Le Wagon

It took me some time to realize how working in a job which I didn’t enjoy was sucking the energy out of my life. Finally, I decided to do something about it. As a follower of blockchain projects & crypto I saw how these new technologies are making their way to build decentralized/ distributed applications that can disrupt many industries. They are building the next internet and I want to be part of it. So, I decided to start coding. Coding has always been an exciting idea to me but I didn’t want to go through 2-4 years of college to start.

After some online research I found out about the Le Wagon bootcamp. An intense full-stack program for two months. The program seemed well organized and complete. At this point I was already hooked but wait... I needed to read some reviews first. So, I came across SwitchUp and Course Report, carefully read some reviews and discovered all of them are 5-stars! Wow! I checked other reviews on the web and almost all of them are 5-stars too. It was too good to be true.
Fast forward… it’s totally true!

Le Wagon offers their bootcamp in many cities around the world. I chose to take it in Bali, Indonesia. And what an excellent choice it was. Bali is known as a place for a holiday. However, the program was intense and requires commitment from its students so don’t expect a vacation. Bali is a beautiful tropical island, everything is nice, the weather, the food (especially for vegetarians) and most importantly the people are super friendly. Plus, you get to enjoy your “little” free time with different activities the island has to offer (surfing, yoga, hiking, etc.).

We started the program by learning Ruby and gone through databases, HTML, CSS, JS, Ajax, API’s, Git & Github and finally we (I and my team) built our app using Rails. After the morning lecture we solved multiple challenges using Le Wagon’s platform. This is one of the best things about the program, you learn by doing. While you are on the exercises you’ll get any help or info you need from the teachers. And then we wrapped up the day with a live coding session where we solved a challenge that summarizes the day together with the teacher.

The program was so intense and so rewarding at the same time. We were 25 students in batch 163 from 14 different countries! Everyone had a different background but all of us shared the same enthusiasm for learning this new skill. The manager of the camp and the staff were so nice and helpful. They took very good care of us before and during the bootcamp. Also, we had great teachers and TA’s, both knowledgeable and very helpful. You’ll be surrounded by people who will encourage you to give your best.

In Le Wagon I didn’t only learn how to code, I got to challenge myself, I got to know amazing people, I made new friendships, I discovered new places. Without a doubt, this is one the best experiences of my whole life.

After obtaining a degree in Electrical Engineering and being uninterested in the field I discovered that coding was much more fun. I have 1.5 years of professional experience in Rails but this was self taught and I felt like a bootcamp would fill in the blanks. Additionally I was lacking front-end skills. Thus I wanted to get even better! I applied to Le Wagon Barcelona because I wanted to live in a country/city I've never lived in.

I loved the program, methodology, teachers and the environment. But if I had to choose one, I think all the teachers did an outstanding job teaching the material in such a short amount of time.

Apart from coding, I learned what is required to be a team lead/teacher. I have a lot to work on to be a good TL but I've definitely taken steps toward that goal.

At the end of the bootcamp, I developed SWAPP, a social mobile app to allow you to offer skills to others, while receiving skills in return. Now I'm gonna move to Vancouver to join and look for a remote job. This way I'll be able to travel while still having a source of income. 

My advice if you're considering Le Wagon: be serious on day 1 and attend all the lectures. Even if I already knew 60% of the information being taught, there was still that 40% that helped me deepen my understanding.

I loved the program, methodology, teachers and the environment. But if I had to choose one, I think all the teachers did an outstanding job teaching the material in such a short amount of time.

Apart from coding, I learned what is required to be a team lead/teacher. I have a lot to work on to be a good TL but I've definitely taken steps toward that goal.

At the end of the bootcamp, I developed SWAPP, a social mobile app to allow you to offer skills to others, while receiving skills in return. Now I'm gonna move to Vancouver to join and look for a remote job. This way I'll be able to travel while still having a source of income. 

My advice if you're considering Le Wagon: be serious on day 1 and attend all the lectures. Even if I already knew 60% of the information being taught, there was still that 40% that helped me deepen my understanding.

I've always wanted to create my own company and I saw a lot of opportunities in the digital world. I started working as a CEO assistant for an e-commerce website and I created an app. I instantly saw my technical limits. I had no experience in coding and I had to recruit developers, tell them what to do, and eventually estimate their work.

