Le Wagon

While working in the digital sphere for a few years as a project/product manager, I fell in love with what developers could do. However, I did not feel confident enough to learn how to code by myself. After a few tries at online tutorials on Udemy or Treehouse, I was starting to understand what the reality of the developers on my team was and it got me even more interested in the subject. I decided to take the leap of faith and signed up for Le Wagon Montreal. It was a great decision and an amazing experience. I dedicated, of course, a lot of hours to it, sometimes 12-14 hours a day, even weekends but I never felt like it was a chore or I was left behind. The way you learn and the way they teach make you progress every day. You gain so many soft skills with the buddy system and hard skills through the learning platform over the course of the experience that, even though you are indeed a junior when you graduate, you are already a very sought after profile for companies. I highly recommend Le Wagon bootcamp but I would also advise new students to make sure they did the prep work beforehand and also that they are committed to investing themselves in the experience. It's a guaranteed return on investment if they do so!

I am an entrepreneur with an engineering background, but although I've always been interested by the work done by our developers, I was never really on the technical side of the business. I worked on multiple tech and non-tech startups before Le Wagon and after a couple years in an E-commerce startup, I knew that I wanted to come back to something more technical.

I had a basic knowledge of programmation from school and pet projects, but I never actually built software. I always wanted to learn to code properly but never got around to actually doing it (went through one or two short-lived attempts). I was familiar with the basic concepts of programmation (variables, if statements, for loops, etc.) and I could even tweak some simple lines of PHP code from our WordPress websites, but I had no clue as to how to actually build a software application when I decided to join Le Wagon.

I love maths, science, and already had a solid engineering background, some basic notions of coding + HTML/CSS, so I was wondering how much I would actually end up learning from the bootcamp, since it was designed for people with absolutely no experience in mind. I can happily say that the curriculum, pace and experience were absolutely perfect for me. I was impressed at how the curriculum could cater for such a wide range of profiles and backgrounds. The optional exercises proved to be challenging, but also fun and instructive. The structure and flow of the lectures made so much sense, and the teachers were so focused and clear that I would easily fool myself into thinking that I had mastered the subject from that lecture alone... But thankfully the daily challenges would actually bring me back to reality while helping me cement the very dense knowledge that is being teached throughout the 9-weeks program.

The curriculum seemed to be very up-to-date (we were notified of recent changes in the curriculum to adapt to the most recent realities of the programming world) and extremely sharp. The density of the content is quite impressive, but again, it makes so much sense that by the last third of the program, everything was falling right into place.

The instructors were extremely friendly and competent, and I was impressed by their dedication and involvement in making sure that everyone could follow and make the most of the program.

I wasn't looking for a job per say, but there was lots of advice regarding the best ways to put yourself out there to find a job, the program was built around projects which could be used to build a portfolio (the teachers were also remotely providing assistance to help us build said portfolio to showcase our work after the bootcamp). They also opened their address book and arranged meetings with companies, recruiters, etc. during the program.

I feel extremely empowered with my new acquired skills and I can't recommend Le Wagon enough, to complete beginners as well as engineers who have only basic knowledge of programmation from school and who want to learn how to build and deploy and full-fledged web application. Even if you are capable of learning coding on your own, the program structure and tools at your disposal at Le Wagon makes it incredibly more efficient, fun and gratifying.

I've been trying to learn coding on my own for years to no avail - picking up apps like Codecademy, Sololearn, Grasshopper (and others long forgotten), some books, videos on youtube... No matter the tool, I always ended up just doing the exercises without really understanding what they were for, or how could I make use of this in a concrete application... or what a concrete application would even be!

So one day I found myself talking with my family and listing what I felt I needed to really learn to code:

• lessons/theory on the key concepts with concrete examples
• exercises that reinforce what I've learnt
• a teacher whom to ask for help when a concept is not clear or I am stuck with an exercise
• a stable and consistent period of time to learn (not like first day 1 hour, next day 30 minutes, then 10...)

