Le Wagon

The period I spent in Le Wagon was an amazing learning experience. My background is in healthcare. I am a physician and practice in the field of Family and Community Medicine. I always had special interest in technology, and thought that learning to code would be a useful skill for life - both professionally - as the applications of technology in healthcare seems to be promising - and personally, as I found out that I enjoy coding and solving problems.   The bootcamp period was intense. The people that I met there were amazing. The volume of information we learnt was huge. It was challenging, satisfying and fun. If I were to give advice to anyone that considers going through the process, that would be to prepare in advance. Learn the basics beforehand, do the prep work. It really pays.   During the last weeks of the bootcamp, our team developed 2 applications. The first was a Airbnb-like platform in which healthcare professionals could lease, rent or share consulting rooms. The second was a web-based tool aimed to reduce paperwork and provide meaningful data to healthcare providers working in basic health units. I feel really proud of what we did there.    As I am writing, 3 and a half months after the bootcamp, I consider that this learning experience opened many opportunities for me. Since last month I am working in a project in which technology is applied to make the healthcare system of my country more efficient, and the skill of knowing how to code was considered a great asset in my job interview.   I keep studying coding in my spare time, and as a side project, I shall start prototyping an idea, coding a MVP, soon.   Before Le Wagon, all of this would be unthinkable. I am grateful to all the Le Wagon staff, and believe that it really did change my life for better.

People asked me, you go to Bali to do what? Coding??? That’s right. I spent the first 2 months of this amazing year of 2018 coding with Le Wagon Bali, and it literally Changed My Life.

Graduated from UC Berkeley with an Industrial Engineering degree, worked in Silicon Valley for a few years, and then moved to Shanghai to learn Mandarin, I’ve been constantly surrounded by tech geeks and gradually exposed to the increasingly popular “digital nomad” lifestyle. The idea of traveling the world while working remotely as a web developer appealed to me, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon (see what I did there). I was thrilled to hear the best coding bootcamp in the world was opening its first batch in my home Bali, Indonesia and even more thrilled knowing the timing was perfect for me to join.

I have three reasons why Le Wagon Bali is the coding bootcamp you should consider.

First, the curriculum. I don’t need to explain why Le Wagon is currently the best coding bootcamp in the world. You will not only be able to code in five highly-marketable programming languages (Ruby, SQL, HTML, CSS, Javascript), but also have your own very first MVP built at the camp (take a look at mine: www.wearewaterfall.com). As the old Chinese proverb says: 授人以鱼，不如授人以渔, give a man a fish to feed him for a day, teach a man how to fish to feed him for a lifetime - at the camp, you will get to acquire new skills every single day and more importantly, learn how to work independently.

Second, the people. You will meet people from all walks of life. My batch consisted of 16 people from 10 different countries and 5 instructors and leaders from 4 more, and each carried their own stories, skills, and perspectives. We get to know and work with each other intimately through the buddy system and later, in the team projects. Le Wagon have developed an amazing learning culture that encourages everyone to respect and help one another regardless of proficiency level and learning speed. My favorite thing about this is the fact that after the bootcamp, I would have buddies from all around the world that I can potentially work with in the future. As digital nomads, you live far away from your family, but you will have families everywhere you go. We are in this together.

Third, the place. I could be biased, because Bali is my home, but you can ask a million other people who have visited this tropical paradise on how fun it is to live here. Two months in Bali was not nearly enough to fully get the most of the island, let alone only a week that most people spend when they visit the island. Therefore, I can’t think of a better reason to choose Bali for a coding bootcamp of a global reputation. Our classroom in the Canggu area is a 5-minute walking distance from a popular, quiet surf beach and surrounded by a huge variety of gastronomy from around the world, including fusion and vegan (some would even say it is a vegan paradise). The mountains are merely an hour car ride away, or you can also rent a yacht to the nearby islands to swim with manta rays. Follow our Instagram (@lewagonbali) if that was not enough to convince you.

