Le Wagon

As a computer science student, I didn't think Le Wagon Montreal would have much to offer me since it was only a 9-week coding bootcamp. I thought it would be only a shallow knowledge for those who'd never coded before. Boy, was I wrong!

The course is extremely well made for both beginners and more advanced students. The attention they give for each individual is amazing, the environment is extremely calm and good (which is important, since we spend long hours of sometimes frustrating code), the people are amazing (both teachers and students) and it's a complete course without being so fast-paced, despite the short length. For those willing to learn how to build a good website from scratch (either knowing how to code or not), Le Wagon offers you everything you can hope for and more, with tech talks, networking, funny internal events and, by the end of it, projects that you wouldn't believe you'd be able to do 9 weeks before you started it. I'm really glad I applied to it and strongly recommend everyone with interest to apply as well.

Daughter, good student, police officer, traveler/wanderer, amateur photographer/blogger.. All these years I’ve been shuffling among different roles, and being a web developer had never come across my life path in terms of career until August 2017.

 

Like most people who’ve done career changes, I had doubts in myself in the very beginning – am I really able to absorb so much information concerning programming with a totally unrelated background? How long would it take to see fruits from myself? And, one of the most important, where should I start?

 

I’ve got a determined personality, as long as I aim to do something, I would like to take the most efficient way to have it accomplished. As a result, I searched for coding bootcamps in London which provided related courses and found Le Wagon ever since.

 

Before the actual course started, we were asked to finish some pre-courses online to build a basic understanding of what we would learn afterwards, which turned out to be of great help while we stepped into the intense 9-week rhythm – even though I was struggling against digesting all of the new terms and methods back then, from some point everything I did in the preparation began to make sense to me. It was a great pleasure to practically implement several languages (HTML, CSS, Ruby, SQL..) in either the practices in the class or our final project!

 

Oh right, most exciting of all, in the last 2 weeks we were teamed up with 3-4 people and made a project based on Rails. Not only did we own huge space to sharpen our coding skills, also we obtained the opportunity to work with other classmates, just like what we will be doing when we get on our future profession. I’m an addicted runner myself and I’m so proud of our outcome app! – Visit www.shared.run if you’re interested.

 

As we all know, the ending of our days at Le Wagon is just the beginning of our developer career path. Thanks to the superb foundation we’ve got from Le Wagon teachers and the big Le Wagon network family, I believe that during my pursuit of being a web developer, I’m never lonely. 

After reading the overwhelmingly positive reviews of Le Wagon’s fullstack program, I was nervous that there would be hidden downsides nobody had mentioned. After 9 intense weeks, I am happy to report that this course is every bit as brilliant as people say. Even if you go in as an absolute coding novice, by the time you finish you’ll be able to take your own business idea and turn it into a fully functional web app with ease. 

Like most people in my batch, I began with almost no programming experience. I had completed a few tracks on Codecademy, but still didn’t have any concrete idea of how building a web application worked. By the end of week 6, we had learnt everything we would need to create our own applications, both alone or in a team of developers.

The days were structured so we spent the most time possible programming, and practicing what we’d learned in the morning lecture. The amazing teachers were always available to help with any problems (I recommend you constantly badger these guys with questions – they are the most valuable resource Le Wagon has to offer). Since we couldn’t take the teachers with us after the course was over, we were given the next best thing – access to videos of every lecture (in English and French), tonnes of materials to use in our future career, and access to ex-alumni chats on every topic you could think of. 

The course is definitely hard work; the hours are long, and every new topic presents fresh challenges. Thankfully the atmosphere is friendly and supportive - everybody is working hard to help you succeed. The incredible teachers (I cannot stress enough how great they are) are there to make sure you’re always challenged, but never overwhelmed. 

Le Wagon was honestly one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life, and I can’t wait to take advantage of everything I learned there in my career.

As an undergraduate student, I had many ideas I wanted to put to life. However, I soon realized that I needed to further develop my skills to create projects of my own. I soon turned to coding because it was the most resourceful way to put ideas to life, I mean all you need is your laptop! So I started off by doing some free online courses but the pace at which I was learning was too slow; I needed a better way to learn. That's how I found Le Wagon. My experience at Le Wagon was an experience of a lifetime. The camp teaches you not just about code, but about so much more. Being with extremely motivated and passionate people all day for 9 weeks, you learn to develop a work ethic that will translate into every other aspect of your life. You also learn to develop a business mindset to increase efficiency and productivity when working in a group, but also by yourself. The camp also incourages you to go to meetups and network with as many people as you can in order to find as many job opportunities as possible. However, most importantly, it was fun. I enjoyed every second of the camp and will do it all over again if I could. Shoutout to all the amazing teachers and fellow students who taught me so much!

