A new student for 42 Wolfsburg, a new life for me

High school dropout

In 2023, I had dropped out from high school (gymnasium) for personal and mental reason, I had always struggled with my German, but somehow I managed to go up through year 11 of a gymnasium (the most advanced level of high school in Germany), but suddenly I couldn’t keep myself up after 7 years of being a pure failure, only being helped by friends which I had lost or teachers who believed in me enough to give me a pass. In Lower Saxony, you need to pass both year 11 and 12 (or done BBS) to be able to do the Abitur exam, the Abitur is what’s required to get into most universities in Germany.

So, I was out of school, didn’t have a job and had nothing to do. My mom scolded me for not having an occupation, so I looked up for things I could do.

Firstly I must confess, the majors/subjects I wish I could study are actually in Music (literally anything concerning music, film or culture) and Politics (Political Science or International relations), the reason I mentioned this was, despite having a Software Engineer father, I never wanted to delve into this sector, I’m not someone who would enjoy working in an office staring at the screen all day, though because of him I’ve had more experience with computers than the average person and my mom really wants me to work in the IT sector despite it not being my main dream.

I was desperately looking for options (by myself without help), from paid universities in the Netherlands to Universities back in Thailand, but these were all rejected by my parents who believed they aren’t worth it or was financially not possible (despite BAföG funding out of country studies).

Discovering 42 Wolfsburg

Feeling lost, I’d decided to caved to my mom’s demands and looked into IT courses/studies, suddenly my whole Instagram were filled with “free” IT courses and the one that attracted me the most was 42 Wolfsburg, this school in the industrial city of Wolfsburg which promises a “free” chance in self-learning, gamified IT courses.

For 42 Wolfsburg entry requirements works something like this, first you’ve got to be able to pass the rather simple online game/test to be able to participate in the Piscine.

The Piscine is basically an on-site one month try-out/testing period, the Piscine is basically the de-facto entry exam, within 4 weeks, you basically get a free trial on how it is as a 42 student (with limits of course), but at the same time, it’s also when they secretly spy on you to find whether your fit to become a 42 Wolfsburg student or not.

Knowing this I was pessimistic, despite me passing the online game test, I decided I needed to see and check out the campus itself, luckily there was an Open-door event organized by the school, so I decided to get myself a one-night hotel room in Wolfsburg and attend the event, the event was nice and informative, I even won 2nd place on a quiz (prizes which I received was a 42WOB-Hooddie and a novel) and met a couple of people which I would later work with in the Piscine.

Starting the Piscine

Starting the Piscine was quite hard, as finding suitable accommodation for a month was kinda financially hard for my family, but after my grandma received her teacher-pension, she decided to gift it to me to be able to afford trying out the Piscine.

I took accommodation at a rather nice student dorm, though there are things that ticked me off a lot, especially how they set up the internet-network, but it was fine, I wasn’t able to cook anything because of lack of equipment so, I mostly ate process food or at a restaurant and overall food was probably the thing I spent the most on.

I was basically an anti-social hermit in the dorm, I just felt everyone hid themselves, so I did the same, which was quite sad and lonely.

First week

So from end of January to 24th of February, I’ve started my piscine and oh how did the first day went? OMG I have never had a harder time trying to commit and push something into a git repository, but with the help of others and running around, I was able to do it and help other people too, not like I was happy though, if I remembered correctly I burned out and cried in my room after the first day.

The first week was very productive but also very stressful, I remember I had talked to some of my fellow piscine who were like “I can’t do this” or “this isn’t for me”, I believe by the 2nd and 3rd week, most who decided that 42 wasn’t for them (which was basically half the room gone).

Now to be honest, I would probably be one of those people who would have left too, if it wasn’t for my grandma’s gift, I just didn’t want it to go to waste and that I should probably just stay for the experience.

I believe that this was the week we had rush00, rushes are basically group projects (of 3 people) which are harder than the usual projects and instead of being evaluated by fellow pisciners, your team were to be evaluated by Wolfpacks (volunteer students), but I had skipped this one since I want free weekends, though looking at it now, skipping this rush was a mistake as many told me it gave valuable information about future projects.

Tip: Do Rush00

Second week

By the second week, my body was dead, I was least productive at this time, but was probably the most happy as I try to focus more on actually being happy at what I was doing rather than forcing myself to rush work which needs time, I decided to basically have a 9-5 workday, as in coming in at 9am (or a bit earlier) and leaving at 5pm no matter what.

But I have also made a lot of friendships during this time (since I was more laxed), though because of that I felt like I needed to progress faster.

This time I decided to do rush01, I had a rather good team, though to be honest, we managed the team really badly, the team-leader wasn’t leading, the best programmer who did most of the work didn’t communicate much and was de-facto leader, but the jobs that we have been given didn’t match our skill set, I was given the job of writing an algorithm for a game which I have no understanding of, but generally I had a good experience, and it told me what to do and not to do while working in a group project (I’m still good friends with my teammates, they are amazing 🫡).

