Le Wagon

Before I joined Le Wagon I studied economics and was working as an economic researcher, doing mostly qualitative stuff and a bit of Excel. I was unhappy with the low level of data analysis I was doing (and the lacking experience to dig deeper).

I choose Le Wagon after searching for Bootcamps in Berlin because Le Wagon was on-site rather than full remote. Getting in contact with other students was a real plus from my perspective. The buddy system (you work with a different buddy each day) helped a lot to clear up questions and reduce anxiety. Also, the Teaching Assistants were helpful in that matter.

After if graduated from Berlin batch #814 I was job searching for three months and I am now starting as a BI consultant. The Bootcamp was a good starting point for my career switch to a data role. It teaches a solid understanding of the ELT process as well as machine learning and deep learning algorithms. However, what I found most interesting was the Decision Science week where we went through all steps from exploratory data analysis, developing our own hypotheses to presenting these hypotheses. In hindsight, the business applications could be clearer at some point, but that's probably due to the focus on Data Science instead of Data Analytics. 

For me, the Bootcamp was a good starting point to get a feeling of data-business processes and understand what my next steps should be. The community is a plus too, as many alumni worldwide are happy to get in contact and answer some questions. And the Career Week held some useful information about job search after the Bootcamp. 

I joined the part-time batch in Berlin in October 2021 because I wanted to learn how to code and build my own web applications. I already had some experience in coding. But this was basically more copy, pasting, and adapting stuff I found on the internet. Luckily, Le Wagon gave me the toolset I needed to build my own applications from scratch and speed up my development game. Now I'm able to build my own apps, which is great. 

I guess I could have learned it on my own as well, but this would have taken way more time. So overall amazing experience and I do not regret joining Le Wagon at all. I would do it again. So I can highly recommend it. Even if you do not want to build your own web applications, Le Wagon really helps you to understand how tech companies are actually working and to be able to talk through requirements with internal and external stakeholders.

I was a Shipping Coordinator for a big toy company for almost 12 years until they moved their manufacturing to Mexico. Because of this, I realized I had to change my career and saw the opportunity to start with Le Wagon Coding Bootcamp. At first, I was really nervous about if I could really do it, but after a couple of days it becomes exciting and challenging. You just have to really trust the process of their program. Teachers and staff are really nice, friendly and approachable. They also have a very well organized strategy for your learning, precise schedule, very useful resources that you will have access to even after you graduate. They also organize some educational events & bonding time like Happy Hour every Friday . To sum it up, I had a great experience with Le Wagon that I will treasure forever.

Nothing in life is perfect – that also goes for bootcamps like Le Wagon. Of course, a course schedule could always be more optimized, instructors could always be even more knowledgeable, etc. But the important thing is not to be perfect, but to “get the job done”, i.e. preparing people with little to zero coding skills for breaking into a tech career, and Le Wagon does that excellently!  Sure, the instructors and teaching assistants may not always immediately know everything – but they are always 100% dedicated to helping you and finding the solution together! Which is actually close to how professional developers work: it’s not about always knowing everything, but getting into a mindset of “there is a solution, let’s make it work!” In the end, there was always a solution found, and learning to adapt this kind of mindset was actually one of the most valuable parts. I’m sure there could be adjustments made to the curriculum – as a lot of reviews mention, it is a bit light on JavaScript and frontend in general, and sometimes I would have wished for a bit more context to the topics we were learning. But again: the important thing is that while I had no knowledge before, I now feel like I have a firm knowledge of the basics that will enable me to keep learning on my own. I also feel like they do a rather good job of preparing you for the “life after”, with resources, recommendations for potential job options and paths, and a whole network of people in the tech scene you can reach out to for advice (or who will reach out to you with job opportunities). Tips to get the most out of it:

• Apply early enough, so you have time to do the extensive version of the preparation materials. Students in my course who applied shortly before the start had to complete fewer online preparation courses. But the more preparation you do, the better your start into the bootcamp will be!
• Take the schedule seriously: there is not much time to revise stuff or even slack off, as every day you learn completely new stuff. So get up early, go to campus, pay attention during the lecture. If you can, take the evening to revise and even look at the materials from the next day. This sounds hard – and it is – but if you stick to this, it will be all the more rewarding.
• Most important tip: talk to the instructors often! While it’s fun to try and solve the daily challenges on your own, you do learn the most by talking to them. A lot of the knowledge is not conveyed in the lecture (as there is just so much to learn), but rather you’re supposed to gain it from doing the challenges while talking to your fellow students and the teachers / teaching assistants. Remember: you are supposed to ask for help not know/do it all by yourself!

 So if you put in the work and motivation, the Le Wagon web dev bootcamp will definitely reward you with that “life-changing experience”! :)

How Learning to Code Changed My Life – From Non-Coder to Data Scientist

In the current era of digitalisation, it is safe to say that our lives are closely related to digital products. The number of jobs in the digital sector is drastically increasing, and many people have expressed their interests to jump into the bandwagon, but they do not have a clue on what to do to join the trend. If you are one of them, I hope I can give you some insights by sharing with you my experience on the journey of becoming a data scientist.

Why did I choose data science?

Before learning to code, I was holding a position as a quality control technician. My main task was to perform chemical testing on contact lens and its related products. Life was pretty comfortable, but deep down, I yearn for growth and development, and that led me to choose another path – a coding path.

There are many paths one can take to start a career in coding. Being from a technical background, I am more attracted to analytical processes, and the prospects of using data to drive insights and solve problems interests me a lot; that led me down the path of becoming a data scientist.

Why did I Choose Le Wagon?

