Le Wagon

Before joining Le Wagon, I worked as a finance analyst. I wanted to take a break and had always been intrigued by the happenings within the tech and start-up scene, and thus after a period of research, I decided to apply for Le Wagon in Copenhagen. 

Why Le Wagon?

I was based full-time in Asia, where coding bootcamps were not yet popular at the time of my application, and so I looked abroad. I browsed bootcamps in the U.S., but found most of them very expensive, and was lucky to find out about Le Wagon after perusing online reviews. Headquartered in Paris, Le Wagon offered classes across Europe and is now expanding to Asia and Latin America. It stood out as one of the more affordable options while not compromising quality and content. I am now happy to attest to the strength of the reviews I had read before I applied. 

Le Wagon was an intensive 9-week program with the goal of equipping creatives and entrepreneurs with the skill set to kick-start and launch their ideas. That said, you do not need to have a business idea to join Le Wagon. I found the program extremely well structured and thought out — lectures in the morning to introduce new concepts, exercises in the afternoon to practise those new concepts, and live-coding sessions in the evening to make sure everybody is on the same page. In the last few weeks, we plunged into developing our own projects, and it was incredible to see what one could do after learning 7 weeks of code. Of course, do not expect yourself to become an expert after the bootcamp, however, you will have a solid foundation in code to continue your journey as a junior developer or test out your ideas!

For me, my biggest takeaway from Le Wagon was the community. I met amazing classmates from all parts of the world and different backgrounds, and all converging to learn code together. Teachers at Le Wagon all teach with passion and immense belief in the program — most lecturers and TAs were former Le Wagon students, and it just comes to show the strength of the alumni community. We also had the pleasure of meeting Boris the founder of the program, and saw his vision in empowering ourselves through code in no matter what we do. You can see how much care and thought the founders behind the bootcamp had put into shaping the course by going through all the lecture materials, exercises, and flashcards they had put together and made available online to all students. 

Why Copenhagen?

The deciding factor for me was simply that I was curious about life in Scandinavia and thought there probably would not be another time for me to move across the world and spend 3 months here! I was extremely glad with my choice — not only was Copenhagen a lovely city with a unique pace and biking culture, but the Le Wagon program was also run by a very competent alum who knew exactly what he was doing. Guest lecturers were invited on same days and they were either seasoned developers or designers in the field, and we were blessed to have them come in and share tips and insights with us. These teachers have now become our mentors and I am really grateful to have met them. 

If you are deciding which city to join Le Wagon in, I would recommend Copenhagen with no hesitation. Most of my batch were international students, and we are now once again scattered across the globe to pursue the next steps in our careers. The skills you learn at Le Wagon are universal and highly transferable, so why not spend 9 weeks in a new city and where is the quality of teaching is great? 

Before I joined Le Wagon I thought programming was something only 15 year olds living on their computer could do. Now I find out that I have the potential to be amazing at it and Le Wagon helped me make unimaginable progress. I used to not know anything about the command line or even code and now much of it comes like second nature. I also used to hate class and considered dropping out of university but I just discovered I was being taught wrong and at the bootcamp I enjoyed attending class and it was easy to pay attention. The majority of the course was spent solving small problems that trained my brain to be the developer I am today. The instructors were phenomenal and when it was all said and done this course was good. Many boot camps advertise what they excel at but Le Wagon just excels across the board. I can now build websites with relative ease and I could hardly work the command line before. Finally, my classmates and I got very well. Having travelled from America for this, I made some lifelong friends from all across the world. You often hear testimonials about how it was hard to leave but I would not dismiss the sense of community Le Wagon builds. The buddy system they employ works wonders on getting to know people and the manager Ed is absolutely amazing and will make you feel comfortable from the first day until the last. If you are going to learn web programming and design I give this program my full recommendation.

Hey guys, just wanted to leave my experience and opinion here about my time at Le Wagon in Barcelona, I was part of the first cohort.