I joined Le Wagon in the aim of changing jobs from my career in tech PR.  Before starting, I was learning online but felt I needed to learn full time to solidify my knowledge and find a permanent role.

Due to my previous experience in communication agencies, I had intended on finding a project management role. However, during the course I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed coding and became determined to find a role in software development itself. The teachers explain things in a practical way and turned intimidating tasks into something understandable. The mix of early morning classes, exercises in the afternoon and the live code mean you learn as a class and put it into practice on your own. At every stage of the course, there was a teacher or teaching assistant who was there to support you. 

Additionally, the students at Le Wagon are awesome. I feel I have a broad network who can not only help me professionally but whom are also my friends. Without a doubt if you are considering taking on the challenge of this course, go for it!

I taught English as a Second Language to international students for two years before finally deciding to make the leap and apply for Le Wagon Tokyo. I had been wanting to learn to code for years, but starting and staying motivated alone was hard. Prior to Le Wagon, I had finished multiple online coding courses - but at the end of it all, I still couldn't create anything on my own. I didn't fully understand what I was doing in the lessons - I was passively following the guided instructions and exercises instead of actively grasping and applying the concepts. There was also no one I could turn to for help if I was struggling or had questions.

Here's where Le Wagon came in: the bootcamp gave me the structure, the resources, the community, and the drive to finally commit to learning coding full-time. Being surrounded by motivated classmates from nine different countries and taught by international teachers each specializing in his or her lecture topics was inspiring and pushed me to work hard through the long hours each day. For the first time, I found myself looking forward to going to class and becoming completely absorbed in my studies. By the end of the first week, I had learned more from the Le Wagon teachers than I had in my past year of self-studying. I usually have a short attention span, but during the course I would be so intently coding that I'd forget to stop to take breaks. I was impressed by how much programming knowledge the teachers were able to pack in for us in just two months' time. My favorite part of the bootcamp was working with my team on the group project during the last weeks of the program. There was a sense of camaraderie and achievement as we communicated, collaborated, and coded together everyday for hours on end, and all of us voluntarily continued working long after class had ended each day and on the weekends too. Our endless hours of work culminated in the demo day presentation on the last day of class which was a great success for all the teams!

Overall, I had an amazing time at Le Wagon Tokyo and am sad that it's over now. I'm so glad that I decided to do this program, because I had been very unsure about taking the initial leap and quitting my job to come here. I loved the intensive daily learning alongside my teachers and classmates, the interesting Thursday night events, the weekly Friday night class hangouts and karaoke sessions, the group chatting on Slack with the party parrots, and the immersive final weeks of coding with my team to create and polish our final product. It honestly all feels like a dream now and I'm reluctant to return to my old life and reality!

In a world with a huge increasing population, in which industrial and digital innovations are raging: international relations are changing, visions and customs are changing, so are our ways of life. The challenges for each of us are every day bigger. After some research and discussions, I decided to follow Le Wagon which allows its students to integrate the essential concepts to become a full-stack developer and meet these new challenges.

My experience at Le Wagon Montreal (https://www.lewagon.com/montreal), in the batch #98, was a real step to new perspectives. This allowed me to discover the front & back end sciences, to master the tools used by the majority of start-ups, to exchange with other students from all over the world… Having done it in Montreal was important as well: it allowed me to discover a different world, with different opportunities and visions that allow ripening our own projects.

I recommend Le Wagon Montreal for all those looking to gain in autonomy and creativity for the rest of their personal and professional lives. Filled with positive vibes, it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life and I return to Paris with the feeling that everything is now easier and easily affordable!

After graduating in business administration and some internships in banks and working in my family’s business, I decided it was time to change the course of my career and devote myself to something I always wanted to learn.

So I tried to learn to code by myself for a few months by watching online courses and reading some introductory books. Soon I realized that at the pace I was in, it would take too long for me to be able to enter the market. Then I decided that the best thing to do to speed up my learning pace would be to enroll myself in a bootcamp program.

