Le Wagon

Le Wagon was a truly challenging but wholly rewarding experience.  Over the course of two months I was taken from an absolute novice, to a capable and cognisant junior developer.  By the end of the course I was not only able to code in multiple Frontend and Backend languages but I was able to identify areas of interest and languages that I wanted to investigate.  The bootcamp has provided a solid and well-formed foundation upon which I can build my own career. 

Coming from an Education and Fine Art professional background, my knowledge of computers was limited.  The Teachers and TAs of Le Wagon Berlin worked hard to ensure that all students got the help they needed, able to differentiate those with a history in coding, and those fresh to the craft.  Daily Extension Tasks pushed those with more experience, while clear instructions, comprehensive lectures and online resources, built-in testing, and an efficient and effective ticketing system meant that anyone who needed help could readily find it.  However the teaching was not limited to the Teachers and TAs, I found that I learnt the most from my buddy.  The buddy system pairs you with a different classmate each day, allowing you to share your strengths, and learn from each other, all the while becoming great mates with the people in your bootcamp.

The bootcamp also runs on a rotating system of Teachers and TAs meaning that there were always new, fresh experts to learn from.  We were taught by Industry Professionals from around the world.  The TAs, all of whom are recent graduates, we capable at assisting us but I found them most valuable in empathising with our struggles.  Having recently been through the bootcamp, the TAs were excellent at assuaging our stresses and getting us over whatever hurdles we were facing.  Morning Lectures and Afternoon Livecodes, meant that you were always pushed to learn and try new techniques.  And it was this intensity that enabled so much learning to take place in such a short span of time.

Over the course of the two months I built several functioning applications, some of which are live and online today.  Being able to code a fully functioning web application from nothing seemed so foreign before Le Wagon, now it is not only a reality, but a pleasure.  These skills cater to all types of people.  From the truly creative, to the lovers of problem-solving, my classmates were wide ranging, highly analytical and highly artistic. Coding allows you to engage all parts of your brain, and Le Wagon helped us to understand code.

This course will teach you how to code. But it also teaches you how to develop a User Journey, how to Pitch a Product, how to Work as a Team.  Le Wagon is a holistic learning experience that I would recommend to anyone interested in gaining more knowledge about the coding and tech world. 

Le Wagon makes people deeply driven. During these two months my self-confidence has skyrocketed, first you realize the extent of what you are going to achieve, it’s scary and exciting, second you understand how good the program, the teachers and the solidarity are. So all along your mind and your body give everything. At the end you know how to create a complex website that needs database, design and “backend” code so that customer-action are broad. More, you become a driven developer so you believe you can do what you want. After the bootcamp you keep learning, but this time it’s different you have the logic, the power and the speed of a developer. Finally what you will really remember is the human part of this adventure, inside the classroom and outside, you discover people as intensely as you learn code - the Wagon leaves you not alone. Some of your fellows become friends, plus you share a mindset with all a community that keeps helping each other and working together. I did a great achievement for my career, I am confident about launching my web application now. 

Everyone asks me - was it worth it? Did you enjoy it? Not too difficult or too boring? My answer is always - it was simply one of the best decisions I've made in my life. After spending several years as a category manager in a big international corporation I realised it's high time for a change. I felt a strong need to learn something new and get into a new environment, gain independence and the ability to create something useful from scratch. I considered several possibilities and realised that programming might be worth trying. Le Wagon bootcamp seemed like the perfect solution as they said you don't need any previous coding experience, guaranteed a comprehensive program that would give me a strong basis for a new career as a programmer and simply looked like a cool and passionate group of people. How were the 9 weeks? Crazy! Le Wagon delivered what they promised - the bootcamp gave us a great introduction to the coding universe, going step by step from the foundation through advanced concepts. And I won't lie - it was an incredibly demanding time. However thanks to our own motivation and full support from an amazing team of teachers we managed to become fluent in Ruby on Rails, manage databases, create beautiful front end and the thing of utmost importance - create our own products! Last three weeks of the bootcamp taught us how to work in teams while working on our applications which is super important before making your first steps as a Junior Developer. We learned how to compromise, split tasks, work on GitHub and last but not least - communicate! Le Wagon gives you the skills. But the invaluable advantage is also the worldwide community that you join - amazing, helpful people with experience they are happy to share. Yes. One of the best decisions in my life :)

