Coming back to Geneva, with a beautiful sunset and the agreable feeling of completing the common core of 42 Lausanne.

“Common core: The curriculum at 42 starts with the core curriculum. This experience sets the base for minimum skills, both human and technical. (…) [it] lets students learn C programming, develop simple software using classic algorithms, discover access to the file system, and learn management of the UNIX process. It also includes a simple first approach to network architecture as well as system administration. The program also offers oriented programming and a client-server project” – 42

A computer school with no courses, no hours, no teachers and tuition-free. That was the promise made and kept by 42 Lausanne! The beginning of my coding journey started when I began using R during my full-time research assistant position at the Bavelierlab. For me, it was sort of coding and I loved it. Being able to automatize through scripts was a timesaver for me! My lab director pushed me to look for computer science schools. Fortunately for me, 42 was opening a new campus in Lausanne! I gave it a shot and I was not disappointed.

After two years and a half (August 2021 – January 2024) at 42, I am now taking a step back and this is what I see :

Step 1: The ‘Piscine’. I spent the best one month of peer-learning how to code in C.

Step 2: Finding the right balance. During the first year, it was a real challenge to make 42 Lausanne, my Master and the part-time job at the lab work together. I successfully handled it and the first year was a total bliss. How satisfying it was to get the work done and to know more and more computer science concepts!

Step 3: Loneliness. At the beginning of the second year, it began harder to find people progressing at the same pace. I began to work almost on my own and let me tell you this is not how the school experience (and learning in general) should be. You always learn best when confronting your ideas to other people (Lou et al., 2001).

Step 4: Disillusion. Towards the end of the second year, I was always finishing my projects at less than five days of being kicked out the school. I remember hard moments at the edge of the Black Hole (name given to the day-counter of the school). Completing the 42 curriculum, for what? I will be forever thankful to my girlfriend who relentlessly supported me, making me stop my endless questionning of the purpose of completing 42.

Step 5: Freedom. On the 22nd of December, I finished the last project of the common core transcendence and on the 20th of January I passed my last exam. Finally !!! 🎉 The last comment made at the last evaluation for the project was: “Mention: Dégage de mon common core”, sure I will!

A note for the educational researchers out there! I find clever the whole 42 organization : “come as you are”, no discrimination, no prerequisites, no hierarchical pressure, only you come and learn because you want it. Autonomy. Then nudging the people to meet new colleagues by enforcing peer-evaluation and group work. The more you evaluate, the more you know people, the more you connect with the people you enjoy being with. Relatedness. Engaging the people in the whole process, making them acquiring new skills, then introduce them to the people who fund the institution. Competence. Yes, this is how you create self-determination in students (Deci & Ryan, 1985)

For you, the IT or code newbie, it is up to you to engage in such a process but here are my arguments on why you should join 42 Lausanne:

  1. I met like-minded people who are now close friends (SO Victor, Romain and Yossi). And to say the truth, I was not expecting this AT ALL nor tried to make new friends at the begining!
  2. Acquiring these global tech knowledge and skills opened me to new opportunities. I began following my dream, developping video games and sharing this dream with people I met in 42. I was given other tasks at the lab, interpreting researchers needs for a web developper to build an experiment management system. And finally I felt confident in accepting an internship at the LIP which consists in developping a REST API to collect logs from an educational video game made with Unity.
  3. New opportunities can never finish with the multiple events made at 42 Lausanne, most of the time inviting start-ups, partners and tech companies!
  4. Be courageous and be sure to count on your loved ones if you are currently engaged in multiple activities / jobs / hobbies.