The Piscine is an intensive and challenging program that takes 4 weeks, including weekends. The campus is always open 24/7 and you can come at any time (excluding exams).
You’ll be diving into coding alongside others, all aiming for a spot as a full-time student at 42 Warsaw.
It’s not a competition, though. You’ll be learning the basics of programming together with others. You’ll get a taste of 42 Warsaw’s unique, peer-to-peer, and project-based learning style. And if you decide it’s not your cup of tea, you can leave whenever you want.
Expect to make plenty of mistakes – that’s a part of the learning process. It helps you build the resilience and skills you need to succeed in coding. Spots in the Piscine are limited, so they’re filled on a first-come, first-served basis through the application portal. Within this period there are several kinds of tasks and projects that you can work on. Some of them are timed and have a strict deadline, some of them are not. Some of them require other projects to be completed, some don’t. These are the different elements of the Piscine:
– Individual Projects: There are 16 individual projects in total that you can work on during the 4 weeks. Every project consists of multiple exercises that build up in their level of difficulty. Some of the projects can only be started once you have gotten a positive evaluation for previous projects.
– Peer Evaluations: Individual projects are evaluated by your peers. In the same way you will evaluate submissions of other Pisciners.
– Rushes: These are group projects that are scheduled for the weekends. Registrations open every Tuesday, you have to subscribe to the project in order to participate. Groups are randomly created. You will get the project descriptions on Fridays after the exam finishes and have up until Sunday night to work on it. The rest is up to you.
– Exams: Every Friday afternoon there is a timed exam where you have the chance to test whether you really understood the concepts discovered in the projects. Exams should be taken without external help as you would otherwise fool yourself. This is your chance to evaluate how much you can do already. You can also take advantage of the events taking place on campus during this time, meetings, talks and workshops. Remember that 42 Warsaw, is ”not just about coding”.
If you have more questions, check out the FAQ section.
