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Your perception of French universities

Reply 20

3

Kryten, you don't seem to know much about french education.

Polytechnique produces France's finest engineers. It is a professionalizing school unlike ENS which is aimed exclusively to research. Students at X go for 1 year at military service and then attend usual engineering courses. Anyway, to get to any of these schools you have to be a complete genious (for the ENS people are genious + crazy).

Anyway, this has nothing to do with the topic.

Reply 21

Bloud

Octavius85

. Anyway, to get to any of these schools you have to be a complete genious (for the ENS people are genious + crazy).

Some of them are good and not geniuses but simply very very very ( :smile:

)hard-worker

Reply 22

Kryten

1

Bloud

Maybe, but most of people who have studied at Polytechnique don't make hard sciences anymore in their job (they are at the head of engineers teem for most of them). So I really think that if you want to become a great scientist or mathematician it's better to go to ENS (in France of course!)

Indeed, that's a fact : most X no longer make hard sciences after they've graduated :smile:

Reply 23

Kryten

1

Octavius85

Kryten, you don't seem to know much about french education.

You too.

Octavius85

Polytechnique produces France's finest engineers. It is a professionalizing school unlike ENS which is aimed exclusively to research. Students at X go for 1 year at military service and then attend usual engineering courses.

I said that it was professionalizing but at the end of the studies : before, courses are general.

Why are X good engineers ?
Because they're trained to get distance when facing a problem, to look for another orientation.
That's thanks to the opened teaching.

Octavius85

Anyway, to get to any of these schools you have to be a complete genious (for the ENS people are genious + crazy).

I wouldn't say so, even if some kind of intelligence is requested :smile:

Reply 24

Octavius85

3

Sure sure. Look, I got 2 friends at X and they just tell me how it goes. Polytechnique is an army school which makes it quite particular. But besides that, X is another engineer school, just like all the others, and they are all general.

"Why are X good engineers ?
Because they're trained to get distance when facing a problem, to look for another orientation.
That's thanks to the opened teaching."

where do you get this from? a brochure?

And for the ENS, when you see them taking 30 people from a bunch of 1000 prépa, I think it requires more than some kind of intelligence.

Reply 25

Kryten

1

I also know guys @ X, so... :smile:

X's no longer an army school since ESM St-Cyr has been created, meaning it still has a period where students serve as officers but the school now furnish only a few percentage of officers at the end of studies.

Reply 26

Octavius85

3

Kryten

I also know guys @ X, so... :smile:

X's no longer an army school since ESM St-Cyr has been created, meaning it still has a period where students serve as officers but the school now furnish only a few percentage of officers at the end of studies.

cool, you have us all board now. Plz put an end to your boring posts. Do you really think people on this forum are interested in knowing if X produces more officers than St Cyr?? And if you really knew something about this, you would know that every single student of X is an officer, they don't do a military career afterwards (unlike many at St Cyr), that s another story. So unless you have something to say about perception of french unis, stop writting.

Reply 27

Blush Babe

2

Best ones, Sorbonne ane Ascase (sp?).
Esp. for Law.

Reply 28

Carl

14

Sorbonne isn't even a Grande Ecole apparently?

Reply 29

Chestnut

Blush Babe

Best ones, Sorbonne ane Ascase (sp?).
Esp. for Law.

Assas (Paris II)...?

Reply 30

Blush Babe

2

Chestnut

Assas (Paris II)...?

Well, Rue d'Assas so I suppose so yeah...
It's actually pretty good, I've heard it of many people.

BB

Reply 31

Tajel

1

Paris

That's exactly it! Where are the 100s of other schools all over France and why are they failing so badly at distinguishing themselves on the world stage.

Generally, they are failing because they are so underfunded.

With the exception of a very limited top tier - everyone probably knows which ones - their funding problems far out weigh British Universties' equivalent problems.

This is exacerbated by the requirement that they allow admission to anyone wishing it. There are tough exams designed to weed out the underachievers fairly early on, but the first two (iirc) years place an almost intolerable strain on the system.

If you want to see how the French Universities will look if this financial squeeze continues for a few more years, just pop over to Italy.

A truly sad state of affairs, since France and Italy pretty much invented the modern concept of the collegiate, campus-centered, private university.

Reply 32

Manellowzworth

1

Sorbonne- Still a respected recognizable brand but nowhere near its former glory, perpetually slipping more and more into international-recognition oblivion.
ENA- Fantastic if you plan to be a french MP or a continental businessman.

Reply 33

Octavius85

3

Manellowzworth

Sorbonne- Still a respected recognizable brand but nowhere near its former glory, perpetually slipping more and more into international-recognition oblivion.
ENA- Fantastic if you plan to be a french MP or a continental businessman.

Sure Sorbonne is sleeping and is lagging behind other world historic universities (ie Oxbridge, Harvard, Yale etc) but the fact is it's still the biggest brand name in France. If you go to the US, they only heard about sorbonne (the cliché sorbonne being the top school in france is often reflected in films etc). And again, I sustain Sorbonne holds the most competitive departments in some important fields (particularly law, history and to some extent economics).
ENA formed most of France's top politicians (From Chirac to Jospin) as well as an important number of CEO's at the head of France's most important firms. It has a low brand name (like most of french "grandes écoles" and probably because it forms a national elite and has absolutelyno international exposition). However it's also declining. A new generation less attracted to state positions, the success of other grandes écoles like science po and the growing prestige achieved by french business schools in the last 2-3 decades, are all factors that made ENA step back and be no longer considered as the indisputable summum as it used to be.

Reply 34

Carl

14

I don't see how you can compare ENA and Sciences Po, considering most people who go to ENA are graduates of Sciences Po.

ENA is a very specialised finishing school, whereas Sciences Po is a regular grande école.

Reply 35

Octavius85

3

Carl

I don't see how you can compare ENA and Sciences Po, considering most people who go to ENA are graduates of Sciences Po.

ENA is a very specialised finishing school, whereas Sciences Po is a regular grande école.

Yes, ENA is a graduate school and students there were sc po undergraduates. This was the usual scheme some years ago when sc po covered programs in 3 years. Now it has jumped to 5. I wonder if people will still want to add 2 years of ENA after that.
I m just saying that the attractiveness of ENA is not what it used to be. Regarding sc po, if you want to become a states'man nowadays, you just join sc po and you don't see ENA as a must anymore.

Reply 36

Carl

14

I bloody hope so. I'd never make the concours at ENA. Sciences Po is difficult enough.

Reply 37

mrteacher

1

french unis are veyr very tough and so is the system. a lot more work than the UK uni's.

Reply 38

Carl

14

tell me about it :biggrin:

Reply 39

mrteacher

1

Carl

tell me about it :biggrin:

yeah people say " french unis are not that good, french unis are easy etc". well they dont know what they are talking about. theere are some brillliant students in france and trust me u know the saying " le quatorze est pour le Dieu". who ever gets above a 14/20 in anything in france? come one

parents went to Montpellier and some friends are in france now. finding it really really hard! *i miss france- pfff*

Your perception of French universities

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