Le Wagon

After business and finance studies, I undertook my professional career in the financial industry in Europe. Two years ago, I got a Canadian work permit and decided to move to Montreal. I've always been interested in entrepreneurship and tech industry, so I decided to work in a start-up as a business developer. When I arrived in Montreal, the first batch of Le wagon Montreal was running and I went to the Demo Day (I already heard of le Wagon in Paris as some of my friends did it in the past). I was really impressed by the quality of students' applications, and it really made me want to do this coding bootcamp. 

A few months after, I took the plunge and was part of Batch #125. These 9 weeks were really challenging as I had no experience in Web Development, but it was an incredible experience. Some days are really hard, but you need to carry on and not throw in the towel. 

There are some ingredients that make this bootcamp very unique. First of all, the teachers are amazing, they help and support you a lot, you can feel they really enjoy sharing their knowledge and skills. Moreover, the pedagogy created by Sebastien Saunier and Boris Paillard is impressive. Then, your student buddies, you make very good friends in a short period of time as you all live the same intensive experience and everyone is supporting each other. The cherry on the cake is the last two weeks of projects, where you build a real product from scratch as a team. It's very challenging, intensive and amazing. All the things you've learned from the past weeks became suddenly clear.

I highly recommend le Wagon. It brings you great technical skills that will lead you to a dev, product owner or entrepreneur career, but it's also a wonderful human adventure.

After graduated from a sports makerting Business School, I wanted to add something to my studies and be more reliable on labour market.
Le Wagon was the perfect fit, intense experience, with great people with differents backgrounds, but all focused on learning how to code.

We had 6 weeks of learning the basics of coding, then a one week project in order to build a AirBnB like website.
The two last weeks were the most intense : with two other students, we had to build our own project, from zero to online, a tinder like app to help you find your tennis partner, depending on your search criteria (level, gender, search radius, ...). If both players accept they can fix a match/training.
This was the best way to combinate all what we learn from the very begining, patient and passionate teachers were always there to keep an eye when we had issues.  

I recommend this bootcamp for anyone who would like to change their career or improve their knowledge. Thanks Le Wagon Bordeaux :)

Pros: 

-Walking out of bootcamp with 2 different web apps!! 

-Full Ocean View Every Day

-Surf Before Class

-6 after-hours workshops on Security, technical interviews, how to run kickstarter campaigns

-Great, knowlegable staff

-Yin yoga at the end of the week for mental health

-Discounts at MANY local restaurants for being a le wagon student

Cons:
-8 weeks rather than traditional 9 of other locations due to visa restrictions

-constantly staring at the surf outside the classroom everyday.....FOMO much? (Okay...not really a con though...)

My story starts out different than most. I came to Le Wagon as a Microbiologist working in the pharmaceutical industry. I was really disillusioned and disengaged from that job; the day-to-day now would be the same day-to-day 10 years from now because there was no prospect of career progression unless people retire. I’m an incredibly creative person, so I need to be building things everyday and solving problems regularly to be fulfilled. It’s here that I found Le Wagon and left my job to undertake the 9 week bootcamp.

Fast forward 9 weeks later, I’ve completed the first Le Wagon bootcamp (batch #135) in Melbourne and am now a fully certified Full Stack Developer. I can’t even begin to describe how amazing the experience has been. It’s completely turned my life around both personally and professionally. Not only do you learn how to program, but you learn all the fundamentals of web development, software architecture, database development and migration management, the real world application of Ruby in both a front and a back end context, the paradigms of MVC and CRUD, and key entrepreneurial strategies. The best part of it all though is that you, with a team of your peers, design and build a fully functional web application in just 10 days. Your teachers are so supportive and create such a positive environment, that I felt like I could completely push myself out of my comfort zone. Everyone there, including your peers, builds you up and you’re all working towards the same common goal as a team.

Your experience with Le Wagon doesn’t end with the bootcamp - you become part of a growing community. I was given a lot of support with building my resume for the tech industry after my career change, and there’s always someone to go to for programming advice if you get stuck on a problem. I’ve now found work as a Full Stack Developer. I’m incredibly passionate about what I do and I’m thankful to be able to get up every morning to build something beautiful.