After some hesitation (mainly the price commitment) I joined Le Wagon Tokyo and was pleasantly surprised to see, that not only did they deliver in every single point I felt I needed, but they even brought something more:

• buddy system - getting paired every day with a different classmate teaches you how to better understand what you are doing by explaining it to someone else (plus you get to know your classmates)
• a great lesson flow - each lesson seamlessly connects to the following one like expanding branches. Every main topic is a major branch and when you get to the final weeks all these branches are connected in a clear tree. And you see how even that one weird lessons from week 2 that you didn't quite get the importance is a game changer when building projects!
• project building - doing exercises is fun and games, but at the end of the day a programmer is here to build apps. Having the last 3 weeks focused solely on building working apps not only gave us a better understanding of what programming really is and the obstacles we will face, but also allowed us to create a portfolio.
• project preparation and delivery - despite being a coding bootcamp, they didn't overlook the importance of planning/preparing a project (thinking out the core user journey, preparing tentative art) and teaching us how to pitch it in front of an audience

Overall the experience and the curriculum were fantastic, and I have started recommending to my friends, especially those who believe that they don't have what it takes (maths, logical thinking) to learn programming.

I had been working as a Business Analyst for the past 5-6 years, during which I always had to work with developers. I always found it somewhat frustrating when I was not able to fully understand the technical terms when trying to translate business requirements to the tech teams. During my years as a Business Analyst, I managed to self-taught basic SQL and database structures, but I wanted to learn more than that. Coming from a non-technical background myself, I always found that people with coding/ maths background tend to have a different approach to problem solving, which is a skill extremely useful no matter which industry/sector you work at.

So, after attending talks and open days organised by several coding bootcamps, I decided to enrol in Le Wagon in London (batch#240) because its curriculum is designed not just for acquiring the technical skills for recruitment purpose, but also more about personal development. I particularly enjoy the last 3 weeks of the course, where we worked as a team to create a MVP for our apps/ websites. I learned during the project weeks that you can only learn and fully understand the concepts by applying them into practices. It really pushes you out there to apply the concepts you learnt as well as to present your ideas in front of others. The teacher assistants have all been extremely helpful and patient in explaining complicated coding concepts to us. Also, after the bootcamp, you will become a member of the Le Wagon international network of over 5000 alumnis across the globe, with people who are constantly sharing the latest news and knowledges every day on slack channels. Le Wagon also provides the most updated tools and course materials to its students even post bootcamp, so I can always refer back to the course work and redo the challenges/ revise on concepts. 

I am glad that I took the leap to attend the bootcamp at Le Wagon. After attending the bootcamp, I learnt that coding is a never ending learning process, and with the support that I had been given during and post bootcamp, I feel much more confident and motivated in continuing on my coding journey.

Former Wagon student at the Batch # 246 in Bordeaux, I was very interested in https://www.lewagon.com as part of a professional reconversion. I started several courses and I had the chance to close this transition by Le Wagon, so I have some elements of comparison.

The training, very intensive, is really well thought out, the staff is very competent, in addition to being really nice and benevolent, and at the end there is no apprehension to dive into the code, we know that we won't sink. The technical skill is present and beyond that, the ability to learn, to question and to challenge ourselves is very strongly sharpened. And this is also what allows a recruiter to have more confidence in a Wagon's student.

The student profiles are also very varied and very interesting. It's even one of the main strenghts of Le Wagon. The network of alumni, through the many opportunities it can bring, is a really differentiating factor.
In just two months Le Wagon simply brings a wealth of knowledge, and more opportunities than any other organization could offer, making this training one of the best investments you can make.

If you like to challenge yourself, want to change your life or get skills that could help you in your daily life, both pro and personal (yes it is), then clearly there is no hesitation, between all available bootcamps Le Wagon is clearly a no brainer.

Très vite on se sent à l’aise avec l’ambiance et grâce au staff du wagon, toujours très souriants et présents. J’ai choisi d’entreprendre ma formation de développeur web avec le Wagon de par son programme intense et complet mais aussi de par sa pédagogie d’excellence dont j’avais entendu ultérieurement. La formation est très enrichissante, bien que difficile, mais elle permet très rapidement d’acquérir de solides connaissances. Tout au long du batch, les professeurs et les T.A sont présents, et prennent vraiment le temps de nous expliquer les différents concepts. La pédagogie est vraiment au TOP ! Durant ces deux mois, nous apprenons aussi à travailler en binôme et en équipe. Ce qui pour moi est primordial, car c’est l’essence même du métier de développeur : le partage et le co-working. Durant le batch, de nombreuses activités en dehors des heures de cours sont proposées afin de développer la cohésion d’équipe mais aussi de créer des affinités. Je suis très fière d’avoir fait partie de mon batch 246 de Bordeaux, et je le recommande sans hésitation à tous ceux qui souhaiteront acquérir de nombreuses connaissances en peu de temps. C’est pour moi la meilleure formation de développeur web à l’heure actuelle ! Je vous invite à visiter le site du wagon : https://www.lewagon.com/fr pour avoir plus de renseignements. L’objectif du fin de batch est de créer une application web en équipe, là nous réalisons toutes les notions acquises au cours de ces deux mois, quel sentiment de fierté. Mot de la fin : le wagon est le meilleur bootcamp au monde depuis plusieurs années et je ne suis pas étonnée : super pédagogie, super endroit, super ambiance … Que demander de plus ? Foncez si vous hésitez encore. - Justine Muguet - Batch 246 - Bordeaux

