Le Wagon

After graduating from my degree in history, a true passion of mine, I started travelling the world with the objective of seeing with my own eyes what i’ve been learning in school for 3 years. My goal was actually to take a year off and then come back to Montreal to do my masters degree, in order to become a history teacher.

 

One year and dozens of countries later, I still hadn't seen enough and decided to keep travelling and forgot about the teacher career. Soon after this, I discovered another passion of mine: landscape photography. It began taking a lot of space in my life, so when I came back to Montreal after 3 years of travelling, it became my job.

 

One thing you need to know about me is that I LOVE to connect with people who I have interests in common. So alongside my freelance photography, I started organizing outdoor photography workshops, for people who wanted to take their photography skills to the next level. When the time came to make my website, I discovered a new (yes, another one) passion of mine: technology. It was like a new world appeared before my eyes. What was so appealing to me is that the tech world’s mission was to fix one problem at a time to make humans life not only easier, but also prettier, because of course, what I was more interested in was web design and digital art.

 

It then became obvious for me that I wanted to be part of this new and exciting world and that coding was what interested me the most, especially that it would be very useful for my workshops. That’s when I started doing research on how I could become a programer. A friend of mine talked to me about Le Wagon and gave me his friend’s contact who graduated from the previous batch. I definitely asked him a lot of questions, can 9 weeks really be enough for anyone to become a programmer? What if I NEVER wrote a single line of code before? Am I smart enough? I haven't been in school for so long… What he told me was to trust the program and that anyone could become a programer with a lot of dedication and motivation. Motivated I was so I embarked myself in this crazy adventure at Le Wagon.

 

I will be honest with you: I doubted. The first 2 weeks were so hard that I started asking myself if I really had what it takes to achieve my goal. Teachers, T.A’s and Alumnis were really reassuring though, telling me to trust not only the program but also myself and to just enjoy the ride. I sure did enjoy the ride! The staff, the social events and the friendships that came with the program were really what made the ride so enjoyable. Like I said I love to connect with people that have the same interest than me so le Wagon was perfect for that.

 

So there I was, learning how to code alongside 16 other people from all over the world. However, if you told me at the beginning of the program that my app was going to get picked for demo day and that I would actually be able to design and code the app I don't think I would have believed you. Yet it happened! I coded my very own app with my team and pitched it in front of a 100 people at the Demo day.

 

Now looking back at these very intense 9 weeks, what I can say is that it was certainly difficult, but so gratifying and I would start over anytime. I can now call myself a Full Stack developer and can get my hands on any junior dev job (not without a lot of preparation) or start my own project. Not bad for someone who never wrote a single line of code in her life!

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I had always had a strong interest in code which started when I was watching my tech team developing our software in previous companies. Before launching my next ventures I had decided that this time I wanted to have the knowledge to code the product myself. I had heard about the course from friends in Paris who had done it in the past and was glad to find the class had also been opened in Barcelona.  

The course is really rich in terms of learning, but it is made in a way that everything is divided in daily courses and exercises which are easy to follow. And if there is anything you don’t understand straight away, the teacher and TAs are helping you with everything you need.

 

I would really recommend le Wagon course to anyone who either want to learn to code or simply become a better product owner by understanding what your engineers are working on.

After the Bootcamp,Emma,  Fred (a fellow le Wagon alumni) and I launched Amenitiz, a website-builder and digital management tool for the hospitality industry, and we’re now working with over 150 properties across Europe. Given the choice again, I would go back to le Wagon anytime, coding changed my life ! Read less

I was really intimidated to enter the Wagon! I thought I was not prepared enough, not well equipped, maybe too old, too different, do not deserve my place, etc... In fact, I asked myself too much (bullshit) questions!

Doing the Wagon's coding bootcamp was a revelation for me like destroying a wall that I had been building mentally for years and discovering skills I never thought I'd been able to master before!
It was hard to cope with different problems 10 hours a day every day, but the hardest thing was to fight against myself and fail while usually it's not an option for you. And one of the best part was a lot of other girls out there I could share my doubts with, it was a very supportive community!

This is a very intense but stimulating learning, you feel to exploit a new part of your brain remained dormant so far. If you doubt about yourself, you really have to trust the system, stay commited: a teacher, a TA, an alumni will always be at your side to reassure you about your potential, share his own experience with you, and prove to you that yes ... you can do it as well!

