The execution

The 42 curriculum fits any student profile. It offers the best IT training at a personalized pace.

The content

A curriculum in two main parts

The core curriculum: 18 months to acquire the basics

The curriculum at 42 starts with the core curriculum. This experience sets the base for minimum skills, both human and technical. Following each student’s personal pace, it lasts a maximum of 18 months and 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. The core curriculum is the same on each and every campus in the network 42. Once you’ve completed this part, you can join intercampus and exchange projects.

The second part: Pick your specialty, choose your pace

The second part of the curriculum tackles classical digital and programming fields such as artificial intelligence, cyber security and mobile application development. It focuses on project group work and collaboration as well as neutrality towards brands, technologies and languages in order to develop the adaptation skills of our students and help them avoid the fatal obsolescence that strikes the digital market from time to time. Students are free to pick the domains they want to explore. This helps them diversify their skills and expertise. This part of the curriculum also includes internships and occasional projects with exclusive partners, other schools and even an entrepreneurial program. It’s up to the students to decide when they stop the curriculum to become Alumni.

Practicality

Project examples

ft_transcendence

Playing video games is good. Programming them is better. But then… setting up tournaments is even better! With ft_transcendence, you learn how to recreate the 1979 classic Pong, integrate it into a website and turn it into a competitive gaming platform. The website must be able to offer tournaments between players, so it has to manage registrations, victories, progression in rankings, spectator mode and a chat. This ambitious project is the last you must complete to be able to leave the core curriculum and access internships and fields of expertise.

miniRT

Raytracing is a 3D render method. It simulates light refraction by looking for the different light sources in a scene, which objects they touch, which they don’t, and according to the camera angle, which particles should show up on the display. It requires extensive calculation and it was recently popularized thanks to powerful graphic processors designed for big budget video games. In order to make it work, you have to apply scientific formulas and integrate them. Beware, it’s not a matter of mathematics or physics. This project aims to prove quite the opposite: that in order to program, you don’t have to know how to demonstrate a theorem.

famine, pestilence, war and death

Learning to code a virus means learning IT by trickery. Through four dedicated projects, each offering a new technique, the goal is to learn how such programs work in practice. The first one has to leave a simple trace of its passage, but the final one will have to hide and modify its own source code. Of course, these viruses are created for educational purposes only – and they are designed and evaluated under strict surveillance. Making them available and using them outside of this environment could lead to disciplinary measures and even exclusion from 42.

push_swap and lem_in

push_swap and lem_in, which must be completed one after the other, help you understand and handle computer algorithms. In push_swap, you will have to arrange a list of numbers in a specific order in the best possible way. Be careful, though: there is only one way to do it. You will have to create a program that can adapt to every situation! In lem_in, you will have to sort out a maze. Of course, you will have to find the fastest way, although there are several possibilities. The challenge is that you won’t have just one person running in the maze but a whole colony of ants with the same objective: finding the exit in two seconds or less!

corewar

The Core War is a programming contest created by D.G. Jones and A.K. Dewdney. The goal is the following: You have programs called “champions” battle to take control of a virtual arena. In the Core War project, you must be able to recreate not only champions but the arena used as the battlefield. The challenge is not to learn new notions or a new language. The best student champions are invited to a friendly championship during a dedicated event!

ft_turing

The Turing machine is a mathematical object designed by Alan Turing in 1936. It can be compared to a never ending ribbon with boxes that a reading and writing head can fill while moving: by turning a 1 into a 0, for instance, skipping boxes, going backwards… With ft_turing, you can create such a machine and encrypt a few algorithms. This project also serves as an introduction to programming culture and history through the prism of the early 20th century. Note: Before starting, you have to pass a specific Piscine dedicated to OCaml, the programming language required. Even after admission, some Piscines are proposed to help you quickly learn specific notions or languages.

fract-ol

Fractal figures are found everywhere in nature – whether in small forms, like a snowflake, or gigantic ones, like clouds, mountains or… galaxies! A fractal is a pattern that repeats infinitely: a triangle with sides that are triangles, etc. With this project, you focus on graphics programming in a psychedelic universe. Besides displaying fractal figures, you must move through them and modify their parameters in real time. The most creative spirits can add their own custom settings to come up with the most striking images!

