So I spent 3 years in Epitech, which forked into 42, and the first 4 weeks aren't a competition but more like an onboarding thing. You basically learn C in 4 weeks, with coding tests pretty much every day. It sets the base and it turns out to be a great way to quickly know if you really wanna be a software engineer. After these 4 weeks, students start working on group projects and regular CS classes (although teachers are senior students).