Life as a Cadet at 42 Silicon Valley (8 Months In)

It was time for an update about my time at 42. The post I wrote about my piscine experience at 42 has resonated with some people, so I thought a new article about cadet(student) life would could be helpful. My thinking was that people might want to know what it’s like here beyond just the piscine experience. Not just potential students but potential employers or just those who are curious. Here we go.

TLDR: I think this place is incredible, and I think the students here are ideal for working at or founding startups.

What is 42?

If you are new to reading my articles or if you are unfamiliar with what 42 is, I wrote about my previous experience during the piscine (a 28 day tryout).

But the short answer is that this is a coding school, it’s free and funded by a french Billionaire Xavier Niel. I’m currently attending the campus in Silicon Valley (Fremont), The original campus is in Paris and there are several other partner schools all over the world with about 20 more set to open later next year.

If I was to distill down what 42 is I would say it’s:

1. A coding school (but not a bootcamp)
2. No teachers, no classes, no textbooks. It’s peer to peer learning, with an emphasis on figuring things out yourself.
3. It’s free.
4. There is a month long tryout called the piscine that has to be passed in order to get in.

If you have questions hit me up (my contact info is at the end), or see the official website or ask them questions on twitter. In the meantime continue reading and I’ll explain more as we go.

Why 42? What’s Good About It?

“Every time I read a list of the most sought after skills that employers are looking for, I feel like they are listing off the qualities of my fellow students”

Ask any student what they love about this place and all of them will talk about how amazing the people are. I’ll get into more details about the characteristics of the students below, but what I want to emphasize here is that this is a coding school that highly emphasizes not only the hard skills of knowing how to code, the soft skills needed to function on a team, but also the self management skills to actually get the work done. Every time I read a list of the most sought after skills that employers are looking for, I feel like they are listing off the qualities of my fellow students.

Some examples of the qualities and soft skills the student have here are:

• They Take Risks & Are Adventurous — Since there is a month long tryout, nobody comes here without being a bit of a risk taker. They have to be someone who is a little adventurous, simply because they were willing to risk a month, and then later to come back. This is especially true for the students from other countries. I feel the fact that we don’t offer a degree supports this development as well.
• They Are Driven And Have Initiative — All of the students are self managing, they do the work because they want to, are here because they want to be here.
• They Are Persistent and Have Grit — Passing the piscine is no easy thing, the first thing you learn how to do in it is fail. Then you learn to keep going despite the failure. Then you fail some more. You keep going, keep trying and keep learning no matter what. I believe this resilience and grit is our most defining characteristic.
• They Have A Strong Work Ethic — Those who don’t actually do the work lose their spot in the dorms fairly quickly. If they are still here after a few months it means they do the work.
• They Exercise Leadership & Take Responsibility — Anyone that wants to can; start a club, an organization or create a special project for the school. A lot of the students here are not only programmers but leaders as well.
• They Can Communicate & Know How To Teach Or Explain — Lots of competent programmers don’t get promoted because they aren’t good at mentoring. In this school learning how to mentor each other is built into the system. Peer learning encourages a different kind of programmer to exist. One who knows how to explain their work, justify their decisions and teach others when needed.
• They Collaborate and Have Teamwork — This is cooperative learning. Students learn together, teach each other, do code reviews, and about one in three assignments is a group project. This in order to learn how to work well with others.
• They Are Analytical And Use Problem Solving — Programming is problem solving. Students learn how to break down problems and implement solutions. It’s better to have a deep understanding of what’s happening instead of learning to copy and paste from GitHub or Stack-Overflow.
• They Are Curious & Passionate About Coding — Everyone is here because they are passionate about learning this, there are easier schools, and colleges with over a hundred years of name recognition. Everyone that’s here is here because they want to learn something and learn it well, because they are curious and passionate about how programming works. Nobody’s parents force them to be here, it’s all voluntary.
• They Are Resourceful & Creative — Students here Find ways around restrictions, they work with limited information, doing a lot with little and manage to pull things off with as little resources as possible. Students here excel at this, it’s baked into the culture.
• They Are Multicultural & Diverse — I hear over 5 languages a day. I talk to people from every walk of life, every corner of the world, who speak every major language, every skin color, most religions, creeds and philosophies. We often disagree, debate and reason with each other about things often but not necessarily about code. These conversations are some of the highlights of my life and I believe this is one of the untapped strengths of 42.
• Through Code They Gain Confidence — I can’t speak for everyone but I can for myself. Something changed in me once I started to understand the deeper workings of code. With understanding and the intellectual payoff that comes after the hard work of trying to figure things out, I’ve started to actually trust myself and my judgement. Every day I feel a little more sure of myself, I know where I stand, what I’m about, who I am and how much I’m capable of. This isn’t feeling pumped because someone talked me up, this is more along the lines of “actually I do know this” because I do. This deeper understanding has creating a pretty strong foundation of not just knowledge and skills but in my ability to be a little more unshakable in who I am, in a way because now I have something a little more sure to stand on. I know that whatever comes I can handle it, and I feel empowered to take on any challenge. This wouldn’t be possible if not for the “figure things out yourself” style of teaching that exists here at 42. This school has helped me with this to such an extent that I half joke about taking over the world and people genuinely listen and offer to help me do it, before I felt lucky just to have someone give me the time of day. It’s a striking contrast who I felt like I was before and who I feel like I am now.