matcha

This project is about designing an online dating website. You must create multiple functions. First, you have to manage individual profiles, with personal descriptions, hobbies, and photos. Then, a user should be able to visit other profiles and contact them. And last but not least, the function that gives its name to the program: It will have to find compatible profiles, profiles that “match” within the registered users database. Of course, you must monitor data security very closely. The project can be coded with the technology of your choice and is available after the Piscine where you discover a new programming language: Python, Ruby or PHP.

multilayer perceptron

Modern digital applications are everywhere – including in the health domain. Artificial neural networks are programs that can learn given they’re provided with data. This project allows you to discover such networks and to implement algorithms into them. For example, you can detect whether a cancer is benign or malign thanks to diagnostics designed in Wisconsin. This project was proposed by 42AI, the student association specialized in machine learning. It was validated by the pedagogical staff and is now available to all 42 students.

Pedagogical partnerships

Our exchange and specialization programs

To go further in your training and open yourself up to other professional horizons, 42 has forged partnerships with other schools. Programs like this help students specialize and learn to work with teams that have complementary skills. For example, the 42 Campus in Paris works in partnership with business, journalism, law and design schools.

Skills

What 42 gives you

Imperative programming: C
Functional programming: OCaml; Lisp
Object-oriented programming: C++; C#; Java; Swift; Mobile development
Algorithms & AI: Machine learning; Deep learning; Neural networks; Genetic algorithms; Maths
Graphics: Image computing; Games; OpenGL; Vulkan; Metal

System programmation: UNIX; Posix; Kernel; Low level; Embedded systems
Network & system administration: Network architecture; Network services; Network services; IP addressing; Cloud; DevOps; Virtualization; Continuous integration
Security: Virus; Rootkits; Trojans; Exploits; Firewalls; Countermeasures; Backups; Man-In-The-Middle; Sniffing & spoofing
DB & Data: SQL; PostgreSQL; MySQL; Oracle; Data structure; NoSQL; Data lake; Data visualization; Data mining
Parallel computing: Threads; Mutexes; Semaphores; Concurrent programming; GPU programming; Cuda; OpenCL

Adaptation & creativity: Innovation; Thinking out of the box
Web: Dev back; Dev full stack; Frameworks; Rails; Django; Node; React; Symfony
Technology integration: Complex environments; Heterogeneous environments; Projects from companies

Rigor: Coding style; Regression tests
Organization: Personal organization; Project management
Company Experience: Internships; Work and study (optional)
Management and communication of teams and projects: Group management; Communication

Group of students at 42 Paris with programming certificate.

End of training

The 42 certificate

42 is a sustainable training program for long-term integration into the labor market. There is no shortage of job offers in the IT industry: as soon as they complete their first internship, two-thirds of our students are offered their first permanent position. The 42 certificate is issued when the student decides to end their training after completing the core curriculum. It attests to the final level obtained at 42. Depending on the student’s personal pathway, it ranges from level 9 (validation of the common core) to level 21 (validation of several thematic branches available in the curriculum, and which may include periods of professionalization).

Terms and conditions for the Campus 42 in Paris

Culture Geek

Alan Turing (1912 – 1954)

During World War II, Alan Turing and his many colleagues from Bletchley Park faced an impossible challenge: to solve Enigma, the Axis cryptography system. In order to achieve this as diligently as possible, Turing offered to use statistical analysis techniques. He was right. His work, as well as his articles about general programming theory, set the basis for many concepts still in use in today’s computer science. After the war, in 1951, Turing was prosecuted by the British government for homosexual acts. He chose to suffer hormonal castration rather than prison time. He killed himself in 1954. In 2014, Queen Elizabeth II officially granted him a posthumous pardon. The law named after him in 2017 granted pardons to over 49,000 men convicted for homosexual acts in the UK. His story as well as that of Joan Clarke, a cryptanalyst working at Bletchley Park, were adapted in The Imitation Game, a film released in 2015.