Le Wagon

Going to Le Wagon was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Before the bootcamp, I worked in research in University, then for nearly three years in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) working with children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders. In this role we used some apps and I collected, entered and managed data, and this all made my burgeoning interest in technology grow. While working in ABA was very rewarding, I came to a point where I knew I needed to do something else, and I knew I wanted to pursue something involving technology while still incorporating my interests and skills I already had.

I started taking courses on codeacademy to see if this was truly a path I wanted to go down; if I enjoyed it; if I was interested in it; if I was any good at it. I decided I did, but after a few months taking courses, I knew I wanted to go somewhere where I could truly be immersed in coding, and learn as much as I could possibly learn. So I started looking up bootcamps online, and all the reviews I read led me to Le Wagon.

Attending Le Wagon was a wonderful experience. I learned more than I ever thought possible over the course of 9 weeks. Now I can say I am a Full-Stack Developer, thanks to my experience at Le Wagon. 

My favorite part of the course was the group projects at the end. They put us in a position where we were free to be creative and apply our new coding skills to this process. While we were coding these apps by ourselves, we still had the support of all the teachers/TAs. They were ready to answer any questions we had as well as help guide us to a conclusion if we needed it without totally giving away the answer to solve the problem, so we could be guided to figure it out ourselves.

Overall I definitely recommend Le Wagon if you are looking to immerse yourself in coding and especially if you want to make a change in your career.

I was very surprised by the overall experience at Le Wagon since I didn't look up for any references and only knew the existence of Le Wagon and IronHack. I chose Le Wagon only because their PDF looked better haha and honestly couldn't be happier with my choice!

First because they have a buddy system, which is so powerful for your learning! Having someone different every day by your side can enrich the way you approach problems and give you different perspectives about logical thinking.

Second because you have a plataform in which you can see all lectures material and challenges you have to do. It is so organized and you can revisit any time you want, even after the course.

Third because at the end of the bootcamp, you build two web app in group. It is good to learn how you'd work in real life with team members and also to consolidate all the learning. And if you're feeling confident, you can search for diiferent features (that you didn't learn at the course) to use in your app and have all the help from the teachers to implement them with you.

So, if you're in doubt about which bootcamp to do, I would definetely recommend Le Wagon! :)

Honestly, it was an amazing two months.

I started the bootcamp with very little coding experience and I am just astonished how I got through this quite dense program.

At first, you can get a bit scared by the amount of information you will need to digest on a daily basis but actually they have nailed the pedagogy behind it: 1h30 morning class, 6h exercise with a buddy and then some small daily exercise to do at the end of the day to memorise the main points you learned during the day.

But all of this wouldn't be possible with out the five-stars staff at the Paris bootcamp… All the teachers, teachers assistants and the main staff are la crème de la crème. As soon as you start the program, you sense a sort of "family feeling" because everybody is ready to help each other. If you are having issues, the teachers are there to guide you and not give an easy answer, that makes a big difference.  

On top of that, the community and event staff are on fire – organising events on a weekly basis in order for each batch to know each other better but as well with external guests with whom we can exchange on many topics like "go freelance", "how to set up your first startup", "how to manage your finance" etc... When I decided to undertake that bootcamp, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do afterwards (PM, Dev or stay in my field of Marketing) and although I have continue in Marketing, I can finally have a full conversation with the tech/product team and have them completely understand my needs and be much more efficient. Fully recommended!

As part of my Business School master, I had the opportunity to learn a lot of things doing several internships as a strategy consultant. However, I had the feeling that it was absolutely not the field in which I wanted to work in the future. I started to listen to some podcasts about the French startups environment and I found an interview of Boris and Romain Paillard, the two Le Wagon co-founders. This interview was clearly an eye-opener and I felt that coding was something I really wanted to learn. Therefore, I did my last internship in a startup specialized in food delivery as a data analyst. I could learn some skills about SQL and I really loved it.

Consequently, I decided to start Le Wagon coding bootcamp in order to get hard skills and find a job in tech. This decision was one of the best I have ever taken in my whole life. Despite the fact that I have learnt how to code in several programming languages, Le Wagon made me live an incredible human experience, meeting and working with so many different people with the buddy system. The teachers are always there to help you when you need them and at the end you can build by yourself a real project, whether it is a mobile app or a website.

Thanks to Le Wagon I shared an amazing adventure with a great team of people and I will launch my start-up meeting my co-founder alongside the final project.

Before joining Le Wagon, I was working as a Junior PM in a tech start-up. I was very interesting on learning how to code, so i tried to learn by myself but the overwhelming level of information I found on the web and the apparent difficulty made me give up quickly.

This is where Le Wagon Paris came in. Honestly, the program is such that you can learn very efficiently and acquire all the necessary knowledge to let you stand on your own feet.
The environment was super great, I had fun everyday. In only 2 months I meet a lot of amazing people that inspired me, whether it was during the classes or the afterworks.

I'm extremely happy and grateful for the experience. I couldn't have made a better use of my time.

Being a business school student not on the job market yet, my few job experiences made me realize one thing : I might have screwed up my education orientation.
Thankfully, some short-length programs are available to make up for that, and that's when Le Wagon showed up.  
The program is only 9 weeks long and can easily fit in a tight schedule with a few arrangements made (i'm still a student so obviously that was easier for me).
I didn't really know what to expect from it, as i had no damn clue how coding worked even though i've always been tech-savvy.

But oh boy was i in for a surprise, and a great one.
The teaching-staff is highly competent and partially composed of former students as well as full-time teachers. The building and classroom give a nice atmosphere to focus and work, and the curriculum is made so that you get to meet new people and participate in few activities that will make each week unique.