That’s just the soft skills, and I’m sure I missed some. Now let’s talk about the hard skills. Some of the projects we have range from making a chatbot (trained from scratch), recreating linux, recreating shells, creating emulators, building a machine learning library from scratch, reverse engineering encryption and even recreating some of the most famous 3D games. The projects are pretty cool, and they build on each other not only pushing your skills but building on the knowledge of past projects as well.

A Sampling of Hard Skills Taught Via Projects:

• Software Testing
• Computer Graphics
• Algorithm Design
• Penetration Testing
• Dev Ops / Docker
• Robotics / Hardware
• AI / NLP / Machine Learning
• Mobile App Development
• Web Dev
• Game Development

Some Other Computer Related Skills Learned:

• How to Use The Terminal
• How to Use Vim / Emacs
• Finding and Fixing Memory Leaks
• Memory Allocation / Management
• Using Pointers
• Optimizing Code
• Using a Coding Style & Standards
• Working With Bits & Bit Swapping
• Reverse Engineering
• Code Reviews
• Readable & Concise code
• Troubleshooting

But most importantly students who go here learn how to code. Not just how to code but in such a way that they understand it.

The Staff

I’m good at finding talent and figuring out who’s the best person to get a job done. Some people have told me that it’s my superpower. I couldn’t have picked a better staff here if I tried. Here are some of the most visible members:

Gaetan — is our Chief Academic Officer, and has kind of become our mascot, he really knows his stuff and gets things done, I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. He’s also pretty funny when given the chance.

Jamie — is our corporate relations manager, but she’s also kind of the school mom. Her job description is more or less to help create opportunities for us as students, but in truth she ends up helping these companies just as much, every company that partners with us to run a hackathon ends up coming away from it with a better marketing strategy, a better plan to run events and sometimes a few 42 students as recruits. I have no idea how she gets so much done, It’s got to be one of those former military trade secrets.

Rene — Is our event coordinator but it would be easier to think of him as a community manager. He keeps track of people, manages events and makes sure our Ambassadors and Volunteers are professional and helpful for the events they attend. I imagine pretty soon he will end up working in a similar capacity at some prestigious company (like google or facebook or something), but until then we are really lucky to have him.

The rest of Bocal — It’s incredible that things run as smoothly as they do with such a small staff, even including volunteers it’s still close to around 10 people running a campus with nearly a thousand people here during peak times. Combine that with the thousands more former and prospective students. The emails alone are innumerable, much less the ability to keep the servers and wifi running all the time. It’s a big job, and they are miracle workers as far as I’m concerned.

The Opportunities:

