Le Wagon

I was looking to change my career from sales to being a web developer, so I did a lot of searching on the web. I saw Le Wagon has five stars so I contacted them and they invited me to their demo day in December 2016.

I was surprised how amazing their presentations and products were. I had a word with a few of the students and most of them didn't know how to code before they join Le Wagon and that’s what made me so comfortable joining the bootcamp.

They do tell you that the first weeks you really need to stay focused. So I did, and  I can’t believe that 9 weeks later I was presenting and launching my own product, Desk Joy, in front of a crowed at Google Campus. It was an amazing experience and now I have a strong foundation to move forward as a developer or to build my own products.

I had been wanting to learn coding for a while before enrolling to Le Wagon. I started learning with some online services but was not convinced. After benchmarking several bootcamps in both US and Europe, it seemed Le Wagon gave the best value for money.   I didn’t regret one second joining them. The pedagogy - focused on practice - is extremely innovative. The courses are very well structured and engaging. The teachers are clear, professional and friendly. The technologies and methodologies you learn are what companies are using.   By the end of the bootcamp, everyone is able to build their own app, and more importantly has the right basics to be able to keep learning new languages, frameworks and technologies.   Last but not least, you become part of a community of entrepreneurs and developers which will be there to support you in your future challenges.   Whether you want to become a developer, build your own product, be able to better talk to the tech guys in your company or are just curious about coding, I would highly recommend to join Le Wagon.

 

I’ll give you some life context so that you can understand how Le Wagon legitimately changed mine. I left university midway through my degree in History and German. I didn’t feel that I was getting enough value to make the investment sensible. I was there because of ambition. I want to have a good career in a job that I enjoy. I went to an academic school in London and was taught that university was the only way forward after 18. To not go would be to forfeit my right to a successful future; to stagnate. Keep paddling, don’t rest, you’ll make it.

I was on holiday in Lisbon, staying in a house share. Sitting at the kitchen table I saw fluorescent text tapping along a dark laptop screen. Coding, just like in the movies. It still excites me when I open up my laptop and see the arcane looking terminal and text-editor in which I do most of my work. I asked the guy operating the laptop how I might be able to sneak into his mystical world. He asked what I was studying. History I said. Well then, a coding bootcamp he said. And that’s when I found Le Wagon. Googling away and trying to find the best bootcamp in Europe. I hit gold, but I didn’t know it at the time. I applied, I got a place and I left university.  

I didn’t make my decision lightly and I was worried that Le Wagon wouldn’t live up to my hopes and dreams. That I wouldn’t like coding. The first three weeks are hard but immensely rewarding. At 9am the 90 minute lecture starts and one of Le Wagon’s great teachers guides you through a new concept. You have to concentrate. Every syllable is important to your understanding. You then split off into randomly assigned pairs and work through coding exercises until 5:30pm. This is where your brain strains as it shifts and develops new methods of function. You’ll get tired, you’ll sit in total frustration, you’ll feel brilliant. From 5:30pm-7:00pm a student will go in front of the class and try to solve a coding problem. Don’t worry if the thought of this intimidates you, it does most, but you won’t be alone up there, the class will work with you. On this course you learn hard skills. Through 400+ hours of coding you are born into the world of technology and what an awesome world it is. The next 4 weeks are also difficult but there is a shift in what is learned. It becomes much more visual, and your first three weeks come together to make sense. You really have to trust the process. Often times you might think, why are we learning this? It’s because Le Wagon is responsible. They don’t give you a whistle-stop, skim read, superficial introduction to coding. They dig the foundations deep to steady you for a whole future of explosive growth. The last 2 weeks are spent working on your final project in teams of 3-4. This is the stuff I love, creating something from nothing. Once again it’s hard but by this point you trust in your ability to make your vision a tech reality. I worked with a fantastic team to build a livestreaming platform (socialive.tv). We’re planning to launch soon!

Le Wagon is up amongst the best things that I’ve ever done. I feel like I have a superpower, but like any good hero/heroine I’ve got to keep growing, learning, and adapting. That’s the world of technology and that’s what Le Wagon teaches you.

After 6 years working in engineering, in the railway industry (first doing a technical job, then a management-oriented job), I decided to move to a different environment (a bit tired of the big structures in which nothing evolves at the pace you want). I could either switch company to get a nice raise, or attempt something completely different : go freelance into web development, and that is what Le Wagon offered me : 9 weeks to become a fullstack ruby on rails developer. 

I couldn't really believe it, but i decided to see for myself so I went to a startup launching party (LOKORA) in Le Wagon Paris and I had a good impression talking to people and drinking mojitos. Looking online, I also had a good impression, so I jumped right in. 

