Because I’ve seen many of my classmates posting this kind of reflection,
I thought I’d write one of my own as well.
I spent quite some time thinking about where to publish it.
Many classmates post on note.com, qiita.com, or medium.com,
but in the end, I felt that having my own space is the most freeing.
It only took me a morning to set up the website.
Whether there will be a second post—well, I have no idea (haha).
Of course, posting on other platforms would probably get me more exposure,
but honestly, I’m not really looking for a big audience (lol).
The most important thing is to capture how I feel at this moment.
I won’t go into too many details—just recording the parts that left a strong impression on me.
What is 42Tokyo?
Simply put, it’s a tuition-free learning institution.
But on the flip side, you don’t earn a degree from it.
The focus of study is computer science.
The system works like this: if you don’t finish the assignments by the deadline, you get expelled.
If you complete them, the expulsion deadline is pushed back.
Why did I enroll?
The reason is actually quite simple.
Because my husband said he thought it was cool, I checked it out and thought it was cool too—so I applied.
After all, it’s free. (← Important) (Living expenses in Japan are really high!)
Piscine (aka Entrance Exam)
A one-month-long entrance exam.
The admission criteria are unclear.
In short, you just have to work hard not to fall behind everyone else.
Honestly, I never really thought I would pass this test.
Because to pass it, you have to force yourself to talk to people every day.
I’m really bad at dealing with people in the real world.
Yes, I’m basically the kind of person who hides on the internet.
(Even now, I’m still not good at it—every time I review someone’s work, I need time to mentally prepare myself.)
And of course, there’s the language barrier.
I never had much interest in traveling abroad in the first place.
I never imagined I’d live in another country (because my ability to learn English is terrible).
So it was only after I knew I was going to Japan that I started learning Japanese (2023/03~).
I really admire those people who set a goal from the start and work hard to achieve it.
Lv. 0
“libft”
Messy and annoying.
In total, you need to implement about 30–40 functions (including the Bonus).
I highly recommend doing the Bonus part as well—
the difficulty isn’t particularly high,
and after doing 30-something annoying functions already,
a few more doesn’t really make much difference.
At the end, there’s a machine evaluation.
The scariest thing is passing the peer evaluation (3 people) but then failing the machine test afterward—
that would really make you want to cry.
Fortunately, I passed in the end.
Although the school’s system passed my submission,
the testing tools I found on GitHub didn’t always pass it.
Don’t ask me why, hahaha.
42’s standards are a mystery.
Lv. 1
“ft_printf”
An introduction to the va_list series of functions.
Be aware that the output may differ depending on the system.
I worked on it at home using macOS, while the school uses Ubuntu.
Make sure to check your work on the school computers.
“get_next_line”
A massive exercise in memory manipulation.
The most annoying part of C language is definitely memory management (hahaha).
Segmentation fault ← a nightmare.
“Born2beroot”
An assignment that doesn’t require coding.
You learn to install a Virtual Machine.
Packed with all kinds of knowledge points.
It was extremely difficult for me—
too many new terms.
At first, I was obsessed with memorizing all those terms,
but I simply couldn’t.
So my peer, H-san (who has now completed all the projects—truly amazing),
failed me on the first evaluation.
Although I was a bit disappointed, I was very grateful to him.
The second time, I described everything in my own words,
and I managed to pass—what a relief!
By the way, this website exists thanks to what I learned in this assignment.
Lv. 2
“exam02”
The first exam after enrollment.
The questions are randomly assigned.
It was really hard.
I passed on my fifth attempt—absolutely brutal.
“minitalk”
A project to practice signal transmission and computer encoding.
Maybe you’ve heard that computers are made up of 0s and 1s (binary).
But what does that really mean?
Why can a computer that only uses 0 and 1 display so many characters?
How does a computer receive the commands you send from your keyboard?
If you could only send two types of signals, how would you transmit a message?
All in all, it was a very interesting project.
“so_long”
One of the three available projects.
I chose so_long.
The task was to make a 2D map-based game.
Games sound fun, right? So I picked this one.
By the way, even in this age overflowing with 3D games,
I still think 2D is the best.
In the previous project, I learned how text becomes 0s and 1s.
In this one, I learned how images turn into text.
You can draw a colorful picture just using a keyboard.
Sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it?
“push_swap”
Practiced stack operations and sorting problems.
At first, I tried to implement my own sorting method,
but it was too inefficient to meet the project’s requirements.
A peer, G-san (a kind, serious, and wonderful person),
introduced me to an algorithm.
I didn’t know why it worked, but it really could sort!
I was shocked!!
That’s when I started to find this project really interesting,
so I continued exploring other algorithms.
I actually had it in a state where I could submit,
but I still spent a lot of extra time on it.
There are so many geniuses out there coming up with wild methods—
it’s really fascinating.
Freeze (aka Leave of Absence)
Maybe I pushed myself too hard on the sorting project.
After finishing it, I suddenly had no energy left.
The next assignments required teamwork.
After enrollment, you don’t need to communicate as frequently as in the entrance exam,
which was a relief—
but you can’t avoid the moment where you must collaborate with someone.
The team-building process didn’t go smoothly.
Although the school provides a place to post team recruitment messages,
as expected, many of them are from foreigners or people living far away
who don’t often come to the campus.
Those who come regularly surely have no problem making friends to team up with.
Even when I went to campus, I subconsciously hid in unnoticed corners.
But honestly, if someone came over to say hi or something, I’d be really happy.
I’m the type of person who, even after four years in the same university class,
would make a classmate say: “Huh? Who’s she?” when they hear my name.
I lost so much motivation that I took a leave of absence.
At first, I planned to make good use of that time to work ahead on future assignments,
but in the end, I didn’t do anything.
I remembered something a senior at my company once said:
“You’re wasting your own time.”
Yeah, I know.
But I really didn’t want to do anything.
Lv. 3
“exam03”
Passed on the first try—so happy!
exam02 was truly hell.
“Philosophers”
Because the expulsion deadline was approaching,
I had no choice but to rush and finish this project.
I learned about synchronization (mutex) and multithreading (threads).
Being overly cautious with every number could slow down the whole process.
Overthinking just drags you down.
“minishell”
I started this project determined to struggle through even without a teammate.
In the end, I teamed up with K-san,
the first person I ever spoke to at 42 (what a strange twist of fate).
This project was long and stinky (haha).
The most nerve-wracking part was that each reviewer had very different test cases.
Luckily, this one didn’t have a system evaluation
(and apparently, there won’t be any more from now on).
I’ve heard many people say this project is the “final boss.”
And in many ways, it really is the final boss (lol).
The first review alone took about three hours
(and it was at 3 a.m.).
Conclusion
Before I knew it, this turned into a long post.
Honestly, I never thought I could survive this long.
Because I thought I would fail,
I didn’t really want to tell people much.
But now I feel like—
even if I fail (get expelled), it’s fine.
I’ve already done so many things
I never thought I could do, haven’t I?
And saying it out loud
might actually help me keep going.
I will keep struggling forward.
Hopefully, a year from now,
there will be a Part 2 to this reflection.