After a few weeks researching bootcamps in Brazil and abroad, it became clear to me that Le Wagon’s fullstack program was the best option. I signed up and dived for a nine weeks immersion in this technological learning challenge. During this period I had contact with people from a wide range of fields, all of them with the common focus of learning how to code. Some of them aiming to get hired, like me. Other ones aiming to start a business. Le Wagon’s methodology, with an ideal amount of theory and lots of practice every day makes the experience and the learning pace just excellent. The alumni network is very supportive to answer questions and to find jobs. The Wagon Talks, which weekly puts the students in touch with entrepreneurs and industry professionals are a great way to get advices and inspiration.

The last two weeks are without doubt the most intense. Create, design and code a fully functional product during this period really challenged me. This is the closest you can get to the challenges of an IT career. This is because many of these products end up going to market.

After the the program, my initial goal of being hired by a company has changed a bit and I decided to launch a startup with a friend I met in the bootcamp. We are improving the product we created during the program and soon it will be in the market. Undoubtedly the Le Wagon program has changed my life and my only regret is not having done it before

Background
I’m a detail oriented globetrotter geek... who has always been flirting with tech, innovation and languages. Previously I have been working as pilot on ships and rigs for oil and gas companies. It allowed me to experience multiple cultures and to live abroad back and forth in London, Seoul, Paris.
After 10 years in industry, I decided it was time to move forward, being up for more challenges. Embracing my geekness was imperative, then I did some research on how to dig deeper on coding, then I found Le Wagon.
 
Why Le Wagon?
Focus on hands-on and immersive learning. Basically we develop our own product thinking like an entrepreneur in just 9 weeks. I did not want to attend university-like classes anymore, mostly because it is slow pace and time consuming.
Le Wagon experience was intense, cooperative and fun. This was the perfect match I was looking for.
Having a full stack level (back-end as well as front-end) was the challenge I was up to in order to improve my skills as a self-taught coder. Another thing that influenced my choice was the fact that Le Wagon is present in various cities spread in plenty of countries, which can collaborate for a more multicultural experience. That’s why I chose it.
 
 
The bootcamp
We were part of the first batch in Rio de Janeiro. Awesome! Half of my colleagues were foreigners coming from countries like France, Germany and Morocco, other half locals from different regions of Brazil. Teachers were professional developers from France and Brazil and they knew exactly what they were talking about, being very competent and professional. Assistants were around to help solve things that we could not solve though buddy-system. Our daily immersive journey was 12 hours of coding... and everyday new knowledge was presented and we applied them in multiple layers of exercise, with progressive difficulty levels. It was available also the recording of the classes, so if we missed a detail, we could simply roll-back and check. By the end of the day, we had a live code session, which every peer is invited to collaborate to solve a problem usually through an algorithm. Time flew by in the first 6 weeks, and with all the knowledge built we could move towards 3 weeks of product development. We presented ideas of project, pitched them, networked for completing a group and started developing. Social aspect was key to succeed. We also had lots of fun along the way... Yoga classes to deal with stress and beer every now and then. And Carnival... but for this, I skip the details
 
 
Pros
9 weeks in a fast pace. We learned why, when, where and how to code in structured way. It opened my mind with the showcases of the digital solutions we see everyday, everywhere.

Code Kata. We practice so intensely, that knowledge remains after the bootcamp is over. Also the whole material is available, so if you missed something, it is just few clicks away from catching up.
 
Entrepreneurial view. We experience how a digital product is designed, built and accessed. Projects are similar to real-world production environment, which keeps the urge to see how it will come to life, which problems we will face and how to overcome them.
 
Reinvent yourself. Le Wagon changed me in more ways than I could expect. Basically it allowed me to migrate from an analog life to a fully digital one. I learned new skills, new platforms, new people. Understanding all this took me sometime, but no regrets after all.
 
Socializing. Fun is part of the experience. Don't hold back! Go for beers, burgers and parties. And be ready to code by the first time in the morning aka coffee, coffee, coffee!
 
 
Cons
9 weeks in a fast pace. Sometimes the concepts you just learned appears to vanish away from your mind... it is just a lot in a few time! Take a deep breath, go for some coffee and don't give up! It is very helpful and good practice to review the concepts of the previous class during breakfast, so as by the time you arrive in class, all knowledge is there.