Now I am back in China, finishing my language study while building my portfolio and pruning all the skills I have learned from a bootcamp. After this, I want to travel the world, build impactful web applications, and potentially even teach at Le Wagon one day.

Coming from the creative industry working as a freelance fashion photographer for the last 7 years, I was pretty worried about my ability to learn something as ‘technical’ and ‘right-brain’ as coding.

But, the super well thought out structure of Le Wagon coding bootcamp meant that I was able to learn far more than I ever imagined. The program is fast paced but thorough enough to get the core concepts hammered in and have you ready and confident to take on projects by the end.

As I was coming from a zero-tech background I made sure to complete all the pre-course work which I would highly recommend if you want to maximise your capacity to absorb knowledge during the course. Regardless of your abilities, everyone is nurtured and catered for by the wonderful teachers and assistants but the more you can prepare before starting, the more material you will be able to cover during the lessons and therefore the further along you will be by the time you finish.

For anyone considering the leap from a creative or otherwise less ‘techy’ field or anyone in general who wants to skill-up as fast as possible in Web Development, Le Wagon is your ticket. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this fantastic programme especially in the blissful location of Bali with Dirk and his fabulous team.

When I applied for Le Wagon Montréal I wasn’t sure what to expect.   I decided to do it because I wanted to learn how to code to become a good project manager and be able to speak the same language as developers. Coming from a web marketing background the only thing I knew about code was basic HTML and CSS.  I really wanted to know more about how things really work on a website but the number of information online can be really intimidating when you’re on your own.   That’s when I heard about Le Wagon Montréal. The program seemed to fit perfectly my needs with a nine weeks intensive program where you learn how to code a complete web application, so I applied.   As the bootcamp approached, I was a bit afraid. I've heard a lot of good things about it, but pretty much all the people said that it was hard and really intense. I wasn’t sure about my capacity to do it and if I would enjoy coding as much as I wanted to.   Now that I finished it, I won’t lie, it is intense. You don’t learn how to code a web app in nine weeks if it’s not. But even though it’s hard on paper, everything is done in order to make it as simple as possible for you. So you work hard, but you enjoy every moment of it!   Every day is so much rewarding, you learn something new and you practice immediately, being helped by amazing teachers but also by the other students. You really learn a lot about yourself during those nine weeks seeing that your brain can work on problems like you didn’t expect.  Coding can get really addictive, and the way it’s done at Le Wagon Montréal has a lot to do with it!   In the end, le wagon gives you the ability to build pretty much any web app you can think of and it’s really amazing to see what people can achieve during the final project knowing that no one knew how to code two months before.   All in all, it was really a once in a lifetime experience for me and I would recommend it to anybody who wants to learn how to code.  It was really the best investment I did on me, the only regret I have is that I didn’t know about it earlier.   I loved so much coding that I now want to do it as my day job as a web developer. So if I have only one advice to give to anyone doing Le Wagon Montreal, it would be: Take the time to enjoy every moment of this amazing experience as it passes really fast!

I applied to Le Wagon for two main reasons: I wanted to be able to build my own ideas, and acquire a skill that is becoming more relevant in each and every sector. 

With the bootcamp prep being my only technical experience, the fast paced program took us from Ruby basics to building our own ideas in the last weeks of the program. You learn something new each and every day, and only in the following weeks after the program you comprehend how solid the set of technical skills you have acquired are. The course is empowering because you learn a new language, you are enabled to build your own product, and understand how developers work, think and create. In addition, you meet a ton of cool people!

After Le Wagon I have returned to Norway to finish the last year of my bachelors degree, while working part-time on a startup idea I have been wanting to realize for a long time. Even though it is impossible to learn everything in nine weeks, you will learn what skills you need and how to acquire them in order to reach your goals. Le Wagon does not only open new possibilities, Le Wagon also helps you reach the reasons for why you wanted to get into coding in the first place.

I started coding about 3 years ago purely out of interest and loved it. Whilst at Oxford Univeristy, I got involved with lots of start ups in non-development positions due to my very basic skills. I came to realise that it wasn't really possible anymore to start a modern technology company without being a coder because even business roles require you to oversee other technology based workers. 