Le Wagon is an excellent experience that not only brings wonderful people together but also really teaches you a lot. You may come in barely knowing what a function is, leaving with ability to create performant websites. They make sure that all the participants are able to understand and code and everyone gets special care, be it problem with a coding task or a question about a startup idea.

Do not worry if you have never coded in your life. Also, do not worry if you have some coding skills, the bootcamp is a valuable experience that will teach you front-end (JS, HTML, CSS), back-end (SQL, Rails & Ruby) and everything in between (tools, git, colaboration, design process, testing etc)! 

They prepare you to kick start your coding career. It is worth it.

We spent 2 months working hard but in a very positive atmosphere. Every day, I woke up knowing I will learn a new thing and enjoying that with all the other students. I really loved the overall program and the way it is designed. In two months, you learn to code but you especially learn to learn from scratch and to better yourself in teams. The teachers in Lille are all very nice, competent and patient. They really loved teaching and share there knowledge. 

I never touched a terminal of my life. Now, I am able to code from A to Z a Web app such as a marketplace or a flight comparator that was our final project. I have also a much better understanding of Web development and its problematics. I am totally convinced about it gives a big advantage for working as a digital project manager or consultant in a company or for experiencing entrepreneurship. I also know people who are going to start a career as a Web developer after doing Le Wagon.

One more thing, what it is very interesting in this coding bootcamp is that you learn how to code but with a product-oriented and startup vision. The goal is not to become a genius in programmation in only two months but to develop a Web app quickly paying attention to the user experience and enjoying that.

Before I joined Le Wagon, I was feeling a bit lost about what I was doing in my career. I spent my early twenties working in office administration and pubs and back again - all the while, fitting in my free hours on free coding lessons on the internet. As much as I gained a passable amount of HTML and CSS from these, I found I was creeping at a turtles pace in my web developer knowledge. All the more, it was a bit of a lonely experience doing this by myself. I knew barely anyone who was in the same industry, let alone was in the same path as myself.

So in April 2018 I joined Le Wagon’s nine-week course. What I noticed from the first day was that there was a truly diverse mix of backgrounds. Those on a break from university, those who dreamt of building their own product and some who were just excited by programming languages but it a lot to take going alone.

In the first couple of days I realised that I was being challenged in ways I had never had before. Stripped down to the bare bones of programming and we were learning data types and we could use them in real code. The interface built on Kitt is an encyclopaedia of knowledge, the lectures, notes and challenges all being readily available meant that even if I didn’t fully understand some of the concepts I could refresh on them that night or after the course had finished.

By the last two weeks we were ready to design and develop our own product from scratch, using everything we had learnt in the previous seven weeks. It was the closest we had to working in a real working environment with code reviewing and keeping to deadlines. We were able to present these to our peers and friends on a demo night on the last day of the course.

There’s a real community hub at Le Wagon, right from the lecturers and teaching assistants explaining terms to us on an individual basis to current students and alumni from all over the world. With everyone having different goals they wanted to achieve after the course, it was brilliant to have the support from students-turned-friends who wanted to see our careers springboard after we finished the course. It was a real confidence boost to feel comfortable learning new skills by myself and applying for developer roles after just nine weeks. I just wish I could do it all over again.

I come from a Media & Communication background and I got to the point where I wanted to learn some new skills and bring them up to a new level. As Barcelona is probably the best location right now for the fast-paced evolution of information technology I decided to sign up for Le Wagon here, expecting to work within the area as a Full Stack developer. My goal was to bring my tech ideas to life in the next future. 

