Everything people ask us before, during and after applying. Search it, filter it, or read it front to back.
42 is a global network of tuition-free coding schools built on a simple idea: people learn to build software by building software. The first campus opened in Paris in 2013. There are no professors and no lectures. Students work through projects, review each other's code, and progress by proving what they can do.
42 Wolfsburg has produced over 300 graduates, with 250+ now working in the industry. Together with our sister campus in Berlin, we are part of a network of more than 50 campuses across over 30 countries.
The name is a nod to Douglas Adams. In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 42 is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Yes, completely. Talent should not depend on what you can afford. Our programme is funded by industry partners, including Volkswagen and other major employers in Lower Saxony, who want a stronger local tech talent pool. There are no hidden costs and no financial obligations before, during or after your studies.
Our graduates are also never required to work for our partners. Admission is based on aptitude alone, and what you do with your skills afterwards is entirely your decision.
You need to be 18 or older. That is the entire list. There is no upper age limit, and your background, education and previous degrees make no difference to your application. What we ask for is motivation and commitment.
If you are under 18, you are still welcome to register and attend an Online Introduction. You just need to have turned 18 by the time your Piscine starts.
No. There is no evidence that applicants who already code do better at the Piscine than those who have never written a line. Curiosity and a willingness to work through hard problems matter far more.
Adaptability, persistence and a habit of asking questions. You will need to be proactive, thorough and willing to work with people you have just met. These are also the exact skills the programme develops, so you do not need to arrive with them fully formed.
Because the curriculum keeps escalating. Projects grow in complexity, and each one asks you to work out an approach rather than follow a recipe. Alongside the technical depth, you build the things self-taught developers often miss: code review under scrutiny, collaboration on shared codebases, and the discipline of shipping to a standard someone else will check.
There are no lectures and no exams in the traditional sense. A Computer Science degree leans heavily on academic theory; our curriculum is built entirely around projects and the skills employers are actually hiring for.
We also update the curriculum continuously, in step with the network and with the industry around us. In a city built on engineering, that means graduates who can contribute to a real codebase from their first week rather than spending months catching up.
Non-EU citizens are welcome to apply, but we want to be straightforward about the limits. 42 Wolfsburg is not an accredited academic institution, so we cannot sponsor or support student visas.
In practice this makes the route difficult from outside the EU. For most applicants the only workable path is already holding the right to live and work in Germany. We strongly recommend speaking to a visa advisor or your local German embassy about your specific situation before applying.
If a visa is the sticking point, other schools in the network may suit you better. The full list is at 42network.org. We are glad to help with everything else once you are here; visa and immigration matters are simply outside what we are able to do.
The campus is open 24/7 and step-free throughout, with a lift, accessible bathrooms, and kitchens.
We run regular meet ups for underrepresented student groups, alongside events such as International Women’s Day and Women+ focused Open Days. Staff complete unconscious bias, mental health first aid and diversity training.
No. We are a coding school, not an employer of interns, so we cannot host Schülerpraktika or short work placements. If programming interests you, the door is open once you turn 18: register, attend an introduction and try the Piscine.
Every open position is listed on our jobs page. If nothing there fits, there is currently no opening for you, and new roles appear on that page as soon as they come up.
Yes, and thank you. We are a non-profit, and donations go through our project page on betterplace.org, which keeps every contribution transparent and secure. For anything beyond a one-off donation, such as a partnership or a larger gift, write to contact@42wolfsburg.de.
No. Peer learning only works in person, so the Piscine and the whole curriculum take place on campus in Wolfsburg. There is no online or hybrid option. In return the building is yours around the clock, every day of the year, and you learn alongside people from dozens of countries and every kind of background.
Yes. Every student has an ID card and an access token, so you can let yourself in at any hour. Some people do their best work at 2am, others prefer weekends to weekdays. You choose when you show up; the responsibility for keeping your pace is yours.
A place to code, and a place to live around the code. There are two big clusters and meeting rooms for group work, a quiet cluster and a library for focused work, and an event space, cafeteria and two kitchens for everything else. Students cook and eat together regularly, and there is a supermarket a few minutes away.
For breaks there is a gaming area and a table tennis table that sees heavy use. Outside the building, people head out together to explore Wolfsburg and the countryside around it. If you want to see a day in a student's life, this video shows it better than we can describe it.
