Le Wagon

A 5-star learning experience

  Life-changing I decided to learn how to code after getting really frustrated by not understanding and not being able to do what my developers friends and coworkers were doing. And I no longer feel that way - mission accomplished. Efficient If you've tried to learn to code by yourself, you will know that the learning curve is often pretty flat, you can easily get lost in the amount of content you find online. One huge advantage of the bootcamp is to focus on the useful tools and techniques. Rewarding The satisfaction of building something from scratch is immense. You'll learn enough to design an app, write the code and push to a production environment.  Intense There is a lot to learn in 9 weeks, so the teaching speed is definitely fast. But, some sessions are reserved for students who don't feel comfortable yet with some concepts, to make sure nobody is left behind. Long-lasting You will develop a "developer mindset" - a mix of patience, autonomy and critical thinking. You will learn a foundation of concepts and methodologies to build on following  the end of the bootcamp.
  Focus on product
  One of the focuses of the bootcamp is product. There is a class specifically dedicated to product management, but Product is not limited to that class...it is always at the core of the training.
What business problem are you trying to solve? Which core features should you develop first? What other products can you use to minimize the investment, increase efficiency? How can you improve your user experience design?
All teachers are not only very good at technical stuff but also very strong at product, which is awesome. It makes a difference - you don't only learn to build stuff, but also what and how to build.     After Le Wagon   There is a decent amount of students who decide to start their business right after Le Wagon. Some of them become junior developers and get hired right away. I was not planning on ever becoming a developer, but instead to keep growing in product management. After graduating, I had several opportunities to choose from in Paris and the US. A year later, Le Wagon is still definitely a huge plus. Not only does it looks good on a resume (probably the majority of my so-called hard skills), it also made me technical enough for it never to be an issue during my job search.     Work hard, play hard    Last but not least, the teaching team and students are definitely what makes Le Wagon so great. The group got together really fast and programming in small groups definitely helps learning from your peers. 
Frequent happy hours, startup talks and meetups make the group of students and alumni connect with the local startup and tech community, which is incredibly valuable during and after the bootcamp.

★★★★★

TL, DR:

It changed my life. Removed the fear of not being technical— great friends and memories I will never forget.

I spent an entire year learning to code. I tried everything:

- Codecademy

- learn Python the hard way

- Coursera

- Code School

But I still sucked. I couldn’t even write a simple program. Was I stupid? Maybe.

But I decided to try a new approach and registered to Le Wagon after hearing great feedback. After 9 weeks, I was able to build Impact—a tool for retrieving and analyzing Twitter data. I even wrote one of the program’s main algorithms. Maybe not that stupid after all.

Le Wagon isn’t a course--it’s a life experiment.

BE WITH LIKE MINDED PEOPLE

Why is learning to code so hard? Because it’s lonely. Oh man, try to read documentation written by coders, for coders, when you’ve never been on those websites. It’s a pain. Nobody wants to help you—« READ THE FUCKING MANUAL », they say—and it quickly gets discouraging. I don’t want more homework again.

But that doesn’t happen at Le Wagon—you’re not alone. You make friends. Each day, you are paired with someone from your batch—your buddy for the day. You don’t have any excuses for not collaborating and you’ll end up creating relationships with everyone in your class. You learn how to pair-program, how to help (and ask for help), and create long-lasting relationships. Many end up working together—some even start companies.

So no more loneliness, but a great environment to learn, meet and grow.

LEARN USEFUL STUFF BY DOING A LOT

The main problem with learning anything is putting in the required amount of intensity. I could have spent years learning code in a half-assed way, like I was doing. I would still not know how to code.

Le Wagon makes you DO stuff. To my great pleasure, lessons laster only one hour—the perfect time to give the essentials and keep everyone interested—and gave place to 8 hours of intense coding. Exercices, product-building, real-life challenges. They’re here to make you BUILD stuff.

Traditional education leaves you in the world without any skills. Le Wagon teaches you practical and professional-level skills in 9 weeks.

