Le Wagon

J'ai intégré la formation Fullstack Ruby du Wagon Bordeaux (batch #246, www.lewagon.com/fr/bordeaux)  du 8 avril au 7 juin 2019, sur les conseils d'un ami qui venait de finir sa session quelques temps auparavant.

Si j'ai décidé de postuler au Wagon c'était avant tout pour me reconvertir professionnellement et tenter de devenir développeur web en acquérant de nouvelles compétences techniques, et le moins que l'on puisse dire c'est que je n'ai pas été déçu ! La formation est intensive (42h / semaine pendant 9 semaines), très complète et très enrichissante. Vous apprenez les rouages du code en suivant un programme qui a largement fait ses preuves, ce qui donne un profond sentiment de confiance tous le long du parcours. Après avoir passé 7 semaines à emmagasiner du savoir, les 2 dernières semaines sont réservées à l'élaboration d'un projet (par groupe de 3/4) qui prend la forme d'une application web. Ce projet permet de concrétiser et de mettre à pratique tout ce dont on a appris depuis le début de la formation, et c'est à ce moment là que l'on comprend réellement pourquoi nous avons fait tout ce chemin !
La formation dispose de professeurs qui sont tous des modèles de pédagogie, d'accessibilité et de sympathie, ainsi que des professeurs assistants (des anciens élèves qui sont mis à disposition des nouveaux pour les aider à accomplir leurs exercices) dont j'ai la chance de faire parti aujourd'hui.
Les locaux, situés cours Balguerie Stuttenberg aux Chartrons sont spacieux, bien équipés et idéaux pour travailler dans de bonnes conditions.

En résumé, j'ai vécu au Wagon une excellente expérience qui m'a permis d'acquérir de nouvelles compétences et de faire des rencontres humaines très intéressantes.
Je recommande à quiconque qui est intéressé a devenir développeur web, product owner ou product manager à suivre ce cursus professionnel.

With an engineering background, I decided to complete the bootcamp at Le Wagon to develop my dev skills and launch my own startup. It gave me all the necessary skills to understand all the dev that we need for our product, to develop the MVP and launch it with paying customers. 
Moreover, I become very concern about the UX/UI of the product which is so important. 
With this amazing experience at Le Wagon, I have now all the skills that I was looking for and I had 9 incredible intensive weeks with a team of teachers always trying to help you as much as they can. 
I highly recommend this experience, which was amazing ! 

Before Le Wagon, I had mostly worked in hospitality. I had been a manager, chef, bartender, waiter, working in restaurants, pubs, nightclubs, festivals, cafes and street food. However, at the age of 35, I decided it was time for a change, to find a career where I wouldn’t be on my feet all day long, and also be creative. That’s when I looked into the idea of becoming a developer. I heard about the existence of coding bootcamps through a friend, and after a lot of investigation I settled upon Le Wagon in Barcelona. Needless to say, I’m very happy with my choice!

It was without a doubt the best educational experience I’ve had, and only further fuelled my enthusiasm for coding. Besides learning how to build web applications and solve problems through code, I have made some friendships and connections that will undoubtedly endure the test of time. Project weeks were a particularly highlight for me, where my team and I built a complex web-chat and file-storage application. Now that the course is finished, I am still enjoying coding, and am adding even more features to our project.

Thanks a lot Le Wagon!

I always felt like I would need to have a creative career. I studied fine art and illustration but as much as I appreciated the background it gave me in lateral thinking, I still felt like I wanted to do something more practical and disciplined. I began teaching as an English teacher and I found that it gave me that discipline I was looking for, as well as being very gratifying. I found that my favourite part of doing a lesson was planning it, creating new materials and discovering new apps or new ways of laying out lessons that were more interesting or effective. It was fun playing around with little pieces of paper, and gave me the opportunity to try out what would work with my students. However, I still really wanted to create something that felt real and tangible out of these experiments.

Two of my brothers were already working as programmers, so I suppose that I realised more quickly than other people might have that programming was a way to create something from this that felt a little bit more real. I was already living in Barcelona, so I was also already conscious that people in Barcelona live pretty well! It’s also very easy to make a lot of connections because people here are very helpful and there’s a lot going on. There are often people who want to collaborate with you or would like to show you how to do something and learn a little bit from you as well.