I chose Le Wagon because it's not only a coding academy, it's a school for entrepreneurs. It has been the place where I could develop a different set of skills in different fields and where I had the chance to build an actual product.

The experience at Le Wagon has been an amazing, exciting and very fast-paced journey. During such time I've levelled up my knowledge of programming, going from basic knowledge of the Ruby and Ruby on Rails languages to developing, deploying and launching my very first app. Thanks to the the bright-minded and very high skilled individuals who were teaching, driving and supporting me I have seen this process through from ideation to design, coding to developing, deploying to launching and the skills I have picked up along the way will be invaluable in my deep journey into Software Engineering.

I would like to thank Le Wagon and Gus plus all the people that made this possible, the folks I have made friends with along the way for making the experience unforgettable. This field is collaborative above anything else, and working and studying along-side amazing, like-minded developers from a range of ages and backgrounds has been inspiring. Plus, Barcelona is just beautiful, it's a kind of magic city as it has lots to offer.

I would highly recommend anybody to join Le Wagon because it's a place where any ambitious individual will come up a full-shaped developer with an entrepreneurial mind-set. 

    I found Le Wagon - Rio de Janeiro by chance one day, I was unhappy with my career and wanted to make a change. I had been studying web development on my own for a little while but with my work and family obligations it was hard to make any real headway. I started looking at bootcamps and while looking through reviews I happened upon Le Wagon - Rio de Janeiro. It was almost unbelievable to find such a highly rated course and at a affordable price. I was skeptical at first but since they had a course in a city where I had contacts that I trust I had them go check it out. They were so impressed with the course I went for it and I can honestly say it was one of the best experiences of my life.

   From day one I knew I had made the right choice, the material moves fast and you have to be willing to put in the work. The day starts with a lecture at 9 and from 1030 until 530 you work on challenges and projects. You work with a different partner everyday which is one of the best parts, its great having someone right there going through it with you and who you can talk through problems with. When neither of you are able to come up with a solution, you have teachers who are there to guide you to a solution. The teachers are great at getting you going in the right direction whether that is pointing you towards the documentation or just being someone that you bounce ideas off of until you have that ahh moment. from 530 till 7 you have a live code session where you have problems that you have not seen yet and you code in front of the class. This can be pretty intimidating but, it really helps you reinforce what you learned and helps you figure out how to work through problems under pressure.

   The course has a great focus towards entrepreneurship and there is a great amount of support available after the course through there alumni slack channel. The channel is super active and you can always find someone to help you. The channel also has a very active job channel as well, which is good if that is what you are looking for after the bootcamp.

   I just wish with the course was longer, not because you need to learn more, honestly its amazing at how much you can do by the end of the 9 weeks. I wish the course was longer just because it was so enjoyable, it keeps you outside your comfort zone everyday. You are surrounded by amazing people going through the same thing as you and the teachers have some of the best patience I have ever seen.

After 8 years playing poker professionally and having just turned 30, i was in a hurry to find something else to do with my life until a friend suggested code and Le Wagon to me.

It was such an amazing life experience. The way they pushed me to learn, it was just what i needed to start a new chapter in my life.

Great friendly environment, teachers always willing to help and the opportunity to build a project from scratch is the perfect way to learn how things work.
I'm sure i will remember those 9 weeks for the rest of my life and i will always be grateful for it.

I came to Le Wagon through a friend's recommendation. I remember when he heard about it, then decided to do it, and later told me his experience. It was all so amazing, I thought he was exaggerating. He really wasn't.
Le Wagon was everything he told me about and more. I was a designer and now, a little more than two months later, I am a web developer.

I've been fascinated with computers for almost my whole life. And my whole life i've steered a wide path from it because people tend to put us in little boxes and, as much as I loved science and was super curious, I ended up in the creative-artsy box. while I was growing up, I was somehow led to believe there creative-artsy people were not cut out for technical jobs. So I didn't even try. It took thirty years, a lot of courage and a deeper understanding of multidisciplinary skills to finally question that and boy, oh boy, how wrong could I be.