Along with a really friendly ambiance, the program started intensely with its backend challenges (which I LOVED). It really consumes some brain power to conceive algorithms to convert ROMAN Numbers to Arabic and Vice-Versa when not used to. One thing I also really enjoyed was the scrapping/parsing course : I felt like I was given such a powerful weapon but so easy to use. An important part of the pedagogic system was the black box testing : each exercise you had to do was automatically corrected by a testing robot, which ensures that you got it right and if you don't, it tells you why and what's wrong. This thing even makes sure your coding style is good :smile: Exercises were so intense that twice a week, we had Claire teaching us Yoga : this thing is AWESOME and enables you to focus again and get your exercises done. The front-end teaching was good, but I was clearly not gifted for this. 

The project part (last two weeks) was awesome – very stimulating, and really taught us how to work in teams using GitHub, which is really valuable when you apply for a job. There is also this good atmosphere that you get surrounded with because all the staff is always FRIENDLY and INVOLVED. Weekly events are often organized with talks (they have an important person coming and telling you about his/her experience) – and GOOD beer (not the cheap one). 

One thing that I can also point out is that most of the people that attend Le Wagon do not exactly know what they are going to do after, but whatever they will be doing, they know this training is worth it. When I got out of le wagon, I found a first client quite easily and worked 3 months (a startup in advertising) : I improved so much that I decided to build projects on my own for companies that did not have a CTO (ex : I am currently negotiating with a real estate company to sell them a custom tailored CRM ), I even do some marketing emails campaigns with MailChimp (which is a fun thing to learn if you don't do that everyday). 

All this to say that I was over-satisfied with my Le Wagon training, even suprised how easy it was to change a career and head towards entrepreneurship.

 Hugo from batch 51 (early 2017) of Le Wagon in Bordeaux 

I graduated from a business school 4 years ago with the impression to have learned little and regretted not learning enough skills useful for the startup world. I wanted to learn a programming language but I needed to find a job and wasn’t sure I wanted to start over studying. Today I just finished batch 51 of Le Wagon in Bordeaux in France and if I could go back in time I would scream at my recently graduated self “GO DO LE WAGON!!!”  I learned to learn how to code. The program is well built to teach you the foundations of web programming with custom tools developed by the team. I also greatly appreciated the immersive experience in the life of a web developer which is a huge asset even if you never code again. But most of all, the teachers are all former students of Le Wagon which makes them the best help because they know exactly what you are going through.
Now I am back working on my startup idea with all the skills I need and a big network of alumnis.

Coming from a business background, I was missing a creative dimension in my investment banking career. So I decided to take a year off from my MBA and learn to code with the objective to move to a tech role after graduation.

That's when Le Wagon came into my life and allowed me to make a transition towards a more creative career. It was the ideal first step to become an entrepreneur.

I loved my time at Le Wagon: the entrepreneurial mindset, the dedication of the staff and the overflowing creativity of my fellow students made these 9 weeks a unique and transformational experience.

It is incredible to realize how much you learn and can achieve in 2 months and a half: I became more independent and was able to launch my own venture with friends.
Le Wagon not only brings you technical skills but also an essential working framework.

After studying graphic design and working for two years as a freelance UI/UX designer in Paris, I decided to join batch #48 because I wanted to be able to develop my own projects, from the first idea to an actual web app. And I was not disappointed!

The pedagogical approach and teaching methods are designed to help the student to learn by himself and become an autonomous web developer, while learning how to work among others as part of a team — physically and online. Moreover, Le Wagon Paris staff is full of very cool and talented persons who care a lot about the welfare of all the people involved in this crazy adventure.

After probably the 9 most intense weeks of my life, I was really proud and excited to present the MVP of mnemosyne.io, the project we built during the last 10 days with 3 other students — here is a link if you want to watch it. It’s a platform to share and discover art and design master theses. I’m now working on an alpha private version and hopefully a public beta version at the end of this summer!

So if like me, you want to give life to your best ideas, I can only recommend you to apply to Le Wagon FullStack program. I promise you that you won’t regret it ;)

My 9 weeks training at Le Wagon Bordeaux (batch#51) was such an amazing experience ! The teachers team, the pedagogy, the interaction between alumnis and the projects we made, gave me really operational skills and a clear vision of what an efficient work is in full stack web developpement. In the last 10 days we built a full and working platform for delivery companies and customers with all the techs we’ve learned, like geolocalization and mapping.
Be prepared to meet exciting people, to spend hours of working and to finally blow your mind !

If you want to learn how to be a good developper, Le Wagon is made for you.
I am a student from the batch #51 at Bordeaux, I came here because I couldn’t afford to outsource my company website development, these 9 weeks have helped me to be able to do it on my own.
The school gave me more than my expectations!
The programme has been built in order to teach you how to code, to get the good developer behavior, and also to help you even after with all the training material available, and believe me… it is a great idea!
This is a serious and friendly community I am very pleased to be a part of.

