First the Web Development bootcamp, now upskilling at our Data Science Bootcamp.

Originally from France, I travelled and lived in several countries during my studies (master and MBA in Business), I’m living in Berlin for almost 5 years now. 

Prior to Le Wagon, I was working as a Corporate Account Executive with SaaS and cybersecurity companies - my role was to manage our European potential customers, from first contact, through negotiation and closing deals. My clients were mainly CTO/CISOs and the products and services I was selling were extremely technical. I always enjoyed diving deeper into the technical aspects, even though this was not really my role and no one was expecting me to do so. 

In my last job, the company I was working for was offering cybersecurity services. While I still had to hold pretty technical discussions every day, I wasn’t in touch as much with tech anymore (ie. helping with API integrations, investigating bugs, consulting my customers). That’s when I realised it was time for me to initiate a career change and learn how to code. I used to code for fun a bit, but nowhere near being able to develop an app from start to finish.

I started with Le Wagon Full-Stack Web Development bootcamp October-December 2020 - I had such an amazing experience that I decided to move forward with the Data Science bootcamp, which started in January 2021. Having done the web dev bootcamp, I knew Ruby which is very similar to Python. But apart from that, I really didn’t have the opportunity to learn any other topics related to Data Science.

Also, working in the tech industry, you quickly notice how data is crucial and can propel a business to the next level, if used right. You just have to look at the top tech companies, they’re all data-driven and most of them scaled and fuelled their growth thanks to processes and data. Apart from finding the topic fascinating, I want to have the skillset to automate as much as I can in my everyday job - if you know how to work with data and are creative, possibilities are endless, it’s amazing! I also wanted to acquire skills that could be used for the better good. Data can be used to solve various problems all over the world, and I’d love one day to be able to offer my skills to an organisation looking to have a positive social or environmental impact.

I discovered Le Wagon via its events in Berlin, and word-of-mouth within the french community. When looking for a bootcamp Le Wagon kept showing up as the first option, being recognised as one of the best bootcamp in Berlin. A friend of mine just completed the web dev track, so I called her to get her advice, and she was so thrilled by the experience that I decided to apply immediately.

This week is (already!) week 6, and we are learning to train our first Deep Learning model. The past weeks were all about Python, SQL, Data Visualization, Mathematical concepts, and Machine Learning. The best part was definitely my first prediction, and being able to calculate its accuracy! Everything we’ve learned before came together and finally made sense. It also made me realise how powerful and useful Machine Learning can be - my brain went full on, thinking of all the different situations in which I could apply this new knowledge. I also found Natural Language Processing extremely interesting - I could really see how this could be useful to automate and scale processes within sales departments.

Learning the mathematical concepts on which Machine Learning is built was pretty scary at first. I’m more of a visual learner so it took me some time to grasp all the theory. But what’s great about Le Wagon bootcamp is that after learning the concepts we have to complete challenges throughout the day, to apply these concepts to concrete problems and for knowledge to sink in. So even though I was overwhelmed, I took the time to go through the challenges until everything started to make sense. 

The pandemic definitely impacted our experience. One of the reasons I joined Le Wagon was its notorious Friday drinks (:D) and events. Due to Covid, we don’t have the opportunity to meet other classmates face to face and get to know each other outside of the lessons. Throughout the day though we are split in smaller groups, so if we are stuck during the challenges we can discuss and help each other out - we usually use these moments also as an opportunity to socialise a bit, which makes everything nicer. 

During my time at Le Wagon I’ve learned how to build applications, integrate them with other systems, collect data, transform and analyse it. I can’t wait to combine this technical knowledge with my sales background and help solve concrete business challenges, in a hybrid role such as Sales Engineer or Sales Operations.  I also want to keep learning about Data Engineering and Machine Learning, play around with web scraping and API integrations.. Simply have fun bringing some ideas to life!

My one advice to anyone thinking about joining the Data Science bootcamp is to just do it! Data Science is a growing field and its growth is nowhere near to slow down. The knowledge you’ll gain will give you an edge in literally anything you’re planning to do later on in your career, and if you want to make a move towards a Data Science job, of course this is the way to go!