Because of the structure of the course and because it's so intense, there's not much time to waste. Don't get me wrong, we love to party and there's plenty of beers to be had, but that's usually after a really hard day's work. You get from a "never coded before" level to a "coding all day everyday" really fast and it's really fascinating to go through, and watch such a diverse group of people go through it with you. I could not be more pleased with the didactics and the pace of the bootcamp. It is really intense and it is really hard. For me at least, that had no prior knowledge and no prior experience with actual coding (or anything tech-related, for that matter), everyday was a struggle. But as much as I struggled, the sense of accomplishment was that much greater when I could finally figure it out.

A lot of times I couldn't actually, not by myself, and that's fine. The buddy system and the T.A's were really helpful in this aspect. They really do guide you in the right path and you feel really stupid sometimes because once they point the direction out to you solving a challenge actually seems really simple. And next thing you know you ask for help and figure it out even before they have a chance to explain the problem to you and you just go "oh, never mind, i got it!".

I think even if the bootcamp was just lectures and challenges I would have learned a lot. But nothing compares to the last three weeks. You actually get to work, as a group, on a Airbnb clone and on our own project and that is the game-changer: because collaborating on a group effort is hard, and that's what the market is all about. That was even more important than learning to code, for me. Learning to work around other people's code, to improve it, to correct it, to have my own code improved and corrected, to solve conflicts and elusive bugs. I cannot believe we got to design a product from idea to fully functional in 10 days, but hey, such is life aboard the Wagon.

I have attended Le Wagon Bali this summer and now I can safely say enrolling in the Le Wagon bootcamp was one of the best decisions that I made.

Prior to attending the bootcamp I have worked for a large IT consultancy but more on the project management side however as I was really interested in the digital side I always wanted to learn coding but I never seemed to be able to find enough time and motivation to do it on my own using online resources.

Originally I considered doing a computer science masters however having a full time job, the time and costs involved in completing a masters degree made it not a feasible option. Therefore the bootcamp seemed like a good alternative as I was able to take some time off to attend the bootcamp without having to give up my job completely.

I choose Bali as I always wanted to visit it and thought that by attending the bootcamp there I would be able to explore Bali as well. Choosing Bali was definitely the right decision as I was far away from home (London). I didn’t have to worry about life admin or other commitments (which I would have had if I would have done the bootcamp back at home) meant that I was able to fully focus on learning and making the most of the bootcamp.

The bootcamp was very intense (usually classes would start at 9 and end around 6:30, some weeks we would study 6 days a week). The first few weeks were especially tough as we covered a lot of different topics in a relatively short period of time however being surrounded by supportive teachers and equally motivated classmates really made this an enjoyable experience. Every day was well structured, it consisted of lectures and practical exercises. Probably the most fun part of the bootcamp was the project weeks during these weeks everything that we have learnt in the first 6 weeks really came together as we got to work in teams and build apps based on our own ideas.

In addition to the learning, the bootcamp had a great social side as most of the classmates in my batch were not from Bali and came here on their own, everybody was keen to get to know each other, socialise and do things in the evenings and explore other parts of Bali on days off.

Overall I cannot recommend Le Wagon Bali highly enough, I have learnt so much, met many amazing people, had a very enjoyable experience and got to live it Bali for 2 months!

I have always considered learning code. Coming from a totally different background, the transition was not easy. I had to overcome many personal fears : Is it the right move? Will I be able to keep up with the algorithms? Will I be rigorous enough? I remember trying to learn all by myself on different e-learning platforms but it did not really work out. When I joined Le Wagon I was delighted. I immediately felt like it was the right bootcamp for me : product oriented. Something tangible to learn something totally new. The first few weeks were quite confusing as my mind was saturated with brand new words and concepts: functions, models, controllers, views, databases… But I eventually started to like it thanks to the outstanding teaching team! A whole new world was opening its doors. After graduating from Le Wagon I started working as a freelance developer right away. I partnered with another alumni (hi Franklin) and it surely helped to start this new journey. Le Wagon does not only give you technical skills, it is also a dope spot to meet cool people! I am now fully enjoying my freelancer status as I can work from wherever I like, build cool products and meet inspiring entrepreneurs! I am also still improving my development skills, because obviously it is never done. I can now admit it and say it out loud, it was the best decision EVER and TOTALLY worth it!