Le Wagon has been a life changing experience for me.

I got first introduced with Le Wagon in Brussels in late 2015. A year later I tried to learn myself how to code. I completed some online courses on HTML, CSS and Python without really doing any projects. I made little progress and my learning curve was very flat. As I only stayed on the surface of things I didn't really see the point of me contuining to learn how to code. Boy was I wrong! 

It was not until the summer of 2017 that I decided to emerge myself fully into coding. To do this I knew I needed to enroll in a bootcamp. Now, how do you choose your bootcamp? A couple of things were important to me. This bootcamp:

• would be present in Europe and preferably in the most beautiful European Capitals.
• would cost less than €10.000.
• would include an international network of alumni.
• would teach me more than one programming language and let me work on at least one project in depth.

Le Wagon met all of the above criteria. I ultimately choose for Berlin because of it's startup vibe, cultural history and level of professionalism of the resident Le Wagon team.

So far Le Wagon bootcamp has been the most immersive coding workout I ever encountered. Le Wagon offers a tightly-knit 9-week coding schedule backed by extremely talented Teaching Assistants, a handy online 'knowledge' platform with exercises and an innovative startup vibe.

In only 9 weeks I learned how to master HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript ES2015, SQL, git, GitHub, Heroku and Ruby on Rails. In the last two weeks teams were formed to develop on our own Rails applications. Together with my team I brainstormed, designed and developed a full-fledged task management platform for Handy Men called Handy Harry. On the last day of the bootcamp you get a taste of the real startup world when you get to showcase your application on stage in front of Berlin's tech scene, friends and family.

Best learning experience so far!

Thank you

My interest about coding started when I was on marketing position that required creating a lot of automated campaigns set up API connections between all the services I was using. However, not having the technical knowledge to do that, each task was always a struggle to be accomplished, especially when I needed to rely on other developers to dedicate the time on their busy schedule to help me out.

I started by taking some online courses to see if it was something I could envision myself doing, and it soon made me realize that: yes, I liked and enjoyed coding; and I'd need a more structured course and environment. Then, I started my quest to find the best coding bootcamp, the one that would put me on a fast track to reach my goal of learning code and be able to actually work with it.

On my search, I came across a handful of courses. I started looking to the curriculum and the overall aspects of the program, such as the network, in-class assistance and job assistance after the bootcamp. Le Wagon really beat up any other I found. The curriculum and technologies learned where relevant and up-to-date (vouched by friend developers) and the reviews and feedback I received from alumni I reached out to were 10s across the board.

The one thing I was a bit hesitant still was the job search after the bootcamp, as some other schools had big and temptatious promises to get you a job right after completion, but looking at all the other aspects they were not as strong. At this point, I had to make a decision: take on the challenge and go with the strongest bootcamp or stay in the status quo and hope for a promise to come through.

So I decided to go with Le Wagon and really invest myself in it to get the best out of this experience.

From day one we started coding and work on challenges, and every day after that seemed like were twice as much as the previous day. The learning curve is crazy steep and fast. The amazing teaching team is a great reason of why the whole batch could achieve it, they were always supportive and didn't hesitate to sit with you for all the time needed to solve any question or make the knowledge acquired even more solid.

Fast forward to the final weeks of the bootcamp, the projects weeks are the most awesome time you will have during the whole course. That's when you realize the how strong is the power of building things from scratch and working with amazing fellows developers on it - and before starting Le Wagon we'd wouldn't be able to do any of that. This is the greatest time to put all the things learned during the bootcamp in practice, and solve bugs of course. :)

Now back to my main goal, switch career paths and find a tech job after the bootcamp.

In retrospective, I made the best choice when I decided to go with the course that offered me the strongest curriculum, network and overall experience. I was able to get interview and land on a job that I really wanted within less than a month searching. I owe that mostly to the strong development basis I built during the whole experience at Le Wagon, even the final projects served as a great portfolio to recruiters when I was asked about things I had built previously.

