Le Wagon

My story with The Wagon began last year in a context that could only guide me towards what I was going to experience for two months during the training. I had left my job where I was a retail director in the cosmetics sector.

While I was quietly sipping a beer in a clandestine restaurant by the sea with friends, I was telling them about my dream to create a web platform on cosmetics, adding that it was now or never to realise this dream. The magic is that a friend of mine had just enrolled at Le Wagon Bordeaux and told me with great enthusiasm what this training was going to bring to him.

I therefore subscribed to Le Wagon Paris for the Batch#48 and from that moment I knew that I was entering a new universe, the universe of Code. Le Wagon's team helped me prepare so that I would not be lost on the first day. The program of the training is very rich because we learn a lot of things:  the back-end,  the front-end, to carry out a project from A to Z. This is a very intense training the first days because we learn new things every morning, which should be put into practice the same day. Even in the evening in my bed, I was seeing bits of code ...
But I do not hide from you that in parallel with this learning experience there was another adventure to live at Le Wagon: a magical and human one, thanks to all the people with different backgrounds I met in my batch, and to the staff team that is passionate about its work and happy to teach us what they had previously learnt themselves. Quite simply, I was glad to get up in the morning to come to Le Wagon to learn and see all this little world because there was not the well-known pressure that I felt while working. These two months were a real bubble of oxygen.

When I look back at my journey, I started the training without even knowing what a terminal is .. I can tell you that I am very proud of me today. I am now moving forward with my project with serenity because I know that I am not starting from scratch any more. My goals were to be able to build my projects' MVPs and to become autonomous : objectives achieved.

If you are going to learn web programming and design I full recommend this program! The program : https://www.lewagon.com/program

PS : Extremely friendly and professional team 🤗  !

After 3 years working in Paris as a consultant, among which the past 2 years at eleven, a strategy and management firm specialized in digital strategy (http://eleven-strategy.com/en/) , I’ve decided to take a deeper step “behind the digital scenes”. This gradual slide stems from several opportunities that made me aware of the need to enhance my tech skills, in particular through my latest assignment as a consultant. I worked as a project manager for a cross-functional cross-country flagship project that was meant to diversify the earn and burn opportunities in the loyalty program of a major player in the hospitality industry through e-commerce. I could only be relevant and meet the ambitious objectives of the project if I effectively managed to challenge each team and external provider that I was coordinating. While, based on my previous experience, I could easily take a deep-dive into the stakes of most of the aspects of the project (marketing, finance, legal, tax, etc.), I still needed to fully grasp the challenges the multiple IT teams were facing. I thus applied to do an intense 9 weeks coding training at Le Wagon Barcelona, which allowed me to gain technical skills in both back-end and front-end programming languages and experience the work of a fullstack developer.

Le Wagon … the very name holds the promise of a singular journey, right?

Now, let me tell you a bit me about how this journey felt.  

I remember the first Monday, when we went around the table to listen to the story of each of the 14 individuals gathered, aging from 17 to 35+, all with a very diverse cultural professional and personal background (investor, former consultants, freelancers, “proven” and aspiring entrepreneurs) … Some people had previous technical experience and most did not. At the very beginning, I thought: “Great, it very much feels like a retreat for cosmopolitan and ambitious yuppies…”. And then, as we moved on with the set-up of our computers and I discussed more thoroughly with each one, I realized how much it would be a challenging and humbling collective learning experience. And that’s exactly what it was.

On this first day at Le Wagon, I shared my first coffee of the journey (and there were many more) with my then buddy-for-the-day, Hugh Mitton, and we chatted about travels, previous work experiences, movie making and other activities. 9 weeks later, after 10 days of intense coding and debugging, we’ve introduced the MVP of Destinosé (www.destinose.com) , a travel app meant to help people that like perusing the world pick their next destination.

 

Working each day with a new buddy as per Le Wagon methodology, doing about 8-10h of problem-solving on cases that did NOT look like business cases for which I could use what I had learnt to do so far was quite challenging. It obviously gave me a renewed and thrilling feeling of being totally out of my comfort zone … everyday!

 

As much as it could also feel a little bit frustrating to learn a new set of coding elements everyday without having the comfort of thinking you’ve fully digested the tricks of the previous day, I realized that these layers came together in a very “neuroergonomic” way after I was done with the bootcamp. It is rather impressive to see how well designed this immersion into the vast world of coding is. The material itself (kitt and karr platforms) encompasses the best practices of coding in a very accessible and readable manner. The TAs that are taking turns into teaching parts of the curriculum are all fully committed to deliver digest explanations given the fast-paced learning curve that’s proposed. They are also keen on spending extra-time with students to make sure they feel fully on track. The whole pedagogical team is smoothly coordinated by a very inspiring driver, Gustavo De Vita, whom I feel incarnates really well the very concept of equanimity applied to management. Le Wagon Barcelona is also well connected to the tech startup scene there, which allowed us to meet a lot of interesting entrepreneurs and try their product/service (e.g. founders of GetYourHero, Eoz, Yugo, etc.).