Tip: Skip Rush01, most students failed this one, it was made intentionally to make a fail (in a way which we learn something of course, if you still want to go through it).

Third week

By the third week, as I have made lots of friends, I actually felt like I wanted to stay and study here, so I decided to push myself a bit harder.

I also tried to do rush02, I also got an amazing team this time, the goal is to basically write a number to text number (example: input “10”, then prints out “Ten”), we actually had quite good progress on the first day, but then our team-leader became sick and yeah me and my teammate just decided to give up, although we had given up, it was still an overall fun project.

Tip: Try rush02 if you're not burned out.

Final week

In the final week, I was dead again, I was sad and having mood-swings, I was the only one who didn’t celebrate passing the exam, that’s all I can say really, after forcing myself to be social for a month straight I felt like everything was crashing down for me, I felt I wasn’t a good enough programmer, a good enough person and felt like I was faking my whole persona to try to fit in, I felt like giving up.

Note concerning exams

Concerning the Exams, in the Piscine there were 3 exams, I failed 2 out of 3 (and even the last one which I’d passed, I only passed with 12/100 points), I felt like exams where not really in my speciality, I was more of the researching type, not the writing the answer from scratch-type, which honestly made/makes me wonder if I’m actually a good coder or not.

This is also something not to really be worried about, I have heard of people failing all 3 exams passing the Piscine and becoming a student (still, I wouldn’t recommend you not trying to pass the exam though).

If you want to do (or is currently doing) the Piscine

If someone wants to do (or is currently doing) the Piscine, I advise you to literally not panic (like they said), really my discovery is that the Piscine is not really a coding test, but rather a behavioural test (basically whether you’re an arsehole or not), most people I knew passed the Piscine, even those who weren’t/aren’t the best at coding, it’s really a test on whether you’re committed to learning, willing to help others and generally being part of the community.

I knew some people had failed, of course I don’t know the exact reason why, but I do have some theories on why and most aren’t because they were bad at coding, but rather because they were uncommitted or unhelpful to others.

In case anyone wants to see my code here’s my Github-repo and genuinely don’t push yourself too hard, worst case scenario you can copy-paste code, what’s important really is that you understand how the code works, but yeah try to do it yourself first though, shortcuts are merely temporary bandage solutions.

Tip: Do shell00, skip shell01, Do c00-c06, but skip C05, try rush00 and rush02, but skip rush01

A rest before preparing to move to Wolfsburg

After the Piscine ended I was basically burned out, one day after the Piscine, I was basically sleeping all day, I meant 2 of my close friends, and it was great, though because of my parents, I had to return home basically 2 days after the Piscine which was quite sad.

Back home, I discovered that I had lost 5 kg of weight, but sadly I gained 10 kg back after a week (which was definitely very unhealthy), but basically I was just slacking of for the couple of free months to be honest, I met a couple of old friends, made some new friends, but mostly I was at home doing some random computer things.

Honestly preparations for moving to Wolfsburg was a pain, I confess I didn’t really want to return to my student dorm, I felt it wasn’t private enough to me, I didn’t really like how we had to share a kitchen (it wasn’t really because it was shared, but because no one there knows how to fucking organize their stuff, like OMG my OCD ran rampant when I was there) and most importantly, the reason why I didn’t like how the internet network was set up was because every single IP address and devices was visible, now let me say I’m not really concerned about privacy, I basically use a VPN 24/7 anyway, it’s rather that if my neighbours turns on their freaking YouTube on their Apple TV or something, my phone will ask whether I want to cast it to my neighbours, which is freaking concerning, another things are P2P, FTP or any kind of server is not allowed to be run, which is quite annoying considering I’m studying computers and I might need to do some of them.

Update: this just happened to me, but basically I accidentally printed a paper to some random printer somewhere connected to the dorms network, oh well shite.

So I was looking for private flats, I was actually hoping to share a flat with a friend of mine, but after constant disagreements over financial issues with my mom, we just gave up and decided to put me back into the student dorm.

A couple of days before the planned move-in date to Wolfsburg, I had basically packed almost every single thing from my room, I genuinely don’t know why, I confess I didn’t really miss Cuxhaven, but I felt scared of change.

We putted everything in the car and on a trailer (OMG I think I might have destroyed my original Xbox 😭), but the trip was quick, I then found out that the room I was going to live in for the rest of the year/months was a room next to my old one during the Piscine.

It took me around 2 days to organize everything and I would consider my room clean and spacious, though I feel like I need to get myself some more cooking utensils and a shoe-rack, but other than that I’m actually quite happy.

And this time round, I had managed to make some friends too (well I think they see me as an acquaintance, but still got to start somewhere), as an Asian-Thai person, I’m happy to say that my 2 of my neighbours are Korean and one’s Chinese, having the Asian-tag basically means we’re already de-facto friends 😄.