We run Open Days at least once a quarter. You can meet the team, talk to current students and see how the place actually works. Most Open Days are paired with an official Introduction, which is a required step in the application.
You can also book an individual campus tour, though these are short and leave little room for questions, so an Open Day is the better option where possible. To get a look around first, watch our campus tour video.
Children, occasionally. The campus is child-friendly and the policy exists to take the pressure off parents when childcare falls through. It is a stopgap, not a routine, and there are house rules to keep the campus a place to study. If your situation is more complicated, talk to us and we will find something that works.
Dogs, yes, within the rules. Your dog must be supervised at all times and you are responsible for it. Companion dogs always have access. Staff can restrict dogs temporarily or permanently for operational reasons, or if a dog becomes a health issue for anyone on campus.
Not on campus. The city runs resident parking zones where permit holders park for free; details are on the city website. If a permit is not an option, several public car parks sit within a few minutes' walk, typically at 1 to 1.50 euros an hour with a daily cap.
Everything on campus runs in English, including all projects and materials. You do not need a certificate or a particular level to apply; roughly B1 is enough to get going, and most people find their English improves quickly here, often to C2 by the time they leave.
German is not required to study with us, and English is the working language of the campus. It does make daily life in Wolfsburg easier, and it will count for a lot when you look for an internship or a job later on. Plenty of our students learn it as they go.
The curriculum is identical everywhere in the network, but every campus runs independently, with its own processes, selection criteria and support. Start with the website of the campus you are considering, and if it looks like a fit, contact its team directly. They are the only people who can tell you exactly what applying there involves.
Before your Piscine, freely. After it, no: you complete the Core Curriculum at the campus where you passed your Piscine, and transfers during the Core are not accepted, here or elsewhere in the network. Once the Core and your first internship are behind you, every school in the network is open to you for your specialisation.
To request a switch beforehand, sign in to the application platform, click your email address in the top right, choose "I have a problem", then "Create an issue", pick "Campus Switch" from the dropdown, select the campus you want and briefly say why. We accept the request on our side. It speeds things up if you also let the other campus know it is coming.
Smaller than Berlin, and that is the point. Wolfsburg is a modern, green city with short distances, affordable living and an economy built on engineering and technology. It is surrounded by forests, lakes and open countryside, so there is somewhere to switch off when you need it.
Trains to Berlin, Hannover and Braunschweig are fast and frequent, which makes it a well-connected base without the cost and noise of a big city. Fewer distractions, a tight community and a campus you can walk to at any hour: it is a good place to learn.
Wolfsburg is a small, international city, and we have not heard of any major issues from our students. Safety is a personal thing and hard to promise on someone else's behalf, so read around before you decide. Living in Wolfsburg is a good starting point.
Tuition is covered. Everything else is yours: rent, food, transport to Wolfsburg and, if it applies, visa costs. How much depends on your situation and lifestyle. Numbeo gives a rough picture, though student housing usually comes in well below the figures listed there, from roughly 300 to 400 euros a month for a room.
Studying here works best when it has your full attention, so it is worth saving beforehand or arranging support before you start.
Not directly, but we have a recommended option for long-term stays. The Höfe project by Neuland is built for 42 Wolfsburg students and staff: you share a flat with two peers from the school, rooms start at around 350 euros a month, and there is no deposit. The rooms are unfurnished. For most students it beats anything else on the market.
For anything about housing or settling into Wolfsburg, write to admissions@42wolfsburg.de.
Availability with our hotel partners is very limited, so plan on finding your own place for the four weeks. Options that tend to work:
Studentenwerk rooms from around 380 euros a month, with a 400 euro deposit and contracts that always end at month-end. Airbnb for rooms and flats from private hosts, bedding and towels included. WG-Gesucht and Kleinanzeigen for temporary sublets (search for "Zwischenmiete"). If budget allows, ipartment offers furnished serviced flats in Vorsfelde, about 15 minutes from campus by bus.
LinkedIn, StepStone, Indeed and Kleinanzeigen cover most of the market, and Upwork if you would rather freelance. Newer companies and start-ups are more likely to work in English than established ones, and retail and hospitality are always worth a look. Basic German widens the field considerably.