I couldn’t design a simple web page when I started. After 9 weeks, I could build AirBnB.

That’s effectiveness.

CHANGE YOUR LIFE BY KNOWING MORE ABOUT YOURSELF

We spend so much time speculating, fantasizing on our lives. Maybe I should have been a lawyer, I should have traveled more, I should have become a developer.

But there’s no way to know if you like something but trying it with a deadline and a lot of intensity. Le Wagon makes you grow as a person by increasing your self-awareness: it helps you know yourself better.

Do you like working in teams? You will know.

Do you like building tech products? You will know.

Do you want to be a software engineer, an entrepreneur, a product manager? You will know.

I wanted to code because I was scared I couldn’t be an entrepreneur otherwise. I didn’t know if I had it in me. I didn’t know if it was useful. I was fantasizing, again.

Then I spent 9 weeks coding all day. That’s 400 hours.

Now I know. If everything goes to flames, if my business fails and my girlfriend leaves me, if I’m expelled from my place and have zero friends left, I won’t be scared.

I found something I love doing. That’s worth everything.

Thank you Le Wagon.

I have been hanging around Le Wagon for over a year now, and it was one of the best experiences I've ever had, certainly one of the most valuable decisions I've made in the past.

 

Keep your mind open

In January 2015, I decided to apply to Le Wagon FullStack program in order to learn programming but also to keep my mind open. I finished school about 10 years ago and I never took time to train myself after that.

 

For me as an entrepreneur, being aware that there are so many things to learn was as crucial as gaining these actual skills. I worked on my own before joining the bootcamp, in order not to be completely lost, since I was not an engineer. Those 8 hours spent discovering Pascal language back when I was a kid would not happen to be that helpful…

And I worked a lot during the bootcamp. 9 hours in front of your code every day, and some more at night, 9 weeks straight. Pretty intense!

 

How does the web works?

I attended Le Wagon in order to understand how those web and mobile apps work. At first, I did not envisage to build a Tesla or a revolutionary AI software. I still don't. My intention was to get how AirBnb and Twitter function behind the curtain. The famous MVP approach! And when you start seeing the way these apps work, you feel empowered to build your own stuff.

 

Many new projects!

After I ended the bootcamp, I decided to stay in touch with the team that runs Le Wagon. I just loved the atmosphere. It's so stimulating to see 10 new business projects every other month! I am now a part-time Teacher Assistant for the next batches, helping them understand the crucial notions of Ruby, Rails, SQL, htlm and JavaScript.

 

Click

I definitely had the desire to start a new business after Le Wagon. It just reinforced that feeling. Something just clicked in my mind: « now, you can build projects on your own! ». I had previously started and failed on projects where I heavily depended on some other people's skills to make them work. Now I could launch things without being dependent. So important!

 

Mission Biberon

The last two weeks of the bootcamp were dedicated to our own projects. With a fellow student, I coded the elearning platform for future parents called www.MissionBiberon.com, with a video viewer, text recaps and quizzes. Since then, we've been working on the content, and a dozen episodes are now live!

This is just the beginning of Mission Biberon, but the first feedbacks are awesome. And I know I probably wouldn't have started this without Le Wagon.

 

So if you have the guts to start a business and 2 month to spare, you shouldn't even be reading the end of this comment, apply!

I was a student in batch #18 of Le Wagon (January 2016) and loved the experience. I came from a web-marketing background (acquisition & CRM) and was looking for web development training to be able to work better with technical teams.

Le Wagon provides in 9 weeks a very complete training on the basics of front & back-end web development, enabling you to very easily continue learning code quickly by yourself. As a bonus, it gives you a good flavor of what is product development, pitching a project and entrepreneurship.

It has a great and extremely available teaching staff, great courses and resources that remain fully available after the end of the training. Rhythm is intense but very balanced between courses, exercises and conferences with entrepreneurs. Atmosphere is extremely friendly and motivating.

Looking at former students’ careers evolution after le Wagon, this training really answers to a wide range of objectives: become a developer, entrepreneur or just gain technical background.