The pair-programming buddy, the Aperotalks with tech industry speakers, the Friday night beer off parties, the 10-day as a technical team project, the Office hours, etc... everything is carefully set up to improve your startup-up mindset, for networking and consolidating the community.

9 weeks later, I go out more confident, the opportunities to work seems endless.
And the aura of the Wagon follows you well after (with your Career Book at hand!) ... This is where you realize the chance to have been integrated into this great 5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ family!

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Before Le Wagon, I worked for years in logistics for a French retailer and someday I realised that I was searching an opportunity and a change of my professional life. I was used to data manuplation and was curious about coding my own application in my spear time.

So I tried to learn to code on online plateforms after work and in my weekends but it was far from efficient and I felt like wasting my time doing things that I didn't really understand. It was an frustrating coding experience until I decided to stop working and go for full-time bootcamp in Le Wagon. 

Here I spent 9 very intensive weeks that I never ever regretted with my motivated classmates, very good teachers Kelvin and Julien, and everyday helpful teaching assitants (during our coding time). It's with them that I managed to learn, and make mistakes.  

Today I know coding and I continue to code my own project with friends. And with what I learnt during these 9 weeks, I finally manage to learn other languages and technologies online myself. It opened a door to my life.

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Going into University I was unsure what I wanted to do after but went straight into an Economics degree “to keep as many options open as possible”. Four years later, with my Economics Bachelor in hand and with one year of work experience, I knew two things. The first being that what I had done during my work experience was not for me and the second that I had no intentions of further theoretical learning of any subject.

I decided to give myself a year to try different things: making a career out of my passion for cooking, travelling and giving myself time to figure things out. Working in a restaurant kitchen for three months, it quickly became clear that cooking was a passion but not a career for me. During that time a friend of mine was at le Wagon. Having already heard of the bootcamp whilst at University, I started to consider it for myself. I spoke to three alumni, from three very different backgrounds and I was convinced!

Looking back, these 9 weeks were hands down the most intense and intellectually and socially stimulating that I can remember. It has been an incredible personal journey to be welcomed into the amazing group that is Le Wagon community. I have learnt hard skills that I really enjoy and feel I can apply in a professional environment and my future career. Sharing this experience with other students creates strong connections and strong friendships as a result.

I cannot recommend Le Wagon strongly enough. Everyone will tell you that the most difficult part is the first three weeks but, for me, the hardest part was leaving all the amazing people I met straight after the end of the 9 weeks. My only advice then would be to give yourself some time after le Wagon, as it is truly a life changing experience.

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During my 4 years experience in the start-up ecosystem, I’ve been dreaming of coding and taking part in the developers’ round-tables. However, my lack of technical skills was a barrier to my participation and it seemed like an unreachable dream until I discovered Le Wagon through my friends who experienced the same frustrations.

During the 9 weeks of intensive training, the teachers did a phenomenal job as they drove the program with passion and great guidance to arm me with technical skills. Not only I am now able to working with my technical team but I can also develop my own web applications.

Enrolling at Le Wagon also means joining a growing community of passionate developers from all around the world who are feeding the network on daily basis and sharing knowledge.

The people I met, the experience I had and the skills I acquired were above my expectations. After Le Wagon, I decided to keep on coding and grow as a full stack developer.

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Le Wagon has a very friendly environment, open to students coming from all around the world. I started programming in India in 2015 and then, in 2017, I came to Canada (Montreal) to continue my studies. Before starting the bootcamp with Le Wagon in 2019, I was studying in a private university in Montréal, the "Institut Supérieur d’Informatique", where I completed my AEC (Certificate of Collegial Studies). After that, I had two options: I was accepted at University (UQAM) for a technical program, or I could do Le Wagon. I thought a lot and evaluated both options and decided go with Le Wagon. I chose Le Wagon because of the learning environment but ESPECIALLY the fact that they use Ruby on Rails. Also, I preferred the fact that I would be studying 9 intensive weeks practicing instead of doing 3 years of theory at University. I do not regret my weeks spent at bootcamp, I learned a lot, it opened my eyes, it allowed me to really understand the world of programming. If I had to do this again, I do it again with a GREAT PLEASURE. The last 2 weeks of the bootcamp were very rewarding for me because I was able to apply what I had learned during the 7 weeks. My project, ”Hike Away”, was very interesting to create: it allows people to travel and discover other worlds. It can be checked here: http://www.hikeaway.ca/

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My forties crisis? One thing is certain, I wanted to change my life. I worked more than 60 hours a week, sometimes even at night, without counting, for a company that was looking for its business model. Health concerns have led me to question my lifestyle and commitment. We used web agencies and developers, but the result was not up to our expectations. Creating a simple landing page for the launch of a service seemed out of reach to me. There was some mystery and fascination with the code. There are many online resources for learning. I had started a few years ago to learn the basics with Codecademy. However, learning alone in front of a screen requires will and commitment. I did not even go after the first week.

