Le Wagon

As a business school student and young product manager, i wanted to follow the Wagon coding bootcamp for 3 reasons :
-Be better as PM (better colaborate with developers, better understand technical issues…)
-Develop a network in the tech environment, which is under-represented in business school in general
-Develop side-projects, be able to code my own prototypes and test my product ideas in front of potential customers

Finally, i’m more satisfied than i expected. The curriculum is very well made, teachers are amazing and they are fully dedicated to build a strong community. Everything is made to make all people get to know each other from day one. It’s a real human experience where i also developed my social and teamwork skills, surrounded by highly motivated people.

Even if you don’t follow the bootcamp to become developer, you are not immune to love to code at the end. It’s sooo satisfying to be able to build things by ourself, and i’m now confident enough to learn new languages, like Python in my current job, to carry out data analysis.

Don’t hesitate anymore, it will change your life more than you can expect before doint it.

I had an amazing experience at le wagon and I would recommend it to anybody being interested by code.   I graduated from ESSEC business school with a master in data analytics. I then worked for more than one year in a start up that fights against food waste. I loved. the experience but I was very frustrated to work on tech products without understanding how they were functioning. I joined le wagon batch 290 in Paris and this experience changed my life and the way I want to move on with my carrer. I discovered I loved coding and I am now looking for new opportunities to become a real developer. teachers are amazing. They know how to talk to you and explain because they have been at your place few years ago. It is very challengin but in a very benevolent environement were everything is made to make you succeed and help you gain confidence step by step. Finally you get a unique opportunity to meet people from very diverse backgrounds ( from former monks to music ingeneer) and the network you create will follow you throughout all your professional life.  Nothing more to say, just do it :)

Before le Wagon, I was (and still am) an undergraduate student at the Sorbonne School of Economics.
Since a very young age, I was interested in computers; I learned how to mount one and did a bit of programming too. However, I never went deep in learning and building apps with code, I found it difficult to learn it by yourselfeven if there are a lot of resources online.
When I graduated from high school, I enrolled in economics, but I wanted to go back to computers. Because I wanted to focus on the practical aspect of programming, learn a lot in a limited amount of time but well, I learned about coding bootcamps and Le Wagon came naturally as my first choice.
Because I have a lot of free time beside my economics studies, I had the opportunity to work part-time as a FullStack developer in a startup founded by an alumni who did the bootcamp with me! Overall, choosing Le Wagon was one of the best decision I made. I learned in 9 weeks what I couldn’t learn alone since I was interested in programming. During the bootcamp I’ve met incredible like-minded people, and made a lot of friends. Le Wagon gave me a lot of confidence and taught me how to build web apps, but also how to learn any language and framework by yourself thanks to their educational methods. Don't hesitate!

I did batch #287 of Le Wagon (Summer 2019).

     I was a postgraduate student in a French engineering school. During my studies, I mainly did applied mathematics, physics and computer science. So I had a basic coding background but only related to maths and theoric sciences.
    I was interested in web tech. I enrolled Le Wagon to wider my knowledge and see somehow what was for me at this time an ‘other way of coding’.

   I believe that Le Wagon is the best way to quickly learn how to develop a complex web app from scratch and to have a better view of all challenges surrounding the web.
    You don’t need to know anything about coding before entering the bootcamp. And that’s a good point because Le Wagon will give you the best coding practices and a mindset to be able to be independent and learn by yourself new technologies. Le Wagon emphasis a lot on code quality and team workflow, which are two essentials skills for a developer.

        I’ve just been “graduated” from Le Wagon a month ago and I’m working on web development projects while studying. I would say that the main interesting thing about le wagon is that they teach you “how to learn code” the good way. That’s amazing you keep learning new stuff every day at a breakneck pace and you can easily move on to more advanced technologies in no time.

Before joining Le Wagon I was working as a warehouse operative in London. While I was working I always had a thought in my mind that I needed to be challenged a little more in life so I tried coding in my free time, and unfortunately I wasn't very successful. It's easy to get lost and discouraged in a sea of programming if you have no guidance.

Few months later I came across coding bootcamps. I thought bootcamps were a quicker and cheaper way to get the knowledge that a university would provide, so after doing some research I decided to apply to Le Wagon London. I was quite surprised they took a chance on someone like me who didn't have a great background (but hey I'm not complaining).

