The project looks awesome obviously. What you need to know out of the context with it's director (Xavier Niel), is the guy is an ace of communication.
Looking a little more into details and feedbacks from people who did the school, it's a VERY different story. I would highly doubt anything that comes to the communication about 42.
Probably the vision is achievable, I'm not sure it is by this school.
He's one of the only french businessmen having actually disturbed anything in France, a country where "innovation" is usually driven by publicly owned big companies and public grants. He has driven telecommunication prices down dramatically with his internet provider company, and then his mobile phone carrier. Internet is cheap in France mainly thanks to him.
I trust him probably more than anybody else in France to actually achieve something disturbing the system in place, precisely because he's one of the very very few that has done it before and he does not come from the elite making system of "grandes écoles".
Amusing fact, he started his fortune with sex messaging newtorks on the french precursor of internet, the Minitel.
And I'm pretty sure we have one of the best offers in the world for mobile plans thanks to him as well. I haven't seen a lot of places in the world where you can get pay on the go unlimited calls/texts/data for such low prices (10€/m)
France used to have some of the best internet access in the world, only behind the like of South Korea or Japan. Now it's down to #30 [1]. Same (or even worse) for mobile networks: 4G took forever to come to France. Investing in better infrastructures is expensive, and ROI is just not there to be on the cutting edge anymore.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_c...
We can have a look at USA with probably the most expensive internet / mobile plans and worst internet (excluding undeveloped countries). On the other hand, there are many emerging EU countries like Lithuania, where you can get stable 4G across a country for 5 eur/month.
FFS, I just received a bill from the hussier about a service SFR never provided, billed me for, and I've been arguing with the useless CSRs for over a year now.
The old mobile cartel in France used to have the best speeds but now they are more interested in paying their investors instead of delivering what their clients have paid for.
I'm curious to know where are those people who came out of42. The school opened like 4 years ago right? So the first graduates must have been last year.
If you have any stories to share I'm curious :)
I did 42 for 1 year. Now I'm working as sysadmin.
During the first year, we had projets with limited time (depends on the difficulty, from 1 to 6 weeks). We had 2/3 projets at the same time.
This school is kinda like Epitech. The staff is composed by students (I was one of them, I joined them after 3/4 month of learning at 42) and people who came from Epitech (sysadmins, 'teachers', web dev). Yes, there is a kind of 'teachers'. They create the first videos, the subjects (mostly taken from Epitech too :))
But this year, there was a big change. Now student can create subjects, videos. The projects are not limited in time. We are not working for 100hours/week, but a lot of people are at school for more than 50hours/week. This depends on their faculty to learn and their motivation.
But...
There is some bad points for 42.
There is no labs. There is no books. There is no English class (as you can see with my poor english :) ), no math class, no French class (and a lot of people really need it....). When you see people reading the man pages in french, you feel sad for them. Whe you see people not able to do some math, you feel sad for them too. And, seriously, a library or some labs for the students can be a good thing.
42 is a cool thing for people who have not the 'baccalauréat'. I dont have this degree but thanks 42, now I have a great job. If I had this degree, my choice for a school might be something like ENSIMAG / ENSEIRB, but definitly not Epita / Epitech.
Btw.
> In fact, 40 percent of École 42’s students haven’t finished high school. Others have graduated from Stanford or MIT or other prestigious institutions.
Why someone from a prestigious school would like to come to 42 ?