Le Wagon

Le Wagon (or better known as “the Carriage”) is a gleaming triumph of modern-day education in an otherwise bleak and hapless era for education’s role as an engine for social mobility. Le Wagon is not just a 9-week bootcamp: it is a fast-track for anyone with the drive for self-betterment to become a fullstack developer capable of solving any problem, work at any company, and truly make a positive impact on our world.

As for the instruction, I can honestly say that I have never seen a group of more dedicated, thoughtful, and patient instructors than at Le Wagon. I took computer science courses at UC Berkeley (where I got my undergraduate degree in Business), and even the teachers at the #2 Computer Science program in the United States did not compare to the ones at Le Wagon.

As for the resources and classroom materials, Le Wagon has assembled an incredibly robust and intuitive bank of online knowledge that allows students to learn each concept at their own pace. On top of this, they include an amazing depth materiels, so if you find a topic that you like, you can nerd out with the best resources that the internet has to offer.

As for the alumni network, Le Wagon has a vibrant online community of alumni who are willing to help and are constantly posting with new freelance and company-based opportunities.

One thing that I want to emphasize, however, is that Le Wagon does not make you into an incredible developer. It gives you every tool that you need to become an incredible developer. At the end of the day, the bootcamp is not a graded class. You can do nothing, and learn nothing. But I can tell you - those who worked hard, savored every minute of the class, and took advantage of every single resource now have a completely different trajectory in life.Are you ready? Because for those who are, Le Wagon is truly a life changing experience.

I participated in Le Wagon Bootcamp for the January 2019 batch, so I am fresh alumni.

The front wagon:

Before the Bootcamp I spent three years in financial audit, but I needed to find another field.

I had heard about the training through a friend who participated and never saw code before that.

The only thing I had seen approaching a tiny bit of code was Excel formulas (so more or less nothing).

The pendant wagon:

I found the training very well strated.

The pedagogical model was very well thought out (from my point of view) because we are given at the beginning of the day, during a 1h30 course, the main elements for succeeding the exercises of the day.

It is very intensive, but the exercises of the day are made to challenge the students while still having the opportunity to get help from the speakers.

I would say that we learn a logic rather than a simple language, coming out of Le Wagon we know what to look for, how to and where to look for information.

The after wagon:

After Le Wagon I got directly into self-employed (freelance), I was helped for this and for my first missions by the members of Le Wagon present in the facilities.

We have access to the facilities for a month after the training in order to be guided and helped for our beginnings, whether it be as a developer or as a job search or in development of a personal project.

Many interventions during the wagon had also allowed the post-wagon possibilities to be slightly enlarged.

To summarize, I loved learning enormously, working as a team and feeling supported, and above all being challenged daily for 9 weeks.

One of the most amazing experience of my academic life! The 9-week programm is intense and challenging, and really well designed. Making significant progress day after day makes us feel so proud!

In addition, the peer learning mindset, the great number of events (inspiring talks, networking, parties...) and the quality of the academic team have also contributed greatly to make this learning and human experience highly valuable!

After almost one year, I can experience every day the benefits of Le Wagon bootcamp. I strongly recommend, and I would do it again any time!

I just finished a marketing master before starting Le Wagon coding bootcamp.
I heard a lot of good reviews about them but I didn't expected that.

It was AMAZING! The team, teachers, people there, are fantastic. It was so good that I almost cry at the end (sound like sex experience but suceed in code is not so far from that ahah)

Today, I'm freelance as a COO of an Agency and Le Wagon and the slack give me this job. Also it gaves me so many opportunities.

This is the best decision you can make in your life.
When you know how to code, the world is yours.

I’m currently finishing my masters in electrotechnical engineering so I had some previous programming skills. However, I wanted to extend my skills in web development so I decided to take the Le Wagon Bootcamp.

It was the best decision I could have made. I was not expecting that it would be possible to achieve so much skill and knowledge in such short period of time and it’s totally worth it.

In 9 weeks you go from zero to launch your own website in a really amazing working/learning environment where both teachers and TA’s are super helpful. Although the bootcamp it’s fast paced, I managed to learn a lot and have an amazing experience with my team on the final project weeks where you test all you skills and capacities.