The bootcamp itself was very challenging and intense, but luckily they have a great bunch of teachers, who are always reassuring and happy to help. The staff and teachers are all super nice and treat you like a friend. The buddy system is something that I enjoyed a lot. You basically get matched with a new person everyday so you get to meet and learn from many different people with many different backgrounds. Even though it was very demanding, I am very happy that I did it, because everyday I was having fun while getting better and learning so many different programming languages. I also got to experience what it is like to work as a web developer by having hands on experience and doing projects in a group of 3-4 people for the last 3 weeks.

If you are looking to change your career or just curious about learning code, I would definitely encourage you to join Le Wagon.

After working for more than 10 years as communications officer and manager for various organizations, I felt the need the change course. I wished to learn a new, technical skill that would allow me to feel empowered and to master modern technologies, instead of just using them unknowingly.

Le Wagon syllabus looked promising and exciting... and it delivered ! You have to go all in and commit (pun intended) 100%, but if you do, the well thought out program, the great teachers and always-here-to-help teacher assistants will accompany you closely in the journey.

What's more, after Le Wagon, you know how to learn, and don't feel overwhelmed anymore by the tech universe. It opens up a lot of possibilities, from freelancing to web agencies or in-house dev in any organization relying on tech... which are many. Le Wagon also offers job seeking assistance after the fact, which is really helpful when you don't know where to start.

Highly recommended !

I had an excellent experience in this bootcamp.

Curriculum's design is tense but reasonable, it pushes me to the limit and provides me huge progress.

They also have sufficient challenges for me to implement what I learned in the morning class.

Most of all, Le Wagon Tokyo has an outstanding teaching group that always stands on your side and provides help, using simple words to help you understand a complex concept.

Having a great teacher is much more important than having a great class schedule.

As a former student in a French business school, I tried for months but was not very successful in learning to code by myself. Last year, I met the driver of Le Wagon Montreal and a couple of students during my internship in Montreal. After having spoken with them, it became clear that it was something for me and so I decided right away to apply to one of the Le Wagon locations around the world.

The three things I enjoyed the most at Le Wagon Bali were :

1. The way our days were structured: a quick 1.5 hour lecture in the morning and the rest of the day was dedicated to practice, practice and .. more practice!

2. Coding in front of the beach! The balinese atmosphere is probably one of the best in the world, working hard and being relaxed at the same time. It helped me so much.

3. The amazing people I met there, from all around the world.

One of the best moments of the bootcamp is, obviously, the last two weeks when we work on our final projects. In those moments, everything really came together. And believe me, you really feel accomplished. 🙂

At the time of writing, we are few weeks after the end of graduating the bootcamp and I can tell you guys that jumping into this adventure was one of the best choices I've made. Le Wagon is a game changer and I'm a 100% sure that it will change my life. For those who are ready to work hard and are really interested in coding, I highly recommend Le Wagon.

Before Le Wagon, I was a student studying Business Economics and that is where I met a friend who introduced me to the world of coding. I immediately started studying on my own and tried to get to a solid level but quickly learned how difficult that is without any real guidance.    This is where Le Wagon Bali came in. I’m not going to lie, I was extremely skeptical before joining the course with major questions like “Can I really learn to code in only 9 weeks?” These questions were immediately shattered when the course began. Le wagon’s meticulously planned course, along with the incredible instructors, taught me more than I could have possibly anticipated. I learned 50x more in 9 weeks in Bali than I did in 3 months of studying on my own. I went from essentially knowing nothing to building my own fully functional web-applications.   I am extremely grateful for the experience they provided and I seriously couldn’t recommend Le Wagon any higher to someone who wants to learn to code. 

My interest in coding was always very high. I've been working in tech startups for the last two years, but only got a sneak peek at the product behind the scenes. This made me very curious and it finally helped my decision to sign up for the Le Wagon Bali Bootcamp. The main reason why I choose Le Wagon was the hands-on learning approach.

A typical day at Le Wagon starts at 9 o´clock sharp with a 1.5 to 2 hour lecture. Following the lecture every student is assigned a buddy using their awesome learning tool "Kitt". Together the two of you will tackle the challenges of the day on the terrace outside the classroom, always having the chance to ask for help from one of the teachers if you are both stuck. This is an extremely powerful and effective way of learning as it allowed me to find my own mistakes. In my opinion Bali was the perfect location for learning how to code, as it allowed you to focus while coding and stay calm when not. At around 5 o clock there will be a live code where everyone has the ability to show what they have learned throughout the day.
I would have never thought it is possible to learn so much in such a short time.

I definitely learned a lot in the last three weeks and we all did, while working in groups on our projects. This was not only extremely fun, but it also gave us a good sense of how to code in a team and showed how much more one can achieve when working in groups.

