6 ms·

École 42, a free, teacher-less university schooling programmers (2017)

60 points by Osiris30 8y ago

TheAsprngHacker 8y ago
I don't know the credibility of this Reddit post, but it might be of interest: https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/91bjlr/school_42_is_a_borderline_cultopinion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/91bjlr/sc...
- amatecha 8y ago
  Dang, uhh well those anecdotes are pretty damning. I'd love to see a followup/update from Quartz addressing those issues. Unfortunately it seems the article is from September 2017, so I won't hold my breath on that...
  - dunpeal 8y ago
    > I'd love to see a followup/update from Quartz addressing those issues. As if Quartz ever held itself to any standards of investigative journalism and wasn't just a glorified blog...
  - fyrn 8y ago
    I got a Job after attending the silicon valley branch of 42, I've definitely heard that the french campus is more extream but not to the degree that the post claims. Some of that stuff like examiners playing battleship to remove test takers is pretty far fetched. As for the cat, I have heard rule was not feeding the cat or taking it places because she once got sick from a student feeding her. My evidence is just as annocdotal. But someone who seems to thinks they did not get into the school because they are male might not be the most trustworthy source. One thing he did not mention is that the entry test that lasts a month the "piscine" does not have a limited quota of students. Each branch gets more funding the more students they have, so the only incentive to deny a someone is if they obviously won't be able to handle the work load or have social issues.
- nicolas_t 8y ago
  Some of those anecdotes do seem pretty far fetched (the cat and battleship) but in my experience Epita/Epitech doesn't produce good software engineers and the director Nicolas Sadirac is from there. And, that director really has no idea what he's talking about in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrGgpwl5O4Q&feature=youtu.be&t=2m31s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrGgpwl5O4Q&feature=youtu.be... So, I'm rather skeptical when it comes to Ecole 42. We have great engineering schools in France but the Epita derived schools are really not that great and the only decent graduate I've ever interviewed and hired from one of this school is a self learner who would have been great in any environment.
  - erowtom 8y ago
    > in my experience Epita/Epitech doesn't produce good software engineers Could you explain a bit more? I’m myself from Epitech, and it hurts my feelings :p
    - JohnH42 8y ago
      ... Epita, efrei, supinfo ... great great school everybody know this, in France au moins. ... Epitech is a very special little thing. Sadirac, real old hacker from semantec, build just 20 year the futur of computer school: student become teacher, each test is an automatic correction ... So, 42 is bully, in my opinion, but Epitech remain la crème de la crème.
      - bsaul 8y ago
        You do realize that all the epitech staff, including sadirac himself moved to found ecole 42 years ago ?
    - seren 8y ago
      Take it with a grain of salt, because I worked mainly in the industry (automotive, telecom, medical devices). Generally, a more generic engineer diploma includes some electrical engineering, mechanics, signal processing, and so on. Sometimes there is a bias against Epita/Epitech candidates that they are too focused on CS or IT but not on more generic knowledge. So they are seen are less well rounded candidates overall. Designing/building system is usually not a purely abstract CS problem but requires to take into account real world constraints. On the other hand, I assume that Epita/Epitech candidates are probably better candidate for an environment like a bank or insurance company.
RickJWagner 8y ago
Fantastic. Creative answers to education and job upward mobility. I hope we see more of these kinds of things!
everybodyknows 8y ago
Two problems with title of post: - 2017 article - Ecole 42 is not a "university": https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=university https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=university
- fyrn 8y ago
  This is probably because the original school was based in France and in France `University` is not protected the same way. Although 42 Paris is is actually addredited by the French government.
  - flowwlol 8y ago
    The diploma is not recognized by the French gov or any European institution. At this time, finishing your 3 years at 42 grants you a line in your resume but that's pretty much it. you wont be able to claim any type of degree with it
    - ksahin 8y ago
      On the other hand, French companies love it!
  - bsaul 8y ago
    Just to clarify something : Université in france is a very special type of public educational entity, that for example does research. In no way can any private school pretend to be one.
    - JPLeRouzic 8y ago
      I was surprised to learn that main technical companies in France do not really care for most French university exact kind of diplomas, when they care for specific diplomas it is from a reduced set of organizations, and they pay well in that case. For French universities, what they care for is the level of the diploma (graduate/master/phd) but frankly they often do not care about the diploma itself. I have seen PhD people been recruited at a lower pay than engineers that graduated from Supelec for example.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
titanix2 8y ago
Just keep in mind that most higher education is "free" anyway in France (either around 400€ a year for registration fees or totally free for people which have a government scholarship) and there is no exams entry at the university. Some formations are selective and some require some money to enrol but overall the only innovation this "school" provide is... the absence of teachers.
- cassandrajam 8y ago
  And the project based work, and the help of older students that force you to learn by yourself, and the opportunity to help students that aren't good with the classic way of doing school (shut-up and listen to a teacher talk for 3 hours), and teaching you to be independent and responsible, and forcing you to think like a real world professional, and making you own up to your decision, the ability to go beyond what was asked and be rewarded for it... I could go on and on about this school which is in my opinion becoming worse every year, but the core concept is amazing and truly adapted for an IT school of the 21st century.
  - titanix2 8y ago
    Everything you cited exists also in the traditional university system. Projects (one or two per subject per semester, sometime with a high degree of liberty for the details), getting help from other students (just go in the CS student association and ask), tutoring others (I did it a few time), independence & responsability (going only in class you need, skipping others and taking the exams), going beyond what asked (for instance, majoring in two diploma at the same time), etc. You can make your university journey almost anything you want. But the main failure point of most student imo is that they consider the teacher are against them. Some are, but most aren't and are really likely to help any motivated student who ask for it. So, I thing that the no teacher style school is very bad in the sense that it have no-one to force student learning stuff they don't want to but that are important. This can form bubbles of knowledge with important or interesting things not included. One the reverse, the traditional university still consider students as children (which most are, actually) and does not give enough space to do thing in one's way. It is still possible to go, but it require a lot of efforts.
arandr0x 8y ago
I like the concept but I don't believe the diploma it grants "counts" in France for applying to e.g. master's and PhD programmes and most French smart people I knew had little interest in stopping with undergrad. In French culture "number of years of schooling" is actually a pretty important metric so I feel like a university that does not leave you a chance to go beyond the 3 years is going to only get the people who are really committed to the formula as well as those who don't have good alternatives. What do people in Silicon Valley think of their US version vs coding bootcamps or other private universities? It seems it could gain a bigger following there?