Admissions Support exists to make arriving here straightforward: finding somewhere to live, understanding the application steps, and settling into the city. If you are unsure who to ask about something, start with them at admissions@42wolfsburg.de.
Three steps. Register on our application platform. Attend an Online Introduction, a one-hour session on how the school works, with time for your questions. Then join a Piscine, the four-week trial that decides admission.
If you already have an account, log in and you can sign up for a Piscine straight away.
First, make sure you are on the sign-up page rather than the login page. Use an email address that has not been used on the platform before, set a new password and confirm it, then look for the verification email, including in your spam folder, and verify your address. Do the whole thing in a desktop browser, ideally Chrome. If it still will not work, email contact@42wolfsburg.de and we will sort it out.
Email contact@42wolfsburg.de telling us what needs updating and we will take care of it.
No hard feelings. Log in to the application platform and click "give up process" at the bottom of the page to request anonymisation. Alternatively, open "Legal notices" at the very bottom, choose "Erasure requests" from the options at the top, and ask for all your data to be deleted.
Accounts are also deleted automatically after one year of inactivity.
The Piscine is the final stage of the application: four weeks of full immersion in which you learn to code from scratch. Think of it as a compressed version of the school, which means it tells you as much about whether 42 suits you as it tells us about you.
It is genuinely intense and asks for real commitment. There is no fixed number of places and no ranking against other applicants, so nobody is competing with you. You can sign up right up to the start, but earlier is better: from about six to eight weeks before, we send everyone signed up a newsletter full of practical information.
Day one is the one you cannot miss. That is when we explain how the Piscine works, what to expect and how to get the most out of it.
Every Friday is exam day, from 2pm to 6pm, with an eight-hour final exam at the end. Exams are where the week's concepts settle, and they show you where you stand. Weekends bring the Rushes: optional group projects that are a lot of fun and the best way to use what you learned in the week. Around all of it there are ice-breakers and social events, most of them optional, all of them worth turning up to.
Treat it as a full-time job: around eight hours a day including breaks, plus the weekend Rushes, which are optional but give the biggest learning boost of the month. A few people manage part-time work alongside it. We would not recommend it. At the end of the Piscine your progress, adaptability and contribution to the community are what get reviewed, and all three take time.
How long any one thing takes depends on you. Give everyone the same puzzle and some will finish faster, some slower, some with prior experience and some meeting programming for the first time. Your rhythm will be your own.
Technically, you do not need to. The Piscine starts from zero and assumes nothing, and arriving fresh can even help, because learning here works differently from a course. There is no study material we hand out beforehand, and that is deliberate.
What helps is mental preparation. It is intense, immersive and sometimes frustrating, with unfamiliar problems and steep learning curves. Staying curious, asking for help and learning with the people around you matters more than anything you could read in advance. If you want to explore out of curiosity, students recommend C Primer Plus (Stephen Prata), Head First C (David and Dawn Griffiths), Head First Programming (David Griffiths and Paul Barry), this YouTube series on C and the W3Schools C tutorial. Entirely optional.
Two steps. Before the Piscine you will get an email asking you to check in online. Complete it within six days or your place may go to someone on the waiting list, so put a reminder in your calendar and keep an eye on your spam folder.
The ID check happens in person on day one, first thing in the morning before kick-off, so nobody has to book an extra night just to show a document. Bring your passport or ID card.
Life happens. Log in to the application platform and submit an unsubscription request for the Piscine you are signed up for. Once we approve it, you can pick another upcoming date, or wait for new dates to be announced. This has to be done before the Piscine begins, and remember that accounts are anonymised after a year of inactivity.
If something happens after it has started, speak to the Pedagogy team. Switches are handled case by case, and are usually only possible in the first few days, for health reasons or genuinely unforeseen circumstances.
Usually yes, with some serious catching up to do. Email the Pedagogy team at pedago@42wolfsburg.de as early as you can with your name, your email address, why you will miss the kick-off and when you plan to arrive. They will tell you how to proceed.
Up to the start you can change dates freely. Once you have done the ID check on day one, the Piscine counts as started, and if you stop at any point afterwards it counts as one of your two attempts, however long you stayed.
The Pedagogy team can grant an exemption in some circumstances, with no guarantee. If you leave in the first half you will almost certainly need to sign up again after the 300-day wait. If you leave near the end and there is enough work and presence on campus to make a selection decision, an exception is possible. It depends on many factors and is entirely their call.