Le Wagon has helped me tremendously at solving this issue. They focus on teaching you the core skills you need to learn to code so that you can continue to learn quickly and effectively after the course. 

Also, the entrepreneurial twist in the last two weeks of the course is great at letting you specialise in areas of interest and provides a new way to learn that breaks the mould of repetitive exercises. For anyone who wants to start a company one day or sees themselves working in the technology industry, I would highly recommend doing the course!

After deciding that I wanted to pursue a career as a developer but not being realistically able to return to university for a full length CS course, I started looking for an avenue to learn skills that would make me job ready in a short period of time. After investigating the options for bootcamps in Tokyo, Le Wagon stood out for both its English language curriculum and high satisfaction ratings.  The level of support I received during and after the program far exceeded my expectations, and I was working as a developer within two weeks of graduating the program.

While the curriculum is comprehensive and the pace intense, working alongside a group of other students who are equally committed to learning is an extremely valuable experience. Concepts that would have ordinarily taken me years to grasp through self learning were learned through practical problem solving tasks and teamwork.

I highly recommend this course to anyone interested in learning to program with a focus on real world applications in a short amount of time. I can honestly say that I would not have the level of career satisfaction I do now had I not chosen to join the program.

I'm going to start this testimonial with an undeniable fact - Le wagon has completely transformed my life in the most amazing way possible.

 

As a guy in his mid-20’s with an Engineering career for the best part of a decade, I finally decided that I needed more from life. I wanted to do something creative, engaging and current; but, most importantly, I wanted to do it quickly. With a life-long passion for all things tech, a strong creative background and good logic skills gained from my former career, I landed at coding. After tonnes of research Le Wagon was a strong contender. But their glowing reviews made my decision easy - and one of the best I’ve ever made.

 

To try and relay my experience in mere words is difficult, but I will try to sum it up:

 

First of all, the course is not easy. It’s super intense and at the start, it may feel a little overwhelming. Fortunately, all they ask is that you turn up, stay attentive and put the work in. Rest assured, day by day it becomes easier.

 

You learn the basic concepts and start gaining knowledge and confidence. Slowly but surely, as a collective group, you learn together, at a pace which is quite remarkable. Before long, you will be writing code and building applications you never thought possible.

 

Learning how to code, however, is only one part of what you gain from Le Wagon. The other part is what makes the experience so special. It's the people. My batch was filled with some of the most intelligent, forward-thinking and all-round lovely people I've ever met.  And, the teaching and management staff are nothing short of inspiring. Right from day one, a very warm and supportive, family-like vibe is created; for me, this is the best thing about the course. Even after you’ve finished, the Le Wagon alumni network is always somewhere you can look for advice, support and opportunities.

My course ended at the beginning of December 2017 and by January 2018 I landed a job as a front-end JavaScript Developer. All in all, it took around 3 months to change my life. I owe it all to Le Wagon.

Dear Readers,

 

For the sake of UX in reading my testimonials, I will write in bullet points.

 

Degree:

            BA in architecture and economics

 

Work experience before joining Le Wagon:

·      teacher

·      account manager at SEO optimization firm

·      operations specialist at two global fast food chains

 

Coding experience:

            0

 

Main reason for joining Le Wagon:

·      I want to create social innovative projects and not be blindly and entirely reliant on outsourced developers

·      I want the freedom to create my own websites and express myself on the digital canvas as I wish

·      I believe being able to code a language will be as important as knowing how to speak English in the global market in the upcoming decade.

·      I took a few online courses but upon completion, I still didn't know how to implement what I just learned and didn't know how to troubleshoot by myself.  

 

The 3 big takeaways for me:

·      the understanding of core structure of coding languages

·      the ability to read error messages and able to find solutions online

·      the workflow required for a tech team to work efficiently and effectively

           

The best things about Le Wagon:

·      the mentors genuinely want to help prepare you for your next career goal

·      the diverse backgrounds of the mentors and classmates made the learning experience more valuable

·      if you ever want to revisit your course materials, you can revisit the lecture slides and the video - lifetime access!