It's been a month since Le Wagon is over and i'm already missing it and the numerous people i've met there and probably won't see again.
Would definitely do it again if i had not already gained the technical skills taught there (because the program is that good).
Le Wagon helped me develop new and useful skills, and gave me the tools to rethink my long-term professionnal and personnal goals.

One downside however:  i might have developed a caffeine addiction.

After 7 years working as a digital project manager in web agencies, I decided it was about time to look behind the curtain and understand how the websites I was working on were made.

I was constantly asked by my clients how long it took to correct or build a feature, and quite often I was completely mistaken. Even though I was trying my best to understand what the developers were saying, I realized I needed to experiment this world myself and learn everything from scratch.

And after these two amazing months in Le Wagon, I have quit my job and I’m now searching a job as a developer ! I know that the road ahead is long, and I have still so many things to learn, but I know that I’ve got all the tools needed to keep on learning the right way.

Never learned so much in such a short period. I decided to make a career change to coding because I felt I needed a big change in my life. Before enrolling the bootcamp I looked at all the reviews from various websites and Le Wagon was the only bootcamp that had great reviews. Then I decided to join the bootcamp and I’ve been to an interview with Alex Tombeur, the UK Manager who was extremely helpful to explain me the course structure and the steps to join the bootcamp.

In less than 9 weeks I managed to work in a team of four and created 2 complex web products. Also, the staff have been helpful, very well prepared teachers and teaching assistants. Throughout the bootcamp I've made a lot of friends and they were like my second family.

I had the opportunity to attend many events and to be introduced to many people thanks to Le Wagon driver.

The post-bootcamp support is very helpful. The week after completing the bootcamp, Le Wagon arranged a hiring week event at their office in London where I had the opportunity to speak with recruiters and employees looking for junior web developers. 

Finally, studying at Le Wagon was the best thing I have ever done and to be honest the bootcamp was much more than I expected.

I graduated from Le Wagon, London in September 2019 and immensely enjoyed it. The entire experience from start to finish was fantastic: the teachers and everyone working there are very supportive and helpful, the lectures are broken down nicely for everyone to understand and the additional information provided on their platform along the way is perfectly done. I am really impressed of how the course was structured and what they (and we) managed to achieve in these 9 weeks. My most favourite part was the projects weeks, where we got to work in a team (I was in a team of four) and build projects just like we would in a work environment and then present the final project in front of everyone. It was a proud moment for all of us as it's unbelievable to imagine where we had started from and what we had achieved in such a short time.

A few years ago I tried to start my business but was dependant on others for the technical skills. This year, when I decided to leave my field and start-up a new project, I wanted to be independent and autonomous to code the MVP myself. Le Wagon taught me front languages such as HTML and CSS, but also helped me master Ruby and the Rails framework. In the beginning I was doubtful as we had to absorb a lot of information in a short amount of time. It seemed confusing and overwhelming! All along, teachers told us to “trust the program” and they were right. With their help and the buddy system, it all made sense when we started to work on the framework (around week 6).

Thanks to Le Wagon, I coded the MVP for my start-up, learned to pitch my project to an audience met amazing people with various backgrounds and even my co-founder! :)

Well, the true story is maybe a bit more than this. Coding was always intriguing to me, as my generation is so used to instant gratification, somehow after I tried a bit coding on some mobile app, I found coding is somehow similar to instant gratification, because you see the result right away, or wether right or wrong. This is how I got engaged.

I had a few different jobs after graduate, and I see none of it as the thing I would like to do for the rest of my life, that is to say, none of it actually mattered to me. At that time I felt lost, How exactly I wanna spend my life? Am I surrounded by the people who share the same passion as I do? Alright, it was too overwhelming just think of it. Let me think of how to spend the summer first. For example, let’s learn some coding for fun this summer! And seems like the closest upcoming batch is the one of Le Wagon, I didn’t even do any more research and just signed up after the interview with Le Wagon Barcelona. And, I made no mistake!

I woke up happy everyday during the two months of class, I met plenty of people who share the passion as I do, we had countless amazing and inspiring conversations, we laughed hard together, we learned coding together, we did 2 projects together. It all happened in only 2 months. Honestly Le Wagon opened another door for me, for the first time I feel closer to the life I want, I feel slightly under control of my life. For now I am working on my own portfolio, and trying to land my first job in tech!

I graduated from Law School at UFRJ in Rio de Janeiro - Brazil.

Afterwards, I started my attorney activity, had some teaching experience in college and also at "BAR" preparation courses (in which I taught Tax-Law) and studied for "concursos públicos" which are public tests as a means to ingress as a public servant (as are Judges and Public Attorneys).

During this time, I had two post-graduate courses in Tax-Law and Customs Law. So after being in a market in crisis for 3 years, I had to change.

The few friends of mine who were thriving were programmers. There's where I should head, then.

I started to study Programming at Stanford's CS101 and then Harvard and Yale's CS50.

I went to Portugal to attend at a Bootcamp called "Academia de Codigo" but they only told me that I had to be portuguese to attend when I was there (and after 3 testing phases).

Then, a friend who works in England told me to attend Le Wagon in Rio.

Oh! The irony of life. I had to go to Portugal to see that the best bootcamp in the world was next door.  

It was one of the most intense experiences in my life. Staying in the same place studying from 9 to 19 is tiresome but also very rewarding. I learned more in two months there than in the past 6 months studying alone at home by myself.

Now that it's finished I feel more than ready to join the market and I'm really glad to have done it. My goal now is to be able to help other people find their worth again, just as I did.

Hence, this review. I hope I could be of any help for you.