Would you like to learn how to build a web application from scratch, surrounded by skillfull and friendly teachers? And follow courses at le Wagon in a beautiful city next to the sea while having a good glass of wine after hard day of work? Bordeaux may be your destination :)  

Hello everybody! My name is Pierre. I have been a student at the Le Wagon - Bordeaux for 9 weeks (batch 51). How incredibe and serious the way code has been taught to me, with no experience at all in web developpement before starting the courses. (I need to remind you that the courses is also structured for advanced level students). 

You will probably fall in love with ruby when coding simple programs to start,  enjoy designing your database schema and play hard with ActiveRecord in Rails, the framework you will use to build your web app! Patience, one step at a time, the road is not that easy and you will have to work hard during those weeks if you really wish to assimilate intense hours of courses and code (several langages as well!)

 You will also learn to design your pages, use Bootstrap and make layouts responsive to user’s devices (mobile phone, tablets etc.). Everything is made (online plateform, live codes, exercices, documentation) to make you practice and to be automomous in your work. Helpfull teachers and assistants will guide you through the courses, resolvings conflicts and bugs, giving you advices and tips when you’re stucked, and on top of that : share experience as humans with a strong passion for code! (You will meet extraordinary, available and open-minded people).

During the 10 last days at Le Wagon, you will work on a rails project in team (you build everything from scratch and present a demo in front of a public audience in the end. 

I developped with my team a social online plattform to share opinions on various themes with a fun angle. It was a technical challenge to increment the Websocket ActionCable technology in our app to get results in real time with a friendly user interface.

Le Wagon – Bordeaux is also very involved in technical business life.  Meetups, business conferences on various themes and they foster you to particpate in order to increase your developper’s web culture, your business vision etc.

That was honnestly the best courses I have ever had in the past few years in a great environnement:  kitchen and unlimited coffee, comfy chairs and work space! 

“Everybody in this country should learn how to program, because it teaches you how to think.” Steve Jobs

Have you ever asked yourself if your ideas could be turned into concepts and even more into designed products ? Because i must say, i have. I’ve always been curious about how entrepreneurs had been able to create such great companies like Google, Facebook or Airbnb, companies where the product is the core of everything. Well, obviously, i needed to learn how to code to find out. So last January, just after my M1 in Business Management, i decided to join the 48th Batch of Le Wagon Paris.

I have to say that i am impressed. It was just incredible. The team, the courses, the teachers, the environnement, the events.. Everything was just amazing. It’s been a long journey, but at the end i am really grateful.

The program is really well structured with 3 weeks of hard skills at the beginning, learning the basics of the Ruby language. This is the perfect time to learn the logic behind an algorithm program. You’ll be able to learn how to code a black jack even if you’re not 21. It is very hard at the beginning but the teachers are by your side the whole time. Then you’ll learn how to play with a database with the SQL program, Software engineering, front end languages such as HTML, CSS, Javascript and Jquery during two weeks. Then, Ruby On Rails which is the framework used to code your project from A to Z followed by a direct application building a clone of Airbnb. Finally, you’ll be able to code your own project for the last two weeks. ( By the way if you’re stuck with a farewell party, check out The Good Gift )

To be completely honest, beside being able to learn how to develop a web app in only 2 months, which is already unbelievable, the adventure was humanely incredible. I’ve met and worked with people from different cultures and completely different backgrounds. I’ve learned more from the friends i’ve made than I thought I would and most of all, i’ve finished the program with a real sense of accomplishment.

I now joined le Hub Bpifrance as a start up analyst/growth hacker and planning to build my own start up when i graduate.

Feel free to contact me on Linkedin, i’d be glad to give you more details about this experience.

Best,

 

When I first came across on Le Wagon website the first thing caught my attention was their slogan: “Change your life: learn to code”. I thought this was exactly what I wanted, change my life, jump in another “adventure”.

After my 4 years in China and almost 1 in Cambodia working as a Project manager  in the garment business, I wanted to go back to Europe and start again a new career.

Cause my IT background and cause ,as Project Manager, I always worked with developers I decided that the best way to go back in the market was to polish off my coding skills, which I was not touching  since the university times.

To me coding always been something boring to do.
I remember at the university studying  C or Pascal was a torture, thats why I decided to follow the networking path and avoid code.

But since today the world need coders I decided to give it a second opportunity and study it again in some cool course all around Europe.. and boom! That is exactly when I came across Le Wagon. 

I made my decision in one night.. “if it’s cool as it look like then I have found the right course for me”.

I signed in the day after. The first available batch was in Barcelona (beautiful city!) I called them, I did my interview and finally ,after few days, I got the confirmation: I was in!

After a wait of almost 1 month, here I was , learning code in a beautiful city like Barcelona, and yes, everything was like I expected It was, absolutely fantastic.

All teachers and people from Le Wagon  they were not just teachers but they were and are great human beings, taught me how to code and how to love it, they transmit me their passion and  their will to keep going and to learn something new everyday.

And right now I just can’t stop! I do code everyday and I am hungry of learning more and more, knowing that now I am part of an amazing community that is there anytime I will need help.

Thanks Le Wagon for this great experience, you really changed my life.