Coding bootcamp in Paris

I just graduated from a Business School with a Master of Science in Digital Marketing. During my internships, I had the opportunity to work on various digital projects, however, I was always frustrated not to work on the technical aspects of these projects, and not to be able to correctly understand how developers work. After meeting a former schoolmate who also did Le Wagon, I thought about it and decided to dedicate 9 weeks to learn how to code.

As a "marketing specialist", I think it was a strong asset to combine it with technical knowledge for my future career. Moreover, coding always intrigued me and it was the perfect opportunity to learn it, because it is quite hard to do it by ourselves. So I joined Le Wagon in January 2017 as member of Paris Batch #59.

These 9 weeks are very intense, but I learnt so many things! Thanks to Le Wagon, I have been able to understand what is coding, to discover several languages, how a program is set up, how to make it work, and, eventually, how to think as a developer. The team is very motivating, the atmosphere is dynamic, and I strongly recommand Le Wagon if you are curious and interested about learning how to code.

My name is Anne-Sophie, and I was part of Le Wagon Batch #59 in Paris - which ended in March 2017. I was nothing close to coding or tech... I first majored in English Literature, then switched to Human Resources. I worked 7years in an international company but realized I wanted to use my skills to help people rather than help a company.

My first drive to learn about coding came from the frustration I experienced in one of my assignments in my previous job: I was part of a project to implement an information system to facilitate human resources management - and I got to see how HR people and developers could hardly understand each other… which put the whole project at risk.

Add to this that data-driven technology can also be a blessing for people outside their job to define their own career paths without having to rely on HR people within the company they belong to. I wanted to know more about coding in order to be able to bring to people this kind of tool to redesign their worklife.

In retrospect, I like to see Le Wagon bootcamp as a big Lego challenge:

In the first 6 weeks, you learn about all the different bricks that you can use, what you can do with each of them and how to put them together. During this phase, you’re deep in code but the philosophy is really to get support to understand how the bricks work: you’re surrounded with teachers, teaching assistants whom you can call when you are lost. You learn to develop the right reflex to work on your own. And part of the success of this bootcamp comes from the perfect balance between theory (just what you need to understand the big picture) and practice (gradual challenges throughout the day and the course) - I've seen a lot of training programs in my previous jobs but none were close to matching Le Wagon's in getting you to really acquire skills that quickly.

then in the last 3 weeks, you use all the bricks you have learnt about to build real projects, working in a team. The outtake of this part of the bootcamp is even greater as you’re coding for real, not in a sandbox, with all the constraints you will encounter in any job (time-induced stress, teamwork, communication, etc), till the final presentation during the Demo Day. Not only you get to learn code, you also learn how to start a project by defining it clearly, pitching it and marketing it - a very valuable skill when you’re aiming at launching your startup.

And of course, Le Wagon wouldn’t have been the same without the people who support us throughout the bootcamp: students who come from different horizons, but also teachers, teaching assistants, Le Wagon staff, alumni… When you start the bootcamp, you’re in for 9 weeks of spending a lot of time with amazing and passionate people - and that’s a very energizing experience.

Right now, I’m working on my project, using the skills I gained in the bootcamp to develop a website to present my project, get people to book and pay online. This helps me consolidate what I have learnt during the bootcamp, while gaining new skills and giving me the opportunity to work with even more autonomy!

To put it in a nutshell, doing Le Wagon was definitely one of the best decision I've made! It has opened new perspectives for me - as it will for you !, by bringing me new valuable skills and creating lasting bounds with people among the very supportive community of Le Wagon alumni.

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.

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 ;)

I graduated in 2013 from a business school with a specialisation in finance, then worked for 3 years in startups before joining Le Wagon's Fullstack program.

Being immersed in this tech environment and following the latest news on startups, certainly got me curious - but how do they do it? - and I slowly gained interest in code. I first tried to learn a bit by myself thanks to online resources. The problem was that learning code on and off through 1-hour lessons on my free-time turned out to be very difficult.

I heard about Le Wagon a bit more than a year ago from an alumni and I instantly found the format was pretty suited to my needs. Learning a language and being operational in 9 weeks, it's magical. Quickly, I felt like I wanted to be able to understand this completely foreign language and I realised as well that it would be a tremendous asset the day I would decide to start a company on my own - one day - I applied right when I got the opportunity to do it.

Yes, the bootcamp is truly demanding, but the methodology so efficient: theoretical classes - not too long to keep students' attention - followed by practical exercices to do in pairs, with a different buddy everyday. Classes allow to tackle basics and exercices to quickly assimilate them, pair-programming encourages socializing but also enables to improve faster by facing the questions of others.

The last few weeks are dedicated to the development, in groups, of web applications that are pitched by the students. It is the opportunity to put into practice everything that has been previously learnt in smaller modules.

And the result is... stunning, we built from scratch real web-applications that are fully functional, in no more than 2 weeks. I am very impressed by the speed at which we learnt all that, but also very proud of our project.

During the bootcamp, I also realised all the possibilities that are brought by these new skills, and I know that they'll be useful in any type of job.

As a whole, these 9 weeks are an amazing experience, I learnt a lot, met great people and found new professional opportunities.

You are a creative individual and you don't have the tech skills to make your ideas real? You feel that your studies, even prestigious, haven't provided you these skills, focusing more on theory than practice? You want to change your life? Don't hesitate any more, just jump on the band wagon!

I made this choice 6 months ago and I don't regret it! After a MSc in Engineering, I spent 5 years in a consulting company before I decided to launch my own startup: ZADL, a service to plan paid events between friends.

In order to test this idea, I needed a fully functional MVP, and I didn't want to delegate the development of the product. Sadly, I had no programming skills to handle it on my own. At this time, I heard about Le Wagon from a friend very connected to Paris startup ecosystem. I made my own investigation calling a bunch of alumni! They were all extremely enthusiastic about their experience. I was convinced at this point and I just jumped in. I was part of batch 43 and did the 9-week course from October to December 2016.

In only 2 months, we went through all the basic skills a beginner needs in order to build a web application from A to Z. Ruby programming for the backend side, SQL for the database, HTML/CSS and Javascript for the front-end part, and also very useful product design tools like Sketch or Marvelapp. We also learnt how to collaborate within a developers' team using Github, and used Ruby on Rails to speed up our app development and not re-invent the wheel for every new web application. During the 3 last weeks of the programme, we worked on two projects, that we built completely and put in production with Heroku. One of these projects was my startup idea, http://beta.zadl.fr/.

In my opinion, Le Wagon made me save nearly 2 years compared to what I would have learnt on my own with online MOOC and tutorials. Le Wagon's program is really intense and requires a 100% commitment. But there is also a very cool atmosphere, with a team of dedicated and passionate teachers and teaching assistants. Besides the "coding" part, Le Wagon also connect you to a great community: young grads, artists, engineers who want to switch their careers... We all helped each other during the 9 weeks and some of us really became close friends. After Le Wagon, part of my buddies pursued their entrepreneur's journey, and a lot of them started working as developers, either doing freelance or in full-time positions.

To conclude, I would recommend Le Wagon to anyone willing to learn how to build a web application with a very thorough curriculum and an amazing students' community, that be for working on your own project or literally for changing your life!