• Hackathons — A lot of companies use hackathons as a recruiting tool and many a startup had it’s seeds planted during a hackathon. 42 hosts them rather frequently. Nearly every time a company comes recruiting using a hackathon here, they usually end up hiring more than triple what they came for.
• Partnerships — Every few months we have several students get trained in Filemaker, almost all of them get hired immediately. I’ve also seen other corporate team-ups to make IOT devices, and local services for local businesses. There is more I wish I could talk about but can’t because they haven’t released official statements yet, but more to come.
• The Robot Lab — Machine Learning, AI, or Robotics. It’s not enough just to learn it here, here they recreate the algorithms from scratch, learn the inner workings of it, and then when training happens there isn’t any written curriculum to be followed instead each time the intent is of not only learning but to create something that hasn’t been made before. It’s to build up the collective knowledge and to create incredible things.
• Personal Projects — One of the best tricks of getting hired is to be passionate about programming and show it, what better way than to scratch your own itch and making something useful. What better place than while surrounded by other passionate, intelligent people who have the skills and come from a diverse background. As an example; Some former designers here started a UX club (that I happen to co-host with another student). Imagine making something, getting feedback from some people who know UX (for free), adding polish, getting fellow students to beta test, implementing feedback and refining until it’s polished and ready to publish. This will impress people, especially when the process is documented along the way.
• 42 Accelerate — There is an accelerator for those who want to start a business or scratch the entrepreneurial itch. You have to be level 7 to apply, but there is nowhere better to find the right kind of people to be a cofounder for a startup than here at 42.
• Bocal — For those who want to be student leadership. They are the staff that runs the IT networks, organizes events, creates new curriculum, and as a side effect are decently connected in Silicon Valley.
• Recruiters — There is a constant stream of recruiters who come on campus pitching for us come work for their businesses. Many of them are repeat companies who were so impressed with their previous hires that this is one of the first places they look for more.
• Events — There is a constant stream of events, for going, volunteering or running them. Networking is the second most important thing in job hunting after actually being able to do the work.
• Volunteering — The best kind of networking. The most powerful people to know at an event aren’t the ones attending, they are the ones organizing and speaking. Volunteering is the best way to connect with these titans of industry. Don’t buy a ticket, put in the work, show that you’re capable and a good person who gets things done, then let them be impressed that you also know how to code.
• Mentoring High Schoolers — HackHighSchool is hosted here on weekends. Some of the best 42 students spend Saturdays teaching and mentoring the kids who come in. It’s a great chance to help polish one’s critical thinking and the ability to explain how code works and to teach how to code. A great way to build some better programming ability and some crucial soft skills.
• Choose Your Specialization — There are branches of study to specialize in after the first three projects. Algorithms, Systems, Graphics, Encryption, Docker, Security and more(possibly growing). This can be customized as well.
• 42 Network Schools — In 2020 about 20 new campuses will be opened around the world. After level 7 a student can transfer between schools. I imagine that eventually each school will try to specialize in unique ways and have specific niches of students (much like how the Robot Lab here is unique to the Silicon Valley campus) but that’s just my own speculation, not a rumor or anything.
• Alumni — I now have friends that work in almost every major company in the world, not only that but several of them have started their own startups too (like this one). I’ve not yet met the alumni who left before I came here, but many of them have offered to give introductions to companies, so it’s not like that hasn’t been useful too. So long as a student doesn’t mind being social, they’ll probably make some pretty cool lifelong friends that end up being successful. I expect most of the friends I’ve made here will do incredible things.

I’m sure there are other opportunities I’ve forgotten to mention, hopefully other people will add them in the comments.

Awesome Things With Negative Side Effects

The Lab Is An Open Floor Plan — The benefit being that you can talk to people, work together on projects, and it helps spread ideas. I constantly have people just come find me to have a chat for a minute. The negative is that it’s noisy, and there isn’t really an escape from from the noise when the lab is busy.

There Is A Culture That Thrives On A Lack of Context — The benefit is that It helps to create the kind of students who figure things out on their own, which is kind of our superpower. But there are side effects to this. In part it’s because in order to create a culture like that there is a sort of intentional lack of communication, assignments are usually vague, and “figure it out” is a kind of mantra. So rumors, assumptions, and conspiracy theories abound. Which makes sense, if you leave people to figure things out for themselves, they tend to do just that, and assumptions are rarely correct. I myself often try to piece together reasonings of things instead of asking for clarification, I try piecing together things like “why is the curriculum the way it is?” instead of directly asking the ones who wrote it. I should probably ask more questions.

There Is Free Housing — Which is awesome, and one of the core advantages we have over the Paris Campus. Being able to live in the bay area, and having a place to stay for free just for keeping up on academics is amazing (it’s essentially a housing scholarship but that word isn’t usually used). The negative is that since housing is dependent on your academics, whenever someone begins to struggle they have this little bit of extra stress in the back of their mind, a worry about losing their place to live.

There Is A Lot of Freedom or Everything Is Student Driven — This place is as close to a functioning anarchist space as I’ve seen. There is an incredible amount of freedom and personal responsibility. Everything is student driven, which is awesome, but sometimes if someone moves or gets a job, well sometimes clubs don’t continue existing without that leadership. There is no safety net to keep student run things going (the role a professor in charge of a club would often fill). So on one hand I love the freedom, but because of it some things slip through the cracks sometimes.

