Le Wagon

Before Le Wagon I was working at a hospital in New York City as a central sterile technician which not surprisingly did not involve any coding at all. Although I enjoyed my job I realized I had the ideas and desire to create things but I was not sure how to bring my ideas to life. I created my first Wordpress website but I quickly realized how limited I was with it. I then hired a developer and as I read through his code I thought to myself anyone who could read and write this stuff was a wizard! And could do anything!
Months later I decided to make a change by traveling abroad to Asia and to gain some perspective. I thought after travelling I would come back to New York and really dedicate my time to learning how to code. But while traveling in Asia I met someone who told me about Le Wagon and how it changed her life. It allowed her to become a digital nomad and work from wherever her heart desired, which in my eyes was exactly what I wanted. So shortly after this encounter I applied to join the first batch of Le Wagon in Bali.
During the bootcamp it became very clear that it would by no means be easy. I often struggled to wrap my head around complex logic but the instructors were so amazing and helpful that I never felt stranded or alone. Help was always available and resources were always provided to assist anyone who was in need and this is something I felt was the magic that makes Le Wagon so successful.
During the last few weeks we built our own Web apps and if pressure makes diamonds, that was exactly what every person in our camp became. The amount of hard work, dedication and understanding Le Wagon fosters in each student was beyond my own expectations. I was able to finish the camp strong, confident and proud. If you are a creative person and are looking to change your life, Le Wagon is the perfect environment to help you become a “wizard” and really grant you the power to take control of your future.
 

 

 

 

Before attending Le Wagon Bali, I was working in the Building Industry in Singapore for 10 years, an industry which is not related to coding at all and an industry which is unfortunately left behind when it comes to digitalisation.

I have always been a creative person, curious about new technologies, and several ideas of web products came to my mind during the last few years. But I felt a bit frustrated because I felt completely disconnected from the “tech industry”, and I had no idea of the right approach to adopt in order to develop my ideas.

Then a friend recommended Le Wagon to me and as the first batch in Bali was about to be launched, I decided to enroll. I am very happy with my decision, and luckily my friend has told me about Le Wagon.

To be clear, the 2 months in the bootcamp were very intense, and the Le Wagon program requires a lot of commitment and hard work. But the program is amazingly well structured, and step by step, day by day, you are progressively getting the full picture of fullstack development.

When we started on the first day of the bootcamp, we discovered the hidden part of the Le Wagon iceberg: a powerful web platform, gathering in one place all tools needed by the students: lectures, videos, resources, assignments, tutorials, etc.. I have been really amazed by this platform, available to all students, and for life. After Le Wagon, this platform is priceless, as I can retrieve all the lectures videos and resources, helping me to go further about any specific subject.

The 3 last weeks of the bootcamp were the richest weeks because we had the opportunity to develop two real web apps, working as a team all day long, and putting into practice all the skills learnt during the first 5 weeks. It is such a good feeling to actually build stuff, to be focused on it, and to realise what we were actually able to do!

Doing the bootcamp in Bali is the cherry on the cake, learning to code in this kind of environment is just amazing. With classmates coming from all around the world it was an amazing experience, and I had the chance to develop true friendship with some of the students.

I am overall very satisfied with this bootcamp. Not only have I learnt and practiced many technical skills in a condensed period of time, now I also feel very confident in building my own product. I have a very clear picture of all the steps to follow to do so and a clear insight of the available technologies. Last but not least, the support of the alumni community and the support of the Le Wagon web platform is absolutely worth every cent!

To conclude, I will definitively recommend Le Wagon to anyone as it is an asset that you will keep with you for life, no matter what you do after the bootcamp. Even if I go back to my previous role in the Building Industry, I will certainly have an enriched approach on my future challenges, will hopefully be a better version of myself, and I will look at coming opportunities with a different perspective!

I am Mo from Thailand and am now a WeChat mini-program developer in Chengdu, China. Many years before Le Wagon I worked at a virtual tour company (but this was even before Google Street View so you could imagine things were very different in tech!). Last year, I worked as an IT Manager for managing IT outsourcing, web development and team building at Saraff Infotech (Thailand).

