To googling to a senior programmer in four years: the “School 21” method

There is one simple way to teach a person to swim: get with him where he is deeper and throw him into the water. Efficiency can be enormous. In 2013, a private non-profit programming school L'Ecole 42 (School 42) was opened in Paris, using a similar approach. The absence of teachers and a strict curriculum is only a deep project pool with deadlines at the bottom. Similar schools opened in California, Romania, South Africa, and Ukraine, and almost everywhere the project became successful.

In Russia, with the support of Sberbank, “School 21” opens, using the same approach. And in this post we will tell the abstract skeptic about it.


School 42 students. Photo by San Francisco Chronicle

According to the general description, the project looks like another online course, what is the difference?

We are trying to compare School 21 as little as possible with online learning. According to our records, even the coolest online courses are completed by only 6% of those who started the first lesson. We position ourselves as offline learning with a high degree of digitalization and a fundamental approach.

What is it like?

We have our own training system, but to work with it, you need to be in the school, in our real room, at the computer with access to this system. It motivates students to work.

Here, for comparison, we take some online course with access on a cozy couch and with the final certificate that comes in the mail. You are working on a task and at some point stop - you do not understand something, you cannot find it. You are distracted, go to drink coffee, then go for a walk ... come back, look at the extinct computer and do not want to turn it on, because you can't. If you study at the school, where many people work with you on such tasks, all you have to do to do this is to turn on the chair and ask for help.

And why do you think that many people will be engaged in such offline mode? Do you have a schedule when they should be coming?

We have no timetable. When we finish building audiences in one of the districts of Moscow - with a nearby gym, kitchen and rest rooms - up to 500 students can work there simultaneously, 24/7. In a similar school UNIT Factory in Ukraine 755 students study, and we expect no less flow here. So you can always find with whom to discuss professional issues offline. This is an important part of learning. Students come to school to work, they are all the time, one way or another, focused on the task. It turns out one big hackathon with a constant exchange of knowledge, points of view, approaches. It gives much more than one teacher can give, even the most intelligent one.

The teacher not only provides knowledge, but also directs students for further development. What about you? Do students even know what to do with your assignments?

To orient in a huge amount of information helps that we carefully approach the submission of tasks, gradually increasing their complexity. Assignments are accompanied by a minimum set of reference materials, they only show where to start searching for solutions. Students do the rest. It happens that in the task the student does not understand a word - and after a day or two or even a couple of hours everything is ready. The search for information necessary to solve a problem is the most important skill that is practiced during training.

If there are no teachers, then who checks everything?

Results are processed by an automatic verification system and, more importantly, by other students. The gamification system works here. To check your assignment, you need to earn rating points. To earn points, you need to check other people's tasks. This allows you to expand your knowledge, look at the tasks from the other side. If you skive while checking, this will be noticed, because the results of the live check are compared with the automatic check. Rating points are awarded for the originality of decisions, are removed for copying someone else's code ... in general, there are many levers of influence on the rating.

In addition to evaluating projects, 4-hour exams are provided to control knowledge during intensive dives. The final exam is 8 hours. At the stage of project training exam can be passed and retake every week. During the time of surrender, you cannot use the Internet and communicate with other students. Examinations contain about the same tasks that are given in the course of training, but offer a slightly different approach - this allows you to determine whether the student really understood how it works.

Such a complex internal architecture combined with an intranet system is the main feature of the project. Before the French developers released it to the market, they tested it for 12 years. Today, the results are such that the “School 42” competes with Harvard in the number of applications for admission, and large technology companies hunt for its graduates.

Right after all graduates? What are you, teach only fashionable languages ​​and technologies

The list of directions in our school is big: algorithms, graphics, Unix, Web, mobile development, security, network technologies. This will require knowledge in a bunch of languages ​​- C, C ++, Swift, Java, PHP, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, OCaml and others. All training is divided into 21 levels, and you can not go to the next, until you pass all the necessary steps of the previous one. Thus, having reached the finish line, the student becomes an IT solutions architect, rather than focusing on one tool. By the way, “School 21” is named so precisely because, to complete the passage, you need to overcome level 21. And because it gives a large amount of knowledge needed by a professional in the 21st century.

Of course, not everyone is obliged to go through all the maximums, but in order to choose a specialization, it is necessary to achieve a certain progress. Training begins with low-level languages. Students who have only high-level languages ​​in their assets first oppose, but in the end they are grateful that with such tasks an understanding of important basic things has come to them. This helps them plan solutions to any real problems.


School student 42. Just six months ago, he did not know anything about programming. Photo VentureBeat

And is it expensive to study in such an innovative offline school?

It's free. Now leave the application can anyone from the age of 18 to 30 years old as of November 1, 2018. First you need to pass the test tasks for memory and logic. Then - a personal meeting with the organizers. And in the finals the most interesting - "Pool"!

What is it?

"Pool" is a qualifying stage. 4 weeks a week, 10-14 hours a day - very intensive training on really complex material. According to the results of the “Basin”, the most successful and motivated are credited to “School 21”. If at the time of the "Pool" is not possible to postpone all affairs, then it is better not to start.

Well, and after something becomes easier?

Not that much. Although a lot depends on how many years you are willing to learn - you can stretch a fascinating process for about 1.5 to 4 years - if you devote at least 40 hours a week to study. It’s less likely to succeed, because there are many projects and they will overlap each other on tight deadlines. Combine and survive.

By the way, for some time the School can be completed not at level 21, but already at level 16. This is due to the fact that at about level 14 students already reach the level of a confident developer, start earning money on interesting projects and give them priority. If before the end of “School 21” there was no time to work in parallel, then in the end you may still have about a year of experience behind you - it consists of two semi-annual internships that are included in the training plan.

Students do their own internship search. But we are trying to help with this: we attract companies for joint events, we introduce these companies to students. And, of course, the most successful are invited for an internship at Sberbank. It happens, by the way, that during an internship you have to work with technology that is not yet in the students' assets, and then they are greatly helped by the skills of independent work with information obtained in “School 21”.

It all sounds too unrealistic in terms of traditional education ...

It is what it is. Therefore, we do not have state diplomas provided - we issue only certificates of the “School of 21” and French analogues from L'Ecole 42.

You can apply for introductory online testing at School 21 on the official website, www.21-school.ru . There are no deadlines for its passage. About a month before each qualifying "Pool", participants who pass the tests better than others receive an invitation to a personal meeting.