I spent 5 years of my life studying Psychology. After those years when I finally obtained Master’s in Clinical Psychology, I went full on into working in very challenging environments, such as prison or hostel for homeless people struggling with addictions and mental health problems. As much as I enjoy helping people and being a psychologist I felt like I’m missing something. One day I finally let myself to be convinced by my best friend to give coding a go. Next thing I know I’m at Le Wagon! I boy don’t I love it!

 

Making a decision to join this particular Bootcamp was not an easy process. The market is full of different opportunities and options to learn to code. I knew that personally, I feel much more comfortable when learning in a group and being supported both by my colleagues and teachers. So having realized that I started my research. Le Wagon was coming on top of my searches every time but then there was one thing that really concerned me. By design, I’m a rather skeptical person, so when I saw all those Le Wagon’s awesome reviews online and the fact that I couldn't find any bad ones really put me off. However, that said, I was still curious about them so I decided to give it a go.

 

First weeks were extremely exhausting for me. I have no technical background so everything was so new and so intense! Surviving this early stage was possible for me only because of the buddy system and incredible support from all teachers and TAs. I was a little bit afraid of working every day with another colleague every day as I feared being judged. As it turns out I couldn’t be more wrong. At the end of the day we were in the same boat and we were going through the same problems. That made as close and we knew we can count on each other.

 

Project weeks were the best by far! That was the time to put all that knowledge into practice. Working in my team was like a rollercoaster at moments. We really wanted to build an amazing app so there were frictions between us, however, those moments made us even closer and made our work even better. We coded together, we solved problems together and we were laughing together.

 

To sum it up, if I could give any advice it would be, don’t hesitate to ask questions, don’t hesitate to ask for help, and more importantly, don’t hesitate to admit that you don’t understand something. At Le Wagon there’s no need to pretend, that’s not a race to be the best. Le Wagon is about you learning as much as you can and to enjoy the experience to the fullest!

 

After working as an accountant for 7 years and using various softwares at work, I wanted to make real changes for the users. After an intense research of coding bootcamps in London, I found that Le Wagon had the best syllabus for me as a non-CS degree graduate with the time period and competitive price. After 9 weeks of Le Wagon, I can confidently say that it was one of the best decisions I made in my career path and it provided me a great start of my new journey as a developer. All staff are super friendly and really care about individual's success in the course. It also has very broad network and support from Le Wagon graduates all over the world! Once you attend Le Wagon, you are in the Le Wagon family for life!

I’ve been doing a masters in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at LSE this year and decided to take the Le Wagon course (batch #240) during my exam period as a supplement to my studies. Previously I worked in NGOs and social science research, but always felt a pull to gain technical skills and learn how to build things on my own. I wasn’t very confident I would be able to do it, and even during the first few weeks of the course I felt slow and behind. But thanks to the thorough lectures every morning, the individualized support provided by TAs throughout the day, and  - crucially - the daily reassurance from every staff member at Le Wagon, two months later I graduated knowing 1000% more than when I started. Coding still isn’t easy, but Le Wagon gives its students the tools to be able to continue learning the material and honing in on certain areas depending on the project - so it doesn’t really feel over. I never would have been able to do this on my own and would retake it in a heartbeat.

I'm Paulo, 25 Years old, I was not able to finish secondary school in my country but I got lucky to work as a customer service representative, after that moved to Japan and started a new life in Tokyo with my wife.

After some time working in the construction sector in Japan, I realized that it was not what I wanted, since a kid I've been in love with tech and interested in programming. So I decided to look for new opportunities and change my life, so after some research I found Le Wagon Coding boot camp and decided to enroll for the next session.

I'm part of Le Wagon's Tokyo Batch #252, that started back in April 15 2019, it was an experience i never forget because really helped me to learn what i always wanted.

1. The teachers: They are amazing and well-prepared!, The main Teacher was always ready to answer questions and to help you, if you have a problem they will figure it out in matter of seconds. They will sit beside you and help you to reason the problem until you understand it. Is very difficult to ask something they don't know. And that is for the other TA's too, All of them are really experienced developers. And of course when is time to chill they are really nice people to have a nice chat too!.