 

Now, I am staying with my wife in Chengdu, China. I like the city as it is developing very fast. Because I missed a lot of new web technologies while I was an IT outsourcing manager, I wanted to get back into the industry. Therefore, I wanted to learn the most recent tech practices as well as make friends in Chengdu, which is why I joined Le Wagon :)

 

My experience at Le Wagon Chengdu

First of all, I registered last minute for Le Wagon, so I was considering whether it was a good idea or not. Yet after the bootcamp, I can say it was the best decision to guide me to become a good developer and innovator.

 

Prior to Le Wagon, I tried to learn many things by myself but that was a waste of time because I didn’t know which was the correct direction to learn and practice. Nowadays, new web technologies are too various, yet they are all connected. If you want to study by yourself, maybe it will take 1-2 years to know where are the best practices. In Le Wagon, lecturers and mentors are very experienced and experts, usually for more than 10 years. Also the Le Wagon method teaches students how to learn and apply other technologies by yourself. Now I can accelerate my learning and skills after Le Wagon.

 

Impression of the program

I got something beyond my expectation. I learned WeChat Mini-Programs - the new technology launched by Tencent in 2017, which I really like. It enables me to enter the China market with presence on a powerful APP like WeChat.

 

Moreover, I like my Le Wagon friends, lecturers and mentors. They are kind people and very optimistic to build a strong developer community in Chengdu. We all come from very different backgrounds, lifestyles and careers.

 

Biggest Takeaways

Best practices for web development skills and learning.

Methods and planning to build APPs in a short time.

These are very useful to continue learning and make projects in my IT career path.

 

Life after Le Wagon

Now, I am focusing on WeChat Mini Program development and working with one of mentors, who is continuing to help us understand how to organize as team developers and how to be successful entrepreneurs.

 

Suggestions for you

I highly recommend Le Wagon’s bootcamp in China. Both team Le Wagon Chengdu and Shanghai are very strong and passionate to build a very good developer and entrepreneur community.

 

For those who do not have any IT skills before, this course can reduce time to learn by yourself from 1-2 years in 2 months. Moreover, we can keep learning and share experiences in the Le Wagon community after you graduate!

Before I heard of Le Wagon in Barcelona I was doing a monotonous job with no excitement at all and for a long time felt that I did not want to carry on with that line of work for the rest of my life; I had been interested in computer science, attending many different courses in MOOC platforms over the past years but I had the feeling that I was missing the best part of CS.

Then all Barcelona Bootcamps offered an open doors day and after visiting all of them it is when I met Le Wagon and its driver, Gus de Vita; immediately I felt they were for me because of its different approach to classic computer science where endless lectures are given with little or none practical exercises while LW heavily focuses on practical extremely challenging exercises where we are required to give our best to grasp a solid knowledge of the lecture given earlier in the morning.

They were teaching the whole full stack web development in a way that while I was participating in the course all my expectations were completely fulfilled and the course itself, mind-blowing: the educational methods, teachers assistants, daily class structure, exercise challenges and much more gave me the knowledge, confidence and  tools to develop a career of my own in computer science.

Don’t get me wrong, it is not a doddle! A lot of hard work, effort, time investment and commitment are expected from the student side to be successful! Good things don’t come easy, but once is achieved the reward feels twice bigger than expected.

I absolutely endorse this course to take not only your cs skills to top level but to change your mindset and convince yourself that you are capable of, by hard effort, achieve anything that you aim. Le Wagon is absolutely worth every cent!

I was originally a Data Analyst, but after working with developing teams for a couple of years, I developed a curiosity and desire to learn how to code web apps myself!
What thrilled me the most, was the idea to be able to create something on my own in order then to convince people to join in my quest to conquer the web!

That is what brought me to take LeWagon’s Full Stack Web Dev. Bootcamp.
The course was incredibly well structured, each day planned to add a brick in what would become an intricate but solid castle of awesomeness.
Mind you, it was tough! You better be willing to get you hands dirty (metaphorically speaking of course!) but the teachers at Le Wagon provide you with all the necessary tools in order to surpass all the challenges ahead.

It was an incredible experience that climaxed with the final project of having succeeded to be able to have created a real-life, live, functioning web application..and in just 2 months!
I’m still mindblown if you ask me!

But if Web Developer is the path you are willing to choose, the end of the bootcamp is only but the beginning!