60 points by Osiris30 8y ago

I don't know the credibility of this Reddit post, but it might be of interest: https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/91bjlr/school_42_is_a_borderline_cultopinion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/91bjlr/sc...

amatecha 8y ago
Dang, uhh well those anecdotes are pretty damning. I'd love to see a followup/update from Quartz addressing those issues. Unfortunately it seems the article is from September 2017, so I won't hold my breath on that...
- dunpeal 8y ago
  > I'd love to see a followup/update from Quartz addressing those issues. As if Quartz ever held itself to any standards of investigative journalism and wasn't just a glorified blog...
- fyrn 8y ago
  I got a Job after attending the silicon valley branch of 42, I've definitely heard that the french campus is more extream but not to the degree that the post claims. Some of that stuff like examiners playing battleship to remove test takers is pretty far fetched. As for the cat, I have heard rule was not feeding the cat or taking it places because she once got sick from a student feeding her. My evidence is just as annocdotal. But someone who seems to thinks they did not get into the school because they are male might not be the most trustworthy source. One thing he did not mention is that the entry test that lasts a month the "piscine" does not have a limited quota of students. Each branch gets more funding the more students they have, so the only incentive to deny a someone is if they obviously won't be able to handle the work load or have social issues.
nicolas_t 8y ago
Some of those anecdotes do seem pretty far fetched (the cat and battleship) but in my experience Epita/Epitech doesn't produce good software engineers and the director Nicolas Sadirac is from there. And, that director really has no idea what he's talking about in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrGgpwl5O4Q&feature=youtu.be&t=2m31s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrGgpwl5O4Q&feature=youtu.be... So, I'm rather skeptical when it comes to Ecole 42. We have great engineering schools in France but the Epita derived schools are really not that great and the only decent graduate I've ever interviewed and hired from one of this school is a self learner who would have been great in any environment.
- erowtom 8y ago
  > in my experience Epita/Epitech doesn't produce good software engineers Could you explain a bit more? I’m myself from Epitech, and it hurts my feelings :p
  - JohnH42 8y ago
    ... Epita, efrei, supinfo ... great great school everybody know this, in France au moins. ... Epitech is a very special little thing. Sadirac, real old hacker from semantec, build just 20 year the futur of computer school: student become teacher, each test is an automatic correction ... So, 42 is bully, in my opinion, but Epitech remain la crème de la crème.
    - bsaul 8y ago
      You do realize that all the epitech staff, including sadirac himself moved to found ecole 42 years ago ?
  - seren 8y ago
    Take it with a grain of salt, because I worked mainly in the industry (automotive, telecom, medical devices). Generally, a more generic engineer diploma includes some electrical engineering, mechanics, signal processing, and so on. Sometimes there is a bias against Epita/Epitech candidates that they are too focused on CS or IT but not on more generic knowledge. So they are seen are less well rounded candidates overall. Designing/building system is usually not a purely abstract CS problem but requires to take into account real world constraints. On the other hand, I assume that Epita/Epitech candidates are probably better candidate for an environment like a bank or insurance company.

