Le Wagon

Prior to Le Wagon London I was in a position where I’m sure many people in their lives have been.  Although I was living in beautiful sunny southern California, engaged to my best friend and making a pretty decent salary I wasn’t as happy as I could be.  Why? My job. It sucked, I hated it, I was SO incredibly bored.  Unless you’re lucky enough to have the means not to work, the majority of us will spend most of waking hours at our jobs.  It took me a longer than I would have liked to realize that your job is more than bringing home the bacon.  This is why I decided to take the plunge with Le Wagon.  I was trying to learn to code on my own, between my job and everything else life throws at you, it becomes very difficult to find the time and learn effectively.  I even managed to earn an Associates degree online in programming but I still felt I didn’t learn nearly enough.
In May 2018, I commited to Le Wagon’s July Cohort, the in June I quit my job(yikes!) and showed up in London from Los Angeles 5 days before the start date.  The first day of the cohort, while still feeling the jetlag, I had the pleasure of meeting 39 other motivated classmates as well as the many wonderful teachers.  They didn’t waste any time, we hit the ground running from day one.  It was quite daunting, all the information thrown at you the first week, but by the end of the week I was amazed how much I had already learned.  Le Wagon’s stack covered a variety of topics including Ruby on Rails, Javascript, CSS, HTML and CSS, not to mention all the other little things we learned along the way.  As every week passed I was blown away how much you can accomplish.  It was amazing to see by the end of the course what my classmates and I had built.
Looking back, I am blown away by the final projects everyone had built.  I had learned so much in 9 weeks, exponentially more than I had trying to code by myself for almost a year. I had such a blast in my weeks at Le Wagon, everyone was a pleasure to be around.  Each weekend the teachers and staff put on events for the students and it was always a great time.  It’s more than just going to a school or course, these people become your family for 9 weeks.  If you’re reading this and on the fence about doing Le Wagon’s program, my advice to you is to go for it, you won’t regret it.  The only thing I regret is not doing it sooner, it was one of the best experiences of my life.

If you want to learn how to code, the Le Wagon 9 Week Bootcamp is a fantastic place to start. After studying degrees in both economics and law, I wanted to satisfy my curiosity of learning web development. I chose the Le Wagon course because it starts from scratch and quickly builds the necessary skills needed to build end-to-end web applications.

The camp is instense but extremely rewarding, each day there are new challenges which build upon existing learning to build a skillset of a fullstack developer. As well as learning the technical side, you also learn about wokring as part of a production team as well as making presentations and pitching your projects. 

I would highly recommend the course to anyone who is even vaguely interested in learning web development. The structure of the course provides for accelerated learning and there are ever helpful teachers and assistants ready to guide you along the way.  

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.