After these 9 weeks at LeWagon in Bali, I have met wonderful people and broadened my personal network and have also finally the gained the skillset to built fabulous products.

I am writing this review a month after completing the Bootcamp. At my time at Le Wagon, I learned how to make a static webpage, scrape data from other websites, build a full-fledged Airbnb clone, build FireEvents, and executed my final project, all in 9-weeks. It was intense but it was totally worth the hours put in. I came into this program without knowing how to write a single line of code and 9 weeks later, I am equipped to build full-stack applications. The teachers are so helpful and considerate towards the students and are ready to help whenever needed. The coursework is designed well to suit a beginner coder and goes all the way to an advanced level in a matter of a couple of weeks. Of course, there is the prep work that every student has to go through to establish their foundations before the Bootcamp, and this definitely helped me get a better understanding of things during the classes. This program has helped me attain the knowledge that I need to achieve the things I want to on a professional front. Coming from a management background and changing it up to learn how to code can be scary, and I am glad I overcame my fears and took this up. I am very grateful to Le Wagon and the whole teaching crew in Bali for all the support and the resources that were given to me. As for choosing to do the Bootcamp in Bali, the classes were on the top floor of the Frii hotel which had an amazing view of the beach which was relaxing while coding. There are several co-working spaces in Bali which cater to digital nomads and you would definitely run into other developers there and find some freelancing opportunities. There are also a lot of options for food and it's one of the best tourist destinations as well.

I'm from the Singapore campus that opened up this past summer and it was just last week that my team completed and showcased our MVP at batch #294's Demo Day.

  4 months ago I was working as a product planner at an infosecurity company, in a team managing an enterprise web application security product. With a BA and the only formal training in computer science being a semester's coursework of "Intro to Computer Science Java Programming", the learning curve on the job was extremely steep.   While my job gave me some background in how applications are attacked, many concepts were understood only up to the level I'm able to communicate with engineers and seek their confirmation of what is possible. Imposters' Syndrome is real for any non-technical PM. What are these web applications my product is supposed to protect? I knew what websites were, but not how they were built, whether securely or otherwise.   These past 9 weeks gave me the opportunity to to finally, finally get my footing in what I thought I'd needed years of personal study to understand. I'm now closer to the product than I can ever get by learning how to build my own, and with friends.   At Le Wagon we started each day off with lectures followed by almost a whole day of coding to solve challenges of increasing difficulty. It's a solid curriculum that pushes you to use what you've learned right away, all the time, and alongside what you've learned and what you'll learn next. Very quickly you become so familiar with Ruby, everyone starts bonding over how much we miss it during the JavaScript portion of the bootcamp. Code puns of course start appearing during lunchtime which Dirk (Le Wagon Singapore's founder!) says is always a proud moment for him.   What was really impressive for me is realizing at the Airbnb Clone and Final Project weeks that we can build from scratch a fully functional, feature-rich application using just what we've learned.   For my team's final project, we built an issue tracking web app for construction and facilities management. A core feature was to allow users to for pin issues directly on user-uploaded maps to automatically capture a bunch of location information with zero text input. We could have gone the route of creating a draggable pin icon that could transfer data to be stored — which would be complicated by not impossible to implement. However, we found a much simpler solution inspired by the Minesweeper exercise we did a few weeks before, and built a clickable grid over the maps with the AJAX techniques we've learned.   My take on what's special about the Singapore campus is that over here we have a mostly local crowd and I guess therefore the demographics could be more diverse. A few of us were overseas Singaporeans, entrepreneurs, fresh graduates, mid-career changers — and that's just between 9 people. I love that I'll be able to see most of them around after the bootcamp, and a few of us will even be entering a hackathon together (watch out for the 'Wagoners'!).   Because we've all shared in this special Le Wagon experience, the alumni network is pretty strong across the global campuses with active channels for job openings, project launches, and of course further learning.   I'm saying this last because it's been done to death but Le Wagon has THE BEST INSTRUCTORS. I cannot understate how much respect and admiration all my peers have for them. They are passionate, supportive educators and have clearly all fallen hopelessly in love with coding. From the lips of one instructor, "...yeah and we can have a bonfire and sing code songs".   A special shout-out to our instructors this run: Prima, Forrest, Guido, Gianluca and our TA Quan (and also our lovely yoga instructor Perolyn!)   These short 9 weeks have shown me that I can code, I deeply enjoy coding, and learning to create with code, much like learning to write or speak, opens up a world of opportunity in bringing ideas to life.