And if you try it and find the school is not for you, that is what the trial is for. It works both ways. You are welcome back if you change your mind.
The Piscine is not a competition, and collaboration is part of what we look for. There is no fixed number of places in the Core Curriculum: if everyone shows commitment and fits the way 42 works, everyone gets in. What counts is progress, adaptability, and what you contribute to the people around you. Do your best, help others and stay engaged with the process.
Selection is made by the Pedagogy team after the last day. Results typically arrive one to two weeks after the Piscine ends, depending on the size of the cohort. We know many of you need to arrange travel and housing, so we move as fast as we can, but we cannot promise an exact date.
Appeal, no. Decisions are made with care for every individual case and are final. Our obligation to the network is to admit people who are ready for the Core Curriculum and likely to complete it, and fairness means the same standard for everyone. Please do not take it personally.
Try again, yes. You can attempt the Piscine twice in your lifetime, with a 300-day wait between attempts. Plenty of people get in on their second try.
Yes. After the Piscine you can request a certificate of participation from contact@42wolfsburg.de. For Bildungsurlaub, ask for a confirmation of registration beforehand as well. See the funding section below.
Four stages. The Piscine, one month, is the selection. The Core Curriculum, typically 12 to 24 months, covers the fundamentals of computer science and software development through projects. A mandatory internship of four to six months puts that knowledge to work in a real team. After that, the Advanced Track is optional: a further two to three years of specialisation, including a second internship.
Completing the Core and the internship earns you a 42 certificate of completion. It is not a state-recognised degree; see the qualifications section for what that means in practice.
The Core Curriculum is roughly 2,000 hours of work. Studying full-time, most students across the network finish it in about 18 months. You can pace it anywhere between 12 and 24 months, with a two-year limit on completing the Core.
Working at your own pace means adjusting your speed, not disappearing for weeks. 42 works best as your main focus.
The full programme, including two internships and a specialisation, takes a little over three years and leaves you at a level comparable to a Master's degree. Whether you move fast or slowly matters far less than what you can build at the end.
The programme is designed to follow straight on, so we recommend choosing the Kick-Off closest to your Piscine. If you need time to relocate or wrap up other commitments, you can skip one cycle and start at the next one. Only one, though: make sure you sign up for the Kick-Off after that.
During the Piscine, realistically no, and we would strongly advise against trying. The Core Curriculum is designed as full-time study, but it has no fixed timetable and no daily minimum, and the campus is open 24/7. Many of our students work part-time alongside it. What matters is that you stay consistent, finish your projects and show up for evaluations and for your peers.
Neither. Students learn from the work and from each other. Our pedagogical team designs the curriculum, maintains the standards and keeps an eye on progress, but nobody stands at the front of a room. Teaching something is the fastest way to find the gaps in your own understanding, which is precisely why the model works.
Every student is both a learner and a reviewer. Rather than an instructor handing down answers, you work through problems with people at different stages and defend your approach to them.
Evaluating someone else's code, and explaining your own decisions out loud, turns out to be one of the fastest ways to understand a concept properly. It also builds the review habits that engineering teams run on.
You learn by building things rather than by memorising them. Each project sets a real problem, and working out how to solve it is the lesson.
Completing projects earns experience points, which unlock levels, new projects and new branches of the curriculum to explore.
You start with C and the fundamentals of programming, alongside a substantial block of projects in Python and AI. Before your first internship you can branch into UNIX, graphics and web development.
After that the curriculum goes deeper across computer science: object-oriented and functional programming, mobile development, web security, reverse engineering, malicious code, kernel and network programming, artificial intelligence, 3D graphics and more. A second internship completes the programme.
Your peers, working from grading scales written by the pedagogical team. You will evaluate their work in turn. Exams, which you can sit twice a week, are marked automatically by the Moulinette, a program built by 42.
The 100+ projects are laid out as a tree. Completing one opens the next, and at each split you choose which direction to take. No two students finish with quite the same path behind them.
After the Core, the Advanced Track gives you two to three more years to go deep: artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, web and mobile development, operating systems, graphics programming and more. It is built around teamwork and stays neutral on brands, languages and tools, so you leave versatile rather than tied to one stack. It takes you to a level comparable to a Master's degree, though still not an official one.
