methods with every new bootcamp, so by the 173rd bootcamp (my own!) everything worked like a slick, powerful machine. The networking is fantastic - I've met so many inspirational people from all walks of life who will be lifelong connections. If you can spare the cash, Le Wagon is a brilliant investment in yourself.