The teachers in Le Wagon were great, I suppose mostly because everyone has a good mentality about growth. It felt very fresh. The different people on the teams all brought something unique and useful, but it never felt like I was being forced to think one way or another. The most common line of thought among everyone was that they were proud of the work that had been done on the Le Wagon materials (which are incredibly well-researched and tested) and of how their own efforts were layering on top of that work and refining it. They were also all very kind, which is important when you are learning something intensively!

After finishing high school, I worked for two years in banking, where I first got introduced to topics like digital banking. It wasn’t until I started my undergraduate studies in sociology, politics and economics that my curiosity about the interplay between ongoing technical developments and the socio-economic changes, grew. I wanted to deepen my understanding of how those technologies are created and programmed. Starting the Bootcamp, Batch #269 in Oslo, was a very spontaneous decision but I am so happy I joined Le wagon over the university summer break.

Lewagon gave me a perfect introduction to the tech world. The program is so well thought out that after the 9 weeks, you can put specific topics into perspective and get a better understanding of the bigger picture. Coding always seemed so abstract and overwhelming to me, that I didn’t know where to start learning. But after the Bootcamp, I began to realize how broad tech actually can be, and I was surprised to see how many diverse job opportunities within the field of coding exist.

Every day of the Bootcamp was very intense, full of new information, impulses, vocabulary, and I always wished to have a pause button, to quickly read up on topics/things. It was challenging, and at certain points frustrating. But at the same time, it gave me a lot of energy: the moment it ‘clicks’ is extremely rewarding. The support from the teachers and team colleagues motivated me to improve.

Teachers at Le Wagon do not just teach the subjects but also guide you on how to approach new tech challenges along the way. At some point you start to realize patterns and improve your problem solving skills.

The last two weeks (project weeks) were the most intense but looking back also the most fun and rewarding. I was really intrigued by the idea of pitching own ideas and creating something entirely from scratch. We definitely experienced many up and downs in the team and it was extremely helpful to have all the teachers by our side checking up on our progress and helping us to structure and scope our work. I ended up making compromises and successfully resolving unexpected challenges.

Having a space of so many kind, motivated, and interesting people really made this a unique experience for me. I was amazed by the level of motivation and the efforts of the staff to help you improve. You get a chance to fully focus on your own personal development. I feel like this interdisciplinary learning approach over 9 weeks gives you a guidance and a very stable foundation of knowledge, network, and experiences.

2 months after finishing the bootcamp, all I can say is it was a life-changing experience! In the beginning of this year, I was in a gap year before going to college, I was lost about my future. My dad told me about Le Wagon and I did not understand at first, I thought coding was useless. I did some more research then, and it changed my mind. Already on the first week of bootcamp, I knew instantly it was something special. During the 9 weeks, I met wonderful people and learned much more than I could have ever imagine. We build one app from scratch only in two weeks, putting all our new knowledge in practice. Now, because of Le Wagon, I know that I want to learn more about coding and that technology is my future.

It's been two months since I finished Le Wagon’s bootcamp in Milan and all I can say about it is that it was a life changing experience! Before attending the bootcamp I had never written a single line of code, I had a background in Design but I wanted to learn something new and useful.

Every day is extremely intense, you have a lecture in the morning and you spend the rest of the time coding and making mistakes. It may seem boring but it's not, it's challenging and if you struggle there are always teachers and TAs ready to help. Also, everyday you are paired with another student so you are never alone.

After you learn the basics you star working on projects, everything is really well-structured so you never feel like anything it's impossible plus you are working with a bunch of skilled and motivated people and that helps too.

 And then comes the demo day, the most beautiful yet saddest day of the bootcamp. You are there with your new best friends showcasing all your work...but that's the last day!

These 9 weeks went by so fast, I met a lot of incredible people from all over the world and I've learned more than I could have ever imagined. If you're considering doing this bootcamp...just do it, you won't regret it.

If you told me a year ago that I would be a junior developer at a fintech company and helping people learn how to code, I wouldn’t have believed you, but here I am!

This time last year I was lost. As a trained journalist I had become disillusioned with the industry and I wanted out, in short, I wasn’t happy.

I wanted to move into a more commercial role, and the natural transition from journalism would be into another content based profession, marketing was my answer.

So, in August of 2018, my cv had been to every corner of the internet, screaming for attention.

And a notification from Angel List would change everything, a coworking business in Bali wanted me to speak with them about a possible job!

