Le Wagon

As a classically trained graphic designer I love making things in my computer, and It was very surprising to me that my curriculum didn’t require scripting, code, or software design. After I graduated I began working as an art director for a global advertising firm, and eventually ended working for the digital side - where I got the chance to work on the creative side of web development. I realized how hard it can be to make awesome things if you don’t understand the technical capabilities of the technologies you’re using to build them, and therefore decided to learn to code.

I began LeWagon without having any clue on how really life changing it would be. When you work in a creative field for a big corporation, you are very detached from ownership if what you make. Working for big clients or agencies, meant that i wasn’t really spending my time doing what I loved, MAKING COOL THINGS, but working my way around loopholes to get things approved - delivered - sold. Coding and LeWagon gave the back the power to really create value from scratch allowing me to make a living through building products that people are passionate about.

I was impressed at the quality of people that was brought together by the bootcamp, and how different our backgrounds are. The community and collaboration approach to learning works wonders when you allow yourself to be immersed during the 9 weeks - and after that you will leave with a network of amazing professionals/people who you have shared a life changing experience with.

I would recommend to anyone!

Attending the 9-week coding bootcamp at Le Wagon Berlin was one of the best decisions I ever made because it changed my life. With a background in journalism and cultural analysis I had no prior knowledge of coding. However, I wanted to change my career path and become a web developer. So when I stumbled across Le Wagon I first went to all of the free workshops they offered and spoke to staff and alumni before I decided to join myself. The programme is very tough (hence bootcamp) but the curriculum is really well structured. You start by learning the basics of Ruby, HTML, CSS and JavaScript before moving onto the Rails framework. In the last three weeks, you build two projects in groups and present your final project at a demo day. 
I didn't believe it was possible to learn coding in such a short amount of time, but it is amazing to see what you are able to learn when you commit time and passion to it and have competent people to guide you. The teacher at Le Wagon do an incredible job teaching the complexity of web development to absolute beginners and I have experienced them to be always helpful, patient and encouraging. 
Apart from the technical aspects, le Wagon has an amazing community. Our driver, Philipp, and our main teacher, Alice, organised a lot of evening activities and also workshops or talks to introduce us to the Berlin start-up scene. I also became really good friends with the people in my batch as well as the teachers and TAs and everyone was motivating and encouraging each other. Even though the programme was tough, I loved being there to learn coding. I am now pursuing my career as a frontend web developer and will never forget the unforgettable time and fun I had at le Wagon. Thank you for everything!

Having a background in law I had no idea of programming (besides some rudimentary HTML knowledge from school) and got to Le Wagon through their evening workshops. After my interest was sparked by these workshops I decided to go for the full-time bootcamp and I was not disappointed. The LeWagon Bootcamp is a thought through course from the didactical concept to the content of the lectures. Days start with a lecture in the morning followed by challenges which are solved by the students themselves. Thus, from day 1 you are challenged to solve problems and work practically. In the evening there is another live code session bringing together the whole group. The independent time is accompanied by teachers and teaching assistants who help with any upcoming question - a luxury you will not enjoy when learning on your own and which is extremely helpful as it speeds up your learning process. The structure of the classes do not only include coding basics but you also get taught in practical approaches on how to build a website from scratch. It was this holistic approach which convinced me choosing Le Wagon. This pinnacled in the two last weeks where you are building a website based on your idea from scratch. Additional to the curriculum we were provided with a lot of extra activities such as weekly talks with interesting persons from the scene, regular yoga classes and team building events. The people I have done the bootcamp with have become friends and besides the knowledge I gained it was also an incredibly fun time! 

I had just changed careers from being an accountant first to fully focusing on web development. I moved to Ibiza to work in my father's company. At that time I didn't know anything about web development yet, so I went searching for a good web development course. After a while I ended up at Le Wagon. I had a good talk with Feiko Boerstra (leader of the course in Amsterdam) who was very helpful in answering my questions about the course and web development in general.  I decided to do the course.

The course was very intense from beginning to end. It was very good for me as well, because I've never gone so deep into a certain subject before. I learned a lot thanks to the constant putting theory into practice and learning from my mistakes and from the clear explanation from the teachers. Whenever I had a problem or I got stuck in an exercise the teachers and/or teacher-assistants were always there to help me and to share their expertise in a way where I could understand where it went wrong and how to prevent the mistake for next time. Through the 9 weeks sitting together in one room you get to bond a lot with your fellow students. We went out together often for lunch or dinner or just hanging out. So the Le Wagon course was both fun and challenging. I'm very happy that I chose to this course and everything what I learned will definitely be useful for my future as web developer.