Overall it was a fantastic experience and I totally recommend it for anyone looking for a relevant change in their lives!

I had worked for 8 years before joining Le Wagon: mainly at Amazon in marketing, advertising and product management roles, and for a shorter period of time as Head of Acquisition in a French fintech startup. I have to admit I’ve always been quite intrigued about coding: I tried to learn PHP on my own when I was much younger and then had the opportunity to learn a lot about SQL and VBA at Amazon. A few months ago it became very clear to me that I was becoming less and less passionate about my job and becoming much more interested in the challenges that the dev teams were facing. On top of that I had been working on an entrepreneurial project which required coding skills to move forward.

I chose Le Wagon because of the very positive feedback I found across various websites, and also because two of my friends had already done this bootcamp and highly recommended it to me. As a result I had very high expectations… and I was not disappointed! The curriculums are perfectly designed to teach you new concepts every day that build on top of what you’ve learned the previous day. The staff is super proficient and the overall vibe is extremely positive and energetic. Although the bootcamp is super intense, I enjoyed every single day of it and still can’t believe how much I learned in such a short period of time. I would 100% recommend it to anyone wanting to learn how to code.

I'm a System Administrator who wanted to get into the coding side of things. I have some experience in PHP and Wordpress, so I already knew how to code. One of the reasons I chose Le Wagon was that they taught Ruby on Rails which I had zero experience in, both Ruby as a language and Rails as a Framework (or any framework for that matter).

Overall, I would definitely recommend Le Wagon, whether you have zero coding experience or you're self-taught like me. You spend most of the day doing exercises, which is the best way to keep what you learn. And you won't be alone either. You are paired with another student and they're also well staffed with Teacher Assistants. If you have a question about anything, there was always someone available with minimum wait.

You will also create an app from inception to completion, more than once actually. From User Stories, to mockups, to an actual app. You'll work in a team. You'll collaborate as a team. You'll even learn how to pitch as well. These skills are invaluable and hard to get experience as someone who is self-taught.

Also, once you join Le Wagon, you become part of a larger community of developers all over the world. Stuck on a coding problem? Need interview advice? Moving to another country and need job leads? Ask the community. Once you graduate, you're not forgotten at all. You are still part of their community.

OK, so even though this is just one out of 900+ reviews, Le Wagon deserves all the praises. Again, I highly recommend Le Wagon. As a self-taught developer, you will gain a ton of knowledge and experience, learn to collaborate in a team, create apps from scratch, and belong to an invaluable community of developers. If you are someone who doesn't have coding experience, Le Wagon is your how you get your best foot forward.

A lot of context - because maybe you’ll be in a similar situation...

I was working in a finance job I liked but didn’t love for 5 years. I’ve always had an intense interest in tech and startups and was also involved with a small startup in a customer success position. Basically, at 28 - I knew I had to shake it up and break into the tech scene in a meaningful way. Some people in my network did it via coding bootcamps and had success so I started doing my research as there are a million options. 

I looked up reviews online, messaged people on LinkedIn who attended bootcamps, and posted on Reddit for some guidance. Soon enough, I had about three bootcamps that I thought were the best for different reasons: HR, FSA, and LW, but I didn’t want to apply to any until I did a decent amount of preparation. To get my feet wet, I bought some books on Amazon, did a Codecademy track. After I felt a little bit more comfortable - I enrolled in a 10-week prep course for HR, which a peer of mine went to - definitely one of the most popular, based in SF and has a NYC campus, which was convenient because I live in Jersey. It was intense and in JavaScript - I liked my peers, but I had trouble understanding concepts from the main TA who was undoubtedly a genius, but not as good of a teacher for those that didn’t have a coding background. Then, I heard feedback that said your cohort experience is largely dictated by the quality of TA’s and teachers(which is kind of a no brainer). If you get shitty ones - then thats that - too much risk to me for the high price point. HR ruled out.