2. The Program: I'm did not study programming before, and I'm impressed that after only two months I can call myself a Full stack developer. All the program is really well thought, made to help beginners understand, but of course you have to be prepared if you have no experience in coding, so I recommend finishing all the Preparation work they provide before the boot camp, This is a very intense program and you have to be really interested in learning to keep going. All the valuable experience I gained working with awesome teammates and with my teachers is really helpful after the boot camp.

3. Job Assistance: Le Wagon staff is still sharing Job opportunities and organizing events to help us find a Job. It's been a week after my batch finished and still searching for a Job, But I'm pretty satisfied with the help they are providing us to find a Job.

I feel like my life has already changed after Le Wagon and I hope to keep growing as a developer finding a Job in a good company in Tokyo, Keep in touch with my teammates and teachers. This is an experience I will never forget!.

I am 29 years old, I graduated from Rennes Business School and started working for Neslté France just after my studies. I worked there for almost 5 years as a digital manager. I really enjoyed my career there.

In October 2018, I decided to quit my job and start a new life in Lille. I took advantage of this break to develop technical skills through the Wagon Coding Bootcamp Lille. https://www.lewagon.com/fr/lille

I'm part of batch #257 started in April 2019 and I really enjoyed my experience at The Wagon!

> The staff is great: very good explanations, great attention to the progress and the feeling of each - the courses are well developed and explained. => I did not know anything about code but I never felt lost thanks to the teachers and the teaching assistant.

> Educational program: quite intense (you have to be prepared!) But really well built. I liked the rhythm: classes / exercises / projects. I had the impression that I had not learned so much in a long time! In April, I did not know anything about coding. Today, I feel able to develop myself a basic merchant website or to speak with a developer with the right words.

> Friendly atmosphere: each day you work with a different budy, there is a lot of support between students.

My plan for the future: My goal is to find a job in a company where I will be able to use the technical skills I have acquired, for example: working as a Product Owner.

After spending 9 weeks at Le Wagon Paris, I got a lot of skills and enjoyed every moment of the bootcamp. Teachers and the staff were always making sure that each student is moving forward and has a rich experience both on the human and professional level.

The pedagogical platforms provided by Le Wagon are exhaustive and easy to use. It helped me to push my own limits and gave me confidence in my future projects. Building a project from scratch in 2 weeks within a team made us apply our new skills in real-life situations and trained us for our future jobs in tech.

I was head of supply at Le Collectionist, a brand of luxury villas rentals and bespoke experiences, for 3 years, and decided I needed a change in my life. My desire was to learn again, and to be able to work closer to the tech team in the future jobs I would have. Aware of Le Wagon’s existence for a while, I decided to try and apply for it, and was convinced automatically once I step a foot in the offices at Le Villa Gaudelet in Paris.
The experience was amazing, as well in their learning format than in the community they created, and maintained so well. I didn’t see the 9 weeks passed, and it gave me the ego-boost and the motivation I needed to start something new. On the human level, Le Wagon is such a rich experience; it’s rare to be able to meet all those people with different backgrounds, motivated to give the best of themselves throughout the training.
On the teaching level, it’s based mostly on the practice of code (70% of the day), and enables you to also work on your personal skills (skills that will be great assets in any job). I entered Le Wagon wanting to be a product manager, and now I am actually a freelance in front web development (which I never thought would be possible before). I am learning everyday with my projects, and I am really happy I made this turn of carrier at this moment of my life.
As a bonus, I continue on being in Le Wagon’s community because I’m also Teaching Assistant in Paris - the best way to keep learning while continuing to spend crazy moments with the team and the students!

Before joining Le Wagon, I was working as a video producer and had purchased some online coding classes but due to lack of self descipline I never completed any. Therefore, it's safe to say that I went into the bootcamp with close to zero experiences. 

Campus: 
Apart from its unanimously sterling reviews online, I've always been quite fond of Japan so when Le Wagon Kyoto opened its second batch, it was a no brainer. There were eight people in my batch, 4 boys, 4 girls and I loved the classroom size. We would hang out during lunch and go to Izakaya after class. We would study together on the weekend and one of our classmates who was a Kyoto local even organized a couple sightseeing day trips around the area for us (a huge shout out to Aya! thank you!). Smaller classroom size also meant being able to spend more time with teachers and TAs asking questions. On top of everything, Kyoto was just a very nice city to live in. A short 20 mins walk to class everyday, nice weather, and plenty of things to do on the weekends. Loved it.

