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

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

#21

Post by bsaul »

JPLeRouzic wrote: post #19
bsaul wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 pe…

yeap. This is due to the way students are selected after high school. engineering schools are much difficult to enter than universities ( because universities in france theorically don’t have the right to select first year students based on grades... yeah i know...)

So, the most valued way to do research in france is actually to first do one of those highly competitive schools first, then go to university for a phd.

But culturally, companies pay a lot more attention to the kind of engineering school you’ve been to than to your phd.

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

#22

Post by egourlao »

realusername wrote: post #20
nicolas_t wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... So, I'm rather skeptical when it comes to Ecole 42. We have great engineering schools in Fra…

> but in my experience Epita/Epitech doesn't produce good software engineers How so? It's one of the best IT schools from France and the concept was even adapted in the US. As an example, I could point to Docker which was founded by epitech students.

> It's one of the best IT schools from France

According to whom?

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

#23

Post by seren »

erowtom wrote: post #13
nicolas_t wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... So, I'm rather skeptical when it comes to Ecole 42. We have great engineering schools in Fra…

> 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

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.

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

#24

Post by arandr0x »

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?

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

#25

Post by Gumcher »

seren wrote: post #23
erowtom wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

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 overal…

EPITA student here, the thing is the majority of the student are not interested by those area, the first half are more interested going to FB, Google, Nvidia etc... or smaller companies but tech oriented than going to big telecom or medical companies like you said. The other half goes to more corporate / consulting companies because it pays well. Like you said Industry does not promote their sector in our school so no one knows about them or what they offer.

It's true that EPITA is definetely more CS oriented, but we are definetely capable of designing / building system (in IT), less in telecom / medical and even less in automotive.The reason is really simple it's because we are not passionate about these industries .

Btw EPITA is an engineering school not EPITECH so you can't really compare them they are just part of the same group.

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

#26

Post by Gumcher »

jillav wrote: post #14
nicolas_t wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... So, I'm rather skeptical when it comes to Ecole 42. We have great engineering schools in Fra…

I'm pretty skeptical about that kind of school too. I graduated from an French engineering school and I was taught every-day by researchers and professional engineers. That's what most 18 to 23 year-old kid needs. Structure. I know I needed it. I was a dumb 20 something year old. Plus, that kind of school focuses too much on programming, as in using programming language, and not enough on computer science and enginee…

Please do not compare EPITECH or 42 to EPITA they are not the same school at all. There is student teaching at EPITA (the idea come from here) but it is framed and supervised by the school and others teachers (and it's only for programming project, not CS courses that are taught by researcher or teacher).

> Some may feel that the job market is saturated by programmers looking for a job but the truth is, in France anyway, not much have a good engineering mind. I've worked in big companies, i've worked in small companies and I've talked to a lot a recruiters. They do interview a lot of people, from university, engineering school and other formation structures. Truth is i've seen big and small companies recruting students that had majored in anything but CS, juste because they came from an engineering school or university that was known to produce good engineers

Can you develop this part I'm curious, how do you make the difference between a good engineering mind and a bad one for example ?

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

#27

Post by cassandrajam »

titanix2 wrote: post #18

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.

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.

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

#28

Post by titanix2 »

cassandrajam wrote: post #27
titanix2 wrote: post #18

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.

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 wa…

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.

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

#29

Post by realusername »

egourlao wrote: post #22
realusername wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but in my experience Epita/Epitech doesn't produce good software engineers How so? It's one of the best IT schools from France and the concept was even adapted in the US. As an example, I could point to Docker which was founded by epitech students.

> It's one of the best IT schools from France According to whom?

According to me, that's my point of view, you have very few schools which put enough practice to create good developers at the end.

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

#30

Post by jillav »

Gumcher wrote: post #26
jillav wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty skeptical about that kind of school too. I graduated from an French engineering school and I was taught every-day by researchers and professional engineers. That's what most 18 to 23 year-old kid needs. Structure. I know I needed it. I was a dumb 20 something year old. Plus, that kind of school focuses too much on programming, as in using programming language, and not enough on computer science and enginee…

Please do not compare EPITECH or 42 to EPITA they are not the same school at all. There is student teaching at EPITA (the idea come from here) but it is framed and supervised by the school and others teachers (and it's only for programming project, not CS courses that are taught by researcher or teacher). > Some may feel that the job market is saturated by programmers looking for a job but the truth is, in France any…

> Can you develop this part I'm curious, how do you make the difference between a good engineering mind and a bad one for example ?

Sure

I'm simply stating what I've been feeling meeting developpers peers the last few years. I've met engineers and I've met tinkerers.

As far as what I've understood, engineering is mostly conception. Given a set a requirements and constraints, the engineer does some thinking and tries to come up with a technical solution that satisfies both requirements and constraints. Much of the time it's about compromising. That requires thinking ahead and anticipating stuff. Whatever the field, CS, aerodynamics or mechanics, the process is basically the same with different time scales. You're given a problem or a need. You have to understand it and its implications. You have to imagine some tool that will solve it. And the tool will exactly solve it. Durably. Efficiently.

Now, sometimes you can see developpers throwing a few lines of codes, assembling (with more or less duct tape) some modules found here and there and then testing it with a few simple cases.

Nothing wrong with that way of doing things. I do it myself on some home-projects of for a Proof Of Concept on the job. I litteraly use duct tape on some robot-arduino-thingy that I build for fun.

This way of doing thing, I call tinkering. And it's needed as much as engineering. Tinkering, DIY, duct taping, it's where new and innovative ideas come from. Because when you tinker you play around. You add this or that just to see what could happen.

But the thing is, when you tinker you don't build to last. And I've seen many developpers building things that way that would be delivered to clients in production.

So maybe when I said "not much have a good engineering mind" I should have said "not much understand the difference beetween DIY and Engineering". Both are needed. The key is to know when and why.

Finally, engineering is taught, yes, but it's a skill that is also and mainly developped with your few first years on the job. Not just in uni. I just feel that It should be a concern of any school that teaches futur developpers. Or a concern of any company that hire freshly out of school students. I know I try to sensibilize my interns to those subjects.

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