So then I directed my attention to FSA and LW - spoke to the staff at both. FSA was good - made the most sense logically, it was close to my home in NYC. They had great outcomes, but for some reason something about my conversation with the LW Tokyo founders really hit me as authentic. That and LW had more of an entrepreneurial vibe as opposed to just being trained to be a developer. So I took the completely crazy route, quit my job and moved to Tokyo to join the January batch.

THE BENEFITS

Amazing teachers - the drivers and managers of Le Wagon Tokyo are world class. Really good at simplifying concepts and really ensuring you grasp the materials. This is HUGE if you are not a tech wiz by default.

Diverse and helpful TA’s: TA’s coming from all backgrounds and each useful in comprehension - they don’t just tell you the answer, they force you to learn. Not to mention all awesome personalities!

I had an awesome team for my project: Clearly defined roles, great synergy, and we put together a very solid project. Would randomly break out Disney sing alongs during project week. My friends at other camps said they’d just sit in silence and code. I’m an ENFP so I’d rather have fun while I code

Setting: nifty co-working space with a lot of friendly Japanese locals, free coffee, a Japanese toilet for fans of that lol. There’s a lot of fun events every week too for networking and making friends hosted by the coworking space and also le Wagon so double the events right in your backyard

Pitching - if you have an idea you’d love to pitch seriously, or even for fun. Le Wagon gives you the ability and skills to do so effectively. My project in particular was chosen as one of the four projects, which was cool. I pitched in front of 70+ people, which is a big deal for someone with an intense fear of public speaking and I’m so happy I did it.

I absolutely loved my batch (cohort) - 16 people, was the perfect amount. I’ve heard horror stories of kids hating their batch or the group being so big that there weren’t enough TA’s and help, but I was truly lucky. People from everywhere: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hawaii, The Bronx, NJ, England, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and Japan. From all walks of life. I have friends all over the world that I could visit at any time!

The culture of Le Wagon and the staff are so cool - I feel like I am truly part of a community and have friends for life. We sang karaoke together, ate delicious food, went to all you can eat and drink places, played darts, did yoga, and so much more

The bottom line is for someone that had no coding background whatsoever and for the price I paid. I got a crazy amount of value out of Le Wagon and have the foundational understanding to push forward into my tech journey

CAVEAT

You get what you put in - this is true for anything in life. But I felt like it’s really important here. Le Wagon gives you everything you need to succeed. It’s truly up to you to put in the time and take advantage of it. Video Lectures of every class so you can watch it before hand, flash cards to reinforce your understanding everyday, awesome TAs and teachers that are always ready to help, a coworking space that’s open till late and the weekends to crush your coding grind, a ton of events with recruiters, startups in Tokyo etc., an actual manual and gameplan for what exactly you need to do after graduation whether it’s get a job as a developer, product manager, freelancer, a list of VC’s and another step by step

guide if you’re trying to launch your startup, UI kits, a HUGE, very active and enthusiastic slack community of Le wagoners for literally anything you could imagine (relocating to a different part of the world, dealing with bugs, sharing founder best practices, etc time infinity)....I could go on and on but you get the point. If you want it - it’s there. At the end of boot camp, some people wanted to go gets jobs in Tokyo and they did, some wanted to reinforce their understanding with additional Udemy courses, they did, some wanted to keep working on their projects, they did. So my point is JUST do it.

Hope this was helpful and please don’t hesitate to reach out. The experience was so positive and I know it sounds corny AF but I bleed Le Wagon blood now

I've only got good things to say about Le Wagon. They do exactly what they say: change your life by learning how to code.

I wrote my first Hello World in Python in 2018. I enrolled on Le Wagon in 2019, and now I'm working as a freelance developer with my first job within 3 weeks fof graduating the bootcamp. 

For me, Le Wagon stands out from other bootcamps because of its curriculumn: firstly, its product-oriented; and secondly, its focus is on Ruby / Rails. But they also have excellent teachers and a brilliant teaching platform (Kitt), as well as a global alumni network you can access through Slack.

Unlike other bootcamps (to my knowledge) Le Wagon is product-oriented. The last 3 weeks of the course you'll be working in a group of 3-5 people on a final project. It's a great way to expose yourself to agile developmnent, design-thinking, and gitflow. These are practical skills that you can only really learn by doing, and Le Wagon provides you with a great environment to do it in.

