The end of bridges and the beginning of projects

After seven and a half years, I had my final exam as an undergraduate last Friday.  As final exams go, it counted for a minute part of my degree – a far cry from my chemistry finals five years ago.  Assessment at ENPC is continuous with marked courseworks and the occasional test.  The “Conceptions Parasismiques” exam last week was only significant because it was my last engagement at the Ecole des Ponts, for tomorrow, I start my placement in a French company.

At this point it would be helpful to mention how I would be finishing my degree if I were back in the UK.  In their final year, students at Imperial are expected to take on a full course-load of lectures and tutorials and at the same time, to conduct independent research that is to be written up at the end of the year, somehow in the middle of revising for final exams.  In contrast, the system at Les Ponts, which I might add is a system which seems to be typical among other European engineering courses that I have heard about, requires that its students undertake a “projet de fin d’études”.  Rather than being conducted in parallel with studies at the university, the PFE takes place in a company or a laboratory.  In either case, the student is offered a placement during which they can undertake research at the same time as being involved with the day-to-day work of that enterprise.  The placement is also paid, albeit at minimum wage level.  Final year students are close to being qualified and so should know their stuff.  This system offers them the chance to experience the work environment and also offers cheap labour to the companies involved.

Getting a placement is something of a magic art, and the following words are intended for the eight or so Imperial students coming to ENPC next year.  What is not entirely clear with the PFE is whether it is the students who should be approaching companies with ideas for a project or whether students should be contacting the companies and asking them what they have on offer.  One thing is for certain: if you tell an engineering company in France that you are from the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées and you are looking for a PFE, they know what you are talking about.

In order to get my first experience of the professional world, and of speaking French proper like, I went to an event back in November called the Forum Trium, a careers fair where engineering companies and financial firms battle it out to solicit the interest of students from one of a number of grandes écoles in Paris.  I turned up with the worst CV in the world, officially, and proceeded to distribute copies of it evenly across the hall.  Most employers were looking for people interested graduate jobs, but my name was noted nonetheless.

I left the event no closer to finding a project.  Term plodded on and the PFE slipped down my list of priorities until just before Christmas, when I found that a fair chunk of my French friends had found placements, and what’s more, they were going to be working on topics that not only interested me, but were with companies I would have dearly liked to have had a place with.  I was no closer, however, to understanding how this application process should work.  By the time term started in the New Year, I had landed on the idea of investigating the ways in which the carbon footprint of a building can be measured (more about this in the future).  The project would have taken place at the local building research institute near Les Ponts.  The whole project was conceived over a series of coffees with a couple of members of staff from the department.  I was all set to accept when I received a phone call from a director of Setec TPI who invited me to an interview.  It seemed that one of my awful CVs from the Forum Trium had made it onto his desk.  He was looking for an English speaking engineering to join a team working in collaboration with an American architect on a new skyscraper at La Défense.  Unshaven, I turned up that afternoon for the interview and was offered the place.  In the space of a week I had gone from having nothing to having a choice of placements.

In the end I chose Setec.  My project there will be an investigation into the role of skyscraper floor design in the overall stability of the building, both during construction and in service.  But I didn’t choose this placement for the topic; rather I chose it for the experience of working in a French engineering office environment, and the opportunity to work on one of Paris’ most prestigious projects.  If the last four months of study have been good for my French, I am hoping that this placement is going to do wonders.

In conclusion then, what would I recommend to next year’s students when it comes to looking for a placement?  Well, I would definitely advise going to the Forum Trium and introducing yourself to as many companies as you can.  Since I accepted my offer at Setec I have been offered two more placements (including one with SNCF that would have given me free TGV travel for the rest of the year!!) and both of these directly from the Forum.  My other piece of advice is not to be scared to approach companies yourself and say, what project could you offer me.  They expect to get calls from people like you, so you may as well get in where you want to before everyone else does.  The chances are that the early you get involved, the more likely you are to get to choose a project that really interests you.