Le Wagon

Before I start : I have a background in psychology and knowledge of art & design, I’ve also always been curious of learning a lot of things.

 

 

My initial question before I started this journey was:

Why coding? This is the question that I have been asked for a lot of times, also the same question I asked myself before I decided to attend Le Wagon. Why coding, instead of other things? Why choose coding at this time, instead of before or later?. What helped me take the leap was a voice inside of me saying “ WHY NOT coding? Don’t you see the possibility? if you don’t learn coding, you could be illiteracy in just a few years?” This voice may be scary, but try to check what’s going on around you, think about it. Get your answer, because this is really serious!

 

Making the choice:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” (A Tale of Two Cities)

This a quote from “A Tale of Two Cities” and it relates a lot to learning how to code nowadays.

If you start to be interested in coding, you can find tons of ways of learning. Sometimes too many options, you feel dazzled. This decision is especially hard for a person born under the sign of Libra  :-) I am lucky, because I know someone who graduated from Le Wagon. And I saw his career changing after he graduated. When he started, I couldn’t believe that one’s life can be changed only after 9 weeks. Because this is counter my common sense. I have been taught  that you need 10 000 hours of practice to be good at something. But this friend is the hard fact, which I couldn’t ignore and deny it. So I decided to try by myself, to see how far I could go, how much my life would be changed by such “mystery” process.

 

I can give you my story ending: I never regret the decision I made. Furthermore, my life is changed and still changing now. This is one of my best decision I have ever made in my life.

 

If you experience trying to learn code by yourself, you might know you might be stuck sometimes for a few hours or even days, you don’t know where is the mistake that was made or why your code doesn’t work, and you can’t find someone to ask why. Sometimes this could lead you to a self-doubt situation, that you tell yourself: “maybe I am not made for it, I don’t have the talent to do this”. That’s exactly where Le Wagon can help. You have the opportunity to learn with a community.

 

 

Life at Le Wagon:

The schedule at Le Wagon is quite simple: lecture and then practice, practice, practice… the practice part is like an infinitive refrain of a song: you can’t get rid of it and you don’t even want to get rid of it. But, practice is the key! And we don’t practice alone. We practice with buddies (this is the cooperation system used by Le Wagon), and we have teachers’ support. You can’t be stuck in one problem for more than 1 hour, unless you really want it. I was immersed in doing the challenges, only hoping the time could fly slowly, but the time is ruthless, it never happened.

 

Generally, we have one-hour live-code at the end of the day. Sometimes, someone has to code in front of the class, and of course, not every day we had volunteers. You will always remember the “wheel of death” moment 😅if it happens : we randomly select someone. But don’t panic, you will always get the answer, the whole class is by your side.

 

Teamwork is another keyword at Le Wagon. For the whole bootcamp : with your buddies, or when you are working together for a group project. You should always keep that in mind. I was very impressed by the way we pitched for our own project,  how we had feedbacks and the way we chose the project we wanted to work with. If you are accepted, you will expand your knowledge, and Le Wagon does it very efficiently.

 

Collaboration ❤️

In the last 3 weeks, you will work with the same teammates all the time. I had an excellent experience working with my teammates. They were very supportive, cooperative. We had a lot of meetings to review, discuss, plan our daily work. Usually meeting means boring moments, waste of time. But in our case, I never had this kind of feeling. It is very useful and necessary. I learned from everyone. Another good thing I found is, not just inside the team, cross the teams, we also made a lot of connections. Sharing or asking for help is normal during the bootcamp.

 

Finally making a product : the final weeks

I will never forget the last 2 weeks dedicated to our final project. From scratch to final product, we made it! I know, I still have a lot to learn. But, in less than 2 weeks, creating an app from zero, is already amazing. I couldn’t believe it before we made it. We worked a lot, myself, my teammates, the whole team of Teachers. I am so proud of it, indescribably proud of it!.

 

My pieces of advice:

• Be prepared for the class. Take online courses, do the exercises, the more, the better!
• Be prepared that sitting all day long in front of laptop, after the bootcamp, you could suddenly realize that Le Wagon fatten you up!
• Don’t think that the teacher always tell you everything: They say the 3 first weeks are the most difficult ones. The true fact is: No! Every Week is challenging!
• Learn some French words if you come from a country where people don’t speak French. Or if this helps: if you want to find a local language partner, try a cool app named“Bonjourhi” (please allow me to promote our final project here lol)
• Notice that you will be used to learn and code in a very intensive pace, this could affect your daily speaking speed, eat speed, walking speed etc etc.
• Warning! Probably you will be sad, depressive, get lost on the Saturday morning after the demo day party :(

 

 

Conclusion:

9 weeks is like a little nap, without having a dream, suddenly you are woken up. It is tough, but it is a looooot of fun. Besides the new career opportunity, it is also the opportunity to challenge yourself, to see the benefits after your hard work. You can’t buy a sense of accomplishment, never, the only way to do it is to commit.