·      when you graduate, you become part of an ever growing network of Le Wagon alumni. Also, when you travel to another city, you might be able to find someone to have a drink with!!

 

Lastly but most important note:

THIS COURSE IS NOT FOR EVERYONE. It is very intensive. I strongly advise you not to juggle your job in the evenings or on the weekend. You will need your rest after a week of staring at screens all day. 

Don't join the program if you don't intend on prioritizing the learning experience as your #1 priority. Last two weeks are the project weeks where everyone will get to pitch an idea. Even if your idea doesn't get picked as one of the final projects, I assure you there are so many things you can learn in whichever role you end up with. During the 9 weeks, you are there to learn, NOT to launch a business. 

 

I wish you the best. 

Prior to joining Le Wagon, I was unsatisfied with my current job and unsure about which direction I wanted to go to in my life. Having previously had the chance to study coding but being unable to take it because I was moving out of the Philippines, I feel like I had missed out on the opportunity until I found Le Wagon in Tokyo. It was definitely one of the best decisions I have made.

Upon starting the bootcamp, I was honestly very nervous and unsure. I had never had coding experience beforehand and I was afraid that I would lag behind everyone else. True, at the beginning, it was a struggle but when they say “at some point, it will click,” it really did.

Being with so many other motivated individuals in such a diverse class with people from all over the world, it had become this fun adventure everyday. The challenges we were given throughout the bootcamp were indeed challenging but also taught me how to think logically and create good code. If there was something that I didn’t understand, there were always people there who could help me out and teach me.

Towards the end of the bootcamp, we were tasked to create a working website. That was probably the best part of the program. Here, we were able to apply everything we had learned throughout the camp. Not only that, we were taught how to work as a team, together with the use of GitHub and Trello to simulate a real working environment. I feel like that in general was an important aspect of the camp.

Overall, Le Wagon was all and more that it had promised. With a great curriculum, amazing teachers, and amazing students, it was the most fun I have ever had studying. From intense mornings and afternoons of coding to the late night drinking and karaoke sessions after a long week, to the hilarious Slack chats and the party parrot, there was never a dull moment when I took this camp.

As most of natural Entrepreneurs, I was full of ideas and I liked to indulge in fantasy about striking a great product. Fill my head with make-believe online courses and tutorials in CSS, HTML, Javascript, Python, Ruby, etc. It was fun but no productive.

I’ve worked in Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs for 4 years straight from a full year internship program into a great experience in New York working with great professionals who I really admire. I was working hard trying to place myself as a good employee and bringing new ideas to the table. However, the bank is Huge and meritocracy turned into long term career program. I wasn’t looking for that, I wanted to build from my own hands. Tried consulting for 2 years after Banking, got a great spot as leader in one the biggest success turnaround in Brazilian market helping companies negotiate more than 1bi brl in debt.

I decided to start my own business in 2015. My goal was very simple, help fast growing business grow faster. Sounds controversial but in fact many business run out of cash during growing periods and that’s when I came in, providing cash flow in a smart and fashion way, no bureaucracy I promised.

My first try was hiring a software company to start develop the product I was interested in. A kind of marketplace to help those growing business fund their invoices with better investors. I spent cash and time, nothing worked. My second try was to hire someone to start coding, during the interviews I was like “What I’m trying to evaluate here? I don’t even know why people keep repeating Java and Javascript, aren’t the same thing?”. Funny tough.

So, 2017 was THE year. I started fulling myself of online courses, tutorials, books, podcasts etc. I created my very first website with HTML, CSS and a very little of Javascript (at that time I already knew the difference). Ok, now next step, create a web application, a real product! Nothing I was working with could push me from knowing syntax to create a real product. How to connect front-end to back-end? How to create good schemas and software architecture? No tutorial could teach me that in time. I was struggling.