First two weeks at 42 Wolfsburg as an actual student

Reintroduction first week

The first week was honestly not really that stressful, it was mostly a reintroduction to how 42 works and introduction on how it will be now that you’re a student, this week was basically filled with events.

We also got our first project called Piscine-Reloaded, which is basically the same things we’ve done during the Piscine, it was actually optional to do it or not, but I did it anyway because I don’t know, show-off points I guess.

We also got introduced to the new “Milestone” system, which basically sets a deadline for you depending on how fast you want to finish the core-curriculum, I didn’t know about this at first and accidentally chose the 12 months (35-45 hour per week) choice, but the worry though, you can move between them depending on how fast you want to progress (I personally plan to be in between 12 and 15 months), but if you’re not progressing at all, then you will be expelled from 42.

Very off-topic, but I actually cooked something unique this time, I invited my Mongolian 42-mate and close-friend over to my flat to help me cook and eat some Japanese Curry, we bought some needed ingredients and a new cooking pan, but then we found out that the expensive Tefal Pan I bought was incompatible with the induction stove, which was quite sad since I spent a lot of money on it, and so I asked my korean friends if I could borrow their pan, but we somehow succeeded and spent like 5-7 hours just eating and talking.

Stressful second week

The second week however was stressful, we finally got to start our next project called Libft, the goal was simple, write custom implementations of functions put them into a usable C library, so they could be used in another project, by the first two days I was done with half of the functions, but from Thursday to Friday on-wards, I was basically dead, I was getting headaches from stress and my progress was basically 4 minor To-dos per day (which is not fast), for the past 2 days I stayed at school for like 4 hours (which is kinda disappointing), but I decided to have a rest and take my weekends off to focus on laundry and housework, I will probably try to finish my Libft at home or if not I still got a week left of time to finish it (I wouldn’t actually mind moving down a pace and gaining 5 more days though).

I admit this week kinda feels like my second week of my Piscine, of being stressed out, but this time without the relaxing, I’ve also started contemplating myself again, since I feel I can’t write any out of scratch nor able to explain it line by line during the evaluations, which is scaring me to the core, though I’m probably overthinking, I have got 70% done and I can probably do it.

Some criticism of Wolfsburg

Wolfsburg

1. Despite being the home of Volkswagen, it’s very, very boring

I confess I thought Wolfsburg would be much bigger and more active, but it’s really nothing compared to other cities, I once said to a friend that Wolfsburg is kinda like “Germany’s very own cyberpunk city but very boring and without the cyber and punk part”, a lot of things are owned by Volkswagen in fact so much it’s quite scary, but because of that you would assume that things would be nice and massive, but no, it’s just a city which was built around a factory, a city for workers, an industrial city.

2. Not enough zebra crossing

It’s just this little thing, but I remembered that the first day I visited Wolfsburg, I almost got hit by a car several times, although I actually think that the walking pavements are nice and big, crossing the streets can be a pain a lot of times.

3. The train station is freaking tiny

OK I know this is probably rather weird complaint, but like the Hauptbahnhof is tiny, in fact in a way it’s more of a transit station between Berlin and Hanover, in fact it’s quite annoying that I have to go to Hanover whenever I want to go to anywhere else.

Wolfsburg - Hamburg

Hamburg is my birth city and my favourite German city, despite being ~160 km away from Wolfsburg there’s no direct line, meaning I need to travel west to Hanover first, before going north to Hamburg, meaning I have to travel ~220 km instead taking ~2-3 hours (with ICE).

Compared that to Wolfsburg - Berlin

Like I said, the Wolfsburg Hauptbahnhof is likely just a transit station between Hanover and Berlin, meaning it’s actually rather easy to go to Berlin, the distance is also around ~200 km but instead of ~2-3 hours, it only takes 1 hour to go to Berlin (with ICE).

A lost opportunity

I feel like there’s a lost opportunity, Wolfsburg is approximately in the middle of the entire country, but the lines only go west or east, if you want to go north or south then you have to make a transfer in another city (except if there’s a direct line such as Wolfsburg - Düsseldorf), my point is Wolfsburg has the geography for the perfect train station, but it has been ignored in favour of Berlin or Hanover.

The city feels kinda dead (or at least dying)

This might be a controversial, but I feel the Covid pandemic has effected Wolfsburg a lot, back in 2018, I had a class trip here in Wolfsburg and I remembered Wolfsburg to be much more alive than now, the area around the City-Galerie mall used to be much more active, lots of the shops which were open back then are now closed.

The area around the newly-built designer-outlet feels like a place meant for rich people, there are fancy stores, but there aren’t actually many people there and it has a very weird maze feel, I remembered when I was walking around I was unable to find my way out and architecturally feels very out of place when you remember that the old City-Galarie is still there.

Note: my memory maybe be hazy, but that's genuinly how I feel