What?! Bali? Surely I couldn’t go and live in Bali, that would be too good to be true, right? But it worked out and the next thing I knew I was on a flight to the famous island, for a marketing job that I still knew wasn’t right for me…

Coworking spaces by nature attract some interesting people. Remote workers living their best lives, away from the hustle and bustle of city life. Where I worked, there was a lot of people looking at screens of text that I didn’t understand… code.

As a naturally intuitive person, I couldn’t walk around my office and not understand what these people were doing, it seemed on a different level and I felt helpless that I couldn’t read it.

So I reached out to a close friend of mine who himself was a software engineer and I pleaded with him to teach me. He obliged and my coding journey started, one Sunday afternoon in an Ubudian cafe.

It started with the basics, HTML and CSS, a coder’s bread and butter.

Ok, I admit, I became a little obsessed. I found this stuff way too cool and my inner nerd was starting to take me over.

I knew this was it, this was something that I knew would both interest me and provide me with a livelihood. Two weeks later, I quit my job, there was a coding bootcamp starting in Canggu that I needed to attend.

I had heard of Le Wagon around Bali, I’d seen the little wagon logo but had never really known what it was, but from deeper research I knew this was the best one I could choose.

I had two weeks to finish the prerequisite coursework before the bootcamp started, this didn’t serve my nerves well as I was more confused than anything else, but my motivation remained and the start date rolled up.

I was about to embark on the best educational experience of my life.

Setup day, a day for everyone to meet each other and prepare their systems for the two months we were about to put them through, Windows people (me) brace yourself for issues (and tears), Mac users, get ready for an easy day!

The first chunk of knowledge we had to absorb was Ruby, the key programming language Le Wagon teaches, and one that fits behind the scenes on Rails (all will be revealed) and what a beautiful language it is.

It is regarded as a beginner friendly language because of how expressive and flexible it is. You can solve the same problem in a variety of ways, no wonder why programmers around the world still love it.

Arrays, hashes, iterations, blocks, all words and concepts that will be drilled into you until you can’t sleep without thinking of them. When I heard the bootcamp was immersive, I didn’t realise it would be to this extent, but it really is the best way to learn such initially difficult concepts.

Next up, OOP, or Object Orientated Programming, the paradigm on which Ruby-on-Rails is built. Something about cakes and cake moulds? Le Wagon has great ways of simplifying at a high level core programming concepts and OOP was for me, one of the most fascinating parts of the bootcamp.

Here, we also built our first basic applications, sure only through the terminal, but to build something you can use and interact with after just two weeks coding, pretty cool.

Following OOP, we delved into the realm of databases, considering database design and SQL, a veteran language used to interact with and manage databases.

We looked at how this all pieced together and worked with web applications, faking, migrating and generating data. Data is king, and here we learnt how to manipulate it.

After four days of databases, we moved onto the sexy part, a week and a half of front end languages, HTML, CSS and Javascript. Everything that creates the part of a web application that you can see, in short, the stars of the show.

Here is an interesting part of the bootcamp as you start to see the people with a real design nous excelling and enjoying themselves, which not being one of them, was nice to see. Front end is hard and I gained a new found respect of front end developers.

Rails is the next topic to cover, and you bring the knowledge of Ruby you acquired a few weeks prior to the table. Rails is a programming framework that makes setting up a fully functioning web application relatively easy. Everything becomes connected in these weeks and lightbulb moments begin to appear!

Then, the big daddy, the crescendo of the bootcamp and the project weeks. Everything has been built up to these weeks, the drilling, the confusion, the frustration. We were now released in teams of four to design and build the projects of our dreams and imaginations.

First, we spent a week working on an Air BnB clone, this is to learn how to work well in our teams and practice building a fully functional web application.

This week proves significant, as you make mistakes that you don’t want to repeat over the main project fortnight. Also we give a presentation on the Friday which prepares us for the finale of the bootcamp, Demo Day!

The last two weeks are intense, but also extremely fun. Using GitHub and working in a team of four and having stand up meetings every morning, these days are when you start to feel like a developer. Bringing the skills you have learnt, and applying them to something tangible and real.

I personally enjoyed the last two weeks the most out of the whole bootcamp, I love working in teams and to see something becoming a reality through your own know how was extremely rewarding.

My team built a cycling app for cycle tourists to plan routes, drop locations and connect with fellow tourists. Over the two weeks we messed up, we backtracked, we worked our socks off and as demo day approached, we grew extremely confident of the MVP we had designed and built.