 

My Journey at Le Wagon Bootcamp

Regularly getting earlier, preparing myself to day class, getting my buddies coffee (I confess, never prepared the coffee) and kept myself really motivated. Formula to success. I did everything I could, every minute I had I was studying (or relaxing to empower the brain). First two weeks we learned bunch of syntax in Ruby. After that we started working with databases and first concepts of CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete). Then, we moved forward to Front-end, really hands on techniques to faster your development. Our batch sticked together, as a team, helping each other evolve. Finally everything were put together, we started develop our first web application using Rails, magic happened.

All preparations were meaningfully and every hour coding was worth it. At last 10 final days we had a challenge to build a product and show that product at Sao Paulo Google campus in a Open demoday to the community. If you want to check what we did, please check it out at www.advalori.com (if the link wasn’t online when you try to open it, its probably because we are launching our production version and going to the real market soon). You can watch our demoday in this link www.lewagon.com/demoday/106/advalori (in Portuguese).

On a lighter note, I finished Le Wagon’s Bootcamp more motivated than ever, it really was 9 weeks that changed my skills set completely, I still working out to improve myself as I coder but now I know how to navigate in this open ocean. Thank you for reading this. If you see yourself in a similar situation, let’s chat. I will be happy to help.

I attended Le Wagon in October 2017 (#103). It's phenomenal. I built multiple web sites, various scripts and an Fb messenger extension (Kitty, it’s live, check it out). I still hang out with my team. Plus, I’m grateful to be teaching at the next batch. And I've set up a web dev agency.

I’d done a fair bit of coding in C, HTML and generally just messing around as a teenager before. Never any Ruby though; nor had I talked to any developers before. I thought I might be ahead of my batch at the start. But it wasn’t an issue - the whole structure is quite relaxed. You can do extra exercises yourself, or spend time explaining code to your teammates (I found this surprisingly testing). Currently I feel confident enough to jump into conversations about software development and keep up.

I had just finished PPE at Oxford and halfheartedly went through the corporate rigmarole. Then I came to Le Wagon. Now career fairs (for software developers) are a different ball game. They just let all their prerequisites slide and offer to interview there and then. If you’ve applied to law/MC/banks, the difference is *stunning*.

Finally, the team is solid and energetic.

So, if you’re dithering, it’s worth the $. I’ve just paid mine off from cryptocurrency, much of which I learnt from interested people on batch #103. I never would have found out about this stuff if I hadn’t attended. So, in short, 5 stars!

I worked as a Product Manager for a PE fund for 2.5 years, but never knew how to code. I wanted to learn coding so that I could create my own prototypes and to better manage costs and timelines. I looked at a lot of courses and was worried they weren't business orientated enough. I saw the reviews for Le Wagon and was particularly interested in the business focus they have. 

The course is tough... it really is a bootcamp. That being said there were students of all levels, some who had HTML/CSS experience and others who had never worked on any aspect of an app before. By the time the project came along we all had skills needed to create the idea we wanted. My team made an activity booking app, I was honestly surprised by how much we were able to build in such a short time. 

If you are thinking of doing a bootcamp, I can't recommend this one enough. The community, teachers, events and support they give you is more than I had hoped for.

I did Le Wagon in Paris nearly one year and half ago, so i think this delay have given me the time to see what are the benefits and drawbacks (and i do not see any) of such experience.

First, i will summarize quickly the experience in itself because lots of people have already did it and my opinion will not vary from what the crowd usually says : Le Wagon is an outstanding experience, teachers are really well trained and the curriculum is always improved in a way that allows it to be reliable even after 4 years of existence. That being said, i will move to the "after Le Wagon part" because that is the kind of testimonial i was looking for when I was reading reviews before joining the bootcamp.

When I joined Le Wagon, i was a classic business student without any professional experience even interships, it was at the beginning of my gap year. Havind coded a little bit when I was a kid and wanting to work in the tech industry, It was natural for me to learn to code that is why I joined Le Wagon. When I finished the bootcamp, I started to look for an internship and I was amazed by the pace of the process, it was really much faster than when i was searching before Le Wagon. I quickly realized that I had a big and scarce asset giving me a strong advantage in the labor market. So, I was now in the position to choose rather than in the applicant one.