The Curriculum Is Primarily in C — C is a great language to learn. From it students learn how to understand memory allocation and the inner workings of most other languages (C is a lot like how latin is for most western spoken languages, and similarly after learning C we can learn other languages quickly). The core benefit of all of the students using the same language is that everyone can be on the same page and help each other learn faster. The negative is that one of the main reasons people quit this school is because of frustrations with C as a language. This is especially true with aspiring web developers. Another negative is that not a lot of recruiters are specifically listing C as an in demand skill.

This Is A Rapid Learning Environment — Students learn in months here what others usually spend years doing. Which is amazing, but it can be a bit of a stressful environment sometimes. This is part of why I so strongly advocate people taking days off, and taking breaks occasionally.

An Innovative Culture Often Looks Like Anti-Authority— Students learn to figure things out for ourselves, find ways to get things done, and to not have anything handed to them. Combine this with how most students come from more disenfranchised backgrounds and you have one of the most innovative cultures in the valley, but if other organizations tried to import a similar culture they may face growing pains and initial conflicts with authority.

The Catch? What’s Bad About It?

It Sometimes Feels Like A Lack Of Funding — I don’t think there is a lack of funding, but sometimes things take a while to get fixed, so sometimes it can feel like there isn’t enough. It’s not that maintenance doesn’t happen but it‘s prioritized by importance instead of just everything getting fixed right away.

It Sometimes Feels Understaffed — Sometimes it feels a lot like we are understaffed. We get by, and the staff we have do an incredible job. The ball isn’t gettin dropped or anything like that. I just think we could do a lot more given the extra manpower.

Living in Paris’ Shadow — 42SV has a big sister school in Paris. While we struggle to convince people that a free school can exist in The United States without some catch, in Paris they are already a prestigious institution. Which is cool, everyone here is pretty happy for them, but when we have successes that they didn’t give to us it feels like they are scowling instead of cheering. It’s a vibe more than anything concrete (and something I hope to be proven wrong about, fingers crossed). I wish that instead we could collaborate and/or work with them more on some international projects. Maybe I can help set that up, I’m not sure yet.

Student’s In General Have A Lack of Funds — I won’t say that everyone here is broke, but if someone dropped off some free pizzas they would be gone in minutes, I don’t care if it was a moving van full of pizzas, still gone in minutes. This I believe is a byproduct of the school being free and attracting those that can afford free. Someday if I’m rich enough I’ll try to help orchestrate some scholarships.

The School Is Not Accredited, So No Official Visa For Foreigners — A lot of our foreign students manage to get a visa just not officially for here, usually they enroll in a community college, or get a work visa or something. This is a hard one to fix since to get accreditation in the USA requires having teachers, and we don’t have teachers by design. But I’m told that if you are honest with the government about going to school here it’s possible to get a 6 month visa. Other students who have dealt with visas could answer further questions better than I can.

A History Of Some Rudeness — This has improved lately, but there was a time where some things were said on slack that were undeniably toxic. As the community has grown since I’ve gotten here, the behavior has improved, and the students have been genuinely kinder to each other. I think we are shifting the culture toward that, which is something to be really proud of, but I think the older culture was more competitive and lended itself toward being more toxic.

Hard To Be Alone — Between roommates, the lab, and living in a community of people like this; there is very little privacy or places to be alone.

In all though I think the positives strongly outweigh the negatives. Even today I’m still impressed with this place, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be.

Who is at 42? What Kind of People Go There?

Cadet Characteristics:

Anyone that has successfully completed the piscine and been accepted here has already been preselected for a few notable qualities.

1. Grit & Determination
2. Can Self Manage
3. Works Well With Others
4. Figures Things Out
5. Open Minded

I don’t completely know the formula for acceptance into 42 from the piscine, as it’s something of a trade secret, but I notice trends that I believe to be true. We often talk about how we don’t look for people who are the best at programming but rather those who are good people first and capable of becoming good programmers. From my observations you can expect most cadets to be the type who don’t easily give up, they push through when things get hard, they tend to like to figure things out (or are ok with trying to figure things out) and they make an effort to work well with others. These are all pretty good qualities in candidates on their own, but there are some added side effects of who ends up here worth noticing.

