Learning, understanding and building aeronautics and space. This constitutes the ENSICA educational vocation. This is a highly ambitious teaching project. The ENSICA Graduate Program has been thoroughly re-thought since the early 2000s.
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Background
The profile of an ENSICA engineer is multi-disciplinary, much sought after in industry and by future employers. However, the ways such a profile was led to appeared somewhat rigid, with what was on offer initially in terms of training lacking an adequate variety of options.
Building a customised curriculum
To remedy this “rigidity”, the idea was to centre training on each student and now each student is asked to devise their own individual curriculum. Obviously, it has to remain consistent and respect certain basic pre-requisites. But it is up to the student to look to the future and repeatedly address a recurrent question as to what their professional project really is. And how then to build a coherent and custom-built course to match the project.
Four capabilities developed
The whole alchemy of the solution involves matching what is offered in terms of training with the student’s professional project. The Program objectives relate to students acquiring the four following sets of capabilities:
- scientific and technological,
- methodological,
- intelligence relating to the environment,
- personal development.
A contract in the form of a road map
Within this framework, a real contract is drawn up with the students. Beyond the inevitable common core, there are a number of choices available. As an example, in addition to the choices of languages, sports or lessons in the social sciences and general culture, science practice-oriented modules are proposed: 29 in the 2nd year, from which the student will choose just four, 45 in the 3rd year from which seven are to be retained.
This leads to a form of road map. Students are helped by teaching and research staff and the administration to orient their curricula, but it is they who finally decide.
Effective tutoring
The tutoring system was implemented so that faculty staff and researchers, Institute managers and even alumni can agree to tutor for a group of 3 to 4 students a year. To this purpose, regular individual or collective interviews are organised throughout the Graduate Program. This mechanism serves above all to ensure that the course work is negotiated and formalised through signing of a “program contract”.
A shared commitment
The student’s involvement must be total through the formulation, validation and implementation of their so-called “IDEA Initiative” (creation of activities, enterprise project, project for international co-operation or research, etc.). Thorough involvement of the entire faculty staff, with no departmental bias, gives students the means to achieve their ambitions.