It was just wrong, I was taking bad decisions and I was just not good at what I was doing. If you still don't get my point, it was like being an air traffic controller without knowing anything about planes, telling instructions on how to land safe to a guy you just suppose he's a real pilot, and the guy responds in a language you've never heard of. Le Wagon basically taught me how to recognize a real pilot, how to speak his language, and how to become a pilot.

So far I can say it is the best decision I have made in my career. I finished in December and started freelancing mid-February as a web developer. Three days later I got my first mission and I never stopped getting missions ever since. I love what I do. I learn every day coding skills but also skills that could be useful if I want to open a business later on. I use my creativity, help clients, have the freedom to choose my projects, and I finally feel good at what I'm doing!

After graduating from a Business school and working for 5 years as a business developer and project manager for digital companies, I felt the need of understanding how all the digital magic happened. As my contract ended, I had some time ahead and heard great reviews from friends who had graduated from le wagon. I decided it was the right time to finally learn how websites and web apps are built, and perhaps discover a new profession, as I was quite unhappy with my job.
These 9 weeks were very intense but so exhilirating ! At first, I couldn’t believe that we would be able at the end to build real products. But the teachers and the program enabled us to become real programmers.
My experience was life changing: it gave me back confidence, with an amazing feeling of achievement when you finish your product; opened new career opportunities I hadn’t considered before, and enabled me to meet great and diverse people who also played a big part in my change of perspective.
With all these new skills, I now have a 360 degrees profile in digital and consider creating my company of consulting in digital communication and brand strategy.
Without le wagon, I would never have felt that I could create my own company. Not only did I learn incredible skills, but in such an open-minded and diverse environment, I became more confident, because I can also rely on the alumni and le wagon itself, which is an amazing asset.

I came from a small consulting firm working with big industries. Although I found their issues very stimulating, I was looking for a new challenge where you can actually build something and be a part of a project. To do it short, I was looking to be more an entrepreneur.

And to do so, I wanted to extend my programming skills. I have had several projects in the past where I always got stuck on my lack of technical skills. By chance, while listening to a podcast, I found the perfect bootcamp: not a bootcamp just to learn some technical skills but a bootcamp that gives you the right tools to create your entrepreneurial projects!

This is, according to me, the success of this training: to give you a set of skills (and only the ones that will be useful) to launch a project.

I have to admit another point that was a real surprise to me is their teaching methods (training platform, teachers support…) which is modern and very well designed. Last very important point, above all, the alumni community is very very active, you do not feel alone when the program is finished!

To sum up, no regrets, lots of hope for the future!

This a true coding bootcamp, really teaching you to learn how to code and bring life to your projects and apps.
It can really make a difference when you want to kick-off your start-up project or find a job in the programmation space.  

Plus, the mentors, teachers and teaching assistant are all very skilled and very sociable, always helping  and making you progress.
Overall a superb experience that I recommend to everyone, even you don't necessarily aim at becoming a developer, it is more than just that.

When I graduated from an agronomy school, I wasn't sure what to do afterwards. But I was sure about one thing : I wanted to learn more and to discover different professional environments. Therefore, I did consulting, business development in a start-up abroad, marketing, financial audit.. But something was missing. I wanted to see more my day-to-day impact and as I am curious, I wanted to learn more and faster. In addition, I started to get start-up ideas. But I had to test my ideas with real users so I needed to create an app. The only option I had was to pay a developer to create my MVP but I didn't have the money...

At this moment, a friend told me about le Wagon, an intensive coding bootcamp that is now in 28 cities worldwide ! I did it in January 2018 in Paris and I found exactly what I was looking for : 
- great skills in web development to be able to speak with developers and to create my own web products and MVP 
- a wonderful community always keen on helping each other, from various backgrounds which is such enriching 
- a nice le wagon team that helps you a lot to do the transition after the bootcamp.

Since then, I'm a freelance web developer and I’m also teaching code in Paris. It exactly fulfilled the expectations I had : keep being curious, keep learning a lot (the knowledge is absolutely infinite in coding) and create in a couple of seconds great stuff on the internet !

