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

https://qz.com/1054412/a-french-billionaires-free-teacher-less-university-is-designing-thousands-of-future-proof-employees/

by adenadel • 8 years ago

10 8 8 years ago

qz.com

nyc111• 8 years 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_423• 8 years 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).

herogreen2• 8 years ago

But Epitech is not free, right ?

lelabo_423• 8 years 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• 8 years 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• 8 years 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_423• 8 years 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.

herogreen2• 8 years ago

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

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

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