A few weeks after finishing Le Wagon, George got not just one job, but two! In a few months he was in California coding for Salesforce.
Where were you before Le Wagon and what led you to enroll?
I was at school and decided I didn’t want to go to university like the rest of my friends. I didn’t want to end up with a heavy student loan to pay back. But ultimately I don’t see a university degree being much help to me by the time I graduate in 2021. So I decided to learn to code with Le Wagon...and it’s really paid off!
I enrolled because I love building websites and wanted to grow my technical abilities. The reason I chose Le Wagon is because I met Ed, the manager, who told me all about it.
What were you hoping to get out of studying code?
I have always loved building basic websites with HTML and CSS but there’s only so far you can go before you need skills in Ruby and Rails to actually build proper web applications. So my goal before the bootcamp was to get a developer job and I got two within 6 months after completing the bootcamp!
Did you have any difficulties with learning during the Bootcamp, and (if so) how did you get over them?
I’ve got to admit, it was tiring. 10 hours a day of solid learning is way more than you do at school when you’re 16 so I had to adjust to that. But the course is so engaging that you forget and just enjoy every second of it.
How did you stay motivated throughout the course?
I stayed focused and listened to the teachers. They know best, and when things start working for you and you start understanding everything it’s the best motivator of all. You just want more.
What was the best part of your bootcamp experience?
I particularly enjoyed all the friends I made and especially the last three weeks when we were working in teams. This is the best part of the course. You actually can’t believe that during the course you learnt enough to build your own web applications from scratch with your buddies. And of course, launching my own product at
Google Campus was a big highlight!
What was the transition out of Le Wagon like? And what are you doing now?
The weeks after we all went back to the classroom and we had a day of building our LinkedIn profiles and CV’s. We did this as a group and cross checked all our work so we had great profiles to start applying for jobs.
And then I struck gold! I got offered a junior developer intern position at
Salesforce in California starting 8 months after the course finished. And then I got a job at
Partners Andrews Aldridge (which is a part of The Engine Group) in their creative technology team in the time before going to Salesforce.
So all in all, it worked out pretty well.
What was the most valuable takeaway from Le Wagon for you?
The support network is extremely useful. There are over 1,000 alumni on a huge Slack channel where you can always ask for help. When you’re stuck on code or need a cool resource, you’ll get an answer in seconds. And of course access to all your course material from the 9 weeks. Oh, and the friends I made is definitely a huge positive takeaway!
