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A free, teacher-less university in France is schooling thousands of programmers

10 points by adenadel 8y ago

nyc111 8y ago
> “We don’t teach anything,” says Nicolas Sadirac, head of École 42. “The students create what they need all the time.” This is amazing! Bravo! I've been saying for years that "there is no learning where there is teaching" and here's someone applied the idea. Thanks for posting this!
lelabo_42 8y ago
This school was not the first, before that Nicolas Sadirac already created a private school with the same principles, Epitech. He replicated the model with others, tweaking it to make it public, and it got a lot more coverage. But these schools system is great (as an alumni of Epitech).
- herogreen 8y ago
  But Epitech is not free, right ?
  - lelabo_42 8y ago
    No, as most private school in France. The tution fees are pretty high, that is the main cons with this school. However, you have the opportunity to do many internship (like nearly 2.5 years during the 5 years of study available) to decrease the loan you may have.
forkLding 8y ago
Sounds like hackathons turned into a school, although I did learn a lot thru hackathons, it is easy to burn out with several in a month
rmah 8y ago
"64,000 took a basic online logic test to qualify for entry. More than 20,000 passed, but the school only accepted the top 3,000 due to space constraints. Those 3,000 compete in pools of 1,000 for a month to see who best completes the digital projects; the top third of performers are then admitted." So the admittance rate is 1 in 64 or 1.56%. That is insanely selective. This is not bringing education to the masses, this is cheeping out on instructors because the students are smart enough to learn on their own.
- lelabo_42 8y ago
  I believe it was only like this the first year, where the selection were pretty tough and the list of candidates was insanely large. Here, most computer sciences degree are in private schools. You have to take generic engineer studies oriented in computer sciences otherwise. Some are great but I found people with a private degree focus in computer sciences more skilled in general when I worked with them.
herogreen 8y ago
I wonder why they chose to place the school in Paris (very expensive city) and went for expensive Apple computers.

10 points by adenadel 8y ago

> “We don’t teach anything,” says Nicolas Sadirac, head of École 42. “The students create what they need all the time.” This is amazing! Bravo! I've been saying for years that "there is no learning where there is teaching" and here's someone applied the idea. Thanks for posting this!

lelabo_42 8y ago

This school was not the first, before that Nicolas Sadirac already created a private school with the same principles, Epitech. He replicated the model with others, tweaking it to make it public, and it got a lot more coverage. But these schools system is great (as an alumni of Epitech).

herogreen 8y ago
But Epitech is not free, right ?
- lelabo_42 8y ago
  No, as most private school in France. The tution fees are pretty high, that is the main cons with this school. However, you have the opportunity to do many internship (like nearly 2.5 years during the 5 years of study available) to decrease the loan you may have.

forkLding 8y ago

Sounds like hackathons turned into a school, although I did learn a lot thru hackathons, it is easy to burn out with several in a month

rmah 8y ago

"64,000 took a basic online logic test to qualify for entry. More than 20,000 passed, but the school only accepted the top 3,000 due to space constraints. Those 3,000 compete in pools of 1,000 for a month to see who best completes the digital projects; the top third of performers are then admitted." So the admittance rate is 1 in 64 or 1.56%. That is insanely selective. This is not bringing education to the masses, this is cheeping out on instructors because the students are smart enough to learn on their own.

lelabo_42 8y ago
I believe it was only like this the first year, where the selection were pretty tough and the list of candidates was insanely large. Here, most computer sciences degree are in private schools. You have to take generic engineer studies oriented in computer sciences otherwise. Some are great but I found people with a private degree focus in computer sciences more skilled in general when I worked with them.

herogreen 8y ago

I wonder why they chose to place the school in Paris (very expensive city) and went for expensive Apple computers.