Le Wagon

Hi folks, it’s been about a month since my 9-week full-time full-stack coding bootcamp with Le Wagon Singapore has ended. Thus, I thought I’d share some thoughts on the experience for folks curious or wondering whether they should embark on this journey some time in their lives as well 😉 FYI it will all be in structured bullet points for other OCD ex-consultants out there.
Background & Motivations

• Prior to joining, I was a product manager in Shopee/Seamoney for 3 years. Had always felt inadequately prepared to take on more technical tasks like opining on required API fields, microservices architectures and debugging API JSON replies
• Had taken one Intro to Python course in college but couldn’t quite make the mental connection on going from “executing code in my black ugly terminal” to “making a pretty website” (I later learned that there are many uses for coding, and web development is just one of them, e.g. data science is another)
• Had desires to “start-up” after the bootcamp, so thought learning to code would be useful for either building my own MVP or being better at hiring developers (at least at the early stages without a CTO to help me)

Initial Expectations

• Going to be kinda intense (but I would handle it as it comes…)
• Lectures for half a day then coding for the other half (in reality it was more like a 20/80 split)
• Excited to meet non-Shopee people who have interests and backgrounds outside of e-commerce or financial services
• Ruby should be easy right? Not sure how it is different from Rails but they sound “same same but different”

First 2 Weeks: Intro to Ruby

• Le Wagon blew through my Intro to Python college course syllabus in 1 week. Thereafter I became very scared
• Le Wagon blew through Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) in the subsequent week. I was officially scared shitless 🙀
• I began to realize not a single person in the bootcamp had not prepared themselves at least semi-adequately before joining the bootcamp. Nobody left standing after the 2nd week seemed like a “first time programmer” and had at least been self-learning to code for a while beforehand, myself included technically (Le Wagon does have mandatory Ruby and Javascript prep work before you join the bootcamp but I still felt everyone had prepared themselves above and beyond the 30–40 hours prep work)

Next n-th Weeks: Database/SQL, Frontend Development, Intro to Rails
Some random moments remembered amidst the blur of 010101010101010…

• Why do I have to manually write everything into this .csv file? Is coding supposed to be this hard??? I just want to save my work in the database. I have to write code just to save it?? — low ROI
• Okay at least SQL is easy to pick up. I like this language — high ROI
• Every day is so hard… but some days are better than others (yay front end!! I finally have something pretty to look at) — some ROI
• Okay so I am going to go home, review my Le Wagon flashcards for the day, and study the next day’s lecture every night before I sleep, because I know I will absorb better the next morning if I am not seeing the material for the very first time — high ROI
• *the next day* This is still so hard and almost everyone gets it but me… but it’s okay to not be okay (alright so studying the night before was more like medium ROI, but still worth it)
• What is an MVC model? Is this what they use in Shopee? *proceeds to text an ex-Shopee developer furiously*
• Wow is Rails black magic? Do I have to do anything by myself now? (with great power comes great responsibility and magical bugs.. and you have no idea why they appear because you did not write Rails and barely understand how it works under the hood)

Final 2 Weeks: Rails FTW

• Wow, I built this single 3-model app myself!? https://caromistercocktail.herokuapp.com/
• A team comprising of myself and 2 other coursemates made this after struggling on using GitHub together for 2 days: https://welovegrowing.herokuapp.com/ (😮 did we really make this?)
• Same team composition also gave birth to: http://incast-fm.herokuapp.com/ (👊 we are rocking this~)
• OMG I can code full-stack now??? (apparently so… 🤪 DEMO DAY!!) Watch our demo day here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3iyX9j1hFE

Post-Bootcamp

• Been working on actually starting up; talking to loads of founders/investors/people in the mental health space (that’s what I’m currently looking at)
• Building Poke Escape by the side with the ex-Shopee developer I was texting furiously about MVC (Poke Escape is a reverse game scenario where you are the Pokemon trying to escape them pesky Pokemon trainers, instead of the usual “catch ’em all” mandate from the trainers’ POV)
• Wow I can still code!! I still have my superpowers post-bootcamp 🥰 But I have nobody to help me debug now… I miss my instructors

Closing Thoughts

• So now if you ask me, did I achieve all my personal goals through this bootcamp? The long and short of it is like any classic consultant would tell you is, “yes and no”:

(i) “Yes”, I am a lot more comfortable looking at APIs and JSON strings now, but “No” if I were to hypothetically rejoin the Shopee product team, I still do not think I would have that technical aptitude / interest to work on the details of a microservices architecture like some of my ex-colleagues were (hey, we all have our fair share of strengths and weaknesses)
(ii) “Yes”, I can make a (kinda) pretty website and build my own MVP. But “No” I honestly don’t think I would build my own website/MVP at the end of the day because of the present day proliferation of low or no-code products in the market out there, e.g. Wix and Bubble. And when things start getting serious.. well then… “hello wanna stop working on Poke Escape and be my CTO?”
(iii) “Yes” I would probably care a lot more about how developers I’m about to hire think about writing clean code and collaborating with others, but “No” I still have no clue on how to ace a technical interview and am definitely not qualified to judge their technical prowess just by assessing their public Github code repos

• So then given the above, would I still recommend someone to learn to code? 100% YES (but go at your own pace because it is a real commitment). Le Wagon’s tagline is “Change your life, learn to code”. Not going to lie (those who know me personally know I’m very honest), it’s not just a tagline — definitely learn to code at some point because in my experience, it will change the way you think about the world. In fact, I have two personal analogies on what learning to code is like.

(i) Learning to code is like learning science for the first time but for the digital world. I almost felt like a kid that had grown up knowing how to walk and swim and jump my entire life (“yay I just bought something on Shopee!”) but never having learned the technicalities or science behind it (“the frontend client will now go through the router in Rails to go to the right controller / controller action to retrieve the right information from the database to be calculated and returned to the user in the right View” *full disclaimer that this absolutely does not represent Shopee’s tech stack or architecture at all*). Extending that analogy further, having done this bootcamp doesn’t mean that I am suddenly a “computer scientist” — just like how one cannot be a quantum physicist after having just taken Physics 101 in college. But it does mean I have the fundamentals and the confidence to pursue the next level of knowledge if I so choose to. Does that make sense?
(ii) Learning to code is like to learning to cook — useful to know at any level and especially under COVID times. You may learn just well enough to cook noodles/rice (me from Intro to Python times), or prep a basic home cooked meal under 30-minutes (that’s where I think I am now), or become a real home amateur chef (aspirations 💪), or turn pro (personally not for me, but 80% of my coursemates were aspiring full-time developers so power to them!). Bottomline is that it’s nice to be able to cook and feed yourself even if you could theoretically do takeout or order Grab delivery for every single meal

• Finally, for those asking themselves whether they should join a coding bootcamp vs self-learn, personally it was just a personal choice suited to my own… undisciplined enough circumstances. IMO the true value of this bootcamp and why you learn faster than self-learning lies in:

(i) A very tried and tested structured syllabus so you do not get distracted
(ii) The ability to ask your instructors/teaching assistant for help at any time and MULTIPLE times a day (we had 3 instructors/TAs, so teacher-student ratio was like 3:1 for our small class of 10) → cannot stress the importance and privilege of doing this enough
(iii) The ability to pair program with your daily assigned buddy and bounce ideas / get a fresh pair of eyes to review your code when you get stuck → a very realistic scenario when you are a full-time developer as well
(d) Real-life projects you get to choose to work on so you build the confidence to go forth and give life to your own pet projects (for reference, on our Demo Day all 3 teams had worked on vastly different themes. Our project was a B2B private podcasting app, another team made a B2C e-commerce makeup app, another team made a CRM-ish app for migrant workers in SG)

• Needless to say, I am changed forever 😇

Read less

The overall experience was great ! Knowledgeable teachers, always there to help during the hard times, curriculum is set up to pass you through the most important things you need to know, life time access to KITT the platform where u can re watch all the lectures and have access to so so many great resources. The only regret i have is not taking this step earlier and perhaps not preparing better before the bootcamp started. It is not easy, but what the majority of people saying is true, you get what you put in.
So what are you waiting for ? Learn to code ! Change your life :) Read less