After the course I went straight to work on my first website for a client at my dad's company. It was for a construction company and with my newly acquired skills I was able to make very decent website for the client. He was happily surprised with my work. My next challenges for the coming period is trying to help my dad's company make the transition from conventional paper advertising to full digital advertising. The first project is trying upgrade our websites so that they fulfil the demands of today on the web where fast delivery of great and rich content has become the norm. I look forward to going deeper and to understanding more about the possibilities of what web development has to offer. What I've learned at Le Wagon has really opened my eyes. I never knew I would like coding so much. I definitely recommend you try it out!

I didn’t have any programming background before Le Wagon. In fact, I was a high school English teacher for a few years before deciding I wanted to take a completely different direction into development. In the beginning, I was intimidated and anticipatory of what to expect, but once I realized all of my fellow classmates felt the same not only about what to expect but also about taking the risk of trying something new, it reassured me to have that common ground.
Because my background is in education, everyday I was impressed by the Le Wagon team, including the curriculum, the instructors, the TAs, the passion they have for each student and really seeing us succeed in an intensive, short amount of time.
I wouldn’t replace this experience for the world, learning an invaluable new skill, going through the struggles, challenges, and successes together, as a team.
Le Wagon really prepares you thoroughly, not only with the computer science skills, but also taking those skills and actually knowing how to implement them in a technical working environment, collaborating and communicating with others. Basically, it teaches you how to jump into a fast-paced development team and know how to swim on your own. Those skills are unique, and in the end, I believe are the deciding factor as to why Le Wagon alumni complete the bootcamp successfully.
You can read more about my experiences and perspectives throughout the bootcamp here

One year ago I decided it was time to learn coding. I started off by my own, reading a book and watching online videos. I soon realised that I needed a better way to learn the basics and create the foundations on which I could build on my knowledge. Lewagon gave me this exact foundations that I was dreaming for. In the end of the course the most talented students will be able to find a job strait way, but everybody will have the foundations and knowledge of what to do next in their new coding career.

Regarding Lewagon London: The offices were really nice, very spacious, modern and clean. All the staff was super friendly and helpful. The location was good too, in a nice area close to the center and next to the overground. The classes were surprising well structured and organized. I would like to mention something negative but there is nothing I can thing off. Even the students in my batch were incredible.

Overall, I really enjoyed being a student again and I feel like I learned a lot too thanks to Lewagon. If they had an advanced course I would join for sure! Really recommended.

I originally studied Business and worked for many years in Administration. Then I decided that I needed a career change, and because I felt inspired by the tech industry, I wanted to learn to code.

I applied to Le Wagon in Lisbon, #batch122, where my life changing experience started!

It’s a very challenging program, which has been structured in such a way, it gives a maximum of technical knowledge in a minimal amount of time. Most of all, they teach you how to learn, which will be very helpful as a developer, since as a developer you’re continuously learning, in order to keep yourself updated with the new technologies in the market.

At the beginning I really thought it was impossible that my brain could assimilate so much information at once, but believe me, it is possible! I’m a living, breathing example of it! I struggled a lot at the beginning, but I managed to bring everything together towards the end thanks to the endless help and support from the Teachers, TA’s and the manager. In just 9 weeks, I went from zero to a Junior Developer, who’s capable of developing a web application!

I strongly advise Le Wagon for those who want to learn to code. They have developed a perfect program that any non tech background person, like me, can turn themselves into a developer in just 9 weeks.

Beside learning to code, Le Wagon also provided me with a very cool learning environment. My idea of school was a boring and serious place to learn, but at Le Wagon, we can do both - learn and have lots of fun at the same time :)

I really enjoyed this experience, and strongly recommend it!

I studied history and politics at Swansea University and I have no idea why I chose those subjects. I was just going to uni because everyone else did. I was then self employed doing a bit of labouring work and other bits and bobs. But then I decided to start learning Ruby and Javascript online and realised I just loved it.

I decided to enroll with Le Wagon because it's a very product focused course and having competed the course I can see how 9 intense weeks is all you need to get your first job. The week after I finished Le Wagon I found paid work as a full stack developer.

The curriculum is well mapped out, starting with backend, so you are starting to think like a software developer from the very start, then it moves onto front end, Javascript and Rails. The last 3 weeks are spent working in teams building your own rails apps scratch. Without these last 3 weeks I would not have been able to get a job so quickly working on real life we apps for paying customers. There are loads of teachers everyday, saving you needless wasted time and always improving your skills.

In only 9 weeks I went from beginner to Full Stack Developer. I highly recommend Le Wagon.