I joined an early-stage startup to do lots of things ranging from marketing, sales, and sometimes coding but I ended up coding like a full stack developer. At the end of my internship, I stayed three months more as a freelancer in this company which almost allowed me to pay back the investment of the bootcamp. Now I am finishing my sudies and will start to work but I am pretty confident in the future and like what I am doing. I will not look for a pure full stack developer job but rather in a position at the border between business and tech like growth hacker, product manager or even operations analyst.

Those positions are, according to me, the best for a business graduate after Le Wagon because they are perfectly suited for our profiles. First, software developers usually do not compete for them and secondly, we are ahead in terms of hard skills over classic business schools graduates (knowing SQL and a script language is even sometimes mandatory).

To conclude, the biggest benefit I got from Le Wagon was to get a singularity in comparison to the mass of business schools graduates. And when you have a singularity, it means less competition, higher compensations and more fullfilling jobs because you have more choices. So, what I expected from Le Wagon was exactly what I got. If you want to start the adventure, do not see it like an expense, It is definitively an investment and the ROI is phenomenal. For sure, we tend to see the absolute amount which seems huge at first, but, Le Wagon only cost me 16% of the cost of my business school but brought me much more than this number, think of it !

Jean de Colombel

Coming from a background in design and working mostly with HTML and CSS, I wanted to hone my back-end development skills more. As such, I began to look at various coding bootcamps and encountered Le Wagon after reading rave reviews and receiving a recommendation from a friend. After applying and going through the requisite steps, I soon I found myself on a plane to Tokyo for nine thrilling weeks. And I'm very satisfied with my decision to attend the bootcamp with Le Wagon Tokyo! It resulted in rounding out my web development skill set and making connections with a delightful, supportive group of people who enjoyed their memes and emoji. Speaking of, the party parrot emoji best summarizes my experience at Le Wagon Tokyo. Take a look at nearly any message in our Batch #94 Slack channel and you'll see the party parrot reaction emoji bobbing away with enthusiasm. The program made learning the full-stack of web development really fun and I felt very connected to my classmates, teachers, and staff. The material we learned from lectures, comprehensive resources, and coding exercises culminated as a group project where we really applied ourselves to build a Ruby on Rails prototype website from scratch. The Le Wagon community is truly what made the experience a memorable one--we were all in this together with the support from everyone!

When I first started researching Le Wagon, I grew suspicious of all the 5 star reviews. Surely somebody would have at least one less positive comment or nitpick about something they disliked. Now that I’ve finished the 9 week trajectory, I fully understand the glowing positive reviews that Le Wagon has received.

My main goal for doing a bootcamp was to accelerate my learning process and move into a career as a software developer. The Le Wagon curriculum is perfect for this purpose because it gives you a lot of knowledge in very short period of time. The structure of the lessons makes complete sense and the build up to the final project with smaller projects is well thought out. The times I got stuck solving a challenge or implementing a feature in my project, there were always plenty of teachers and teacher’s assistants to help me out.

After finishing the bootcamp I feel much more confident as a developer and even though there’s still a lot to learn, I know I’m able to find the solution for any issue I might encounter.

The added bonus I wasn’t expecting is the amazing sense of community that Le Wagon provides. I have made friends for life during the bootcamp that include students, teachers and alumni. The Le Wagon experience doesn’t end with the bootcamp: the first 9 weeks are only the beginning.