 

Slowly, I started making programming related puns and speaking in Spanglish over lunch preparation with my teammates. And yes, we did prepare lunch together everyday, shared it at the terrace of the coworking space, with a sunny view on La Sagrada Familia! Some days, knowing we had to get through a very heavy workload, we would start with a xocolata a la tassa and churros. At the end of the day, when backs were hurting too much for having kept ourselves behind the screens for the whole day, we could enjoy a good Kundalini yoga class at a school around the corner or a tailored session put in place by the staff of Le Wagon Barcelona.

 

We also celebrated birthdays with massive cakes that could feed the whole coworking space for many days. The Batch-44 was so much of an inclusive close-knit community that we had parents and family visit, and bring or help prepare national dishes from their home country. I did my own version of a couscous with the available equivalent of a couscous maker, under the close watch of a semi-staggered semi-amused Moroccan mother who had to adjust her standards … and we gladly shared this over the next lunch with my classmates and a few other people from the coworking space.

 

All in all, life at Le Wagon Barcelona was GOOD!

 

But what it really brought me, and this is invaluable to this day, was a sense of confidence that I was acquiring a very relevant knowledge that will expand my freedom to create projects. And doing so, it gave me an impulsion to move forward with the professional transition I longed for for a while. I quit my job while there, which was a long overdue action I managed to do with all the support I received, feeling part of this exciting and growing community. As I was surrounded with like-minded people, some already or soon to be proper digital nomads, eager to learn and share in the most benevolent way their knowledge and driven by a very similar sense of accomplishment for when work is done effectively and allows for a holistic growth of the individual, I very much felt that a meaningful work collaboration should feel and taste like this each and everyday. Nothing less fulfilling than this!

 

I left Le Wagon after the demo day a bit tired and extremely happy and satisfied. It’s been a few months already and I know that I will stay in touch with the Batch-44 as a whole, and more particularly with very good friends I made there. I feel ready for all the new creative tech adventures that will come up … starting NOW!

I started studying computational linguistic a year before I joined Le Wagon. Before my studies, I had zero computer skills, to the point I that I had to call my brother every time I installed a new program or something was off. I started programing in university but I knew my skills were by far not good enough to land a job as a working student in the hopes of becoming one day a great software engineer. I decided to go to a coding bootcamp to make up for all those years missed not programming and to accelerate following my dreams.   The bootcamp proved to be tough. By day 5, I was already learning things I hadn't seen in university before. The struggle began and didn't end until Le Wagon finished nine weeks later. I learned so much in such a short time. I could never have done this on my own and I don't think it’s possible to achieve that much when you are on your own.   Le Wagon’s teachers were a great help, answering all my personal questions and always keeping us motivated. Going through a process like this wouldn't have been bearable if it wasn't for the other students though, we pushed and helped each other and formed our own little community.  The last two weeks we worked in groups to make a final project which we presented on the final day.   My group created a prototype to handle freelancer invoicing. It was really hard work but an opportunity to focus on the things we like, for me backend, but also to get better at the ones we struggled with - frontend.   Going to Le Wagon is perhaps one of the best experiences of my life. I would't be able to work as a software developer right now if it wasn't for those 9 weeks.

I attended Le Wagon batch #46 in São Paulo, Brazil, and it was a truly transformative experience. 

I’m 23, and a soon-to-be business graduate from HEC Paris, France. After interning twice in VC, it quickly became clear that I needed to considerably improve my technical skills, whether I was to stay in VC start a company or join a product management team in a startup, which were the three main options I am considering for my first job out of college. So I started working on FreeCodeCamp and Codecademy, putting 300+ hours in learning to code in JavaScript, Python and Ruby. I quickly got the grasp of algorithm coding, but I was far from being able to build the web apps I was dreaming of: the transition from coding algorithms to actually building software was much bigger than I expected, and I couldn’t find the right e-learning program for me. Working and studying, my time was limited, and it was clear I had to go another route if I wanted to quickly improve my skills. Living in Brazil at the time, I met the formidable team of Le Wagon in Sao Paulo, and signed up for the next session.

The next two months have been incredible. I had the chance of attending le Wagon in a small batch of 12 students, which considerably improved the experience and helped built a great relationship between students and teachers. 

