This post is sponsored by our friends at Wild Code School.
“Learn to code” has become one of the mantras of our age, and unlike “stop buying coffee if you want to buy a house,” itâs actually good advice.
However, knowing where and how to start is always a big stumbling block, with the internet full of a billion different suggestions from teaching yourself to paying crazy money for qualifications.
The Wild Code School is, blessedly, neither of those things: itâs a well-established school offering short, professional training courses open to everyone, no matter their age or background.
A 5-year pedigree
Half a decade is a long time in tech. Wild Code School has been teaching and refining its courses for the past 5 years in France, seeing thousands of students graduate and head into their new jobs. Itâs now expanded into an impressive 17 cities across the continent, and is about to open in the UK.
Wild Code Schoolâs first UK campus is at the beautiful Second Home in Shoreditch, a buzzy and exciting space for startups where none other than Gadgette was born. Tip: donât walk into the transparent walls, as we saw one unfortunate guy do. There was blood.
What can I learn?
Courses at Wild Code School London teach you to “become a web developer in a friendly environment with no prerequisite except your own motivation.” Sounds good to us.
The course is called the Fullstack Programme, and teaches you the essentials of Javascript, React and NodeJS. Teaching is a combination of classes, workshops and e-learning, all of which teach you everything you need to know to join a company as a junior web developer.
“During your 5-month training period, you will complete 3 projects including 1 with a real client, and create your professional portfolio on GitHub. You will learn to master agile project management methods and the collaborative tools used in all tech companies, from Bangalore to Silicon Valley.”
Wild Code School learning approach
The course can be taken part time or full time, for 10 months or 5 months respectively. And youâre not limited to London — you can study across multiple European campuses, or do internships abroad — a great excuse for a city break somewhere beautiful.
Why Wild Code School?
Like we said, there are a bajillion schools both offline and online vying for your time and money as a trainee coder. Why choose this one?
Well, for starters, you read Gadgette, so weâre pretty sure you support women in tech. Which means youâll be pleased to hear that the founder and CEO of Wild Code School is the amazing Anna StĂŠpanoff, who has multiple degrees including a BA from Harvard and a PhD from the Sorbonne.
As youâd expect from a female-founded company, Wild Code School is very supportive of women in tech, providing both full and partial scholarships for women who want to learn to code.
And then thereâs the schoolâs reputation: students talk, and you donât survive for five years in a competitive market without offering them something truly valuable.
Ask Pauline, who studied at the picturesque Toulouse campus:
“Youâre immediately thrown into the deep end, in the actual practice of coding.
You get a first-hand taste of coding before learning the theory, which helps you to understand why you do things in a certain way. This âbackwardsâ approach brought me a great deal.
As we work on real projects, we are directly confronted with what awaits us after graduating from the school, with problems actually encountered by developers.”
If youâre worried the course isnât for you, you can download the programme ahead of time to give you a realistic idea of what youâll be studying.
You can do it
By choosing the Wild Code School, youâre joining a huge European network of alumni. That not only means loads of opportunities for socialising and making friends, but also that you have a built-in professional network of contacts to call on, situated in amazing tech companies around the globe.
The school has its own in-house messaging system that you can use to talk to your fellow students and alumni. A class exchanges an average of 100,000 messages during their course, “talking about tutorials, tools, hacks, jobs, or just deciding who is bringing what to the party.”
You also get to meet the team and other students at one of the legendary Wild Breakfasts or Wild Drinks gatherings. Itâs a great way to break the ice and feel like you have some friends on the course before you get started.
Ready to join up?
A year after graduation, 87% of Wild Code School students are employed as developers. A year from now, wonât you be glad you started today?
If youâve been waiting for a sign telling you to finally take the plunge and learn to code, here it is.
