I finished the bootcamp on March 13th and began my new job as a Ruby Developer on the April 1st! It really was a dream come true!
What made you want to change your career?
Long story short, I lived in Australia for 3 years where I had a good position as a waitress that allowed me to travel and discover most of the country. As I grew tired of the hospitality sector, I decided to move to the Netherlands and change my career. The Corona situation made it quite difficult to find a job. This led me to start digging online for something that could catch my interest: I then spent the first 4 months of my dutch experience taking all sorts of online courses.
The first taste I had of coding back then was an IT support course offered by Google. After that, everything happened pretty quickly, and after further courses, I fell in love with coding! I spent all of my days in front of my computer coding like crazy. Eventually I needed a job, so I found a position as a receptionist while I continued to learn on my own.
I was often researching different ways to speed up my learning process - and I remember stumbling on a review page where I found great reviews for a bootcamp called "Le Wagon." A few weeks into my new job, I noticed that said bootcamp was located just in front of my work. I took this as a sign, and there was no more holding myself back. Just a few months later, I finally took the leap and joined batch #549.
What were your ambitions and expectations when you joined Le Wagon?
I joined Le Wagon because I felt very passionate about wanting to find the right position: one that interests and inspires me on a daily basis. I tend to get bored easily, so coding seemed like a great fit as the field is so wide and the learning is endless.
With this being said, I was extremely motivated when I began the bootcamp. I gave it my best shot and had great support from the Le Wagon community including the teachers and TAs, granting me a great experience even while fully remote.
Did you face any difficulties during the bootcamp and if so how did you overcome them?
When you first get started, everyone is a bit unsure especially because it was done remotely. These feelings quickly went away as I was welcomed into the big Le Wagon family. The Teachers and TAs walk you through every difficulty with a big smile on their face and quickly become great friends! You spend your days overwhelmed by code, new concepts, and difficulties, but with the great support system within the community, you make it.
It is so important to trust the process. Le Wagon helped me in more ways than one. I not only learnt how to build an application from scratch, but I made life-long friends along the way. Throughout the bootcamp, I lived a very unique experience that I’ll never forget!
How did you stay motivated during the bootcamp?
To be completely honest, sometimes I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. The course is pretty tiring: you dream of code, talk of code, think in code. With this being said, I was surrounded by amazing people who encouraged me to "trust the process" and so that’s what I did. I gave it my all and the results that I saw in myself were epic.
What was your favourite part about Le Wagon?
I loved every part of it, but the project weeks were the best. You grow with your teammates and you get to create something that you never would've thought possible at the beginning of the process.
I also really appreciated that every teacher and TA had their own personal story and experience to tell and share with you. Finally, another amazing aspect of the bootcamp is the life-long connections that you make.
Can you tell us about your experience searching for a job upon finishing the bootcamp?
I finished the bootcamp on March 13th and began my new job as a Ruby Developer on the April 1st! It really was a dream come true! Although, I feel I that I was pretty lucky, it wasn't only luck. I believe that my determination and preparation before and during the bootcamp helped me a lot. My LinkedIn profile, portfolio, and resume were all ready before the end of the course in order to help me land a job as soon as possible. Just a week after the bootcamp ended, I had my first conversation with the people who turned out to be my colleagues!
What are the lessons that you learned from your experience at Le Wagon?
A big lesson that I learnt is that the only limitations that you have are those you set for yourself - your brain is a machine and when you want to learn something new, you just need to do it! Sometimes the hardest part of the process is to believe in your abilities and trust yourself. I feel much more comfortable now with learning new material, and if I have a new task to overcome, I just do it - step by step - with all the confidence that I have.
How does what you learned at Le Wagon help you with your day-to-day work?
Well, this is an easy question: When I did the bootcamp I fell in love with Ruby and now, it’s the main language that I use at work. Many things are new to me of course, but thanks to Le Wagon, I can say that I have learnt the basic rules of OOP structure. Due to Le Wagon’s full-time (9-week) program, I am also more confident working in Javascript and, who knows, maybe in the future I’ll aim to learn more languages!
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