After 7 weeks of learning and practicing, I gained the skills to build EasyMoveis, a furniture rental marketplace (www.easymoveis.co) in only 10 days with a team of 4 LeWagon students. I was most impressed by the fantastic learning curve at Le Wagon. The learning program is very well engineered so that the transition from coding to actually building web apps is extremely natural. I started building apps without realizing it! Aside from building apps, I think Le Wagon also helped me build a ‘developer’ mindset, that is the ability to keep learning on my own, find resources and libraries, and more importantly collaborate on a project. All those skills simply can’t be taught online. Finally, I am glad to have joined the Le Wagon community: the teachers from my batch at Le Wagon are always happy to help and provide feedback, while the overall community is super active and helpful.

Le Wagon is probably the best investment I made on myself, and I would recommend it to any one willing to learn software development, eyes closed!

```LeWagon was a game-changer for me. There is a before and an after LeWagon, be ready, seriously.

Before LeWagon...

I had always wanted to learn coding and build my own product. I went to a business school and I was working as a product manager. So in my work, I worked with developers to build beautiful products. In the same time, I always worked on side projects with developers but I was depending on them. I wanted to become autonomous and be able to build my own MVPs (Minimum Viable Product) by myself.

The night before my first day at LeWagon, I asked myself : "Are you sure to pay that amount for a training which you probably can do with Codecademy, Udemy, Openclassroom…?" And after the first week, I was glad I joined LeWagon and glad to invest in myself. I think this is one of the best investments I have made.

I was ready to work hard, very hard, to struggle at the beginning but at the end of the journey, I was proud to learn that fast. In my opinion, the fast-learning experience only works if you focus all your attention on it, and also because 9 weeks is very short. So give everything to learn and produce the best product you could do and enjoy creating products with your head!

After LeWagon...

Now, I work as a freelance Ruby on Rails developer and Product Manager for multiple companies. As a Ruby on Rails junior developer, I develop some web apps and websites for companies. As a Product Manager, I work differently and I easily anticipate the technical problems. I'm now much more confident with developers and I'm keep learning with them, especially in Ruby and React. And as an entrepreneur, I'm working on a new MVP with another Le Wagon alumni from my batch. Now, I define myself as a fullstack builder.

So, if you want to learn coding but are still hesitating, I'd suggest without a doubt to enroll at Le Wagon! But again, be ready to work hard!```

After graduating from business school and launching 2 significant ventures for Rocket Internet, my cofounder and I resigned to work on our own project. Like many others, our first task was to find a CTO. After a few weeks of rather frustrating search, I decided to attend Le Wagon's #1 batch in Paris (2014).

After 9 intense weeks of learning, I went from zero development knowledge to being able to create a solid MVP. On top of great course material and teachers, Le Wagon really stands out by its ability to create an ambitious yet fun environnement. Everybody there has their own background and is eager to make a change.

The work I did at Le Wagon helped me prove my concept and attract 2 great developers to get things started. We ended up launching Kudoz, a recruitment mobile app. 3 years later, we are a 12-people team. We have raised €1.2m in 2015 (and probably more soon). Kudoz has reached more than 250k users and 1000 active recruiters this month. 

So yes, attending Le Wagon was really worth it ;)

I had never coded a single line before in my life, but those classes were so complete that after only 9 weeks I am now confident enough about my code skills to apply for a tech position. For the past 3 years I worked with Marketing and Communications, but right after Le Wagon I started applying some logic knowledge and hacks in my daily tasks and this led me to get a spot in the tech team of my company!  It's only two months to become a fullstack dev so you have to dive in code everyday but it is totally worth it! I am fully satisfied and recommend Le Wagon to everyone looking for a quick start on coding. Besides Le wagon provides you with an amazing network of alumni and teachers that help you even after the bootcamp is over.

After earning an engineering degree and working a few years as a consultant in the banking sector, I wanted to learn new skills, especially in web development.

Thus, I joined the Le Wagon's 9-week FullStack program in Paris. The choice of this particular course had been motivated by various reviews I had found on the internet, but more importantly by the quality of the projects that are pitched by the students at their demo days.

My goal was to become autonomous and able to build any kind of web application's MVP in a reasonable amount of time: this goal has been reached.

Le Wagon surely means daily classes, exercices and learnings, but above all it's a very rich human experience. Even though days are tough, they always take place in friendliness and cheerfulness with classmates coming from very different backgrounds and always eager to help each other. The whole staff is very skilled and enthusiastic, and teachers are always available and accessible.

Today,  I returned to my consulting job, and thanks to Le Wagon I am also working on the side on a personal project of a web application.

In a word, I am sure you have understood that for all those who are looking for a web development bootcamp, I strongly recommend Le Wagon.`

A few months ago I had to make the following choice: am I going to dive deeper into social science and finish a master in my area of specialisation or, am I going to jump out of my comfort zone and go head first into coding. Now 3 months later I am still thrilled that I choose the latter.

It is remarkable the amount of information that Le Wagon manages to teach you in just nine weeks. At times I felt like I was hanging on to the last cart of a fast moving derailing train, but it is inevitable to not be in over your head learning to code as a beginner and it is almost imperative for the learning curve that Le Wagon offers.