8 years after graduating from a business school I believed it was time to learn something new, to stop the never ending daily routine at work, and get some new skills. I wanted to learn how to code to be able to lauch my Minimum Viable Product. So I can turn a nice idea into something real, to actually test it, to overcome the fear that I am not legitimate to build something. Le Wagon empowered me in an incredible way, I learnt how to code, I spent an amazing time. If you think about it, and you can take the time, then just do it, do not overthink, it is the best way to spend your money and your time. Now I even discovered that I love to share what I learnt, by being an teaching assistant for the new students, just 3 months after I completed my course. 

Go for it !

 

After a year working on sales operations and growth, I felt like I was lacking technical skills: all I did was creating non-scalable process that required a lot of manual work and repetitive actions.

I joined Le Wagon batch #146 to complete my business background and finally be able to bring code and automation to my process.

Even though I felt completely lost at the beginning, the methodology developed at Le Wagon - and truly passionate and skillful teachers, thanks a loooot - helped me scale up my technical skills. Working for 9 full weeks with teammates on practical and incremental code challenges helped me getting completely comfortable with what was gibberish to me before :

- Talk about technical subjects with developers 
- Implement technical sales tools 
- Connect to any API 
- Develop in-house tools to support growth needs 
- Scrape any website I wish in minutes

These are just few examples of the skills I developed thanks to this amazing Bootcamp that got me form knowing nothing about coding to being fully independent about creating whatever needs to be done, just what I needed.

Le Wagon : an incredible team, an amazing methodology and brilliant teammates.

Thanks a lot, 
Victor

I was a student in the batch #100 in Paris after finishing my business studies at ESCP Europe. After having graduated, I felt I had to acquire more technical skills (understand : learn to code). I knew about Le Wagon from an alumni from my school. So I decided to try my luck … And I was pretty amazed by my time there !


During my 9 weeks there I really appreciated the way code is taught. On a typical day there is 2 hours of class and the rest of the day is spent doing exercices with another student. You never work alone at Le Wagon. Most of the progress is made during those exercices, by cooperating with your buddy.


But what I enjoyed the most is the general philosophy. I really felt like nothing was impossible to learn. On the first day, most of us had never opened the terminal, and 9 weeks later we designed and coded an entire website including a pretty complex backend and beautiful frontend. When I face a problem I have never seen, I am able to tackle it by myslef.


I am now working at Backmarket as a Product Owner, a job I would have not been able to do without Le Wagon. Thank you so much, it was some of the most exciting weeks of my life !

Before attending Le Wagon Milano, I had high expectations from the bootcamp, but I was far from imagining how much I could learn in only 9 weeks.

Even though I had some knowledge in programming, I was challenged from day 1. The whole journey is intensive, and everything is thought to offer the best learning experience to the students. The wide teaching staff allows to learn from many developers, with each member coming to teach his own area of expertise. The pair programming on small projects and challenges gives opportunities to think beyond solutions that each of us could have produced alone. The final project is a great hands-on experience to work in team as a developer.

Moreover, Le Wagon taught me how to approach one problem as a developer, and how to figure out the way to solve it.

Le Wagon’s bootcamp gives you all the tools to become a developer if you are ready to take them and work hard. I totally recommend !

The Le Wagon bootcamp is a very intensive experience.

If you like being challenged and solving problems, you will absolutely love it.

Le Wagon's way of teaching content is very different from schools/universities in a really good way. They take a hands-on approach, focusing on less hours of teorical knowledge and more hours of practical challenges. Expect to spend 90% of the time coding.
You must be aware that for you to take the most of this bootcamp, you must be fully commited to it. You shouldn't plan to work during the bootcamp. It's a fulltime course.