Progressively and hands-on: foundational exposure during the Core, then more advanced and specialised projects where AI is central to the problem being solved. The aim is technical mastery and critical thinking in equal measure.
Rather than teaching a fixed set of tools, the curriculum goes after the principles underneath them, so you can adapt when the tools change, innovate responsibly and contribute something real. The content is updated continuously to keep pace with the field and with what the industry needs.
Because it is more relevant now, not less. Learning to code from the ground up is how you understand what a system is actually doing, spot the errors and biases in what an AI generates, and move from using tools to designing and improving them.
AI can speed up the creative process. It cannot replace the logic, precision and problem-solving that come from writing code yourself, and those are where critical thinking and real innovation start. Master the fundamentals and you get the autonomy to adapt, the clarity to question what you build, and the skills to shape where the technology goes next.
Yes. A solid foundation in programming and algorithmic thinking, plus real projects, is exactly what work in artificial intelligence, data science and machine learning is built on. The project-based, peer-driven model develops the autonomy, adaptability and critical thinking that employers in AI consistently ask for.
Many graduates join AI teams, build intelligent systems or work in research and innovation, and 42 students do well in international hackathons and competitions.
AI is changing how developers work, not removing the need for them. As the technology evolves, strong fundamentals become more valuable, not less: they are what let you understand, guide and improve AI systems rather than just operate them.
Rather than replacing developers, AI opens new ground for people who can build. A hands-on, project-based education is the best preparation we know of for adapting to it, leading in it and shaping what comes next.
No. We are not an accredited academic institution, so we issue a certificate of completion rather than a state-recognised diploma.
What you leave with instead is a portfolio of working projects, a network across more than 50 campuses, and a qualification employers in this industry already recognise. For most tech roles, what you can demonstrably build counts for more than a certificate.
Yes. Once you are enrolled, generate your own certificate of enrolment at cert.42wolfsburg.de, in German or English and for whichever purpose you need it, whether health insurance, the Jobcenter or Kindergeld. A similar confirmation is available for the Piscine period; ask the Pedagogy team.
By teaching you how to approach unfamiliar problems rather than how to use one particular tool. Our graduates arrive in teams able to read a codebase, ask the right questions and work out what they do not yet know.
We deliberately avoid tying the curriculum to a single language or stack. Frameworks come and go; the underlying techniques do not, and those are what keep your skills relevant a decade from now.
Finding both internships is part of the programme, and part of the point. We give you the ground to stand on: sessions with recruiters from our partner network on things like CV writing, Ask Me Anything sessions with people working in tech, conferences, hackathons and workshops. We do not guarantee a placement with a partner, but our partners are actively interested in hiring from 42 Wolfsburg. Making the approach is your job, and doing it once makes doing it again far easier.
No formal guarantee, but most of our students secure an internship or a full-time role during or shortly after the Core Curriculum. Because the programme is self-paced and open-ended, people finish on very different timelines, and some go straight on to the Advanced Track rather than into work, which makes a single placement figure hard to report honestly. Whether a particular person lands a particular job depends on far more than us, so we would rather not promise what we cannot control.
Always. Alumni keep access to the campus and are welcome to pick up new projects whenever they want. Many come back to run sessions or mentor current students, which is exactly how the community stays useful.
Our scholarship programme is currently open to enrolled students only. Scholarships are not available during the Piscine.
Yes. Our Piscines are recognised as professional development under § 10 (1) of the Lower Saxony Educational Leave Act (NBildUG), by decision of the Agentur für Erwachsenen- und Weiterbildung dated 12 August 2025.
Bildungsurlaub will not cover the whole Piscine. Most people have five days, or ten if their employer agrees, and cover the remainder with annual leave.
To apply, request a confirmation of registration from contact@42wolfsburg.de. Your certificate of participation follows once the Piscine is complete.
Not at the moment. We review this regularly and will announce it through our official channels if that changes.
Usually, yes. On the application form you will most likely tick the "school education" box and attach a confirmation of enrolment from us. The Pedagogy team issues it, and it is available for the Piscine as well as the Core Curriculum. Once enrolled you can generate one yourself at cert.42wolfsburg.de.
// human_support_available — we reply fast.