Why I invested in my tech career with Le Wagon

In this post, I share why I decided to join a coding bootcamp, my evaluation process, my experience, and tips on how to get the most out of it.

Since 2020 is coming to an end, I can say joining Le Wagon's web development coding bootcamp 👩🏻‍💻 has been the best experience this year.

It was 9 weeks long, full-time. Within the last 9 days, my team and I created a web application 📱 called Placeholder. It uses Augmented Reality (AR) for people to capture and share real-time moments with their friends.

Here, I document my story thus far and share about my bootcamp experience, hopefully it would help those looking to join one.

Why the interest in coding?

I have always been interested in tech but had no prior technical background. The closest thing to being technical was knowing some nifty Excel functions.

I started my career in sales at a global Software-as-a-Service company and shortly transitioned to be an Implementation Manager. It was an entry level tech role.

I was working closely with software engineers in troubleshooting issues and I got fascinated seeing what they do. I saw how understanding codes could help diagnose problems quicker. There were also times when the engineers would show me some tech tricks to make my implementation and debugging job easier and more successful 💯. That's when I got interested in learning programming.

But self-learning and mastering programming was hard in terms of the lack of proper guidance and doing it while juggling a full-time job. Joining a coding bootcamp was a good option because of its short-term rigour that would bring me to a good level of expertise.

Choosing a coding bootcamp

Like me, you would probably consider the costs, the ratings and what people are saying about it. Some of the sources I used to help evaluate include: the organisation's website, SwitchUp and Course Report.

Since it is not cheap 💰 to join a bootcamp and it spans a few weeks (full-time), I did further research.

Other steps to help with my evaluation

• Asked engineering friends on the bootcamp's curriculum relevance.
• Watched demo day videos on YouTube (if any).
• Reached out to alumni via LinkedIn. Many were kind to reply, some even took time to jump on a call with me!
• Checked out the LinkedIn profiles of the instructors.
• Asked myself on the motivations for joining a bootcamp.

In the end, I went ahead with Le Wagon Singapore 🇸🇬. For such a relevant and comprehensive curriculum, and the portfolio you can create during the bootcamp, it was value for money. I was also told very positive experiences. The tradeoff was fewer languages covered and shorter duration as compared to other bootcamps, but I could pick them up after the course.

My bootcamp experience

My experience is only limited to Le Wagon and I cannot speak for the other bootcamps, so be sure to do your research.

No doubt the bootcamp was very intensive for me and for most of my peers who also did not have any technical background.

• Many new complex concepts were introduced everyday.
• You have to understand those concepts to be able to attempt each day's challenges.
• These challenges usually have several requirements so you have to be at the peak of your concentration in order to piece everything together.
• You have to maintain the same focus for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week over the span of 9 weeks.

As gruelling as it can be, there were many things about Le Wagon that made it an incredible learning experience.

✅ The curriculum is well-designed

Their choice of programming language, Ruby, is a language that is simple to understand. Other programming concepts are gradually introduced which are updated, and would help you eventually build full-fledged web applications that you can call your own.

🗺 Projects simulate real world software development

Starting from product ideation, user stories, product prototyping, coding, testing, to debugging. We also worked on soft skills such as building resilience, communication, presentation, pair programming and working together in a randomly assigned team.

🕰 Everyday is intense but follows a rigid structure

The structure from 9AM to 6PM: 2H lecture + challenges + 1H live code

Lectures are long enough to introduce new concepts yet not overwhelm us with too much. When we were stuck on the challenges, the instructors and teaching assistants would guide us on our understanding and problem solving skills, which is crucial when we work independently in future.

❤️ The instructors care

The instructors are very passionate. They had a personal touch towards each of our learning style, be it through explanation, illustrating through drawings and charts, extra practices, additional resources to find out more, etc. They gave us the confidence and reassurance that we needed to keep pushing.

🌐 Access to a community of developers

We get lifetime Slack access to the community of alumni. As with any industry, it is always helpful to have people you can reach out to and get news and insights about the state of the industry.

It was also an extra bonus that my peers and instructors were fun and are foodies, so lunch time was an enjoyable break, away from the intensity.

Because of Covid, we could not invite a room full of audience to see our project demonstration. We did however do it through Zoom.

Tips on how to survive a bootcamp

Doing a bootcamp is not easy. Here's what worked for me.

🙇🏻‍♀️ Start the pre-course materials early

Definitely go through the 60H of pre-course materials early and rigorously. Be thorough with the HTML, CSS, JS materials if you do not have any prior knowledge. During the bootcamp, these concepts were touched on very quickly. Time passed exceptionally fast for me on those days!

👍 Clear your doubts early

Ask for the concept to be repeated, summarised, and be represented in charts if you need something to visualise with. Your habits and understanding from the first few weeks lay the foundation for the rest of the weeks.

📝 Take notes and revisit them often

While the bootcamp is only 9-weeks, given the pace new concepts are introduce, it is easy to forget previous concepts. I used Notion to take notes on key ideas of each concepts, my mistakes and best practices learnt from coding challenges. I would revisit my notes during my morning commute.

🗣 Engage

The instructors would ask loads of questions to check on your understanding and to reinforce your learning. I found engaging those questions exceptionally helpful in staying attentive, getting reassurance on my understanding and practicing explaining my thought process which is essential when you are programming with others or need help.

Take that leap of faith

The tech industry is even more relevant and exciting now. Joining a coding bootcamp has laid the foundations on my understanding in tech. I am qualified for many more technical roles and project opportunities than I previously was.

While it can be daunting to take the decision to join a bootcamp, I hope what I have shared would help you in some ways!