Fredrik Karlström

Written by André Teetor in collaboration with Christian Carstén and several students from Grit:lab.

As of October 2024, there are a combined 86 ‘01 Edu’ and ‘42’ campuses worldwide: a fact. Post graduation, most of them boast a majority employment rate: another fact. These teacher-less, peer-2-peer learning platforms are becoming common place. They are not popping up in a vacuum; and are funded by cooperative market competitors hoping to produce and eventually hire developers with practical skills to positions that four year university educations have failed to fill, falling behind the curve. With these public facts on stage, the odds were in our favour, and we staked our careers on it. Teachers, translators, baristas, clerks, mechanics, parents…one electrician — all of us, students of grit:lab, did just that. We knew that if we were accepted, attended, and gave it our all, we would arrive at the finishing line with another worthy skillset in tow to show for our efforts. We are not alone. Thousands of students before us have put the 01-Edu and 42 platforms to the test and have been validated and recognized for their sacrifices and gambits, obtaining gainful employment and/or founding 21st Century tech companies.

It all started with collection of strange, driven people…as most good things do. I bring you thusly: a couple government officials, a few PAF employees/administrators, a bunch of technology companies/enthusiasts, the business acumen of Åland — and voìla! — grit:lab was born. The ‘grit’ expected of us is a multi-faceted paradigm, made clear by those graduates of other programs who came before us and emphasized by the administrators of the grit:lab program. Said ‘grit’ can be succinctly put into a simple phrase: “Don’t quit.” Tap into your curiosity. Build something. Learn.

For some, these platforms are a viable alternative to the traditional pedagogical approach. And, let us be clear, they are not for everyone. These programmes are intensive and the only help you have are your peers and the Internet. 01-Edu and 42 are made for adults; no teacher to hold your hand through nor adjudicate your social conflicts. The selection stage and programme itself are designed to whittle a large group of applicants down to a few who have the needed interest and curiosity to drive forward. From over 2000 applicants, 40 graduated; another fact. Here’s some context: you’re given a project with a few paragraphs of incomplete instructions: “build a social network”. You’re told which libraries (prewritten code design to serve specific purposes) you are and are not allowed to use (the platform would fundamentally disallow certain basic libraries and functions so that we would have to write our own fundamental functionality). That’s all — “here’re your peers, there’s the Internet, Go!” These infuriating restrictions and task complexities forced us to learn the underlying properties of data types, architecture, and nuances of multiple languages.

So, how did we learn so much in two measly years? 24/7; no supplementary classes to attend, no lectures, no futile exercises — absolutely nothing but code for two, full, grueling years. Many of us spent weekends and Christmas at our lab in PAF. Every couch in the PAF building has been slept on by a grit:labber.

No exams? The whole program was one big test of our patience and developing skillset. The difficulty was extraordinary. We didn’t even know what we didn’t know. The keys to success: learn to learn, read, try, test, fail…and repeat. The nay-sayers are right, this is not an ‘education’ in any traditional sense. This was more.

A institutional degree? It’s the 01-Edu grit:lab certificate recognized world-wide by top tier, value-delivering market players we seek. Are a few professors and lawyers really going to argue with market demand and mass employment rate? They may rant and rave that the 01-Edu platform does not fit their idea of an education. We respectfully agree; our definition expands far beyond that stranglehold. We are now working in one of the most abstracted and technologically complicated fields with our ‘lack of education’. We retort with our permanent employment attained, and the evaluation of the market players with regard to our competency.

Now for the downside. When you bring 70 strangers together from every corner of the Earth, you are inevitably going to have imperfection, sorry to say. However, for goodness sake, we do not destroy anthills in spite of the one that bit us. There is an overarching success story to be exclaimed above the negative, isolated shortcomings expected from the onset of any venture. The result? Most of the grit:lab students from the maiden voyage, beginning with zero coding experience, had permanent employment as developers and data analysts within two years. Let me hit that home for those who need some context: from never having written a single-line ‘hello world’ program, to developing 30,000 line full-stack social networks in multiple programming languages.

As with any venture involving diversity of persons and personnel, nothing will inevitably be perfectly executed, and even less so the first time around. There will always comprise the genius, the charmer, the organizer, the politician, the diplomat, the sportsman, the flake, the beauty, the criminal, and the begrieved. It is important that each have their say and for that say to be democratically evaluated for validity and relevance. We admonish that the recent articles scathing grit:lab are a heavily biased and display blatant ignorance and agenda. We do not wish to dampen the seriousness of bullying, the slyness of cheating, nor the pain of psychological illness, however we do wish to un-naively celebrate the accomplishments and joyous time of the many involved in this wonderfully successful programme blessed by the people and business community of Åland.

To the programme organizers, supporters, and nerds:
Grit:lab gave us all a gift you helped manifest. Your decisive drive and action, set a precedent of future vision we must all strive to meet. We thank you all.

To current and future students:
You did not make a mistake coming here. You will succeed if you commit and don’t quit. Period. There will be those external who will feel threatened by your newly found choice of ‘education’. They will be brought kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, and you will surf skillfully downstream. Ignore them. We lived it. We and the companies who hired us know what you are capable of. It is your drive to learn and enact we seek. We, the alumni of grit, salute you.