This was my average daily schedule during the bootcamp:

07:40H - Wake Up
09:00H - Morning Lecture
11:00H - Its challenge time! Start doing the daily challenges with your designated pair of the day.
12:30H - Lunch
13:00H - Keep working on the challenges. If you manage to finish the mandatory ones, start doing the optional (The difficulty increases for each optional challenge. Its hard and very fun).
17:00H - Live code - A special challenge of the day, coded by the entire class together.
18:30H- End of the day. Le Wagon stays open until 23h. Some students go home, some students keep doing challenges. In my case, i stayed everyday until 23h, doing the extra challenges and studying.
23:00H - Time to home and rest.

It is very demanding and very very rewarding. You will learn a lot, meet many interesting people from different backgrounds and develop a full project in the end along with teammates. If you are considering applying, go ahead and do it. It was the best learning experience of my life.
 

I’ve been founding and managing businesses in various industries gathering insights from different parts of the business and yet, it seemed like something was missing. Every time my partners and I attempted to scale a business we got stuck as either no one in our team had sufficient technical skills to develop what we needed or it was too expensive to be outsourced.

So I decided this will not stop me again in the future. I will quit my job, learn to code and become the successful entrepreneur I always wanted to be. Easier said than done… I did tons of research and finally came across Le Wagon's intense full stack web development bootcamp. I was hooked as soon as I saw the program: OOP, Ruby (fastest growing development community), Rails, HTML, CSS, JS, Ajax, API’s, DB (SQL, My SQL, PostGres), developing environments and collaboration tools (Git & Github, Trello, Slack) and deployment (Heroku)… It looked insanely complete.

Then I came across SwitchUp, and Le Wagon’s top score of 4.99 out of 5 (+600 reviews!!). Could this get any better? It did, I found out that they are in Bali. A week later I was already signed up and preparing for what I thought will be one of the greatest experience of my life. Some expectations, huh? I was part of Le Wagon Batch #163 in Bali and believe it or not it totally surpassed my expectations. Not only the program is as strong as they claim, teachers, fellow students (we were 25!) and manager were so incredibly nice and helpful which made my experience so much more rewarding.

And you not only learn, you make! During the last weeks my team and I developed The Pool of Printables (www.thepoolofprintables.com), a platform that allows you to collectively raise money to get high quality 3D designs and boost the 3D printing community. We felt so proud making and presenting it on the final demo day!

Bottom line, if your goal is similar to mine, to understand more about coding to boost your entrepreneurial and/ or managing skills and be able to code MVP’s, or if you aim to become a full stack developer, Le Wagon is the place for you. I loved the experience and I can’t recommend it enough.

P.S.: the access to the Le Wagon community that you have during and after the bootcamp might be the biggest resource you don't have on your radar while looking for bootcamps. More than 3000 like-mined people helping with developments, finding jobs, freelance gigs, team-mates, co-founders… BOOM.

Over the years, I’ve worked as the business or marketing guy for various companies. I was always drawn to these roles because of my ability to ‘play nice’ with others. But in some ways I was also limited to these roles because I lacked a strong technical skillset. In my mind, this technical skillset could be many things… coding, design, data science, architecture, medicine, and law are all examples. Unfortunately for me, I had never developed any of these skills. I wanted to find a way to develop myself so that I could provide more value to companies while also freeing myself from the business/marketing mindset. I didn’t want to just sell, I wanted to build. After nine weeks of intensive learning with Le Wagon, I’ve not only gained a deeper understanding of full-stack web development, but the confidence and knowhow to extend my learning to other technical areas. Although the bootcamp has ended, the learning has just begun. I’ve begun work at a local startup as a WeChat Mini Program developer, I’ve joined forces with other Le Wagon alumni to continue learning new frameworks, and I’ve built a strong community of developers, hackers, and entrepreneurs who want to use to tech to add value to the world. Choosing to join Le Wagon was a great decision. It has reshaped the way I see the world and my role in it.