Le Wagon (London) - Coding Bootcamp - London

Jonny Gates

I joined Le Wagon in pursuit of a long term goal: to become a developer. I’d spent time trying to complete online tutorials with varied success. I then spent nine weeks immersed in a fun environment, with peers on the same journey as me, supported by some of the best tutors I’ve had the pleasure of working with. I learned more than I thought I could.

Le Wagon isn’t just about teaching you to code. The curriculum is rounded as such that what you learn is totally applicable to anyone who wants to work in product development. It provides you with the knowledge and resources to be able to create awesome digital products whether that be pitching, design, user experience and more.

Le Wagon is a big commitment. For me it was a big step to leave a job to go back into education but my advice is just do it, and the sooner the better! The bootcamp is not easy, but it’s so rewarding.

I leave Le Wagon able to pursue a career as a developer, with a new set of friends with whom I’ve shared an incredible journey and a community of developers to call upon for support. I say leave, Le Wagon’s never really over, I’ll be seeing everyone for beers this Friday 😉

Neil Cairns

LeWagon London - How to waste thousands of pounds and be left with no job and poor mental health! ️? 1 year on.

I had to give 1 star as you’re not allowed to leave 0 stars. Shame.

Having actually completed the full time Web Dev course at Le Wagon London in March of 2023 (Jan-March), I can tell you for a fact that it’s not all it might appear from the outside and certainly a number of things are not right.
Let’s start with the implications and stats - the reason I did this bootcamp was to aid in a career change. They strongly imply that once you’ve done the bootcamp there’s thousands of tech jobs and that you will be highly employable, unfortunately this is just not the case for the vast majority of people who will leave a Le Wagon bootcamp. They use a Stat of 93% employment rate, which as of today seems to have dropped to 90%, yet still I would be amazed if the inverse of this figure was true and that even 10% of students got a tech job because of the bootcamp.
I am awaiting a request about what data they use to come up with these stats.
If these stats were true, surely most of the people I did the bootcamp would be employed. I would say of the people I studied with, less than 10% of them have a job that isn’t either with Le Wagon or that have nothing to do with competing a coding bootcamp!

The content of what is taught and how it’s taught is not good, from focusing on Ruby/Rails, something that’s hardly at the forefront of the tech world in 2023 or at the top of an employers wish list. Then there is the inexperienced staff who have little or no teaching experience and the first time they’ve done anything like this is when they’re offered a job by Le Wagon straight from the bootcamp as what they call a TA (teaching assistant). This is how they’re able to keep their costs down, and how the whole thing is able to keep going, one cohort at a time.
The lack of attention to any front end design coding or real emphasis on anything that wasn’t Ruby was astonishing. You question this as you’re there, as do other students and you’re all told the same, that it will all come together in the final week - you’re suspicious but tell yourself they’re a big company, it will be ok…. It won’t. Trust your gut!
The ‘career week’ was like the icing on top of a really stale cake, and just an absolute farce. Not only did the 3 employers who were invited not have any jobs to offer, and were not actually recruiting, two of them didn’t seem to know why they were there. When their talks about the tech industry finished, we were instructed to talk to them, like some oddball fans, it was almost like we all gathered round to see what other pearls of wisdom they would offer. They didn’t.
All in all, 9 weeks later and not much wiser, I would say they had well and truly done a number on me.
12 months later, I am a still not in a tech role, and my physical and mental health has suffered considerably, something which is particularly saddening, given that Le Wagon continues to pedal their bootcamps to anyone who is silly enough to believe their nonsense. Despite trying to get some of my money back, they’ve refused to engage in any appropriate or professional way, and instead have said that I’m to blame!
They are now refusing to engage with me and are ignoring my emails, citing that they’ve blocked me… its like dealing with children, and would be funny if it wasn’t for the thousands of pounds of money they’ve had. It’s not funny. It’s extremely frustrating and continuing to damage my health, but I refuse to be threatened by them.