RickJWagner 8y ago

Fantastic. Creative answers to education and job upward mobility. I hope we see more of these kinds of things!

everybodyknows 8y ago

Two problems with title of post: - 2017 article - Ecole 42 is not a "university": https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=university https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=university

fyrn 8y ago
This is probably because the original school was based in France and in France `University` is not protected the same way. Although 42 Paris is is actually addredited by the French government.
- flowwlol 8y ago
  The diploma is not recognized by the French gov or any European institution. At this time, finishing your 3 years at 42 grants you a line in your resume but that's pretty much it. you wont be able to claim any type of degree with it
  - ksahin 8y ago
    On the other hand, French companies love it!
- bsaul 8y ago
  Just to clarify something : Université in france is a very special type of public educational entity, that for example does research. In no way can any private school pretend to be one.
  - JPLeRouzic 8y ago
    I was surprised to learn that main technical companies in France do not really care for most French university exact kind of diplomas, when they care for specific diplomas it is from a reduced set of organizations, and they pay well in that case. For French universities, what they care for is the level of the diploma (graduate/master/phd) but frankly they often do not care about the diploma itself. I have seen PhD people been recruited at a lower pay than engineers that graduated from Supelec for example.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

titanix2 8y ago

Just keep in mind that most higher education is "free" anyway in France (either around 400€ a year for registration fees or totally free for people which have a government scholarship) and there is no exams entry at the university. Some formations are selective and some require some money to enrol but overall the only innovation this "school" provide is... the absence of teachers.

cassandrajam 8y ago
And the project based work, and the help of older students that force you to learn by yourself, and the opportunity to help students that aren't good with the classic way of doing school (shut-up and listen to a teacher talk for 3 hours), and teaching you to be independent and responsible, and forcing you to think like a real world professional, and making you own up to your decision, the ability to go beyond what was asked and be rewarded for it... I could go on and on about this school which is in my opinion becoming worse every year, but the core concept is amazing and truly adapted for an IT school of the 21st century.
- titanix2 8y ago
  Everything you cited exists also in the traditional university system. Projects (one or two per subject per semester, sometime with a high degree of liberty for the details), getting help from other students (just go in the CS student association and ask), tutoring others (I did it a few time), independence & responsability (going only in class you need, skipping others and taking the exams), going beyond what asked (for instance, majoring in two diploma at the same time), etc. You can make your university journey almost anything you want. But the main failure point of most student imo is that they consider the teacher are against them. Some are, but most aren't and are really likely to help any motivated student who ask for it. So, I thing that the no teacher style school is very bad in the sense that it have no-one to force student learning stuff they don't want to but that are important. This can form bubbles of knowledge with important or interesting things not included. One the reverse, the traditional university still consider students as children (which most are, actually) and does not give enough space to do thing in one's way. It is still possible to go, but it require a lot of efforts.

arandr0x 8y ago

I like the concept but I don't believe the diploma it grants "counts" in France for applying to e.g. master's and PhD programmes and most French smart people I knew had little interest in stopping with undergrad. In French culture "number of years of schooling" is actually a pretty important metric so I feel like a university that does not leave you a chance to go beyond the 3 years is going to only get the people who are really committed to the formula as well as those who don't have good alternatives. What do people in Silicon Valley think of their US version vs coding bootcamps or other private universities? It seems it could gain a bigger following there?