I myself am constantly learning and coding in my free time starting to develop personal projects which I can finally be able to bring to life thanks to the Bootcamp :slightly_smiling_face:

My background is in oceanography, focused on physical oceanography, ocean modeling, data analysis and research. Before Le Wagon, I had just finished my masters in oceanography where I learned so much about scientific Python, data, plotting and how to write science in a friendly way. Together with being an oceanographer, I was always interested in new technologies, startups, how the entire process to come up with an idea worked and what was the best way to show that idea to the world. That's where LeWagon comes in. I've always wanted to shorten the gap between academia and the public, so I thought the source of all the knowledge (internet) could help me with that. 

I started LeWagon after hearing from another friend that took the course and, after the first weeks, I knew the investment was worth it. For me, the structure of the course really helped me through the learning process and, as I saw myself getting better over time, I could see the order things were taught was really making a difference and was helping me not to get confused. By learning ruby first, I saw the potential the language had in making clean and very understandable programs. After that, we saw database, internet protocols, OOP, front-end, APIs (we actually had much more than that) and, after 7 weeks, we had the final project.  For me, the final project was a good summary of what we learned in 9 weeks and I was so proud of what me and my group did in such a short time (if you're curious - http://www.doctorwho.reviews/) . Just the idea of learning how to use google maps in your page, how to make it responsive, how to use a "Facebook Login", was such a big thing for me. Before the classes I didn't pay much attention to all the processes involved in making a website function in a fast, responsive way. 

Besides the material, the teachers and TAs were also very good. What really amazed me was that, because Le Wagon is an international school, the same classes I had in Brazil, were also being taught somewhere in Tokyo, so I now have access to this large community with different ideas and backgrounds from all over the world.

After finishing the course, I didn't start working right away because of other reasons, but I'm still practicing, developing and learning new frameworks, technologies and programming languages. I know some of the things I learned might become obsolete in the near future, but I'm way more qualified to learn new things now than I was before. 

Before I joined Le Wagon in Barcelona I had recently came back from the United States to my home country, Colombia. I graduated from the University of Miami with two majors in Business, management and finance.  After working for more than a year in a bank a came to the conclusion that being an employee is not what I wanted in my life so I decided to come back to Colombia into a fresh start and the best option for me to build my own business.

After giving some thought and research I realized that every job/business that I could think of and inspired me into creating was related to coding and yet I had no idea of what coding was like. Therefore I researched some more into what could be the best school possible for me to learn to code and most importantly start a business through an app. Le Wagon was the best option I could find that had all I was looking for and also included the opportunity of building a new app with other students which made the experience even better than what I was looking for.

Now that Le Wagon ended I can say I was completely fulfilled in my interest of acquiring knowledge in an area I had no clue about. For the moment I have not been able to code since I have been busy completing many applications for an MBA study I want to start later this year. However, because of the app I built at Le Wagon Barcelona and that I have bragged about with some friends, I have received some proposals for me to build a website and an app for one of my friends’ clinic, and for two other friends that have starting restaurants. I’m really looking forward to the opportunity of coding again and I can only imagine all the doors this knowledge will open in my future in business, complete and total gratitude to Le Wagon!

Even as Marketer with over 15 years of experience in product and marketing, my great frustration was not had learned coding at the beginning of my career. When younger, I worked as web designer for a while and could learn a little bit of HTML. I joined an IT team in a financial company and since beginning I was very interested in learning more on software development. As the only woman in the team, I started showing interest in learning coding - but the only help or directions I got was a huge C# book and a “study by yourself” as a support.

Time passed, I went through amazing experiences in great companies and startups, always in areas such as Marketing, E-Commerce, Business or Product Development. And product development was, by far, the most interesting area for me. Build something from scratch, discuss solutions with developers and understand how things work and improve them was really fascinating. I also had some ideas that I’d like to develop, use and eventually launch as a product. But never had the chance of prototyping it.

One year ago I had a great role as Senior Product Marketing Manager in one of the biggest technology companies of the world. And besides that, I was frustrated as I felt that my job didn’t make any sense: I wasn’t learning anything relevant, wasn’t happy with my role at the company and I wasn’t making the impact I would like to make around me.
I left that company and decided to change my career. Had decided that from now on, I’d look for something that could fulfil me and make me feel happy again. I wanted to learn, build something innovative and solve real problems.
That was when I found LeWagon.