Overall my experiece at Le Wagon was amazing, I'd do it again and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in becoming a developer or just get more into the tech side of any industry.

Having suffered in math all throughout school and coming from a strictly liberal arts background, I was afraid programming would be too hard for my analytical brain to truly grasp in 9 weeks. Yet, the interest in the subject was big enough that I decided to pursue Le Wagon anyways. My experience during those 9 weeks shocked me. The long hours quickly translated into the steepest learning curve of my life to date. And although I didn't go in with the intention of becoming a developer afterwards, the passion transmitted by the teachers everyday, the holistic curriculum, and the supportive LW community have left in me curiosity about the programming world that I cannot shake off. I would recommend Le Wagon to anyone, from any background, with any interest or previous any skill-set. Understanding how the internet and the tech world works is an asset that cannot be dismissed in the 21st century and layering code on top of people's knowledge is one of the most powerful tools we have to positively impact the world. So if that's what you want to do, then I'd say jump on the Wagon!

I never really had the courage to actually get behind a computer and start learning to code all by myself. I thought that would be super complicated and I wouldn't be able to comprehend anything. I started to search for schools that teach me all of this in the best way possible.

The best approach for me to learn something is "learning by doing", so I searched for something doing just that. A boot camp would've been ideal and so my journey started. I decided to take part in the 9-week coding Bootcamp of Le Wagon.

I must say, at this point, it was the best decision I could've made.

Just right from the first day, everybody was very friendly. First thing in the morning was a lecture giving us students the knowledge we needed for the day. Most of the day we spent with coding together with another student (always someone else). During this time you had very friendly and capable teachers by your side and no matter the problem, they took their time to explain it, giving the optimal support to learn something completely new. In the evening all students came together again and started the live code. In it, we all worked together on an exercise. This created a very nice and comfortable atmosphere.

During the last two weeks, we worked on projects. The projects themselves are created from scratch and based on everything taught during the boot camp. Le Wagon provided us with the skills and the mindset shaping us into real web developers and with this knowledge we created some really amazing things.

Le Wagon is undoubtedly an unforgettable experience and it also brings people from all over the world together.

My story

Before joining Le Wagon coding bootcamp I was running an AdWords-agency for 5 years. Here, I shipped more than 200 landing pages on builders like PageWiz & Unbounce as well as on Wordpress to clients. So I was familiar with the tech and startup world but I just could not learn to code. I tried Codecademy and Udemy but did not follow through with the tutorials.

How I learned about coding bootcamps

The idea of attending a coding bootcamp had been in my mind since 2013, when I graduated from university and started the AdWords business. I briefly read about a coding bootcamp in my home city of Cologne, Germany. Yet I did not have the time and money to join then, and also later I never heard of this camp again. However, the idea remained on my bucket list. When I moved to Berlin in spring 2017 to participate in an accelerator program, I realized that lack of of tech knowledge in our team and thus a non-tech, non-scaling product was one of the reasons we got no follow up-investment. So I decided to change that and attend a coding bootcamp late 2017.

Why I chose Le Wagon coding bootcamp Berlin

At the time there were three coding bootcamps available in Berlin. I called them all. Only Le Wagon answered. I even emailed the other two, which I would not do normally, as I prefer direct contact and nevertheless: Nothing.

Philipp, the Driver at Le Wagon Berlin however was spot on. I called him up and we arranged for a walk in the same day. I spoke with him but also with the students from the current batch and actually, I was already sold at this point. The atmosphere was just right. Concentrated and hard working, yet relaxed and laid back at the same time. Also it was more appealing to me that Le Wagon focused on future founders as much as on future developers as my goal was to get the knowledge for my next project rather then get a junior dev position. So if you favor building a real product with a real team in 2 weeks rather than exercising for job interview questions - this is the place to be. However, alumni who want to get a dev job also get it. The mix is roughly one third founders, one third hired as developer and one third going in to a product management or consulting role. So it's up to you to chose.