As a perfectionist, I like things to be done according to the rules. Writers learn the rules of the language, before freeing themselves from them to create masterpieces. I had to learn the basics to move forward. That's why I opted for a shortcut, to integrate a bootcamp that has proven its worth, with a well-defined methodology. The one of Le Wagon is proven. The motto is explicit : 'change your life, learn to code'. So I decided to make a leap of faith, my goal was not to become a developer, but to understand the mindset and the "working process".

I had been warned from the first day: it would be difficult, do not compare yourself to others, each progressing at his own pace. Optimistic by nature, I had not measured the extent of these warnings. Go back to the place of a student, take a class in the morning, and then continue with exercises the rest of the day, get stuck in front of an error message, try to understand why, and solve the error, move on to the next one. New concepts every day, then exercises, every day. For nine weeks. But it is worth it. Actually, thinking backward, it seems obvious: facing a complex problem, you divide it into smaller parts, and keep resolving each one. Simple to say, the execution takes time. I learned to step back on the issue, and to consider the different options. Now with this experience I can face a problem without fear, and keep confident. My first experience: debugging a website made with wordpress, the client was looking for an expert. A friend of mine sent me the request and told me to accept the challenge, and to fake it until I make it. Well I made it.

Today I am launching my web agency, targeting the Chinese market, and helping companies who want to brand overseas. In the meantime, I can bootstrap with freelance gigs with my new skills. I can discuss web marketing and web strategy with my clients, asking senior developers to help me in the process, I keep learning every day, still face error messages, but fearless and confident...

Would I recommend Le Wagon? 110%, would I do it again? Definitely. And more : I would go back to my twenties and kick my ass to learn to code.

My next challenge: be fluent in mandarin.

Who knows what my fifties crisis will lead me to..

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After 3 years spent developing the business activity of a startup in the smart cities field (OPnGO), I decided to follow the coding bootcamp Le Wagon to develop my technical skills.

Indeed, during my experience at OPnGO, I saw a start-up grow from 3 to 70 people in 30 months and I had to deal with scalability issues, especially on topics related to marketing. It occurred to me that it was not always easy to understand the problems of a technical team of 30 people and to interact with them. Moreover, it seemed to me that this lack of understanding could make my arbitration decisions less relevant, especially when defining the technical roadmap of the product. Finally, I quickly realized that becoming autonomous on the development of front-end improvements could represent a huge advantage in terms of responsiveness, especially with respect to tech teams that are often overloaded in the growth phase.

The wagon perfectly met my expectations and even exceeded them by making me discover a network of alumni active and very supportive. The wagon will remain a very strong experience in my life and I know it will count in the way I approach my next challenges. Indeed, thanks to these new skills, I intend to integrate a new startup and to cross new stages of development.

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After an internship as a business developper in a tech start-up in NYC that only highlighted my lack of technical skill I decided to take a whole gap year to learn how to code. 

Le Wagon seemed to me the best option to start the year. All I can say it's that it has exceeded all my expectations. The program is well designed, the teachers are very good and motivating, the alumni network is really strong. 

I am such a big fan of Le Wagon that I stayed there as a teaching assistant and now as a teacher for the next batchs of students. 

I can easily say these 6000+€ has been the best investment in my life !

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My name is Matthieu, I’m 29 years old and I’ve recently completed the 9 week bootcamp at Le Wagon. The idea of following Le Wagon’s formation came to me after few years working in the law industry.

Amateur of computer science, I wanted to develop my programing skills but did not want to spend more time than needed. I wished to be able to start working in this field ASAP. Since a few years, many companies offert this kind of quick formation and it’s hard to know which one to pick. I asked around, to friends, in the headhunting industry for instance, and many of them talked to me about this bootcamp. Unfortunately, when I  applied, there were no place left, so I decided to follow another course until the next session. 3 month later, I finally enrolled at Le Wagon in Paris.

