I was sad to hear that 42's Fremont campus is closed, ending 42's presence in the United States and North America. I am convinced that there is an enormous need for accessible, skills-based education in the US and that American needs to multiply its tech talent pool - something it is struggling to do.
I've spent over a decade at the intersection of innovative education and software engineering, testing, tweaking, and thinking about how people learn, what makes a great engineer, and what are the skills and competencies required today and in the future that set someone up for long-term career success. I remain convinced that there is a global need for project- and problem-based education that uses learning science to develop skills - hard and soft - in a manner that is learner-centric. Learning and developing skills not only takes time, but the order in which you present problems to learners is incredibly important.
Recently, I've been focusing on learning communities, especially virtual communities, thinking about what makes a community, the role of community in motivation, and how to develop technology that fosters and fuels online learning community development. I am convinced that learning in a community is so important when you're trying to develop thinking competencies, technical skill, and a foundational skillset to fuel your career. Part of people liked about 42 was the community, but online work and learning communities need structure, synchronous and asynchronous work periods, clear commitments, and tools that create visibility. One of our major focuses at Qwasar is the community: creating a virtual, online learning community that is both local and global.
Community can be powerful: relationships with others who are committed to learning, to staying on top of the latest technologies, and to always bettering themselves as a developer and engineer can be a force in helping you be a life-long learner and great engineer. Our vision for Qwasar is not simply that there are programs, but that Qwasar is a life-long learning community with new tracks, new challenges, and new projects across a breadth and depth of topics in the wide world of software, data, web, and the cloud.
One thing we emphasize often at Qwasar is the learning journey, that the point is that you learn and grow. Our focus is not on filtering people out, but on fueling learning, which manifests itself in how our platform is designed, what projects and exercises are in our programs and the order they occur in, our program structures and commitments, and our community.
42 was good and it was designed to address a need originally in France. Today, in the US and around the world, there is a need for a vast pool of technical talent across a broad range of subjects, people who understand and are comfortable with current and new technologies, a changing environment, and a collaborative and problem-based work environment. I am excited for what is in store for Qwasar, and I would love to see many of you join the Qwasar community, both now and in the future.
We want to acknowledge the work and skills that many of you have already gained, and to help you further your career, skills, and experience certainly here in the Valley, in California, and beyond.
Learning is hard, developing skills takes practice, and community and motivation are key. For those of you who know me, I say these things all the time. That's because they are true and they are principles on which we've built Qwasar. I am hopeful for the future :)
#idocode