It was truly a great time, the curricula was great, I really learned a lot about coding as well as front end.

I finished my project in the end and I enjoyed the overall experience, Gus the driver was helpful, I made great friends and my time in Barcelona couldn't be better, the city and weather was perfect.

I would recommend it, if you have a project you want to complete.

Hello,
  I am Aryana, a Le Wagon Alumni. Like many students there, I had no idea I wanted to become a Web Developer until recently - but I believe it is one of the best decisions I ever made!
  I graduated from a Business School 3 years ago - not because I was interested in business, but because I had no idea of what I wanted to do. After that I became a freelance recruiter, and worked with recruitment agencies. One of them was specialized in IT profiles. Not only did I realize that there was a shortage of programmers and web developers, but a vast majority of the programmers I spoke to were enthusiastic and loved their job. That got me thinking. I had done a little programming myself during my free time and had loved it. Why couldn't I become one myself...?
  As I had no real experience in programming, I knew I would have to follow some kind of course. But which format / language should I opt for ? I went through many websites, spoke to quite a few programmers, and was starting to think I would never find a short but intense program that met my needs (most of these had bad reviews on the Internet) until one IT Teacher I spoke to told me about Le Wagon. I looked into it, and it seemed perfect ! Many people had advised me to learn Ruby on Rails, and the format was exactly what I was looking for - even though it seemed a little expensive.
 

I was in batch 43, which started in October 2016 and ended in December. It was even better than what I had imagined!
It was a very concrete experience, full of motivated students and an extremely devoted staff. I discovered that coding was something I loved, and had come to believe that I had finally found a job I would enjoy. The course goes as follows :

• 1 or 2 hours of class in the morning
• Exercises all day in pairs (you're never alone and get to meet all of the other students) --> practice makes perfect !
• 1 hour of livecode (everyone codes together) in the evening.
• The last 3 weeks you work in groups on 2 projects. This means that each group, and each individual, will ultimately develop different skills depending on the website and on their role in the group. Some work more on the front-end, some more on the back-end, some websites will do plenty of scraping while others will use loads of javascript... It is very enriching. !

Everyone is motivated and hardworking - we actually nearly forgot to go for lunch a couple of times! - but the staff is there to remind us to relax and have fun. We had yoga classes twice a week (I discovered how bad I was at yoga then ><) and events were organized on a regular basis.

On the whole, it was great experience. I met fantastic people, and had plenty of fun. I must admit that I was EXHAUSTED by the end of the program, but it was totally worth it =) But now what ? After a short (well-deserved!) break, I started looking for opportunities as a fullstack developer. During one of my interviews I was asked to look into Tests (something we only skim over at Le Wagon but which is very important to tech teams), and javascript. I am therefore working on personal projects in order to develop my Ruby on Rails skills, and learn more about tests and the other languages. And if everything goes as planned, I will be joining their team in April... =]

Good luck to any of those who wish to follow it, and enjoy !

Hello! I was a student at Le Wagon Bordeaux batch #40 (03/10/2016 - 02/12/2016)

This bootcamp of 2 months brought me a lot. It was dense, complete and well organized.

WHY LE WAGON:

The language Ruby is known to be "developer happiness", that means intuitive and easy to assimilated. This does not prevent that there are quite a lot of good practices to know to be effective (SRP, DRY ...)

We also learn to work with:

- HTML

- CSS

- Javascript

- Ajax

- Jquery

- Ruby on Rails

LESSONS:

Every day there was a principal teacher, as well as assistant teachers to have a more effective individual follow-up. The teachers are friendly, attentive, patient and listening ... The day begins with a lesson. Then we form groups of two people, to work on the subject of the lesson until 5:30 pm. We finish on a livecode, to correct the exercises of the day. Anyone can ask questions and correct their exercise.

At the end of this bootcamp, I am able to set up a site (e-commerce, hotel ...) from conception to a functional web application.