The fact that I had followed a previous formation in programing helped me for the first days. Mostly, it enabled me to realize the benefits such a bootcamp : qualified, available and caring teachers. As far as I know, the programming community is full of helpful people and for most of your interrogations, you can find answers online. But for a beginner, having someone near you, explaining why your code went wrong is the easiest way to learn quickly. Besides the schooling, Le Wagon organises many events, allowing students to meet inspiring people (alumni, freelancers, CTOs, CEOs…)  which is very helpful to build a network if you’re new to the tech industry. It helps you to decide which position you would like to hold after the bootcamp.

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After 3 years in business development in startups, I was frustrated not to understand the code behind tech products so I did Le Wagon! It was a learning blast!  I constantly learned during 9 weeks and I really appreciated the mutual assistance from co-workers and alumni. I had the image of solo developers and was surprised by the team spirit. I also found it really playful to solve problems and had the opportunity to pitch my project about employee perks and to construct a MVP with a great team. It gave me wings so as to continue to develop our demo project called Luma and try to make it grow for bringing happiness to employees.

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After 4 years in a fast-growing startup, I decided to leave the company few months ago as a Product Manager. I joined le Wagon because I experienced a lack of technical background within the product field & felt that it was option for me to do. Indeed, I learned a lot about computer programming and now I see beyond the mockuping and design tasks that are regular for PM’s. All the skills that I learned help me now to go deeper into my job and explore infinite options to create awesome products. I highly recommend le Wagon to every PM/PO willing to level-up.

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After 3 years working in support functions for a Tech Startup, I was frustrated not having a better understanding of technical topics.
I decided to develop coding skills with Le Wagon to find a job as product owner after the bootcamp. But the quality of the program made it really fun to learn and now I have decided to go on and improve my skills to actually find a job as web developer.
Also gathering different kind of motivated people from diverse backgrounds to develop new expertise created a great atmosphere.
I didn’t expect Le Wagon to have such an impact on my professional objectives and I highly recommend it.

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Before Le Wagon, I was Head of Operations in a start-up in the Foodtech industry. 

I wanted to add technical skills to my resume and I choose Le Wagon which seemed to me the best "product-oriented" coding bootcamp.

During 9 very intensive weeks I learned a lot, about RoR, HTML, CSS, JS etc.... but also about myself. I haven't been that challenged for years. I'm also glad I had the chance to meet all these people with very different backgrounds.

I'm still impressed by the strength of the student / alumni network. Following the bootcamp I had great job opportunities from Le Wagon's alumni / entrepreneurs.

I'm now about to start a new job as a Head of Product Mobile.

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I’m a Greek-American living in Paris for the past 12 years and I love solar power, biking, and music… and now coding!   I’ve been working for the past six years as VP Marketing at DualSun, a French solar startup that developed an innovative solar panel.  As part of my job, I frequently work with developers to build our web presence and I decided to do Le Wagon to work more efficiently with the developers — to be able to challenge and validate their work which is really hard to do when you don’t have the technical experience. I also wanted to do Le Wagon for personal reasons -- to learn something new, to work my brain differently, and simply to go back to school! And so I did Le Wagon Paris batch #220 (Jan-Feb 2019) and I LOVED it.  It exceeded my expectations not only on a technical level, but on human and social levels as well. On a technical level, I now not only feel competent to challenge developers, I discovered I love coding and that there’s a lot of stuff (not everything) that I can do by myself! The program is really well-designed with a (superbly-coded!) online platform with lectures, videos, exercises, and more.  The teachers and the TAs are great and helpful and make learning such a pleasure.  And we had such a great time with the other students — every day, you work with a different “buddy” which is a great way to meet new people and discover new learning styles. Beyond the course, the staff at Le Wagon is amazing and organized many incredible side events - CEO talks, happy hours, coding competitions, and of course, the final Demo Day.  And the network and post-bootcamp support is incredible too!  I could go on and on…. What’s next?  I plan to go back to my job at DualSun with a more tech-focused role, and hopefully continue dev projects on the side, and who knows, maybe at some point, become a full-time developer. In short, Le Wagon is an incredible experience to learn how to code… and so much more!  Read less