Find this mystery joy by yourself. Then, you will be as me, as my classmates, as the  alumni around the world, grateful and satisfied.

After a decade working as an Engineer for a giant resource company, I took a self-granted sabbatical and found new passions in programming and product design. I decided to change direction to tech industry upon returning back to the workforce, and soon faced w/ roadblocks. I’ve invested countless hour and dollars in online educations, but without proper guidance and support, it was very easy to be lost in ocean of information and outdated technology. And I still couldn’t achieve what I was aiming for.

  Attending Le Wagon bootcamp is one of the best investment I’ve made for myself. Not only the bootcamp is packed with technology that is currently being used in the market, I also had a privilege to pair up and work together with talented budding programmers from all walk of life, thanks to the sophisticated structure of the bootcamp. For our final project, our team also successfully created a useful data analytics web app from scratch within 2 weeks. It was made possible because we got to understand the fundamental of the programming itself, how to be creative with it, how to handle the roadblocks and how to do programming effectively within a team. We didn’t just learn how to program, we’ve learned how to be a programmer.   Post bootcamp, there are even more resources and supports made available to us to continue our learning to the next level. And as someone who’s coming back from a long career break and made quite a career change, Le Wagon is very supportive in guiding and help me to pave the way getting into tech scene. At the moment, I feel comfortable and on the right track to where I want to be.

My journey at Le Wagon has been a great experience which will hopefully help me to change my career path, and lead me into the development industry. I spent the last 15 years in different industries from automotive, to supply chain and advertising on the sales side before I joined the Bootcamp. I wanted to make a change to the tech side, either by jumping into the tech industry or even launching my own project. I chose the Le Wagon Bootcamp because I thought it would be the perfect way to get there. 

What I liked the most about learning how to code at Le Wagon was the way the days were structured. We had a lecture in the morning and then we spent the rest of the day working on challenges in pairs and ended the day with a live code session. The teachers and teaching assistants were also available throughout the day to assist whenever needed. I think it's not only the best way to learn how to code but to learn in general! I really felt comfortable learning; no question was too small, and they made the effort to stay late to give extra help and even went the extra mile to organize trips on weekends for us. 

I'm really proud of my final project - Green Room. A unified booking portal for Bollywood actors, producers, cameramen. It's crazy to think back and realize that we were able to build a fully functioning app - in 2 weeks and after just 7 weeks of lessons! I love that Le Wagon enables you to work on producing the solution to a problem you might be passionate about. 

I had the best time learning to code in Bali. I'm sure other Le Wagon alumni have similar experiences as me but I can't emphasize enough just how special Bali is. The weather is always great - from sunrise to sunset. It made it easier to keep motivated as I learned how to code. I also really liked my batch and it was easy to make friends. 

It was without a doubt, a very intense course but ultimately, so rewarding! I'd like to thank the entire Le Wagon Bali team and my batch #253, especially Dirk, the teachers and TAs, Guido, Prima, Sonia, Margo, Eli, Magnus and Mirha. I'm very happy and very proud to be part of the Le Wagon Bali family.

What I liked about Le Wagon Tokyo in short,

• Great curriculum
  It was intense and hard, to be honest. But following the curriculum, I have obtained fundamental knowledge and skills about web development, and now I can confidently address myself as a full-stack web developer.
• Wonderful support from teachers and managements
  Very supportive and well-experienced teachers and managers. They became not only my teachers and mentors but also really nice friends as well.
• The diverse culture and life long friendships
  The batch I had joined had 24 members from 13 different countries. And I had a really really nice time with them in and out of classes. I can't forget about the good time going karaoke, having a drinking party, playing futsal...

I truly recommend Le Wagon Tokyo if you are looking for a coding Bootcamp in Tokyo.

Before joining Le Wagon, I was a fresh grad with a degree in Systems Engineering (ElectroMechanical Systems). I started exploring web development during my capstone project in the last year of my university where I have to come up with a web application to log data from sensors and displaying them. Even though web development was not taught in my course's syllabus, I found myself enjoying to learn the concepts of web developing on the Internet. Hence, out of interest, I had found Le Wagon to kickstart me towards that direction.

I had so much fun during the Bootcamp! Even though the Bootcamp was intensive, the instructors and my batch mates made it possible for me to enjoy every second of it. The Bootcamp also provided us with coding challenges every day to enhance our problem solving capabilities, which motivated me to try to complete every single one of them, and time felt like it passed so quickly.

The toughest part of the Bootcamp for me was definitely the final project, where all the concepts came together since week 1 and it was like an examination to come up with an actual viable product to showcase to the world. Initially, my product pitch in week 5 was simply a travel application which is able to plan and organize itineraries for trips. However, the idea evolved constantly throughout the rest of the Bootcamp, following feedback from my batch mates and the instructors. My final product called Trails is now a planning application which is able to collaborate with people to plan activities, with templated checklists (and delegate to people in your group), and is also able to map all the activities with locations on a single map.