AND AFTER? :

I am currently on my own. I realize sites for professionals, who want to improve their visibility, turnover and proximity. A month after the end of this bootcamp, I work on 4 sites simultaneously.

I work in parallel on personal projects that will lead, I hope on the creation of a startup.

And now I'm a teacher assistant in Bordeaux for the next batch.

I highly recommend Le Wagon.

LOUARN Ronan

Before joining Le Wagon, I was working in a nuclear power station as an operations engineer in the main control room. I finished my Masters in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bristol and went straight into the nuclear power industry but after two years I realised that this was not the career for me. And now, 3 weeks after the course I have already landed a developer role in an exciting London startup.

I wanted to move back to a big city after living in a remote village for the last year and started looking for jobs in London. As a mechanical engineer, I did not find anything that really interested me and I also came to the conclusion that I was never that passionate about mechanical engineering in the first place! During my job search I couldn't help but notice the abundance of software development roles that were available in London and this gave me the idea to look into becoming a developer.

A very close friend of mine recommended Le Wagon to me as he knew someone who attended one of the Amsterdam batches (Gina) and after seeing her enthusiasm about the course during a Skype call I was convinced that I should apply. This was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life.

Learning to code at Le Wagon was an incredible experience. The course structure and content have been meticulously pieced together to create a logical journey which means that even someone with no programming knowledge can understand the concepts and excel in web development. The nine weeks are tough but rewarding, there is a lot of information being thrown at you and everyone has moments where they struggle, however at the end you will be amazed at the web applications that you are able to build.

For my final project, I worked in a team of four students to build a web application which allows users to apply for a loan using their mobile number. The idea for this project came from large proportions of people around the world not having access to financial services due to not having a bank account. Users can sign up and apply for a loan and then bank employees can review these applications, monitor their loan portfolio and have access to statistics which give them an overview of the business. This project was built in only 10 days.

Honestly, I could never have imagined that I would be able to build something this completed after just 9 weeks of studying.

Apart from the fantastic course content, all the teachers, teaching assistants and Le Wagon staff helped to create a really friendly and comfortable atmosphere. Every one of them is clearly very passionate about wanting to help people to learn to code and this is reflected in all aspects of the course. Another reason why the course quality was so high was that the teachers were excellent; great at explaining things, answering questions and helping students with their bugs and issues.

Overall, if you are considering learning how to code in a short space of time – I recommend Le Wagon over any other bootcamp in London. It is a guaranteed life changing experience.

Le Wagon... The place to be for a very challenging bootcamp!

You'll see everything, from back-end to front-end, including a bit of Javascript and other sweet things to usher you into the delicious world of developers!

At Le Wagon, you'll find the open mindset, a warm atmosphere and everything you'll need to feel 100% ready for intensive training.

As far as I'm concerned, in Batch#43, we put everything we had learnt in classes into practice to build our project ZA:DL (https://www.lewagon.com/fr/demoday/43/zadl)

Before Le Wagon, I created my own company and I felt very limited in its evolution because I was lacking the required technical skills. I chose Le Wagon to get these skills as fast as possible so I could build another MVP myself. Being able to understand everything that lays behind a web-app led me to question my project and made a 180° pivot to a much better product.

More than a technical program, Le wagon helps you to define the easiest Web Product possible with an optimized user experience.
The final projects enabled me to take enough hindsight to truly understand and use everything we had learnt during the first few weeks of the program. It gave me confidence in the fact that I can keep learning to code and be autonomous after the bootcamp.

Le Wagon kept its word: today my creativity is not limited any more as I now have the skills to express it.

In a nutshell, if you hesitate.. do not, go for it!

My previous job in tech recruitment was spent placing developers into jobs, which became rather frustrating because everyday I could see the massive potential in having digital skills. I spent a long time agonising over which coding school to choose when I first decided I was going to move from my previous career to a career in technology, and I am so pleased that I chose Le Wagon. I could never understand how they could consistently get 5 star reviews but I thought I would trust them and go through the process myself.

