Originally published by Mika Salmi on LinkedIn: This school is revolutionizing tech education in France. It's not for everyone.

No teachers.

No classrooms.

No high school diploma required.

No tuition.

No life?

Last week I visited Ecole 42 the hyper innovative “school” in Paris. Founded and funded (€80M for ten years of operations) by Xavier Niel, Ecole 42's ambition is to completely transform computer science education. While it is certainly early days for the school and its students, it has the potential to set an example for education as a whole.

The name 42 comes from Douglas Adams famous “Hitchhikers Guide” books and it is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. So is Ecole 42 all that?

Well, I was certainly stunned by what I saw Ecole 42 doing. The mode of the school from the moment you apply is that of a pressure cooker where working non-stop is tantamount. And walking around it certainly had a dystopian feel. Though it also felt like the students liked being there. I guess as it has been proven in Silicon Valley and present here at Ecole 42 that foosball tables, funky slogans/graffiti, and industrial design are good balm for the stressed out computer engineer.

However this atmosphere seems incongruous in France, home of the 35 hour work week and mandated 6 weeks vacation every year. So I wonder, is the tech and engineering community life in France that different from the normal French lifestyle? Or is this just the future and even the French had better accept this as the way to success?

(Much more in tune with the ethic of the school is the announcement this week that 42 is coming to Silicon Valley.)

So how does it work? To initially get in, you apply online and take a series of quizzes that test your problem solving skills. The questions don’t focus on computer coding as the school strives to find people who are from diverse backgrounds -- though they seem to fallen way short in one metric with the number of women less than 2% of the student body.

From those quizzes, 1000 people in three cohorts are admitted to the “piscine” (pool in French). These three groups of 1000 sleep, eat, and work together for one month either in June, July, or August at the school. They have to solve coding problems in very short period of time, often given only 24 hours to submit their answers.

Poolers can only use the knowledge they bring in (there is no Internet access for the pool) so they must use the help of their fellow poolers to solve problems. Learning to collaborate and deriving knowledge from your pool mates is a critical skill.