Experience at the Bootcamp

Le Wagon is the future of learning. It combines lectures which are actually your teacher coding live, rather than reading slides, peer programming with your buddy through the day and the best e-learning platform I have ever seen. You can literally follow the Wagon examples step-by-step and it will work. The way knowledge is taught at Le Wagon is just modern and how it should be. The complete opposite of our education system in schools and universities mostly stuck in and producing for the early industrial society of the 19th century.  You can always ask a teacher to explain the problem and help you 1:1 when you get stuck. Stuff you would pay significant amounts for at places like Codementor. At the end of the day, the camp helped me to get over the initial threshold and start to code in Ruby, JS, SQL, HTML, CSS and then combine everything in Rails. At the end I built an Airbnb clone in one week and an MVP of a Job search site in two weeks with my team.

Skills I gained

Remember the scene from the Matrix when Neo wakes up and realises: "I know kung fu". Exactly that happened. I was able to go onto the developer and API sections of SaaS sites and understand what it is all about. I could finally consume the internet through the command line. Scraping data, using APIs to enrich it and outputting to the desired format. This was the magic I was doing. And I finally started my project: Automating online marketing A to Z from client onboarding, copy generation, landing page and ad creation for Google & Facebook. I built the first MVP of LeadConcierge in just three weeks. So I got everything and more which I could wish for.

The community

Actually, the biggest thing you get at Le Wagon is to connect with likeminded people. This is where the bootcamp overdelivers. Again, the staff at Le Wagon does a great job of connecting everybody in the group and forming friendships. Starting with a dinner for everyone on the first day and continuing until the demo day party on graduation. What’s more? In Berlin, free coworking is offered to alumni, so we can stay connected to the community and the following batches after the program while connecting to the over 3.000 alumni on a private slack platform. Here, tech advice, jobs etc. are plenty. Fun fact: While traveling in Silicon Valley I met a fellow alumnus from Brazil. So this is really a world wide community.

Wrap-up

Come for the tools. Stay for the network. If you read till this point you should imagine by now, that I loved my experience during and after Le Wagon in Berlin. I got all the skills I expected and friendships I really care about. I would recommend the camp to anyone willing to learn. It transformed the way I think and enabled me to finally build a scalable product. You want to know what I mean? If your only tool is a hammer, you treat every problem as a nail. Yet now I have a lot of different tools in my arsenal enabling me to think like an engineer and tackle problems with automation in a scaling way. And you will have too. Take my advice: Check out the Wagon events in your city or on Youtube and once you're ready embark on this journey!

LE WAGON advertises with the slogan “Change your life, learn to code”. For me this became absolutely true. The important thing to mention: Coding did not, but Le Wagon did! Here are 4 reasons why:

1. The teachers

They are specialists in their field, travel the world to teach and even speak at conferences. On top of that, they are graded at the end of every batch, so it’s kind of a natural selection and only the best of the best survive.

2. The Buddy-System

Every day, after having been taught the new content, you get a new buddy from the other classmates. This is a genius move, not just because you get to know all the class members very well (helps a lot for the final projects), but especially because it pushes the engagement of the entire class. No one wants to be the “loser that nobody wants to work with”. So as soon as you feel that you are behind, you put in even extra hours in the morning or the evening or the weekend. You can imagine what happens when everybody is doing that! Yes, it pushes performance to new heights!

3. The atmosphere

You have team events, you have Friday beers (and free beer all the time) and through the buddy system new best friends for life guaranteed. We were 18 people from 10 different nationalities. The mix of cultures and backgrounds makes Le Wagon exceptional!

4. The Alumni Network

I doubt that there is a course with a better network. To date, more than 20 locations worldwide. Thousands of alumni that all went through the “hell of Le Wagon” and that are crazily responsive for whatever you need help with. Le Wagon has Slack channels for jobs, events, growth-hacking tools … Whatever you need, the community will help you!

Coding is a skill i wanted to acquire for a long time. While life as a strategy consultant was thrilling and rewarding in many ways, a sense of monotony was sinking in over time - every (long) day was starting to look the same. Above all, I exceedingly felt like I wasn't doing enough - I wanted to be at the front line tackling and solving problems rather than taking the bird's eye view and finding rather high-level solutions. 