In summary, it was an amazing experience!

I started Le Wagon in October 2015 and it was the best decision of my life !

The reason :

« In the new economy, computer science isn't an optional skill. It's a basic skill » - Barack Obama

I’ve always been interested in technology & innovation and how these two are transforming our world. Being able to understand and actually control the tools that are now ruling the world is in my opinion mandatory for everyone in the future, so I had to learn it myself.

The one thing that struck me the most during the bootcamp is the amount of knowledge and skills I developed in such a short period of time. I give credit for that to the amazing program they developed . The way the program is structured and the resources they provide is THE real added value of this bootcamp ! Another great added value is the Alumni community. They make sure that you are well connected to every people that has already been a Wagoner and that you can ask questions, find jobs, find partners and so on.

One important thing to know before applying though, is that Le Wagon has a clear entrepreneurial angle & mindset! Throughout the bootcamp, we had introductions to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship concepts/tools, so if you have no interest in entrepreneurship AT ALL maybe it’s not the best option. However I think that even for non-entrepreneurs these concepts are super interesting, whereas for (aspiring) entrepreneurs, it’s a huge added value!

As a result of my bootcamp, I ended up developing BOOSTin, a growth hacking tool for brands on Instagram. With BOOSTin, brands can get relevant data about their own activity and their competition’s in order to increase the efficiency of their marketing activity on Instagram.

In definitive, I would TOTALLY recommend Le Wagon to anyone, from anywhere, at any age, with any background. It is a life changing experience.

I am alumni of Le Wagon batch #3 (September 2014). Here is my story since I graduated.

Before Le Wagon

Before joining Le Wagon, I studied web-marketing during 2 years but did not like the way it was taught, so I quit. I really wanted to be able to develop my own products at the time. That's why I decided to join Le Wagon, which seemed to be a very product-oriented program which teaches you programming but also gives you good practices and tools to build a tech product.

Just after the program

I kept on working on TrackGuru (https://www.lewagon.com/blog/interview-thomas-chretien-trackguru) the MVP I had developed within the two last weeks of the program. The platform reached 500 subscribers, but it was taking me too much time for marketing / communication, and I decided to take some distance and go back to programming smile emoticon

After being a TA (teaching assistant), I joined Le Wagon's team as frontend developer to increase my expertise under the mentoring of Sebastien and Boris. In less than a year we released Le Wagon Ondemand (https://ondemand.lewagon.org/), the Alumni platform (http://alumni.lewagon.org) and the new version of Le Wagon's website (the current one). I learned React.js, sharpen my CSS and Javascript skills and, of course, kept on doing some Rails.

Adopting a digital nomad lifestyle

That was a crazy year! My coding skills increased exponentially and I also learnt a lot about myself. After a year of coding I took some time off, I moved to Brazil for some weeks and I spent time in front of the Ocean, enjoying Yoga lessons. Quickly I realized I missed coding. I thought about my TrackGuru experience, and I decided to launch a new product, same style, with a different angle, and of course new skills! I took time to analyse my mistakes, and to refine what will be later Hubum (http://www.hubum.com/).

Hubum is the Product Hunt of electro vinyl albums releases. The idea is to allow users to discover the vinyl release culture, and to become a reference digger in this niche. What we need to know is that all labels are working closely with techno artists to produce their vinyl release. A vinyl album is a bit as a story with a lot of protagonists and substance around the material. Releases fans are crazy about it, and represent a constant community, sensible and engaged, always looking for good new sounds, favouring quality to quantity.

In parallel, we try to engage a maximum of our curators/guests by inviting them to share in exclusivity their discovery on the platform. The challenge is to find renowned influencers (artists, youtubers) willing to help us. Some great names join us already: Audu Simion (hubum.com/andusimion), Moskalus (http://www.hubum.com/moskalus)), Hurfyd (hubum.com/hurfyd)…

Next step

I like the digital nomad lifestyle. I want to continue teaching at Le Wagon (Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels), travel, make some freelancing and personal projects, and keep learning new stuff every day.