Curriculumn:
It was solid and was quite challenging for me at times. I had no experience in coding so everything I learned was new and since I'm a pretty slow learner, it would take me a couple tries to get the concepts down. Doing challenges could also be quite frustrating at times but when you finally figured it out it was SUPER rewarding and you'd be craving for more. One thing I did that helped me tremendously was watching next day's lecture the night before or the morning of and reviewing all the materials on the weekend. Here is also the perfect segway to my next point, teachers and TAs.

Teachers & TAs:
I'm not exaggerating when I say I enjoyed EVERY single teacher and TA we had for the entirety of the program. Apart from being extremely knowledgeable about the subject, they were all just wonderful humans in general. They were all extremely patient with us and would guide us through every question and made sure we understand every concept every step of the way. I would know becaue I was one of those students who needed extra attention and without fail I always had help. 

Conclusion: 
I started Le Wagon with zero knowledge in coding and am now confident enough to start creating my own projects and will also start looking for web dev jobs in Japan soon, something I wouldn't even dream of in the beginning of this year. Even after the bootcamp finished, Le Wagon had great support and resources for its alumni to keep them up to date on the latest job offerings, new courses, etc. As cliche as it might sound, Le Wagon isn't just a "bootcamp", you're introduced to a network of support the second you joined and you'll have it for the rest of your life. 

After finishing my masters in London in Computing and also running my small business on the side, I felt it was the time to learn the foundational coding skills needed to develop full products. As it will help me run my business easier and it will give me a more in-depth understanding of the best and most efficient process for software engineering.

The experience was amazing! Especially the project in the last two weeks where we were able to develop a fully functional prototype and see how software teams work. Le wagon team did a great job facilitating this program and I’m really thankful for this experience!

I'm Frederic, I'm 40 years old and I started my career as a former civil engineer and worked in audit and finance for many years. Within the last 5 years, I launched 2 startup projects. Through my career, I've also been working as a bloodstock agent (I buy and sale race horses).
As I was looking for new projects in the start up world, I heard about le Wagon FullStack bootcamp. At the beginning, I was not looking for a school or something like that a all.But after some researches and talks with friends, I realised that it could be perfect for me. I never had the ambition to become a fullstack developer, even when I considered doing le Wagon but I always had this little lack of technical knowledges that made me thinking I wasn’t speaking the same language than the developers. I found out that Le Wagon could be the answer and it was indeed.
If I have to sum-up my experience at le Wagon, I will say that:
-    It’s 9 full intensive weeks, but he program is perfectly size for this time
-    The methodology is very good/innovating and everybody enjoys both the curriculum and the rythme.
-    You meet a great bunch of people with different experiences/ ages/ backgrounds and Le Wagon's network increase the value of the program.

Long story short: if you are thinking of doing le Wagon do not hesitate, go for it.

In England I was an Engineer, it was a good, stable job but I was bored. I kept thinking ‘it will pick up’ or ‘I’ll get that promotion next year’. One day I woke up and realized I had been waiting for years for something to happen. After an embarrassing amount of time I decided to take the plunge into coding and after a good bit of research, I choose Le Wagon - specifically Le Wagon Bali. Firstly, the Le Wagon syllabus is masterfully set out – they give you the arduous approach to a problem first, and then teach you the simple/succinct approach so that you know what is ‘going on under the hood’. This sounds painful but it works perfectly! It gives you an understanding of a concept in a matter of days, whereas otherwise, it would take weeks.
Secondly, the way each day was structured forced you to think like a developer from day 1. The days starts with a lecture (with Q&A etc) and then moves onto daily challenges with the full (and completely invaluable) support from the teachers, and then ends with a live code session where the whole class completes a task together. This structure immerses you in coding – think learning another language while living in the country of origin.
Finally, the resources Le Wagon provide during and after the course pay for themselves. I finished the course a month ago, and thanks to free members-only Le Wagon course on React, I am now a freelance fully remote React Developer; I spend my days bouncing around Asia, living in flip flops and drinking coconuts (I know, the dream right?).
Three months ago I was sat in a cubicle waiting for my life to become interesting, and now I’m sat in a cafe in Vietnam wondering whether to move to the Philippines or Taiwan. Le Wagon, quite literally, gives you the tools to change your life.
To anyone reading this, stop waiting and take the aforementioned plunge. Stop sitting and waiting for your job to interest you, or waiting for your employers to appreciate you – take the plunge. My only regret is that I didn’t get involved with Le Wagon 3 years earlier.