I’ve always wanted to code and Le Wagon impressed me from the start. The experience is totally immersive and with the great people it attracts I found myself loving it instantly.

The structure of the course is so well thought out. We learnt the problem-solving mindset, the logic, the code, and how to go about improving it. We were given new challenges every day to work on with our buddy and readily available teaching assistants to help guide us through the tough parts.

All the teaching assistants are incredible and really take the time to read your code and help you approach the situation from your angle. The buddy system is a real perk as it gives everyone the chance to get to know and learn from each other.

The first few weeks are hard – Le Wagon is not an easy ride. But if you’re motivated to learn and willing to ask questions, you will get so much value out of your time there.

The project weeks essentially teach you how to learn so you can build almost any feature you can dream up. We decided what features we wanted and then worked out how to implement them – which felt amazing. Watch any demo day and you’ll be inspired to see the variety and scope of the projects.

I cannot recommend Le Wagon highly enough. You’ll be amazed at what you can be capable of after 9 weeks!

Before Le Wagon I was an English teacher at an international university. Besides some experience in Educational Technology (for example, collaborative learning through Learning Management Systems like Blackboard or shared document platforms such as Google Drive), I had no IT or programming skills. As coding had been a skill I was interested in learning, I decided to take the dive and after some intensive research, I found that Le Wagon suited my needs perfectly.

Overall Le Wagon was a great and formative experience for me! As expected, the boot camp was intensive and strenuous, particularly as a complete beginner, but the support given by the teachers and the collaborative learning system helped me understand programming concepts and mindsets that I would have otherwise not been able to comprehend easily on my own. The friendly learning environment also made the social aspect of living in a new place much more palatable. 

After the boot camp I took a small break from coding, but I've found it's easy to jump right back into it because all of the materials from the camp are accessible after the program finished, and I've learned from the boot camp how to tackle coding problems by myself (Ruby-docs and Stack Overflow are your friends!). My plan is to become a freelance programmer, and I'm 100% confident I'll be able to sustain myself through the skills I learned through Le Wagon.

I greatly recommend Le Wagon for its effective teaching methods and constant support in and after the camp! As someone who wanted to start fresh in a new career path, it was the best choice for me.

Being in the automotive industry for the past 3 years and half, I wasn’t quite satisfied with the direction of my career. I decided to take a chance and I quit my job. The next few months, I experimented different things: digital marketing, setting up an e-commerce, sales for a small company, but I still felt that none of these were right for me. I remembered that I used to program a bit when I was younger, and that I enjoyed it. As I was getting more work through my digital marketing service company, I wanted to offer more to my clients. I thought it would be interesting to give it a try again. I began doing online course, but very soon I hit a wall. I could not get myself to complete any of them and wasn’t making any progress. Something had to change.        One day, searching through the web, I came across Le Wagon bootcamp in São Paulo. They promised in 9 weeks to teach the skills to build a web app. As I read reviews and watched their Day Demos days presented by former students, I got convinced it was the right choice for me.   On the very same day, I applied for batch #81 of Le Wagon São Paulo. And 45 days later, I was sitting in class for my first day at Le Wagon.       The lectures are fast pace, and take place in the first two hours of the morning. The rest of the days is focused on solving problems with your buddy of the day. The first month is definetely the hardest because you’re being taught core programming concepts. The methodology is amazing, the course is designed around hand-ons development practice. You have to learn, because you have to write code all day long. The teaching assistants and teachers were eager to help me out whenever I got stuck on a bug. They knew the material deeply and were committed to helping me understand the concepts of the day. In the last three weeks, I got to develop two full funcional apps. Le Wagon taught me not just solo programming, they showed me how to contribute in group of developers. My final project, a platform for investors to trade private securities, was developed by 3 students and me. I learned how to collaborate as a team of developers while building out a product. I found this to be most valuable lesson. Additionally, every week, after class they would set meet-ups with start-up leaders and the occasional beer to relax after a long day of coding.       After completing batch #81, I jumped right away to freelancing. A week after completion of my batch, I got my first client for development of a full web app.  Le Wagon gave the stepping stone to learning anything related to web app development. I could not have made a better choice.  I made new friends as well forever changing the direction of my life. By far Le Wagon has been the best learning experience that I had ever had. I recommend it to anyone seeking to learn how to code.