I actually ended up looking for a boot camp on web development by accident. I had been in banking for almost eleven years in various roles related to risk management of structured derivatives but decided I wanted to work independently and set up my own company. My wife and I decided that, hey, this might also be a good time to emigrate to Chiang Mai Thailand, Thailand being my wife's original home country and from there I was planning to land myself a remote c++ developer role which I had been trained in. By coincidence, I met someone in Chiang Mai who was in dire need of web developers. Since this would suit me down to a tee, I decided I wanted to get up to speed in web development as soon as possible. After some research, Le Wagon easily came out on top for me. Deciding on Bali as a destination was easy too. Again my wife had been there four times before and had many good stories to tell.

 

From day one the course in Bali was very well organized. The team: organization, teachers, and teacher's assistants were all top notch and very friendly and helpful. I was super impressed by the backgrounds of all the participants, besides the fact that the group itself was very enthusiastic and energetic. Moreover, the whole atmosphere was very inspiring from an entrepreneurial perspective.

 

The course location in Canggu was truly one of a kind: stunning sunset views of the beach, which is only within walking distance away. Canggu itself has many great restaurants and places to hang out and Bali is fantastic for day trips, and hiking in particular: I climbed both Mt. Batur and Mt. Abang.

The course itself is very well set up: it kept you on your toes but was neither going too fast nor too slow. It overall felt I was learning the right things to create a web app from scratch. My teachers were also willing to discuss related subjects outside the course material, which I personally found very helpful. It inspired me to start learning React and React Native as well.

Daniel Bugge [3:02 PM]
I come from a mixed background having grown up in South America and holding 3 nationalities from Portugal, Norway and Argentina. I studied Geography at university and after that I decided to join a Sound Engineering course in Lisbon. My musical background gave me an interesting insight into the programming world and Le Wagon gave me the perfect introduction into coding that opened my eyes to the possibilities that programming could bring.

The structure and environment of the course allowed me to develop an idea that I had for a while, which was to bring musicians that are new to cities closer to the ressonmating world of music that is so prevalent in most capital cities around the world. JammBoxx is an app that I developed with my team during the bootcamp which allows users to turn their own living rooms into musical spaces by organising jamm-sessions with what musical instruments they and people who joined the jamm had available.

Beyond the unique opportunity to develop literally any idea you have ever dreamt of, Le Wagon offered an ecosystem of intelligent, interesting individuals from a wide range of backgrounds, which I feel have a strong effect on each others ability to imagine and innovate. I joined a batch in Lisbon and it is interesting to see where this type of innovation will take each and every one of the members of this batch in a city recently coined the growing ‘startup capital of Europe’. Le Wagon fits in this city like a techtris block :wink: promoting the idea that indeed anyone can enter this exhilarating world of tech by providing the right mindset and correct fundamental knowledge and skills to do so.

So here it goes:   I started looking for work after finishing my college degree in business communications, I knew from the start that it wasn’t going to be easy but never expected the job search to be so difficult. I went to a lot of interviews and sent even more resumes but it wasn’t taking me anywhere. So I wouldn’t stop working and keep my head up, I started to work in various fields different from what I was looking for, like gardening and washing cars.  During this time, I found that I needed to expand my skills, so I found some people teaching programming for free on the internet.  After some time studying on my own online, I thought it would be easier to find a brick and mortar school and that is when I found Le Wagon.   Some interviews and tests later, I was in and it all evolved really fast.   Of course I was nervous to start something completely new and with people I had never heard about, but what I didn’t know as well was that every one was almost on the same page as me and that I would have complete and full support from the teachers with every obstacle I found.   The first three weeks were probably the hardest thing I have done in a long time - for most of it, I was completely lost… But I kept going because I knew it would get better, and it did!   During the last weeks, we started our own projects and everyone was a bit nervous because we didn’t know what we really knew, if that makes sense… What happened was that somehow a lot of information sunk into our brains, of course, we didn’t know everything and we still needed help from the teachers, but most of us were able to implement features and code in ways were didn’t know we could.   At the end it was so rewarding seeing our web-apps working and not only my team’s project but the others as well because we all fought for the same goal during nine hard and intense weeks and it was there for everyone to see!

The decision I made to join Le Wagon was the best decision I have ever made. Previously I was working as an accounting-software-consultant and I had only 2 options. To continue the job which I did not like that much or to quit and be lost. But, Le Wagon changed my life in only 9 weeks. The course is super intensive and at the end of the course, I was able to build web applications by myself and ready to apply for junior developer positions. 

Best things about Le Wagon is that you meet great people from various background, and they are all super nice guys! Also, all of them are highly motivated to sophisticate their programming skills so that you will never be disappointed.

After the boot-camp, I still work together with them to prepare for job hunting, go out for drinks (especially in Berlin you may experience intense Friday nights like I did but anyway) etc.  Events such as alumni talks are useful in order to prepare for things you want to do, for instance searching for jobs, freelancing and so on. 

One thing I regret is that, I should have done Le Wagon earlier in my life :(