Now I am able to create finished products, from start to end and I’ve found a job as a developer. Not only did the course provide the me the tools to start building and keep learning, but it also comes with an amazing community in which you are definitely prone to keep developing.

Background
As a graduate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation I am interested in start-ups in the world of IT. In order to build a project with a friend I immersed myself in the world of web development. To accelerate this process I found Le Wagon.

During the bootcamp
Le Wagon was a very intensive bootcamp. They have a nice structure of lectures and challenges, you are ready to build your own web applications towards the end of the bootcamp! The environment is very friendly and comfortable, I’ve had awesome teachers who helped me to get the most out of my Le Wagon experience.

Post bootcamp
Joining LW gave me the hard skills of a developer. I never expected to learn how to make fully functioning web-applications in such a little time. I can honestly say that I am confident with my obtained proficiency in software development. Moreover, I realized that it is not just the end-product, but coding itself is what makes me happy. Therefore I want to further advance as a web-developer.

Before joining Le Wagon, I worked as a finance analyst. I wanted to take a break and had always been intrigued by the happenings within the tech and start-up scene, and thus after a period of research, I decided to apply for Le Wagon in Copenhagen. 

Why Le Wagon?

I was based full-time in Asia, where coding bootcamps were not yet popular at the time of my application, and so I looked abroad. I browsed bootcamps in the U.S., but found most of them very expensive, and was lucky to find out about Le Wagon after perusing online reviews. Headquartered in Paris, Le Wagon offered classes across Europe and is now expanding to Asia and Latin America. It stood out as one of the more affordable options while not compromising quality and content. I am now happy to attest to the strength of the reviews I had read before I applied. 

Le Wagon was an intensive 9-week program with the goal of equipping creatives and entrepreneurs with the skill set to kick-start and launch their ideas. That said, you do not need to have a business idea to join Le Wagon. I found the program extremely well structured and thought out — lectures in the morning to introduce new concepts, exercises in the afternoon to practise those new concepts, and live-coding sessions in the evening to make sure everybody is on the same page. In the last few weeks, we plunged into developing our own projects, and it was incredible to see what one could do after learning 7 weeks of code. Of course, do not expect yourself to become an expert after the bootcamp, however, you will have a solid foundation in code to continue your journey as a junior developer or test out your ideas!

For me, my biggest takeaway from Le Wagon was the community. I met amazing classmates from all parts of the world and different backgrounds, and all converging to learn code together. Teachers at Le Wagon all teach with passion and immense belief in the program — most lecturers and TAs were former Le Wagon students, and it just comes to show the strength of the alumni community. We also had the pleasure of meeting Boris the founder of the program, and saw his vision in empowering ourselves through code in no matter what we do. You can see how much care and thought the founders behind the bootcamp had put into shaping the course by going through all the lecture materials, exercises, and flashcards they had put together and made available online to all students. 

Why Copenhagen?

The deciding factor for me was simply that I was curious about life in Scandinavia and thought there probably would not be another time for me to move across the world and spend 3 months here! I was extremely glad with my choice — not only was Copenhagen a lovely city with a unique pace and biking culture, but the Le Wagon program was also run by a very competent alum who knew exactly what he was doing. Guest lecturers were invited on same days and they were either seasoned developers or designers in the field, and we were blessed to have them come in and share tips and insights with us. These teachers have now become our mentors and I am really grateful to have met them. 

If you are deciding which city to join Le Wagon in, I would recommend Copenhagen with no hesitation. Most of my batch were international students, and we are now once again scattered across the globe to pursue the next steps in our careers. The skills you learn at Le Wagon are universal and highly transferable, so why not spend 9 weeks in a new city and where is the quality of teaching is great? 

Before I joined Le Wagon I thought programming was something only 15 year olds living on their computer could do. Now I find out that I have the potential to be amazing at it and Le Wagon helped me make unimaginable progress. I used to not know anything about the command line or even code and now much of it comes like second nature. I also used to hate class and considered dropping out of university but I just discovered I was being taught wrong and at the bootcamp I enjoyed attending class and it was easy to pay attention. The majority of the course was spent solving small problems that trained my brain to be the developer I am today. The instructors were phenomenal and when it was all said and done this course was good. Many boot camps advertise what they excel at but Le Wagon just excels across the board. I can now build websites with relative ease and I could hardly work the command line before. Finally, my classmates and I got very well. Having travelled from America for this, I made some lifelong friends from all across the world. You often hear testimonials about how it was hard to leave but I would not dismiss the sense of community Le Wagon builds. The buddy system they employ works wonders on getting to know people and the manager Ed is absolutely amazing and will make you feel comfortable from the first day until the last. If you are going to learn web programming and design I give this program my full recommendation.