Demo day came at us fast and this is the swan song for all the teams, a night of free flowing drink and presentations said with pride. It really was a night to remember and some of the projects that were on display were incredibly impressive.

Amongst them, a trading app, a crypto currency balancer and a yoga studio management tool to name just a few.

Now, as I start a new job as a junior developer just two months after I graduated, I look back on Le Wagon not realising how much it changed me at the time.

Le Wagon has taught me the skills to make me in demand in an exciting and ever changing tech industry, the real hard work for me starts now but without Le Wagon this would have never been a reality.

I still know nothing in the grand scheme of things, but I know more than many. Pretty much everything I write doesn’t work initially, I still break things, I still see code that makes me scared and I don’t understand. But I can do things that someone with no programming experience would think was magic.

Le Wagon has equipped me with the tools to dissect code, to break it down and finally make sense of it. It has given me the foundation on which to build and develop.

The thing with coding is, you always get lost, but you work to find yourself again, I’m still as lost as I was a year ago, just now I’m lost in a codebase.

If you are questioning whether to embark on a bootcamp like Le Wagon, my advice, do it and think about it later, commit yourself to the cause, it really will change your life.

I worked as a delivery man and I tended to code amateur (home automation, arduino, etc ...).
I wanted to try coding professionally and Le Wagon was the best choice to make!
This bootcamp was amazing! During these 9 weeks, the staff was always there to help us in case of doubt.
Teamwork is encouraged in the program and beyond working hours with cool events that create a beautiful community!
The training has met my expectations and I would recommend it without hesitation to all those who wish to change careers or even acquire more skills.

It was just another day with a few of my friends at the university library, where I spend most of my time at, either studying after classes, reading books for a research programme, or just read comics, when we were talking about our plans for the summer. One of them talked about Le Wagon, and I felt like going bootcamp would be more interesting than to keep doing more research at the university. Web development is also very different from robotics so I decided to give it a try.

I still vividly remember the first day at the camp. With people from different backgrounds, different nationalities and above all, different age groups, I thought I would not make a lot of friends, but I could not have been more wrong. From strangers to classmates, to classmates to friends, to friends to family, we have grown really close to one another over the course of two months. 

I was no stranger to coding, but web development is an entirely new thing. The lecture slides were great, and the teachers were very instructive and friendly. Coding challenges were hard and draining, but the teaching assistants were always around whenever we got stuck or a talk to relieve stress. At the end of the day, live code and flashcards really brought all the knowledge together.

The project weeks have to be the most memorable for myself. Every topic was so different from each other but it was when everything was brought together. I had a great team, and everyone at the camp pretty much says the same. After all, we all share the same passion to get our project something we can be proud of. Things didn't go as planned, but our teachers and teaching assistants' help, we got about 10 times faster than our normal speed during coding challenges. 

The bootcamp has certainly changed my life in a lot of ways. I have not only learned web development, but also got a lot of connections. Le Wagon also provides a lot of resources to expand on our current knowledge. I have been working creating my own project since the camp has ended, and the huge alumni community is always around when I need help.

9 weeks at Le Wagon is a memory I will never forget.

Before coming to Le Wagon, I was at sales function in Banking Industry. I had no skills in Tech at all, but somehow had the feeling that I love coding and will be good at it. 

Le Wagon was the place that not only help me from 0 to 1, but also empower me with the skills of how to learn. Now, after 9-week intense and enriched bootcamp life, I see an upgraded version of me for sure. 

I am so grateful that I have gained far more than I could imagine here, especially the friendly and vibrant community, with everyone coming from different background but sharing the same spirit and passion, I can continue fast learning momentum even after bootcamp. I am now doing several exciting projects with batchmates and teachers. Coming to Le Wagon was the best decision ever.

After a business school in France and several internships in startups and Venture Capital funds, I decided to attend a coding bootcamp at Le Wagon. I had a rather business and analytical profile thanks to my study and my professional experiences but I had a lack of tech skills and awareness. Le Wagon allows me to have a wide scope of the coding environment (from Ruby to Javascript with notion of SQL). Thanks to this bootcamp, I was able to continue to develop coding skills by learning Python online and to write scripts to interact with APIs. All of these will allow me to automate a lot of tasks in my future job that is to me more and more essential today. I am glad to have done this coding bootcamp and be part of Le Wagon community which helped me a lot in having a better overview of tech jobs !