Julio Quintana

I consider myself a creative person and I am a hard-worker energy engineer who wants a zero carbon future. I have spent the last 6 years applying innovation to sustainable energy and I came to the point where I realised my skills were not enough, they were not future-proof. On the one hand I was talking how the digital world was disrupting energy and I was selling this, however I had not idea how tech was actually achieving this disruption. On the other hand I have always had many ideas and I could not transform them in anything else but boring power points. I knew I needed to learn to code. A friend recommended Le Wagon. I spent weeks reading about Bootcamps, benefits, disadvantages, and I was surprised how many good reviews Le Wagon had, to be honest I was even a bit skeptical. And here I am writing my review… I am truly grateful for how much I learn in these 9 weeks, I was afraid of that black window called the Terminal which I had never used in my life, and today I can use 4 of those at the same time. I lead a team of 3 developers using Agile methodology, and I am really proud to say I am a tech energy engineer, I can speak the language and understand the challenges (APIs, data structures, TDD, etc.). Le Wagon truly changed my life for the better, I can prototype my very own ideas and is such a powerful skill. The bootcamp teaches you all what you need to keep learning. Their methodology, support, environment and good vibes makes it unique. No need to hesitate, just take the jump, it is worth it.

Catriona Beamish

Making the insane decision to quit my job and learn to code could have been a huge mistake, but luckily I chose to attend Le Wagon and that has turned what could have been a terrible life choice into an inspired career change. After nine weeks of intensive coding amongst some of the friendliest, smartest, most interesting people imaginable I had evolved into a capable coder with a scattering of statistical knowledge and a plethora of new tools in my coding toolbox. I loved my teachers, my batch manager, and my fellow students and I couldn't have asked for a better learning experience. No regrets.

Michael Jones

Absolute con artists. Don’t bother. Most of their fake positive reviews are from the cult like culture they have where the students are encouraged to positively review before they have even left! They are also worried they won’t get a job without their help. The training is utter rubbish and most of their staff are made up of previous students that can’t get a ‘real job’. Avoid. Literally you’re better off burning your cash.

Fakhri Aslan

I discovered Le Wagon after googling coding boot camps because I was trying to learn to code and eventually find a job in tech. As someone who comes from a social sciences background, self-studying seemed like a good idea in my mind, but in practice, it was extremely challenging. I am now very happy that I chose Le Wagon because the fantastic support and guidance I received during my 9 weeks there gave me the confidence and technical knowledge to launch my own projects and to keep leaning new coding concepts on my own afterward. I would have never believed if someone told me that I could build a fully functional web service in just 2 weeks, but Le Wagon proved me wrong. One of the things that stood out to me the most was the sheer amount of coding we did every day. It was intense in a good way. I can now confidently say that I am used to that intensity, and the discipline Le Wagon instilled into me will be a massive advantage in my future work.

Anthony Passler

After 10 years in the creative industry as a Creative Artworker I decided to make the switch and become a Full Stack Developer. I quickly found out that Le Wagon London was a great place to help me achieve my goals and I made the jump and signed up.

The experience was incredible, its amazing the amount of Information your brain can process and the way Le Wagon have structured their bootcamp in phenomenal. I really enjoyed the fact that its a product-oriented approach where there is lots of hands on work as well as the buddy system which teaches you to work with different people and learn different ways of thinking because you get paired with a new person everyday. The teachers are always ready to help you when needed and there are no stupid questions!

Looking at my final project (helprcommunity.com), I still can’t believe my team and I managed to pull this off in 2 weeks. Great job Le Wagon!

Julianne Joswiak

Le Wagon was a great experience. It really piqued my interest in programming. I went on to do a conversion Master’s in Computing after the bootcamp, which I am almost done with now. This has given me a renewed appreciation for Le Wagon. At Le Wagon, they were able to teach us so much in such a short amount of time. Most important, they made it fun. The curriculum was really stimulating and the platform they have built around it looks amazing and delivers content in such an effective manner. Le Wagon is where I loved programming, and without it I probably would not even be considering a programming role today. It was also just a lot of fun! The challenges posed by the teachers were a lot of fun, and working with our classmates was great. The class grew really close, and we had many social events - following our long programming days (9-6). But I never felt like the days were long. I was at my most skilled and job-ready after completing Le Wagon. Le Wagon really equipped me to be a web developer. It is one of my favorite things I have ever done, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.