A female majority — it’s possible, and we did it!
For the first time since Le Wagon Montreal opened its doors, there are more women in our current batch than men. Here’s how we did it.
NDLR: I wrote this article for URelles. I am sharing it here entirely. A huge thank you to Chloé Freslon for the opportunity and her professional “final touch”.
To have a female majority in an intensive web development bootcamp is something to shout about, especially when you consider the statistics. We are still far from reaching parity between men and women in the tech sphere, and that’s true for tech education as much as it is in the workplace. Actually, women currently represent just 20% of employees in Quebec’s tech sector.
Three years ago, when Le Wagon first launched its bootcamp in Montreal, we welcomed in a total of nine students: eight men and one woman. That’s when I realized the extent of the work that needed to be done. I was convinced that we had a role to play in transforming the tech industry into a more inclusive and diverse space.
Three years later, what factors contributed to us flipping the ratio?
Walking the walk
Over the past few years, initiatives deployed by stakeholders in the Montreal tech scene have helped attract more women to the industry overall. In addition to this, the values conveyed by our school and alumni community have certainly helped us attract more women, and we have been taking concrete steps of our own to encourage more women to take the leap:
- Adhering to the Women in Tech Manifesto and striving for gender parity at our events;
- Recruiting more women to join our team;
- Holding workshops for women to discover programming;
- Sharing the inspiring stories of women at Le Wagon.
To that end, I asked four women from our current batch what exactly motivated them to take this journey. ️🙆♀️
Clémence: from athletics to fashion, design, and now code
A top athlete in her university days, Clémence studied fashion merchandising and, more recently, worked as a UI/UX Designer. Her goal is to work as a front-end developer and launch her own startup. She says, “I needed to gain more technical skills to build an MVP (minimum viable product — a prototype allowing a startup to launch). I chose Le Wagon because it’s a very product oriented bootcamp and I’d learn all the steps for developing my own web app, from A-Z.”
Her advice to women: “I strongly encourage women to start coding because companies are looking for new perspectives and to diversify their teams.”
✨Read more about Clémence’s journey
Vicky: entrepreneur & designer
Vicky is the co-founder of ctstudio, a creative agency specialized in the design and sale of patterns. “Creativity is nothing without technique,” she confides to me. Backed with the technical skills she’s acquiring at Le Wagon, Vicky hopes to expand her business even further. Why did she choose Le Wagon?
“The environment is so conducive to the exchange of knowledge, especially because of the way it links theory and practice by focusing on producing web products.”
Her advice to women: “Learning a new language and a new way of thinking is challenging and disorienting, for sure. Yet, it’s a unique opportunity to understand the world around us.”
✨Read more about Vicky’s journey
Rose: from marketing to code
After 3 years working as an SEO specialist at a digital marketing agency, Rose realized that, actually, she would prefer to code and create websites. “I found myself completely identifying with Le Wagon’s values, especially the fact that it involved working so closely with others. It is an organization and a community that unites people and allows them to achieve more than what they thought possible,” she specifies.
Her advice to women: “It took me a year before I finally took the leap. The deciding factor for me was that I knew I would regret it if I didn’t at least try. What’s the worst that could happen? You’ll meet a bunch of new people, join a new network, rediscover yourself, tap into your hidden potential, and broaden your skillset!”
✨Read more about Rose’s journey
Laurence: demystifying programming
Laurence was working with account integrity management at Bell before starting Le Wagon. She is the mother of two children and hopes to pivot into a new career as a developer or product manager.
“Studying programming would give me an insight into the work developers do.”
Her advice to women: “There will probably never be a perfect moment to go back to school or change careers, that’s why it’s important to have confidence in yourself and seize the moment. The important thing is to listen to yourself and follow your own path — there is no one best way to achieve your goals.”
Thank you Clémence, Vicky, Rose, Laurence for giving me some of your (busy) time 😅 so generously and share your experience ❤️. I hope it will inspire more women to take the leap and come to meet us.
Follow them and her classmates in batch 367 along their journey on our Instagram and Facebook page.
Do you wish to meet them? Come to DemoDay, next March 13, to discover the applications built the last days of bootcamp.
