RSSEP Tour to Silicon Valley | Day-02 | Punit Agarwal

Today, as a part of RSSEP, I visited 42 Silicon Valley. This place is awesome with really awesome people lying around.

This school started at Paris in 2013. It later mushroomed at Silicon Valley in 2016 and is entirely sponsored by a French philanthropist named Xavier Niel. This school is unique in itself. Neither does it have any teachers, classrooms and nor does it issue any diploma or degree. There is no fees for both dorm and tuition.

They just have a large area, which they call space station, filled with thousand of iMac’s, and the only thing people do here is they code and they do it right from scratch. This school has been endorsed by a good number of companies at Silicon Valley and produces some of the best coders all around the world. The stories of students here is really fascinating and carries huge inspiration.

Rene Ramirez is in 42 Silicon Valley since last 3 years. He is the Event Coordinator and Head lead of AV. He left his job to be a part of 42 silicon valley. But unfortunately couldn’t pass the first 28 days of Intensive Basic Training, after which he wasn’t allowed to stay in the dorms of 42. He reapplied for the training and used to work 17–18 hours a day, coding in lab and slept in his car. Now, he is one of the senior students and even a 42 ambassador.

Giga, Pratibha and me posing infront of 42.

Guilhemer(Giga) hails from Brazil and is in 42 School since last 6 months and works as an ambassador too. He is indeed an awesome person. He showed us the projects he is working on. He did fail in a project twice and for the third time he did wonders and scored 125/100 by scoring bonus points. He mentioned about how failing is a part of 42 and counts for learning each time.

David

I happened to meet with David who is a game developer and has been exploring blockchain technology as well. It was great talking to him and he even did suggest some of the learning resources to enhance my knowledge in Blockchain. And the best part is, you don’t actually need to know how to code beforehand. I learnt that there was a guy who was a chef before he actually joined 42. Everything here is student made. The students build everything on their own. They paint their walls and come up with various projects and build them into reality. One such project was a blackbox that could grow mushrooms in entire earth. They are planning it to develop it for Space as well, which would ensure growing of mushrooms in mars too.

The Robotics Lab at 42 Silicon Valley.

I would definitely love to be a part of 42 family. This is a place to learn and grow.