I am really grateful to Le Wagon. It's crazy how they helped me develop my coding skills so quickly. I can know build all the products I want.

But above all, they also helped me find myself and work and live my life the way I want.

I was a student at Le Wagon (batch #6) and then a Teaching Assistant for couple of batches.

THE 9 WEEK EXPERIENCE AND BEYOND
For me Le Wagon is not only the kickoff I needed back then to get up to speed with start-up best practices and gain coding skills but also, what I've realised one year and an half after completing the bootcamp, a resourceful and very active community on a day to day basis.

The experience of Le Wagon goes way above the 9 weeks of the bootcamp. We have an alumni platform that gets improved all the time, almost weekly events to keep up with code improvement as well as start-up best practices, and four huge (free) parties per year to meet other batches émoticône smile

Not to mention the amazing group of friends I kept from this 9 week journey.

ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL
Although not everybody would benefit similar output going thru this experience. After being a student and a Teaching Assistant I would highly recommend Le Wagon to 3 main profiles :

- Entrepreneurs
- People who want to become full-stack developer
- Product owners, growth marketer and people who will work on a daily basis with developers

If you have one of these profiles, you can’t get wrong with Le Wagon and the program will benefit you almost immediately.

Personally, I find myself in these three profiles. After working with several start-ups as a freelance developper, I’ve finally joined a French start-up as the CTO (https://www.bobdepannage.fr/la-team-bob-depannage/) and my work is now a mix of code / product management / entrepreneurial thinking.

CONCLUSION
You have two main questions to ask yourself.

- Is a coding bootcamp the best way to accelerate/change my professional path?
- If so, which one to choose?

For the first question, I hope I gave you some insights about things to consider. For the second one, you should really not hesitate, Le Wagon is a great program! If you live within 45min where Le Wagon is (yes it’s 9 intensive weeks and you better reduce your commute) this is definitely the coding bootcamp you should go for.

I was one of the students of batch 4 in Paris (end of 2014).

Being a student at Le Wagon helped a lot for my career in tech. I had a growth marketing background and really needed to have a technical perspective to be better at my work.

First, the hard skills you learn over there are very valuable. I can now build MVPs with Ruby on Rails and HTML/CSS by myself. I can also tweak websites - which is useful to implement tracking codes or make some changes on frontend for instance. 

Second, it enabled me to understand coding culture and to be able to collaborate efficiently with developpers. This is a substential strength during my everyday life at a startup. I am now able to be more relevant with my ideas that require technical work; being able use Github or to chat about APIs is also useful when you are surrounded by developpers!

Last, the people I met during the program are high quality. The students are mostly entrepreneurs and share a great mindset. The teachers are super smart & encouraging. Also, Le Wagon being embeded in the Paris startup scene, I met several pretty impressive founders (Algolia, Front, Sunrise...). 

In a word, Le Wagon enabled me to be more powerful as a person. I don't feel stuck by my lack of tech skills anymore. I definitely recommend this coding bootcamp!

Life changing experience, literally
Attending Le Wagon was one of the best decisions I've ever made. It really changed my life. I met great people, learned extremely valuable skills and found a community I will always be part of.

My classmates
One of the most enriching aspect of le Wagon (apart from the coding skills) was the opportunity to meet people with such fascinating stories; it didn’t take long for all of us to become friends. Everyone came at le Wagon with a different background and personality and discovering so many interesting people was an amazing experience. Lifelong friendships were forged, undoubtedly we’ll cross paths with each other at future jobs, and I’m even starting a company with two of them.

Teaching and staff
I am really grateful to all the teachers at le Wagon. They are the best instructors I have ever had. They don’t just give you the theory and exercises and then let you in the dark, oh no their method is well-structured to really get rid of pedagogical frictions and give you an "optimal" leaning experience. They have this ability to understand that each of us is a different learner and cater to the needs of each student.

But it’s not only teachers and every day, you can also rely on great teaching assistants (former students at Le Wagon) who help you every time you need and spend time to dig deep in your code with you.

