"What really motivated me to pursue a career in tech were the amazing people I met during Le Wagon. The general vibe was “doing Le Wagon was the best decision of my life”.
Why did you decide to join Le Wagon after graduating from university?
Before Le Wagon, I studied History at the University of Vienna while working a part-time job between 12-16 hours a week. A friend of mine recommended the program after having completed it herself. I told her about my indecisiveness about what to do after my Bachelor’s Degree so she told me to look into Le Wagon. The first day of the bootcamp was actually the first time I wrote code in my life.
What made you want to learn how to code and pursue a career in tech?
At that time, I felt that coding was the general knowledge of the future with all the things developing in that direction. I wanted to learn how to code to at least be able to grasp the basic concepts of what was happening in the world of tech.
How was your experience at Le Wagon?
It was truly amazing. I was impressed by the well-thought-through and structured curriculum where everything was in the right place. After a university education, where you often encounter low motivation and low engagement by professors, Le Wagon was the exact opposite where every office member, teacher, and teaching assistant (TA) really helped to create a high energy and motivational learning environment. The general vibe was “joining the bootcamp at Le Wagon was the best decision of my life”.
What did you enjoy the most during these 9 weeks?
I enjoyed the little feeling of gratification every time I succeeded in a challenge. Sometimes it felt like solving puzzles. My best moment was presenting our group project at Demo Day. I was really proud of what we were able to do after just two weeks.
Can you tell us more about your project, “Fridge Vibe”?
FridgeVibe is meant to be a digital log of what groceries you have at home with the correlating expiration date. On demand, the app can give you simple recipe ideas, based on what you have at home and which ingredients you have that will expire soon. The goal was to make cooking at home easier and more varied while preventing food waste.
[Check out Gideon's presentation of Fridge Vibe, right here ]
What was your biggest challenge during the training?
My biggest challenge was understanding the logic of a computer program and its process during the backend part of the course. You feel utterly overwhelmed by the amount of new information which is quite complex to understand at first.
Le Wagon is a community first and foremost. How do you relate to this network?
What really motivated me to pursue a career in tech were actually the amazing people I met during Le Wagon. Every teacher, TA, guest speaker and co-student was motivated and passionate with a strong sense of work-life balance while still being curious and excited about what they did. I could really see myself becoming a part of that community.
In the future, I will definitely keep in touch with my batch and try to stay active in the community. Knowing that every alumnus went through the same struggle connects and makes it easier to reach out to people when you have a question or problem.
We are very happy to hear that you got a job with one of our recruiting partners. What advice do you have for those who want to become a Junior Software Engineers?
Pay attention throughout the whole bootcamp, you don’t have to remember everything, but you should know where to look up the information you need. Try to extract as much knowledge from the course as possible and stay active once it’s finished. It is frightening how quickly it can fade away again without practice.
Lastly, what advice would you give to others to get the best out of the bootcamp?
Give everything every day and go further. Do the flashcards, read the optional documentation, and talk to everyone you meet about their path and their advice for you.