The team at Le Wagon has been so welcoming, supportive and friendly throughout my time there and since. There is a real sense of community with teachers, previous students and the management team going above and beyond to help you out along the way. There was also a great mix of students and we found a good balance between working hard and having fun at the same time.

The teaching was also top quality, it was quite unbelievable how we picked things up, and even though it could be tough at times, the way the course is designed means that you are constantly going over the stuff that you've already learnt without even realising it! Often we would have teachers flying from all over the world to teach us and they were very good at breaking down the things we needed to learn. The course covered everything that we had to know to go straight into developer jobs, from back-end Ruby to some quite advanced JavaScript.

I found that a lot of my classmates had business ideas ready to be made a reality and those like myself who came to learn to code primarily. This was very useful, as there was a lot to learn from people who had much more business experience than me and added a whole new layer to my learning, particularly during the project stage.

Overall, it was tough and needed a lot of hard work, but it never felt like too much because of the support and style of Le Wagon. I would recommend it to anyone interested in coding or starting a tech business.

In a past life, I was a truck driver, which has nothing to do with code. However, a few months ago, I decided to take the plunge and I joined Le Wagon in Paris (batch #43) last October.

Despite my background, the teaching methodology was so effective that I didn't feel overwhelmed by the difficulty of the course. The staff and the atmosphere were great. On top of that, I am amazed by what I got to accomplish at the end of these 9 weeks, whether it was through the AirBnb clone or the final project (www.barde.guitars). 

I am now looking to join a company as a Fullstack developer and I already have a few opportunities for full-time positions!`

Hello, My name is Clemence and I have never been into "long studies". That's why, I naturally turned myself towards bootcamps when I decided to learn how to code.

I had been looking through all the different bootcamps for months before I decided to apply to Le Wagon. At first, I hesitated because I thought it was only designed for entrepreneurs which was not really my profile. But quickly I realised that I could apply without having any current entrepreneurial project.

After taking the interview, asking questions and having completed the ruby track, I got accepted in the Batch#43 in Paris which took place from October to December 2016. 

The team I joined was the first girls-only team at Le Wagon. The project we built is called ZA:DL ( http://beta.zadl.fr/ ). ZA:DL is a web-app that helps you organize paid activities with your friends.

After Le Wagon, we kept on working on it for 2 weeks as the leader of our team plans on releasing it during Q1 of 2017.

There is no denying that the atmosphere at Le Wagon is awesome. The people in my batch were super cool and everybody was getting along well with each other. Teachers, teaching assistants and the staff are all very nice and ready to help when needed. The events organised during the bootcamp were great as well. Despite getting more and more tired throughout the weeks, the talks with entrepreneurs, the Q&A sessions with alumni were very appreciated by the whole group.

Although the first few weeks were really hard for me as I had never coded before, the 9 weeks spent at Le Wagon were so great, and went so fast that no one wanted it to end.

Before joining the bootcamp I had no coding related background whatsoever. I had a Master's of Laws degree and at my latest job I was working as a B2B Account Manager. I decided to take a completely different path and learn how to code! 

Le Wagon is a 9 week intensive bootcamp and the beginning was tough! However, I worked hard, attended every minute (and more) and with some help from my classmates I stuck it out to the end. The syllabus is really well structured, so that even beginners can comprehend it and learn the foundations of web development. 

The course has a really practical approach, so in the end we were educated to build fully functional web applications. All the teachers and TAs were amazing and they did their best to make us understand all the theory much better. If someone needed a boost, they would take extra care of them. 

During the final 2 weeks we were working in teams in order to design, code and ship to production our very own products (www.like-minded.tech). The 9 weeks are intense but I loved every moment of it - the lectures in the morning, the challenging exercises, my different buddy each day, the teachers and the TAs, my teammates, our lovely manager Ed, the masterminds behind Le Wagon, the Friday drinks! At the end of the bootcamp I didn't want to leave! Thanks, Le Wagon!