Le Wagon Istanbul was a life changing experience that could help me to change my career as well. It was intense, friendly and rewarding! Finding Le Wagon came at the right time for me. I wanted to learn how to code so that I could improve my work-life balance, and especially so I could work from home. At the time I was working long hours in the hospitality industry, and I felt it was time to make a change. The choice of bootcamp format for me was perfect, because all the other courses I saw took way too much time…and I wanted to learn quickly. After graduating, looking back, I think I made great progress. I was remote for almost the whole bootcamp, which is why the buddy-system of paired-programming was even more important for me. It was hard at first, but it was really helpful to be able to interact with the other students. I learned how to help them when they were stuck, and in return they helped me. Team-work was especially important during Project Weeks (when we built a new web app together). I met amazing team-mates and learned a lot from their analytical skills. Projects Weeks were the highlight for me and I’ll miss them the most. It was really exciting having the freedom to solve problems by ourselves and code real solutions in a real web app. This is when my confidence grew the most, we were really gelling as a team. Since graduating I’ve made use of Le Wagon’s amazing global community to reach out to alumni in different cities and brainstorm about their progress. It’s really exciting to be able to connect with other people internationally, especially in London where I’m looking for a job. Career Week – in Week 10 – was very helpful in terms of employment, because we received a ton of information, informing us on the different kinds of jobs out there and how to prepare for interviews. It gave me more confidence! Now I’ve learned how to search for answers, how to code independently and I’ve developed my skills to such an extent that I feel confident I can keep learning and improving by myself using what I learned at Le Wagon. Read less

I was proudly part of the batch 568 in Le Wagon Milan. It has been a really exiting journey, where I found teachers with a lot of knowledge and most important a real passion for teaching and coding. I feel every day of the bootcamp that the team of Le Wagon Milan really wanted to make the students understand deeply all the concepts (and they reach always this objective ;) ) 
The bootcamp is intense but with really good human environment. The last weeks of the bootcamp are made for developing an app in small groups, this was amazing to experience coding in a team with all the best practice involved ;).
After the bootcamp teachers and the driver of the bootcamp are always available to mentor you about your level and for suggestions about your next steps in your career path. And not less important as an alumni you have access of all the courses and the community of Le Wagon for-ever.

If you are looking for a Bootcamp that not only "teach" but also "mentor" you, Le Wagon is definitely a good choice! 

Thanks Le Wagon Team Milan! Read less

At the start of 2021, I took the plunge to learn Web Development full-time for 9 weeks at Le Wagon Singapore, after 2 years of trying to learn it on the side through free online courses.

My instructors, being experienced software developers and teachers, were great at breaking down concepts simply, clearly and memorably, and explaining how best practices would prevent sticky situations in the real world. They were really approachable and intentional in creating a safe environment to ask questions, make mistakes and grow, and my peers were collaborative and highly motivated too. We had a high teacher:student ratio of 1:4 (including the TA), which ensured we got timely help when we needed it.

On top of that, the syllabus was well-structured such that I could feel my progress every single day by simply trusting the process. The daily exercises, flashcards and live code tested my understanding and recall to solidify my learning. Besides code, we learned important industry practices by doing - applying Test Driven Development, Continuous Deployment and Agile Project Management in our 2 final projects.

The bootcamp also opened my eyes to the world of start-ups as we pitched our product ideas to actual VCs (venture capitalists), went through a product design sprint and demo-ed our MVPs (minimum viable products). My instructors challenged us to implement realistic features and worked with us through hurdles, so that we built 2 apps we can be really proud of. More importantly, I now have a good foundation upon which I can continue growing as a fullstack developer. Read less

I came to Le Wagon Tokyo with the aim to commit to learning to code without sacrificing a full-time job. I have tried to self-study while working a couple years back with online courses but none would stick longer than a couple weeks. I finally took the leap and joined the 24-month part time course - one of the best decisions I've made. Attending classes and working in team to ship a complete web application product while working full-time was not easy. I sometimes heard me saying, "why am I doing this to myself?"! It helped tremendously when our teachers and TAs at LW Tokyo were extremely flexible and patient in accommodating our needs - switching smoothly to full remote due to the pandemic mid way, staying back to make sure we find a solutions to make our codes work, explaining things over... And it all made sense on the Final Project Demo Day when my team and I presented our product to more than 100 people and someone said they would like to test and use it! I took from LW Tokyo not only hands-on experience with web development and shipping a product, but also an incredible global alumni community where I can come for career advice for different countries, technical questions, inspiring entrepreneurial alumni - a community that I'm now proud to say I'm a part of. Read less

After I was placed on furlough over the summer I decided it was time to evaluate my career in events and consider what I wanted work to be like in the future.

I've always had a keen interest in web development and startups so the course at Le Wagon seemed ideal. 

From the first day, I knew it was a good decision and I enjoyed every minute of it. 

The course can be very challenging at times, but it's also highly rewarding and I would recommend it to anyone considering a career change or upskilling.