Interesting People:

“There isn’t a standard cookie cutter person here, we are all a little interesting and maybe a little strange”

This isn’t part of the acceptance process but a byproduct of the alchemy that makes up the place. Because it’s free, and multi-national, and the overall culture, 42 attracts some of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. Long philosophical conversations are a norm, tinkering on projects, plans to start companies, being well travelled, having lived in exotic places or alternative communities are all pretty normal here. There isn’t a standard cookie cutter person here, we are all a little interesting and maybe a little strange.

As an example I myself lived at the Grand Canyon for two years, spent two years as a missionary/minister, majored in advertising, was a graphic designer, ran a small merchandise company for a while, spent years in the hospitality industry, almost became a professor in China, and once did a hiking pilgrimage in Spain. I consider myself probably the most boring person here.

Here is an article that highlights a few us of that are over 30 (myself included), I wish I was in a position to hire all of them. Highlights of other students can be found here, ironically these are just normal students (not just overachievers), we are all kind of like that here.

The Overall Culture:

People are friendly and help each other, but spoon feeding information isn’t what we do here. Besides nobody wants to waste their time repeating themselves to someone who wasn’t listening.

This is a culture of “do the work”, “figure it out” and “do things the hard way” so it lends itself toward a culture where excuses and complaining aren’t really accepted as answers.

An example: The other day I was talking about how I wanted to learn to do some VR Painting (I used to be an artist), and I started talking about how I didn’t have enough money to buy the equipment to do it. Instead of being sympathetic to my lack of money, I was presented with a series of potential solutions (a student who had a headset, how we have some machines with windows on them, hustling to get the cash, etc).

Another example is that once we learned that we needed to get the Air Conditioning repaired, several students started crunching numbers, researching the limits of our current equipment and proposing solutions. This is the kind of place that is.

“I believe 42 will have a rippling effect on the history of the world”

I’ve read about what past innovative cultures looked like, when they were starting out, and how people missed them after they were gone (apple’s early days they hoisted a pirate flag, MIT’s Senior House used to attract the strangest and most innovative people). This feels like one of those places, the kind of people it attracts and the kind of culture it supports feels to me like one of those things we will look back on in much the same way. I believe 42 will have a rippling effect on the history of the world.

You Get Out What You Put Into It (To The Extreme):

My friends and I often talk to each other about how this is a special place, it’s spoken in almost whispers, with a kind of reverence spoken during late night walks while looking at the stars. We look back on our own personal growth, friendships, and experiences with a kind of hope and confidence that we didn’t have before. I can look toward any future and feel that whatever comes I can either handle it or figure it out (those that have known me a long time know that this isn’t something I would say lightly). This change in myself, my confidence and my ability to “handle” whatever comes is almost entirely due to 42, I’ve learned to code here yes, but I’ve learned even more about myself and who I want to be because of this place.

Some would caution you to … “get in, get out and get a job as fast as you can” with respect I disagree.

Not all cadets feel this way, some would caution you to “not drink the kool-aid” and to “get in, get out and get a job as fast as you can” with respect I disagree. I don’t disagree about getting a job, nobody is meant to be here forever, but I disagree with the “take what you can and give nothing back” kind of mentality. There is a treasure of experiences and lessons here that can only be found by being more involved and doing more than the minimum.

42 is first and foremost a coding school, that is true, but like the saying that “you only get out of it what you put into it” this school applies that philosophy at the most extreme level. Granted we are given things like assignments, a physical location, resources (like computers, internet, dorms), and our staff (Jamie, Bocal and The Ambassadors) have done an incredible job of building our reputation (causing the added benefit of recruiters seeking us out). But what you learn isn’t given to you, you figure things out, you get that job yourself, you do your own work and you earn what you get out of it. Arguably this is true of all learning and education, the difference being the intensity or philosophy about it. My last college had an office that helped to place students, most code bootcamps have partnerships with companies that nearly guarantee jobs, many classes I’ve taken from professors literally gave you the answers and yours was just to memorize and show up. It’s not like that here.

“42 is like the Dark Souls of coding schools”

There is a webcomic comparing Skyrim to Dark Souls where a child is handed a sword and basically told to do it on his own. 42 is a lot like that, 42 is like the Dark Souls of coding schools. For those unfamiliar with Dark Souls, it’s a game that is brutally hard, and there is no way to make it easier, instead the option is only to get better by adapting to it.