I enjoy self-learning and as such became passionate about the idea of learning how to code as one avenue to actually do more. I signed up to codeacademy and started learning front-end languages (html & css) whenever the job allowed. However, coding is like an endless sea - I felt overwhelmed rather fast because of the many languages out there, and the lack of knowledge as to how it could potentially all tie together at some point. 

This is when I gave up on trying it on my own and began searching for coding schools. A university friend of mine took the 9 week coding bootcamp at Le Wagon in Brazil a year back, so naturally I reached out to him. He offered unwavering praise for the class, so I decided to give it a go and applied for the batch due to commence in January 2018 in Berlin. 

5 months later I can say he was 100% right. The bootcamp was worth it - something I found hard to believe beforehand considering the price tag of coding bootcamps these days. Spending 8-10 hours each and every day learning & applying concepts with the ability to ask as many questions as you like along the way was the perfect way to get off the ground in this endless sea of coding. After a month or so, I felt the equivalent of what young players in professional sports refer to as "the game slowing down" - concepts started to tie together and you'd start to really understand how frameworks (in our case ruby on rails) function from within. 

On a sidenote, the 9 weeks were not only a great learning experience, but also an incredibly fun time. Great people (with no exceptions!), evening get-to-togethers, fun activities and cocktail nights led to countless memories that will stay with me forever. 

Over the last 2 months since the bootcamp ended I've continued coding a few projects, the last being a successful coding challenge for a blockchain company. Quite honestly I am amazed by the progress that is possible in such a short time frame, and have Le Wagon and their wonderful teachers to thank for the getting me off the ground and triggering my curiosity to continue learning and getting better each and every day!

I studied business but always been interested in Tech and Entrepreneurship. After my bachelor before starting to think about what is next I wanted to learn something I have been always interested in but never really accomplished to fully understand - Coding. Through friends I heard of LeWagon and applied for Batch-92 in Berlin. The application process is super smooth and after a Skype Interview with Philipp I was admitted to the Bootcamp.

The preparation was quite intense since you had to do a lot of courses online and had to start digging into the topic of coding. Fortunately, when the Bootcamp started many of the topics mentioned in the preparation were readressed. However, I can really recommend to do the preparation because otherwise it takes way longer to understand basic principles of coding. 

This is also one of the things I really really loved about LeWagon. I always struggled with coding since I had problems to make the step from understanding the principle to execute it in a real life example. And LeWagon made it so freakin easy. Every day started with a lesson about the topic of the day and afterwards you could directly apply the newly learned skills in numerous challenges that were sometimes hard but super rewarding. When you had a problem you could always ask your coding buddy (pair programming is awesome) or if there was no sight of the light at the end of tunnel you could just write a ticket and a TA came pretty swift to help you understand your problem and solve. It was never the case that you just got the solution. The teachers and TAs always tried to help you to solve the problem on your own. In combination with the real life challenges one really learned how to tackle problems on your own and to be indipendent in the outside world.

Besides the great learning concept I want to mention three other things that I really appreciated during my time at LeWagon - People, Overall-Concept and Organization.

We were a group of roughly 30 students and really became a well functioning group. Through the daily chaning coding buddies or the projects at the end of the Bootcamp you really got to know everyone. Besides that, several events and lunches increased the team spirit even more. The organization of the BootCamp was tremendous. Philipp, the driver, put every second of his time into making this BootCamp a tremendous success. He organized a lot of great events around the BootCamp, from Yoga-Sessions to talks with Developers and people from the Start-Up Scene. And that is also the point where LeWagon, in my opinion, stands out from other BootCamps. The whole concept is focused on not only learn how to code but also how to develop a promising product. This is one of the most helpful things when you head out to find a job as a product manager or developer.

To summarize, LeWagon was a lifetime-experience that I never wanna miss and I can really recommend to everyone that are not only interested in learning a new skill but also how to apply this skill in products that customers love.