Due to Covid, my batch was completely remote and initially, I was a little disappointed, however, it quickly became clear that it comes with a lot of advantages like having a home setup with multiple screens, not losing time to commuting and being able to hop into a zoom room with a teacher in a matter of moments.

If you're considering it, please do go for it.
my only regret is not doing it sooner! Read less

I absolutely loved Le Wagon and had the best 10 weeks. The course structure, the teachers, the community: it's all perfectly thought-out and executed. I wanted to learn to code to make a dramatic career change from publishing to tech, and Le Wagon helped me to do so in just 9 weeks. Despite the entire bootcamp being held over Zoom (in lockdown in January 2021), the teaching standard and community still felt extremely strong. I couldn't recommend Le Wagon more.  Read less

I am an engineer with a background in wireless communication research, where the field of computer science wasn't traditionally used. After gaining exposure to the field of programming and basic data analysis across different engineering positions after graduation, I started enjoying working with data and thought to build my career in data science!

I had a very basic idea about data science, but considering how it's the state of the art field with an immense knowledge pool, I couldn't understand where to start, or what path to follow to study with it, let alone applying the broad field in any area. To my rescue, was this fantastic course of Le Wagon - data science course. 

I decided to opt for this course, because of their well thought and researched curriculum, which is perfect for people who want to venture into data science, even if they do not have prior knowledge of experience of the field. This course let us not only gain the technical knowledge but also enables our minds to think analytically and logically, which is required of a data scientist. Moreover, the teachers are extremely talented, dedicated and friendly, making such difficult concepts really easier for us to understand! By the time we finished with the course, we realized that we now have a project we built using all the skills we learnt in those 9 weeks, an amazing skillset and a mind to use those skills further in different applications! 

Not only that, they provided us with extremely resourceful career advices, workshops and seminars related to whole job search process in the field of data science and even how to further venture deeper into this field! Overall, this learning experience is truly life changing, and I'd recommend this course to everyone out there who want to build their career in data science! Read less

If you are looking for a bootcamp in Tokyo,  this is the number one so far.

It may sounds a cliche or just a marketing phrase but when they said you don’t need any previous knowledge or background related to coding is totally true. I have engineering background but in a totally different area.

At the very first day I couldn’t even code a simple method that prints out your full name, and now I’m just about to get a job as a web developer, is unbelievable how in just 9 weeks (full-time course) they can give you the right skills and tools to be fully prepared for the real world as a web developer.

Teachers and staff members are just amazing, and is not just a bootcamp, is a whole community where you can always get a help from them even tho after completing the bootcamp and also they can help you in your job hunting, have access to lectures  for ever, access to new events, etc.

To sum up, my experience was 10/10, it worth every single yen, if you want to change your career and explore new fields, this is the best investment that you can do for yourself. Read less

Overall, the teachers were very kind, friendly and helpful every time I went to them to ask questions, and the curriculum is very well designed and it enabled me to learn effectively and efficiently. They would happily take questions even if it is outside of the curriculum we're learning. This is the very difference between self-learning, the presence of a helping hand.  Read less

Before joining Le Wagon I was carrying out Master’s thesis research into the effects of stigma on implicit self-esteem. That was when I realised my future lies in data, so I enrolled in several short courses online to improve my abilities. Although it seemed like I learnt a lot from these courses there were many times that I felt lost and without anyone to turn to. There was clearly something missing. That’s why I decided to join the data science boot camp at Le Wagon. Before joining the boot camp, I tried to make the best use of my time by completing all the pre-work suggested to us. I would 100% recommend this to anyone starting out on their boot camp journey as it eased me into the subject and meant there were no surprises when I started.
 Once I joined the boot camp, I loved that I finally had an environment in which I could share confusions and victories or ask questions when I felt lost. It was amazing to work on the materials at my own pace and to know I could refer back to them when needed while getting feedback as I progressed.
 I also appreciated the wonderful experience of being able to work as a team to produce a final project that I think none of us would have been able to achieve alone. In the end, I was truly proud of this project which was an online web service for autistic uses to understand more about emotions in an intuitive way. Coming from a rather tech. light background, I was unsure about getting into data science. However, now that I made the move I cannot emphasise enough how pleased I am and how much I would recommend Le Wagon to anyone interested in pivoting into data science.  Read less

My experience at Le Wagon has been an extremely rewarding one. The training is very dense, but the exercises are very well structured and the teaching material used is really complete and easy to use. The professors (and the team of teaching assistants) are there to answer our questions on all the steps and the buddying system really allows us to exchange easily, in a very stimulating atmosphere!
I recommend it 100%!  Read less