I worked for more than 5 years as a Graphic Designer in Milan until I moved in Dubai. After my experience of 16 months in UAE as Unreal Developer, I understood how important it was for my profession to move into a different and more interesting area. I fell in love with coding after discovering the power and creativity of Javascript, but at the same time the growing demand for skills related to web development was a further stimulus to apply for this new challenge. So I decided to find the best and most complete bootcamp in Europe and one of the best in the world, and after a long search I selected Le Wagon thanks also to a complete program. Why Amsterdam? Because it is the third most important city in the world for the IT and creative industries. It is also a dynamic and innovative city.   The coding bootcamp was the best learning experience of my life and one of the best experience on a human side. In Le Wagon I found what I was looking for. An environment full of motivation, an extremely rich and structured course, supported by a clear and rich platform of content. Everything is planned to give you the best tools to face this challenge. But the best part of the course are the teachers and the perfect management of the driver. The first week was a little bit frustrating, because everything was new to me, but due to the clear and well structured lectures and explanations I was able to learn everything. Also the continuous support of the brilliant teachers was very beneficial to my learning curve. The teachers, lectures, course material, platform - it is a perfect machine where every attention is focused on your learning curve and progression. On the human side it was an amazing experience: wonderful people from all over the world with different background and different motivation. Thanks to the working method, you have the chance to know each person every day, and share your experience and your skills.    After these intensive weeks I really feel comfortable with front-end and back-end, and I have finally a complete and attractive job profile. As a designer I discovered a new world of powerful tools thanks to which I can have fun and be creative, and maybe mix some other designer skills. Anyway after two months I finally found my place in the world: despite the numerous job offers I receive, I'm looking to open my own company. So if you are looking to change your life, if you are looking to improve and enrich your skills, or if you are just looking for an awesome experience, don't hesitate. Just do it.

Before I joined Le Wagon, I worked as a manager of Bridge SE team of Software development company in Vietnam. I started my career as web/mobile project manager but I always was struggling with my lack of technical skills/knowledge working with developers. 
When I decided to back to Japan to gain more experiences in the Japanese market, I luckily found Le Wagon Tokyo. One of the biggest reason that I chose it was because all the program of Le Wagon proceeds in English. (The second biggest reason is the reputations on the internet). For that reasons, I made my choice to jump into the most challenging environment.

Even though I’ve been in the software industry and I knew some concepts to make web applications, the first week of the program was the hardest time for me. It took time getting used thinking like a programmer and writing codes but thanks to the great help from the skilled teachers and the teaching assistants, I gradually started loving coding. 

The final project was the best thing in the program. Although I have participated in the project as a project manager before, it was my first time for me to be in a team as a developer and develop our own product.
It was really challenging to build a website within 2 weeks from scratch but working as a team to build a “real” product was the best learning experience in my life.

After graduation, I'm back to the previous working company as the same role, project manager utilizing the skill of full stack developer. 
I do recommend Le Wagon if you want to learn to code. It is literally GREAT and I’m sure you will gain unforgettable experience.

Willem Poghisyo van Klinken - Le Wagon, Amsterdam (batch 99)

My background: 

I had been working as a chef over the past 8 years or so, and although I enjoyed this very much, this was never my true passion. I knew I was interested in coding (and the computer sciences) but I found it a little overwhelming on where to start. With so many different blogs and mini courses online I found it difficult to know on what to focus on and start with. After starting a few, then stopping for a while before going back to them and trying again, I realized that this approach was not going to work for me. I needed a little help and support to guide me on this new direction I was interested in. I was advised that a boot-camp course was probably the best way to do this, and after researching the possibilities, I selected the what seemed to be the best choice for me. 

Enter Le Wagon.    

What Le Wagon did for me: 

In Le Wagon I found exactly what I had been looking for. A well-structured course delivered by some extremely motivated and talented teachers and teaching assistants. The platform that we used, for our knowledge acquisition and daily challenges is very well designed, and provides you with exactly the resources needed to approach each days topics. With even additional challenges for the very motivated/skilled it caters to all levels of abilities and keeps everyone interested. The paired buddy system, taught me how to collaborate and work with anybody I was assigned with, which will no doubt be very useful in my future coding career. Although the course is delivered at quite a high pace, you have access to all these resources even after the course, allowing you to go back and review some topics that you may wish to have spent a little more time on. I really think Le Wagon found the 'sweet spot' with the amount of knowledge delivered and the pace of the course, constantly keeping me motivated and on my toes, but never overwhelmed.  