Soon to be graduated from a business school, I joined Le Wagon in January 2019. After a digital marketing master, that provided me academic knowledge, I felt like I needed some technical skills. Learning to code seemed to be the most relevant thing to do. I won’t tell you that I was passionate about coding before joining Le Wagon, I won’t tell you neither that I dreamed about becoming a developer since my first day at kindergarten. That is not who I was and besides this, this is not really the type of people Le Wagon is targeting. But I can tell you one thing: I wanted to learn something that will help me to stand out from the crowd of “business-students-willing-to-work-in-digital-marketing”. And thanks to Le Wagon, I have been served! Honestly, I can say that it was one of the most enlightening experience of my life. I learned so much. I learned about API, parsing, scraping, AJAX… Did I lose you? That’s ok, I can’t even realize that I am actually using these words, me, Jeanne, that used to be a French Literature student! And this is what I liked the most about Le Wagon: people coming from different backgrounds, but no one knew how to code. Working alongside curious people challenged me every day to do my best. Now, I can say I like to code, but what I like the most about coding is that it is a world of possibilities, and the knowledge never stops! It has truly changed my vision of the digital world and I feel ready now to join a tech start-up or a digital agency/consulting firm.

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We all know that time flies, even more when you are having a good time. This defines exactly the bootcamp Le Wagon in Paris I just attended (batch #220). Before giving you more details on my awesome adventure at Le Wagon, let me tell you first how I came up with the decision to enroll in this bootcamp.

Initially graduated in Finance degree, I worked in an asset management company as an accountant for 6 (long) years. Classic, steady and comfy executive job you would guess. Bored of seeing the same figures and Excel spreadsheets over and over again, I seized the opportunity during my company restructuration to change path. I was kind of a nerd during my childhood and was always interested in the web and tech fields. Having heard good things about Le Wagon from some friends working in this environment, I decided to give a look and a try after reading useful reviews (I hope this one will help too!)

You could imagine that 9 weeks is too short for being a web developer … Indeed, this is brief but so efficient as those 9 weeks are perfectly optimized to learn! The courses are perfectly balanced between lectures in the morning and practical exercises for the rest of the day to assimilate on your own pace. You see and live every day differently as you learn to team up with people. The staff in Paris are warm and care about their students by paying attention to them until the end and after the bootcamp.

I was starting from scratch on web languages, and I learned so much during the 9 weeks that I am now more confident to pursue my career in the web industry. My adventure in Le Wagon brought me a convivial social network and good friends with whom you could tell lame nerd joke! Don’t be afraid of going to the yoga that the bootcamp offers, first it will relax you from your laptop (and take some ninja naps) and you will make your body and mind more flexible (I was as flexible as a tree before and I can easily touch my feet now!)

After Le Wagon, I plan to land a first job as a FullStack web dev job, and during the bootcamp, I had some friends that had ideas of project but didn’t know where to start the app, and I could tell them the feasibility with my Le Wagon experience. So, I have also several projects, including a bot that will automatize business flows and a personal finance planning analysis tool.

Thank you for reading me and hope you will enjoy Le Wagon if you decide to step in!

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I got my Master II in Digital Business & e-Commerce in September 2018. I did a work/study training program in Saint-Gobain for the last 2 years, in the e-Commerce department.

Interviews after interviews, one thing kept coming back: I did not have enough tech abilities.

That’s why I decided to join Le Wagon in January 2019 in Paris.

At first, I thought that I would be overwhelmed by all the new things I was going to learn, but the program is extremely well studied, and everything then seems obvious.

9 weeks can seem short to learn to code an app from scratch, but you would be amazed how fast you’ll learn.

The atmosphere at Le Wagon is very family-like. Everyone is here to help each other, no one is better than anyone. We all share the same ambitions and the same will to learn something new. There are lots of different types of profiles, and that’s what amazing about it.

Le Wagon was kind of life changing experience for me. Now that I found what I really enjoy doing, I’m looking for a position as a Developer Web Junior, I decided to get away from the business side. I’m much happier in the tech environment.

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I applied to the Wagon bootcamp to strengthen my technical skills. I began my career as a Consultant, then as a Marketing Project Manager in a pure player travel company. I liked the digital ecosystem very much. I could rapidly evolve as a Software Product Manager, which I enjoyed very much. However, this new job required to develop new skills, to be able to translate the Product vision into something that could be understood and used by the developers in my team. I felt uncomfortable, because I had a too approximative idea of how a website is built. Le Wagon gave me a solid technical basis that helps me everyday to understand precisely the technical implications of the features I imagine. Also, it gave me the keys to dig deeper into technical subjects that interest me. For instance, I was able to develop my first chatbot, and I recently began a training on data science! Read less