 Hi, I'm Marie, 28 years old from Paris. Right after high school, I started to work fulltime multiple jobs as I needed to care for my family, find a condo etc. Studies were not an option back then. I ended up working in sales in a group that handles order distribution of medical equipment to professionals. When I finally was in a place to plan my future, I started to look for an efficient way to learn to code (my childhood dream). I spent days and night practicing on free courses on many platforms, but that wasn't enough. A friend of mine told me about Le Wagon so I looked it up and loved the idea of a bootcamp with a very strong and active community, and I thought "why not me?". Attending Le Wagon bootcamp was the best idea possible for me, I went from "hello world" to a full functionning website in a couple weeks and learned a lot about teamwork. It's really challenging and forces you to adapt your mindset to various situations. Finally, working every day with different buddies was beyond awesome and the teachers' team were extra supportive and comforting in hard times. Best experience ever, 14/10 would recommend to a friend.  Read less

Hello. My name is Nicolas and I attended Le Wagon Montréal Full-Stack Web Dev bootcamp in January 2021 (Batch #528).
While having a lot of difficulties finding a job in my original field (Logistics) because of the Covid-19 pandemic, I decided to learn new competencies.
As I've always been intrigued by programming and by the internet, I started looking for web programming courses and found Le Wagon Montréal.
After a month of asking questions through email conversations, I finally decided to jump into this new adventure. During 9 (very) intense weeks of learning, I encountered amazing people and discovered things unknown to me before. Le Wagon Montréal's staff is very attentive to your well-being. The teachers are patient, considerate, and will always be there to help you and answer your questions. I did not just learn programming. I did not just sit in the morning in front of my computer listening to the teachers. The program is perfectly shaped for students to be challenged and have fun at the same time.
In only 9 weeks, I am now able to build a website from scratch, with basic (but still very important) features. Just remember that 9 weeks before the end of the bootcamp, I knew nothing !
Jumping into Le Wagon Montréal's bootcamp was definitely one of the best experience of my life. Read less

I spent the last 10 years working as a Support guy, from big companies to start-ups, and I always felt I was missing something crucial. When some friends of mine told me about Le Wagon, it instantly became one of my goal. I waited for the right timing in my career to jump in this adventure... And now I know I should have done this a long time ago.
Le Wagon is a fantastic moment of your life where you’re surrounded with positive and supportive people who are teaching you how to code. During these 9 weeks, I never felt left alone and was able to go above and beyond the goals I thought I could achieve : I would have loved to stay for another 9 weeks and keep training.
Le Wagon was much more that I thought and I miss a lot being there, working with my teammates. I strongly recommend this incredible journey if you’re looking for your next learning adventure. Read less

I graduated from Le Wagon Paris in March 2021.Le Wagon is one of the best experiences of my life, I was lost in my school career and I wanted to reorient myself and after finding out about this bootcamp I decided to try it.
The courses are intense but all the teachers are attentive and really present to help us with every problem we encounter. I had no coding knowledge at the beginning of the course and I graduated just by working and listening to all the tips from the team for progress.
The learning methods and the program are impeccable, I recommend to all people interested in coding. Read less

I am working as a Digital Transformation consulant specialized in Artificial Intelligence & Data at IBM France since September 2018. Before that, I studied at ESCP which is a French Business school, thus I had no technical skills before taking my job, so I was more focus on the Business side of AI when you implement it on a projet for example. I decided to do Le Wagon, because I felt that those technical skills could help me a lot in my job, and my future career.
It did, because I feel more legitimate to work in AI & Data field now that I know what’s going on « under the hood », I can have deeper conversations with my clients about the technical side of the project, and my missions are more attractive.
Also, I met amazing people, we had a lot of fun and I learnt new things everyday during 9 weeks ! Read less

I had the chance to learn how to code via Le Wagon and it was the best decision that I’ve made. The program is intense we have to be ready for these 9 full-time weeks, but so interesting and well organised. I’ve learnt so much through the program than I could have on my own.
The teachers are all amazing because they were students before us and helped a lot when we had difficulties. They also gave us really good advices and tips and I was particularly touched by their kindness.
Being everyday in pairs with a different « buddy » was also really helpful, we struggled together and we don’t feel alone.

Joining Le Wagon is a big step for my career change, the journey was just amazing and I’m proud to be a part of the community now!

Thank you Le Wagon! Read less