After years of being stuck in a job and an industry I didn't enjoy, I felt it was time to move on. It took some persuasion, but I decided to quit my PhD and follow my interest in coding. After self-studying for a while, I felt it wasn't enough for me, and I finally decided to enroll in the Le Wagon bootcamp. I didn't really know what to expect, other than long hours and hard work for two months. However, I was very pleasantly surprised.

The course started with back-end by giving you a good understanding of Ruby, before going more detailed into Object Oriented Programming and databases (SQL). After this we dove into front-end, where HTML and CSS were passed by fairly quickly, and Javascript was covered in more detail. Finally, we learned how to use different frameworks which make your life as a web developer much easier. The main framework was Rails, and this is what we used to develop our two final projects. I was lucky to get my project chosen on pitch-day, and getting to spend the last 10 days developing your dream application was a true joy. It also gives you a good start if you want to make this a real-life project/ start-up. Check out https://www.trippytune.com!

Le Wagon is extremely well organised, with an online study platform called Kitt which makes your learning experience very fluid. Here I had access to daily video lectures, lecture slides, daily challenges etc, and you get a lifetime access to these resources. The daily challenges that you are asked to solve on Kitt are very well made, and as I was a slightly faster student, I could still find plenty challenges through the optionals. From what I know, this platform is unique, and gives Le Wagon a great advantage compared to other bootcamps. It really makes a big difference to have the right learning tools.

Initially, I was sceptical to doing the bootcamp in Bali, as some other courses in Bali have a reputation of being holidays in disguise. However, I found that Le Wagon Bali demands a lot from its students, which was exactly what I was looking for. It was definitely no holiday in disguise, although it surely is a pleasant environment to work in. It was a great experience, and if you chose Le Wagon I'm sure you won't regret it!

I was studying law and management, but after 5 years and a few internships, I realised that the lack of creativity was a huge problem for me.

I began to interest myself in design, and then I heard of Le Wagon and decided to learn to code. It seemed to be a really complet bootcamp, where we focused on the practical aspects, and where we could acquire the skills to find a job quickly.

And indeed, this 2 months were a real fun, combining logic and creativity and I really found out what to do with my life: code. We had the chance to work as teams and develop really cool projects, which was really enriching. Moreover, Barcelona was the ideal city to relax and go out after hard days of work, and the staff team was really nice

I consider my professional life thus far to be scinded so: before le Wagon, and afterwards. Not like I'm ancient, or anything. The reason for this is, before attending this bootcamp, I thought that coding, like math, like engineering, like physics, was reserved to people who had studied it since middle school. I thought that people like me, with backgrounds in languages, translation, and literature couldn't possibly wrap their airy heads around such a complex, "science-minded" discipline.

That's a load of bull.

Le Wagon's bootcamp teaches you to code, plain and simple. No matter your background and your strengths, you'll be able to find something in their carefully crafted curriculum to pique your interest and light a fire under your brain. Their teaching team is dedicated, attentive, and a motivating example of how proficient alumni can become in a mere matter of months. Best of all, the community of alumni is unfailingly welcoming, bubbling with creativity and good will, and swells with every graduating class to include more members.

The overall course is fast-paced and intense but ultimately enormously rewarding. A change is as good as a rest, they say, and Le Wagon can empower you to make the change you seek, though I guarantee you won't get much rest!

Thank you Le Wagon! Why ? Being a student in digital marketing in Paris, I had the chance to integrate the batch#145 in parallel with my studies. I was looking for technical skills to complete my training rather focused on strategy. And I was not disappointed !

The training provides the technical foundation necessary to launch any Web application project. The pedagogy is very well thought out, all the concepts are exposed in a logical progression supported by an immediate practice. The speakers are all of a great level, the whole team is really cool and the intellectual challenge remains high from the beginning to the end.
In addition, an excellent atmosphere, camaraderie and peer support are present throughout the training, making working conditions even better. This experience was for me the opportunity to meet all types of profiles, all animated by the same spirit; the entrepreneurial spirit and to achieve great things.

My trip to Le Wagon is a very positive point for my resume and allowed me to obtain a position as a digital project manager in a web marketing agency located in Paris. So yes, I confirm, thank you Le Wagon!