Once I decided on my path, I did a google search, and boy, am I shocked by the variety of bootcamps in Singapore which offer data science courses! After looking through the syllabi, reviews and ratings of the different schools, I decided to go with Le Wagon as they have one of the most comprehensive syllabi as well as the highest ratings among all bootcamps. I am happy to say that this is a decision that I do not regret.

How to Enrol?

To enrol into Le Wagon, we can go to the website and schedule a zoom session with the admissions officer to understand more about the enrolment process as well as the course itself. Before enrolling into Le Wagon, we are required to complete an assessment test to ensure we have the basic level required to enrol into the program. The areas of assessment include basic Python programming, and some statistics and calculus computation. Looking back after completing the whole program, I have to say that this assessment is very important, as the program is very intensive that, if you do not have the level required to pass the assessment, you probably will not be able to catch up with what is taught during the program. Luckily, there are many resources online to prepare for the exam. You can watch and practice with Youtube videos or take a Udemy course to learn basic Python coding. The school admissions officer, Liana, is also very helpful to provide me with a variety of resources to prepare for the test.

How was the experience at Le Wagon?

My fellow classmates will agree with me that the Le Wagon data science bootcamp is a very intensive yet satisfying experience. A typical day in Le Wagon starts with a 1.5 hour lecture where the lecturer explains the theoretical concepts of the codes we use and demonstrates how we use it to do different things. Then, we will be assigned to our buddies through a buddy pairing system to complete the challenges of the day together. When we were stuck at certain challenges, we would ask for help from lecturer or teaching assistant through a ticketing system. At the end of the day at 5pm, there will be a recap session where we will practice live coding together to revise the codes and concepts which we learned throughout the day. If you think that is the end, you are so wrong, because as we reach home at 8pm, there will be a message on Slack to remind us to complete the flashcards as revision of the key concepts learned during the day.

What do I like about Le Wagon?

There are many things that I like about Le Wagon. The lecturers are very knowledgeable yet friendly, and they go beyond what is required to ensure we understand the topics fully. The buddy pairing system was great as it helped us cover each other’s blind spots when we complete the challenges together. Towards the end of the bootcamp, we were required to complete a team project, which we had to come up with the project ourselves. This enabled me to piece together all the different parts of the bootcamp and apply it into practical use. The project that my team came up with was DDI, which uses machine learning to predict the possible side effects that two drugs may interact and cause to our body. The skills taught are very practical and usable once we graduate from the bootcamp, so we were able to search for jobs or start our own projects directly after the bootcamp. However, I think the most valuable thing that Le Wagon provides is the network of students and teachers, as well as the learning resources. Even when we completed the bootcamp, we will still have access to the massive pool of learning resources which are provided during the bootcamp itself. The school has over 15000 alumni from different parts of the world, and all of us can be reached via slack. Different slack channels are also created to support the alumni in terms of job search, career consulting, discussion etc. The school even organised a career week post bootcamp to ensure that we have a good head start at looking for jobs. During this week, alumni and top management of tech companies are invited to give talks about the job market and what skills are in demand for the roles that are related to our career pathway. There were also workshops to guide us for crafting our CVs/cover letters/Linkedin/Github and portfolio pages. The school even went into networking with hiring partners so that we have a better chance in the job market compared to other bootcamp graduates. The tremendous effort in supporting us from start till end is what touched me the most.

What are the Skills Learned During Bootcamp?

During the bootcamp  itself, some of the skills that are taught include data sourcing such as SQL, API and web scraping, data preparation and exploration such as data cleaning using Pandas, data visualisation using matplotlib and seaborn, machine learning such as linear regression and logistic regression, classification and decision trees, as well as ARIMA for time series data, deep learning for image and natural language processing, as well as data engineering using bash, MLFlow and deployment using Google Cloud Platform. As far as I know, Le Wagon is the only data science bootcamp that spends one whole week teaching deployment, where other schools only allocates one or two days for the module. This is because they found out that data engineering and deployment skills are demanded more and more from data scientists. This also shows that Le Wagon cares about us students and always make sure that the skills taught during the bootcamp are relevant to what is used in the current market. We also learned how to build simple websites using Streamlit to showcase our projects.

Afterthoughts

After completing the bootcamp, I am now on a career switch journey to turn into a data analyst/scientist. Although I have successfully completed the bootcamp, I would say that this is only just the start of my journey, and there are definitely a lot more things for me to learn to transition into a good data scientist. However, Le Wagon provided me with the solid skills to get started, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wish to start a career in data science.

I had an amazing experience with Le Wagon. Before doing the bootcamp, I was working in Finance and was self-learning to code, but I needed more guidance and structure in my learning journey. Le Wagon provided that and more. It was a super supportive environment, the teachers were great at guiding us and really making sure we understood the concepts. At the end of the bootcamp, we worked on two projects in teams that brought together everything we learnt throughout the bootcamp & also taught us best practices of working in teams. It’s amazing how much we learnt in such a short amount of time!

After multiple attempts to learn programming and miserably failing I needed some guidance and structure, so I decided to look for a coding boot-camp I could join and that’s how I came across LeWagon. Now, after surviving 10 weeks and completing the course I can proudly say that I would not go anywhere else. Throughout my journey full of ups and downs, moments where you’re about to give up, yet somehow you push through to see another day. This would not have been possible without the world class staff that they have! Support is the key component for success, and LeWagon has provided it all. Staff, Teachers and Teaching assistants working endlessly to help you out, making sure you understand every concept necessary. In the end it’s like a family, and I’m very proud to be part of it.