Hands a sword to a child

So when I meet a fellow cadet who feels inclined to “be done with it”, I feel a bit like they missed the point of what education is or could be. Theirs is a lack of ability to see the possibilities, and to recognize the opportunity that exists here. Many people are initially attracted to this school because it’s free, but if I had an infinite budget, I would still choose this school, and as I ramp up my own startup this is the first place I’ll look for co-founders and employees. Not as some nod to an alma matter, but because I’ve seen the effectiveness of the students here first hand.

“For many of them this isn’t a chance to get a job, it’s about mastery, a chance to work on something interesting, to be a part of something that they can shape and mold into whatever they felt their educational experience should be”

We are all here to improve our lives, that’s a given, and for most of us that means improving our career prospects. But not everyone is here just for their careers, some of us came from startups, small businesses, phd programs, or already successful careers. For many of them this isn’t a chance to get a job, it’s about mastery, a chance to work on something interesting, to be a part of something that they can shape and mold into whatever they felt their educational experience should be. I’ve been fortunate enough to write some curriculum for the school (an intensive Swift Language curriculum), some of us mentor high school students, startups are created, books written, software created and sold. Another example the Robot Lab which is actually a recognized research institution that teams up with some of the biggest names in AI and robotics (places like Stanford, Berkley, or Google). The Robot Lab was created by a student. I don’t know if people really grasp how big of a deal this is, you can essentially be doing PHD level research without so much as a bachelor’s degree, and doing it competently enough that those research institutions want to work with and collaborate with you.

Furthermore the fact that you can choose your own learning path and specialization, picking and choosing which projects to work on, what’s interesting to you. Nobody is told what to do, what to work on, or even nudged at which job to take. This school is as close to an embodiment of personal choice as an organization can get.

So yeah I disagree that you should “only” use this as a stepping stone to a job, if that’s all you do with a school like this you’ve missed the best parts. But like I said, you get out of it what you put into it, so I can’t fault them too much, after all they got exactly what they wanted, and it was the experience they were looking for, even if I think it’s a tragedy of what could have been it’s still technically a win.

Student Turnover:

On average most students get to about level 7–10 before they get their first developer job or internship.

For some with a stronger computer-science/math/physics background they seem to be able to get to that level in about 3–5 months or so, for the rest of us it’s between about 8–16 months depending. The quality of knowledge seems mostly consistent across levels though. Meaning those with more of a background aren’t stronger developers than those without they just don’t need to spend as long getting up to speed in the beginning.

I’ve also noticed that the women have higher turnover. Most stay less than 6 months, I believe this is mostly because they get jobs quickly. This keeps the women population fluctuating between 35–15%, still low but higher than most of the tech industry.

We are probably between 40–60% international, and this contributes to turnover as well. Visa’s run out, and money is hard to get when you aren’t allowed to work (due to visa constraints).

“We are primarily a C shop”

Some cadets quit the program or move on before reaching level 7, I would say about less than a third end up dropping in the first 5 months. This is either due to running out of money, or mostly due to a mismatch with the school’s focus. This has tended to be more true for those interested in doing primarily web development, as we are primarily a C shop, which can be frustrating for those who wanted to specialize in web, they want to get to a point where they don’t have to do C anymore and just move on to Javascript/React, which kinda sorta doesn’t really end up happening (especially not before level 3 when you can do the php piscine), and not nearly as soon as they want it to, so it’s a mismatch with the school in a way, or perhaps a mismatch in patience. There are exceptions as I have some friends doing primarily web things here, but even for them balancing core assignment and personal projects is a bit of a struggle.

Some successful students get internships even before reaching level 7, these are mostly those with prior computer science experience. The school doesn’t usually encourage this, but it’s still a win I think.

What’s The Normal Day To Day Look Like?

The short answer is we make our own schedules.

The long answer is that a lot of our time during the first few months is spent on the same projects as our peers. This includes usually working on the same assignments together, asking each other questions, helping each other, or just trying to figure things out. Often this means doing a review of concepts previously touched on but not quite mastered. The first 3 projects will give about enough experience to get you to near level 2.75 (if you do the bonuses). After that the assignments are worth about the same amount of points, but the points needed to level up are higher, this scales so the higher levels take much more points. The expectation is to try to gain a level a month, the hope being that as we skill up we also learn to complete things faster.

For my friends who came with programming experience already, they get through the first few projects much faster, usually compressing into a week or two what took me a month or two. For those of us without a lot of programming experience most projects take between 3–4 weeks to complete, some longer, some shorter.