Their curriculumn focuses on learning how to learn: they teach you the industry best practice and design patterns that are going to be used by agenices worldwide despite what programmnig langauge they use. For example, my first commercial project used Vue JS. But I picked it up super quickly and did not feel disadvantaged by taking a course based on ruby/ruby on rails. I'm confident now to learn by doing, and that's something that Le Wagon gave me the skills to do.

That's always a major sticking point. People ask why the course is taught in Ruby. Well that's because the syntax in ruby is super easy for beginners to pick up. This is because (unlike JS) it's a programming language built from the grounds-up with a sophisticated design philosophy underlying its architecture: it's meant to be a human-friendly language. As a case in point, some of the handy syntax improvements in ES6 (implicit return, template literals) existed in ruby for years! So overall, ruby is fun to program in, and it's a brilliant medium to learn the basic programming patterns that are langauge agnostic (such as MVC). All good reasons to study in ruby.

But if you are anxious about learnng JS, React, Redux etc, Le Wagon actually offer an alumni track on these frameworks on their platform, Kitt, that is super good quality.

And finally, there's the amazing talent that backs the teaching of Le Wagon. The teachers were all excellent quality. We had UI practitioners as TAs during product sprint week. We had backend developers teaching us during the SQL and Active Record week. The course was well structured; all the teachers were personable; there was a wide variety of students and teachers alike; and there were happy hour Thursdays every week at teh coworking space.

You have access to Kitt for the rest of your life; when Le Wagon update thier curriculum, you can access these exercises on Kitt. Their Alumni are also very active in many different sectors in countries all around the world. So you're not just purchasing the time to learn how to code when you enrol on Le Wagon, you're participating in a global community of entrepreneurs and designers and educators. Like I said, I only really have good things to say about it!

If you are looking for a coding bootcamp to attend, if you are looking for new skills to learn, if you want to change your job, if you want to change your life, choose LeWagon! I was looking for an affordable coding bootcamp, I've been trying to change my job in this last years, as I have been a chef, but I always felt like that wasn't the right job for me. I tried to change my life, I wanted to change my life, so I found Le Wagon. I decided to attend batch#233 in Milan, as I live in Milan. I applied  also for the scholarship they offer to residents, and that was the best decision i'v ever made so far. It was one of the best and most intense experiences of my life. I leant a lot, the program is very well organized, there are a lot of topics, and a lot of exercises. Teachers are all great people, well prepared and ready for any question. I met a lot of great people during the bootcamp. We worked a lot, wrote a lot of code in 9 weeks, struggled, improved and learnt so much! Honestly it was tough, but it worth it, TOTALLY! 
So, i would definitely recommend this coding bootcamp, to you who want to change you life.
Le Wagon says: "Change your life, learn to code." and that's what i did!
Thank you Le Wagon. 

Before LeWagon I was working for Amazon in operations. I know what your thinking but the role was as far away from Tech as you can think. I was a manager in one of their huge fulfilment centres managing teams of up to 150 associates. Managing people is a role I enjoyed but I just couldn’t help myself from thinking there had to be something else.

I’ve always been curious about tech but I always thought that to move into that industry you needed a traditional tech background with a degree in computer science. It turns out I was completely wrong. I started going to tech meet-ups and found myself at a LeWagon demo day at Google Campus one evening with no knowledge about what a coding bootcamp was. After just 1 hour of listening to and seeing what the students had achieved in 9 weeks I was ready to sign up!

It was honestly the best decision I’ve ever made. I’m really into triathlon and had been working on an idea for a training plan web app, My Finishline, which I actually built with a team of 3 as our final project. I’m actually still working on that and almost ready to launch the beta.

The 9 weeks were filled with hard work, high five moments and loads of laughs with some amazing people. Ive made life long friends through the course and look forward to jumping out of bed to start coding every morning. That seems crazy considering I couldn’t write a line of code before the course.

If your thinking about doing the course, stop thinking about it and get signed up! You won’t regret it!