Those 9 weeks of bootcamp didn’t taught me only to code in Ruby. I learned since basic concepts such as Git, Object Oriented Programming, MVC, until to architect a database or develop a beautifully responsible Front End.

Those were really intensive days with a well structured teaching methodology that included daily challenges, super updated tools and the most important: the support from the Teachers and TA’s.

At the end, me and my colleagues developed a prototype for improving the Brazilian public health system in 2 weeks. And a marketplace for a B2B2C in 4 days! Was so incredible to start from scratch and, in a few days, see a new product to born and work!!

Those 9 weeks were the turning point of my career - and even of my life. I not only became a developer but I also changed my path. Yet during the bootcamp I started receiving invitations for tech roles jobs in amazing companies. I ended up accepting an offer from SAP Hybris and became a member of their Expert Services as a Functional Consultant for Marketing and Commerce. I never though I would work in this role in such great company and my journey so far has been so amazing. I am still learning everyday and without LeWagon, I wouldn’t be able to develop this path, do simple things as install and configure a software via Terminal or discuss functionalities considering the database in place.

Change my career with 36 years old was not a plan one year ago. It was actually something like a will that was far from happening. Deciding for “pivoting” my path at that point in my career was not easy. Thankfully I found LeWagon and with help from them, the Teachers, the TA’s and all Alumni community, I started a new and exciting new journey - and I’m so glad with that!

I only thing I’m 100% sure after doing LeWagon is that I will never regret it ! I used to be an IT consultant and project manager. I felt that I was a bit useless in all the processes, and felt that I could do more, think more, be more productive but also enjoy more my days at work! That’s why I wanted to turn into a developer! Being able to build my own ideas and create things!   From the first to the last day of LeWagon courses (which I attended in Barcelona), it was a pure pleasure. Great people, great time! The teachers are excellent, very nice with whom you can learn a lot! The batches are quite small (20people approx) which allow to share a lot with everyone and learn faster. We learn how to code full apps, but also how to work like a dev.   LeWagon is a great starter to change a pro life! It is only the beginning of a new journey!  10 days after finishing the batch, I signed a contrat to be full dev in France. There I can practice and learn again and again, more and more… But without LeWagon I would never be able to at least apply to this kind of job…   Don’t hesitate. Sign in and enjoy your new pro life journey

Before Le wagon I had been working in the TV / Advertising industry. My job evolved as a Producer and I began working more closely with Web Developers. Teaching myself to code became a necessity in order to have the language and understanding to do my job more effectively. Realising very quickly that I wanted to take the learning more seriously, I decided to enrol myself in a boot camp. 

After doing a lot of research on which boot camp to choose, I took the plunge and signed up for Le Wagon.  The boot camp didn’t disappoint, the content of each day’s lectures was supported by the challenges students had to complete themselves. Additionally the teachers and TAs were really supportive and made the learning process really enjoyable. 

I highly recommend Le Wagon, for the learning experience and the community that you become a part of.  

… and I have just landed my first developer job! So thanks Le Wagon, I couldn’t have done it without you.

I worked in a restaurant for 4 years before I felt like I needed to make a change in my career. I was always interested in technology, but I felt like it’s hard to learn. I believe technology can make the world a better place and I wanted to be a part of that. At first, I enrolled in a basic course about web development on Udemy before joining Le Wagon, but without having any results. It was hard for me to understand and actually code something. 

Then in autumn, I made a decision that changed my life. I applied to Le Wagon Barcelona and I am glad I did.  It was hard at first, but the Le Wagon teachers were absolutely fantastic and helpful. At first, it was hard for me to learn how to code, but the teachers made sure I make progress and they really helped me along the way. At the end of the Bootcamp, I was part of a team of three that launched an amazing project called FollowTheFoodTruck. It was the first project I was a part of and it made me very proud of my achievements.

Looking back at the whole experience, I can say that Le Wagon was the best investment I made in myself and my career. I started with 0 experience and knowledge of how to code and now I am already doing small projects and I am confident I can help change the world. 

Thank you Gus and Le Wagon!