After the first few assignments you have some choice about which branch to specialize in, so not everyone is working on the same thing since they may have taken a different specialization.

Most students start their day at about 11am and stay until about 8pm, other students are up bright and early, others still are the nocturnal crew. The lab is open 24 hours so they come when convenient. That said most of the socializing in lab would probably happen in the afternoon.

On average most of us put in about as much time as you would a full time job. For those living in the dorms the minimum expectation is 35 hours a week. Some have part time jobs, or do gigs on the weekend. Usually people make time to be social, go exploring, or go to events and meetups, etc. Me I tend to default a bit towards being a workaholic, for me breaks are usually doing something different, not actually doing nothing (this is how I justify taking the time to write articles like this one, it’s a break for me). So most of my social interactions are in lab rather than outside of it. What I do is far from the norm though and often I wonder if I shouldn’t be more social and allow myself more free time.

Advice For Students

Code Everyday:

Learning to code is learning a language like any other, how else do you expect to become fluent unless you actually practice it frequently and often. In reality you are building up neural pathways with familiarity, so the frequency and consistency has a huge effect on your ability to learn and know what’s going on. It’s why sometimes after a long time of frustration things can just click.

Don’t Waste Time Being Stuck Too Long:

Time is your most valuable resource and ego is the enemy of progress. If you hesitate to ask for help because you want to be proud of having figured it out yourself you are cheating yourself and your education. There just isn’t enough payoff to hesitating to ask for help. Why halt your learning because of your ego?

Take Breaks:

I know you went hard and did 14 hour days in the piscine, you can do that once in a while if you really want to. But most students don’t work that way once they are here. The hour requirement for the dorms is only 35 hours a week. You have the time, please take breaks, and get enough sleep. Take at least one whole day off a week to get out of the lab and do something for yourself. Burnout is real, and when we get a group of passionate, hard working and resilient people together, well the odds of burnout just went up. So take the time to care for yourself.

The Exam is Worth Passing, So Practice:

For students that have interest in doing machine learning or other more interesting coursework then the exams are a prerequisite. Also for those who want to pass interviews later it’s a good idea to take them seriously. Most of the questions given in the exams are not just an assessment of your skills, but practice for white-boarding later on.

Shift Your Paradigm, You are a Beginner Until Level 7:

“It helps me to think about level 7 as the end of being a beginner. Now a novice but no longer a noob”

Since level 7 is technically career ready a lot of cadets see that as almost a kind of graduation. For those that only want to “get a job and get out” thats fine. The thing is most of the really cool projects don’t unlock until higher levels. Robot lab requires level 5 and having passed the intermediate exams, C++ piscine requires level 7, transferring to another school in the 42 network, also level 7. It helps me to think about level 7 as the end of being a beginner. Now a novice but no longer a noob. Having that outlook has helped me to chill out and worry less. It also helped me to focus on understanding things deeply instead of being distracted by a new side project every week.

So until you reach level 7 try to mostly focus on the core, you’ll have a better time if you do.

Don’t Do Just The Basics:

Now I’ll immediately contradict myself. I would caution against being so religious about only doing the core curriculum that you don’t take the time to do anything else. Usually when I get stuck on a project it’s because I don’t feel passion for it, usually a small side project (like a weekend gamejam) will help me reenergize enough to focus again for the next week. It shouldn’t be more than about 20% of your time though. Focusing is important just not at the exclusion of everything.

Get Involved, Make Something, Take Responsibility:

It’s not a huge commitment to run a club or organization. Usually a few hours a week.

Also on Wednesday nights we have a club called moonlight to show off side projects. It would be cool if you showed off yours.

Once a student reaches level 7 they can join 42 accelerate an accelerator program for startups, businesses or special projects.

Have a Lifelong Learning Mentality:

Most students move on after finding work but many stay involved long after. It’s a personal choice and I won’t advocate one way or the other. This school is what you make it, and you get out of it what you put into it. But if you think getting hired is the end of learning, then you don’t understand this school or this industry. This is a beginning of a journey, a small piece of your life and your new coding skills, there is still a lot to come.

Advice For Those Looking To Recruit Or Hire Us

Levels & Recruiting:

It would be useful to know about what skill level or quality you can expect based on what level the student is.