Looking back at how much my initial idea has developed, I would say don't be afraid of coming up with ideas which may seem stupid at first, as you may never know how far can your idea grow. Quoting Prima, one of the instructors in Le Wagon: "Great products always starts off with crazy and funny ideas".I could not have imagined that it was possible to build a web application in just 2 weeks which I actually took close to 4 months to build back then in university! Overall, I would say the journey was not easy but definitely an enjoyable experience and an amazing opportunity to be the second batch of students to graduate from Le Wagon Singapore.

I was trying to launch a start-up and quite quickly bumped into the reality of costs constraints... How to move on, creating the product you wish to launch, and limiting costs?
And then a friend advise to join Le Wagon... Me? Was I the right person? Never written a single row of code before.....
I just siad to myself: "Ok, let's take up this challenge..."
I very quickly realized that I never had a better advice in the process of launching my own business. 9 intense weeks of coding program, to give me the essential understanding, knowledge and autonomy to build up a mock-up first (during the 2 weeks project of the bootcamp), and then the product itself.
A fantastic support in my project has also come from Le Wagon team. People that encourage you to follow the path you chose and are available to support in your journey.
It has been a great opportunity to join this course and I truly recommend it :) 

The Le Wagon coding bootcamp is so much more than a 9-week course. It starts with thorough prepwork, alumni get life-long access to the learning platform packed with video-lectures, slide-decks, assignments, career advise, etc. Students are diverse in experience, culture, and age, yet are bound by being highly motivated. After the bootcamp you'll stay connected with a great network.    During the bootcamp skilled teachers and technical assistants provide excellent coaching. Apart from Ruby, Rails, OOP, SQL, HTML, CSS, Javacript, you learn to work in teams, design products, pitch ideas, and demo prototypes. At the end, teams build products from scratch in only 9 days. It was amazing what we all pulled off at demo day.   I started working in the digital branche way back; in the last 15 years as a UX designer and user researcher. I felt a nagging knowledge gap with regards to actually *making* products. That's why I chose to quit my job and seek the adventure. Now I feel better equiped to go back to designing. But first I'll give it a go to become an entrepreneur and launch my own app.   The past months did change my life. Good value for money. 

I was a growth marketer working FinTech before I went to LeWagon. I've always liked the idea of being a developer and had been freelancing as a front-end developer at the same time. I felt that I needed to boost my skills and go full-stack to make any significant career changes. 

LeWagon's nine-week program provides a well-designed curriculum taught by a host of knowledgeable teachers and TAs. They were not joking when they said it was going to go by really fast - you learn A LOT over the course of nine weeks. While this may sound daunting, the teachers and TAs were highly knowledgable and experienced developers themselves. I felt like I was in good hands in the program. 

By the end of the program, I felt up to speed on what I needed to know to begin creating my own web applications. Even after the program, I'm in touch with my teachers and the entire network of alumni. I'm extremely happy with my choice to make the jump into full-stack development and I could not imagine a better program to have joined. 

PS: Do your flashcards.

My background is somewhat different from the usual student of a coding bootcamp.

I was trained as an engineer, and have worked in research and development, designed and built production grade software for a couple decades. But it was all very niche - to take a car analogy I was an expert at making the most efficient pistons, but barely litterate with engines, and clueless with vehicles.

To put it in simpler terms, I could write software, very good software, but not an application.
This had been a frustration for many years - many ideas not pursued for lack of knowing where to start...

I could have turned to online courses and learn yet another handful languages, but from my practical experience there is no substitute for dedicated mentoring, and the experience of working on projects as a team. Both of which are cornerstones of Le Wagon bootcamp.

So after closing a chapter in my career, I decided to enroll in Le Wagon in Tokyo.

The program is every bit as good as others have commented on this site. Curriculum is very solid and well designed, up to date, well adapted to complete beginners, and certainly very efficient at turning them into competent junior developers by the end of the course. From the point of view of a seasoned veteran, watching that metamorphosis felt like a little miracle - while the result of very hard work from both students and teachers.

Speaking of which, the teaching staff in Tokyo is excellent - competent, dedicated, available, and friendly. I was lucky to have extraordinary teachers in my university years, and I am happy to say the guys at Le Wagon are very much up there counting among the best!

Also of note was the strong sense of camaraderie and cooperative mindset among students of our batch.
The feeling of belonging to Le Wagon's network of alumni and staff is no small part in its successful formula.

I will admit that at times I had doubts if I had made the right choice enrolling in the bootcamp, especially at the beginning when the learning curve was still gentle for a veteran coder.
By the time team projects started (7th week onward), they were gone - replaced by the thrill and passion of building actual products with young and talented teammates.

Long story short: I highly recommend Le Wagon. Even at a later point in ones career, it's a great place for old dogs to learn new tricks.