What I hope to do with it now 

I feel extremely comfortable, not only in the knowledge that Le Wagon has already provided me, but in the skills and abilities I have picked up along the way that will help me continue my development in coding. I am now far more aware on how to tackle and approach new topics I am interested in. I have an abundance of resources at my fingertips, not to mention an amazing network of extremely helpful and knowledgeable alumni to call upon if needed. I will definitely continue developing myself in this field, and hope to find a job in a company to help with this, but there is also a chance I might team up with some of my class mates to start our own web development company which would be absolutely fantastic, to keep the Le Wagon feeling alive!  

 

If you are reading this, contemplating on whether this boot-camp is worth it or not, my only advise is hesitate no longer. You will learn an incredible amount, and have such amazing fun doing it. Le Wagon delivers above and beyond 'what it says on the box'. My only regret is that those 9 weeks went by so quickly, I wish I was still there. 

 

I decided to take a gap year before university and learn to code. Joining Le Wagon Lyon (batch #109) helped me do just that and it ended up being one of the best decisions I have ever made.

The admission process was very efficient. After applying on Le Wagon's website, I received a call from the driver within hours and a Skype interview was set a few days later. No experience in code was required, I just had to complete a prep-course to build a basic understanding of programming before blasting off at the start of the actual course.

The 9 weeks are perfectly structured. Each morning starts with an hour and a half long lesson followed by a full day of challenges. A different working buddy is assigned each day which gives everyone a great opportunity to get to know each other, work in teams and discover different ways to complete a challenge. There are even some bonus exercises for the ones who have gone through the regular set and want to explore more. The livecode at 5:30 helped us dig deeper in the challenges of the day and often gave us a different, more efficient, approach to solving the problem. On Thursdays we had an hour of yoga in the afternoon - a very enjoyable and relaxing break between coding sessions.

The teachers are incredibly skilled and excellent instructors / mentors. There was always a teacher or teaching assistant ready to help me when I was stuck in a challenge. The support and guidance I received from the team as whole, driven by a passionate and very considerate driver, was amazing.

The course is extremely intense and the learning curve is steep. We were already able to code small programs at the end of the first week. Each day was packed with key knowledge that was sometimes hard to fully digest but the teachers were always there to make sure we had a clear understanding and were not overwhelmed before moving onto the next step. In 2 short months, I gained an in-depth grasp of back end (Ruby on Rails) and front end programming (HTML, CSS and JavaScript).

The last 3 weeks, dedicated to real-life projects, were probably the most exciting of this already amazing course. From week 7 onwards we teamed up in groups of 3 to 4 for a 1-week long Airbnb-like project and a 2-week long project of our choice. The first one introduced us to web projects in teams and the end result of our 5-day long projects was already pretty impressive. Now, the second one gave us an opportunity to go all-out, improve our coding skills and be the most creative. I worked on Lovify (lovify.top), a dating app which finds you your perfect music match through your Spotify listens. I had a lot of fun implementing everything I had learnt throughout the course, playing with Ruby on Rails and working with a fantastic team. I am really proud of what we have achieved through this fully functional app and it was a pleasure to present it during the DemoDay.

More than just learning to code in Ruby, Le Wagon has given me the keys to improve my coding skills myself and explore new languages. I also got to meet really interesting and motivated people, some of whom have become very close friends, and build a strong network. The support certainly does not stop once the bootcamp ends as the team and alumni continue to help us professionally, to find a job, internship, freelance work or become an entrepreneur.

The course is tiring and requires a lot of hard work during long days but the friendly and supportive atmosphere along with the skills gained make it 100% worth it.

Le Wagon has been the most educational and enriching experience of my life. I am looking forward to make use of everything I have learnt thanks to this bootcamp in my future studies and career. I completely recommend Le Wagon to anyone interested in web development, wether you want to become a full-time programmer or build technical skills the startup way!