• As far as the school is concerned level 7 is considered the bare minimum for entry level work (Jr. dev or internship)
• Level 10 would qualify for a non-junior position, several of our former students who work at google have said they would feel comfortable recommending someone they don’t know who is at least level 12 to work there.
• Level 21 is roughly equivalent to having finished a Master’s Degree. So far only one student has reached that level as most get hired first.

Our Exams & Interview Preparation:

Our exams double as interview prep (whiteboard exercises), so it’s ok to ask them if they have completed the beginner or intermediate exam.

There is also an interview piscine that teaches a lot of problem solving and more advanced problem breaking down skills, most students who have taken it tell me that this was the most useful thing the school offered.

Expectations of Students Hired:

Students here learn quickly, get things done, work well with others, require little to no supervision and tend to figure things out quickly. The caveat is that I don’t think they would thrive in a situation with heavy micromanagement or very rigid corporate structures (there are of course exceptions, but in broad terms I believe this to be true).

My recommendation is that startups (or more entrepreneurial minded businesses) make a special effort to recruit from here. Large corporations may find good candidates as well, but I see a better cultural fit with flat/innovative organizations.

Not All Cadets Are Created Equally:

42 is a place that celebrates uniqueness, multiculturalism and choice. So it’s hard to group us together and have a baseline expectation of what kind of people attend 42 (other than the qualities I’ve listed above). No two personalities are the same, there is a broad range of background and interests here, true diversity of every kind.

Although there are some cadets I wouldn’t hire due to differences in personality or style, for every one of them there are 20 I would hire in a heartbeat. As my future startup progresses I plan on doing a recruiting trip about every 3 months (because of turnover it almost needs to be that frequent).

Everything Here is Student Choice:

It isn’t mandated who goes to events, or what offers are entertained, or even which offers are presented. When students volunteer somewhere, it was the student choosing to do so, not because they were told. Nobody is forced to be here, there isn’t some payoff from getting a degree later, there isn’t career placement, no contract jobs to do. Everything a student does is by choice, so if you are trying to recruit some of us, it’s something to keep in mind.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s not staff that needs impressing, it’s the students you present to. Try to be personable, casual and friendly rather than polished and distant.

Pro Tip: We appreciate it when you teach us things instead of just trying to impress us, what I mean is, send an engineer to recruit instead of a smooth talker, it will make a big difference.

We Know Our Worth:

Many of our students come from lower income backgrounds. Even with that being true, lowball offers will not be entertained. We know our value and we give each other advice. So when bad faith offers are made, well word spreads, the students don’t take the offer and that company isn’t very welcome later on (meaning they give a presentation, not many show up, or staff no longer schedules them to present).

Similarly we don’t work with companies that try to take advantage or not play fair with our students. As an example some unnamed but large companies were banned due to leading students on (by our nature as a school we don’t offer a degree, they made an offer conditional on them getting a degree. Why do that?).

Recruiters are professionals. The students here are professional. So let’s move forward with those assumptions.

What’s Next For Me

I’m still working on writing curriculum for the school. So far I’ve nearly completed an intensive course on swift development, I plan on implementing and making more to come (I’m still thinking through some UX stuff, maybe flutter, and perhaps a crash course on databases), also I’m still studying and learning some of the really cool things offered here. At the same time I’m also exploring procedural generation and generative design on my own, which is pretty exciting stuff.

I’ve started writing down all of my interesting conversations then distilling those conversations into life philosophies (similar to Marcus Aurelius’s intentions when he wrote meditations, well closer to a cross between that and Paul Graham’s Essays). Either way I’m writing down my thoughts on life, and even though it’s barely a website right now it will be updated soon and can be found here.

Some months back I participated in a hackathon that lead my friends to found a startup which recommends local restaurants you can find more info here. They are teamed up with the chamber of commerce in Newark, CA. I still advise but I’ve minimized my responsibility as I’ve always had a dream to make entertainment and media, which is why…

I’m working on my own startup making media and creation tools ( I’m currently working through the curriculum at YC’s Startup School). I’ve recruited the smartest engineering talent I know, and I may try to recruit some better equipped marketing talent other than myself. In a month or so I’ll try out for the local incubator here at 42 Accelerate. Likely do a kickstarter, and find a way to make it happen. So stay tuned, updates to come as things develop.

I’m not opposed to the right offer either, but I’m not actively looking right now, startups and writing curriculum keep me pretty busy already.

Keep In Touch / Ask Me Anything

You can find me online in the following locations.

LinkedIn / Twitter / Instagram / Github