Conclusion
Le Wagon not only gave me the knowledge but also gave me the opportunity to meet the people I work with every day. We continued after le Wagon and decided to create our company together. Everyday we keep learning and that feels good! Now that I know about coding I feel like I can address confidently any investors or tech guy because I know what I m talking about. For an entrepreneur it makes a big difference trust me!
You can take a look at our demo day here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79SQFIIR0O8 at 14'10"

I’ve been a student at Le Wagon for the 9-week program in June 2015. I have been creating websites for 10+ years, but had almost no  backend skills and felt limited when I wanted to create more complex and intelligent things.   The program gave me exactly what I was looking for: an intensive ruby and rails course, best practices and tools, cool front-end tips. I am know able to do a MVP of any basic product in something like two weeks, which is an amazing skill to have I believe.   The other thing I liked a lot is the entrepreneurial/cool spirit. Students were open-minded and fun, and le Wagon’s team is always there to help and to drink a beer.   I kept strong links with le Wagon, working as a teacher assistant for the next batches and they even hosted my new company, Mangrove (www.meetmangrove.com) for a few weeks. This new venture feels like a logical path after le Wagon, keeping some of the same spirit and using skills I learned during the 9 weeks. 

Hi,

I finished Le Wagon a year ago doing their 6th batch and this was the biggest (and coolest) shift in my life. Here are some details about Le Wagon.

 

Intensive and focused on best practices

The curriculum is really challenging. Some stats to illustrate my point: you get to learn five different "languages" (ruby, Javascript, HTML, CSS, SQL) not to mention the libraries and frameworks (Rails, Sinatra, jQuery, React). The pace is fast and you've got to work hard, with 50 hours of code per week to really benefits from the program. In addition to the great courses by experienced teachers, Le Wagon has developed internal tools and learning platforms (with lectures and videos) that help you digest best practices and be autonomous at the end of the 2 months.

Startup ecosystem

9 weeks is short but enough to dive deep in the world of tech startups and adopt this culture.

I was a perfect newbie and I easily became "startup-fluent" through contact with Le Wagon ecosystems, through meetups, talks, and workshops organised every week.

I loved going back to school and to fill in a batch atmosphere with coding buddies who became real friends spending my whole time with us during this 9 weeks. Le Wagon builds a great community of alumni and I enjoy being one of them. We take pleasure to meet each other through Le Wagon weekly events or around a beer.

Great Program, Great Staff, Great Projects

I discovered a high-quality curriculum built like LEGO where each piece improves and completes the previous one, and where you always code a library by yourself before we give you the built-in tool for that. Morning courses are provided by great teachers. Sometimes a bit fast (event if 1h30 long) but then you get helped by awesome teaching-assistants during the day. The last 2 weeks of the program are dedicated to coding your own project and the results are just great: https://www.lewagon.com/fr/alumni

Learn to code, boost your profile, change your life

Students come to Le Wagon with different goals, choose yours. I was private-teacher in Mathematics, Physics and Biology during 5 years after a Master degree in Marine Biology. When a friend told me I should follow Le Wagon fullstack program, I thought that would be cool to add this skill to my teaching offer, and why not start doing some freelance dev with it.

So I enrolled it and it really changed my life. One week only after the end of the bootcamp, I was already working on freelance missions for a startup. After a year of code for different projects like thepixeler (a digital artwork sharing platform), MaShareEcole (the school network for parents in France) and MissionBiberon (a MOOC for parents having babies), etc.. I finally joined Le Wagon as an official teacher and developer.

As I told you, very cool life shift.

The objective of Le Wagon is to teach its students how to code, and how to code well. As a result of this, students learn programing by communicating with each other while working on projects, and ultimately creating a rich ecosystem of knowledge that iteratively builds upon itself, week after week throughout the 9-weeks.

Le Wagon has been one of the best investments I have ever made. I build the 1st version of my startup "MedPics" thanks to Le Wagon and I highly recommend it to everyone who wants to learn codes and begin a start-up.