School

Ecole

asf

Difficult. Fun. Necessary.

education, opportunity, work, difficulty

Education, Science, Knowledge, Learn

grades, admissions, competition

learning, discipline, opportunity, development.

learning, fun, friends, hard work

Learning, grades, boredom

learning, hard work, sleeplessness

outdated, necessary, inequality

Professors, Textbooks, Deadlines

science, teachers, exams, time-consuming

Studying, Friends, Majors

teachers, students, learning, questions

textbooks, studying, teachers

tired, enrichment, stress

work, friends, learning

work, tedious, fascinating

work, time-consuming, education, necessary

apprentissage (enseignement); diversité; pédagogique; devoirs

apprentissage, règles, devoirs

apprentissage; socialisation; études

éducation, apprentissage, valeurs

éducation, avenir, assimiler des connaissances

éducation, préparation, travail, contrainte parfois, long, gratuit, amis

éducation; amis; diplôme

élèves, professeurs, bloc notes, cours,

connaisance, étudier, amitié

Contraintes, Tremplin, Amis, Soirées

devoir, amis, savoir

Education, diplômes, professeurs, amis

important, socialisation, culture

notes, apprentissage, éducation

Obligatoire - Sorbonne - Gratuite - Bourses

obligatoire, apprentissage, lieu de socialisation

Professeurs, étudiants, classe

quotidien, apprendre, avenir

travail, amies, expériences

travail, apprentissage

Travail, Valeurs, Normes

Discussion

Nous sommes d'accord pour dire que l'école est synonyme d'étude, de professeur, d'élève, d'insertion professionnel...

Le côté français donne d'avantage une impression d'apprentissage des normes et valeurs mais il y a aussi une idée d'amis, de soirée, de fête...

Tandis que de votre côté se dégage une impression d'ennui, de difficulté, d'une grande charge de travail...

  1. Pourquoi qualifiez vous l'école avec ces mots?
  2. Pourquoi un si grand contraste? Vous ne faites que travailler vos cours?
  3. Ou est-ce parce que vous avez beaucoup d'heure de cours?

1. De mon point de vue l'école n'est pas ennuyeux, mais elle peut l'être pour des gens qui n'aime pas ce qu'il étudien, ou qui ont des difficultés.

2. Je pense que ceux sont les cours qui passent avant tout dans l'école française

3. Il est vrai qu'il y a beaucoup d'heure de cours, ceci peut être une raison pour laquelle l'école est considérée comme ennuyeuse. Je pense qu'en France on passe beaucoup plus de temps pour les études. Et cette pression peut amenr les gens a considéré l'école comme dure et ennuyeux

Perhaps we are quite biased here at MIT. Most students here value their education and understand that it is good for them, but it is extremely difficult and draining. For example, last week I literally worked so much that I slept at most 3-4 hours per night. After months of sleep deprivation and extremely difficult problem sets and exams, we get frustrated and learn to hate our exhausted mental state. Now, if you asked students at a less intense university, or even students here that have already graduated, they would probably have a better appreciation for the gift of education.

Is school less intense for you? Do you have any free time during the week to simply hang out with friends? Is the work distributed over the whole year or does it build up at the very end?

In addition to Kasey's point, the main difference between our perspectives may be a result of the type of school we attend and the type of work we are expected to do.  MIT is a tech school; sometimes the work is arduous, and sometimes the work is tedious. What kind of university do you attend?

Also, I noticed that a couple of French students associated "gratuit" with "ecole."  Could you tell me more about how this works and what it's like? I'm pretty sure that association would hardly ever come up here.

Addition to those above.  It definitely depends on the school.  There are weeks when I have a little bit of free time to do something fun and procrastinate as much as i can and still not stress out.  And there are the other kinds of weeks here when I have barely enough time to find food.  Sometimes I wonder why I didn't go to another school, even though I know that hard work usually pays off and MIT wll benefit me in the long run.  Yes sometimes the work is so tedious.  But what I hate most about it, is that after you finish all your problem sets, you get this feeling of accomplishment, it is instantly deflated when you remember that even though you finished one problem set, there is another on its way and due in a shorter time than you'd like.  It seems to never end.

In response to Danielle,  I think the french don't pay tuition.  Is it funded by the government?  What kind of things do you have to pay? I'd assume food expenses and room and board would be something the students and/or families are required to come up with.

MIT is a special case when it comes to schools. We are given massive amounts of work and it is really hard. However, I know I find time to have fun, especially on the weekends. Although it's not always possible, I am usually able to hang out with my friends and destress a little. In France do you guys spend a lot of hours in class? I have about 17 hours of class a week, but spend more than that amount of time on my homework. How much time do you spend doing work?

While work at MIT is pretty time-consuming, I don't think it is really all that hard, in general. MIT is more about effective time management than anything else. Starting a huge problem set or essay the day before it is due will probably be painful, but as long as you don't do that you should be fine. I also rarely find my classes tedious or annoying, but then again, I choose to take classes that don't sound tedious or annoying in the first place. I'm not sure how others pick classes, however. :)

I also agree with Danielle--I would like to know more about how the school system works in France.

I think I have a slightly different opinion than my classmates.  Although I agree that a large part of doing well at MIT is just managing time well, I also think that the difference is due to a difference in attitude and focus.  In the end, MIT students know the benefits of education and most of us find time to socialize somehow, otherwise we probably would not be working so hard.  But at the same time, I think that we have been told that our school is hard and so we think of it that way.  I am curious--Do you find yourself comparing your workload with those of other schools?  Or is just completing the education the most important part?

This thread is really interesting--I think the contrast between French and American schools is fascinating.  I had some questions...

I know that French colleges can be quite different in that people apply directly for a department, rather than applying to the school as a whole and later choosing what department to be in.  I know that this can be quite different than MIT; for instance, some people here actually switch majors when they are just entering their junior year.  I actually plae a lot of value on this system.. I know that if I had been forced to choose my major before enterring college, I would be really unhappy now, as I could never have known.  What is your perspective on this?  Do you place a lot of value on your own system, or does the American system also sound interesting?

Kasey, à l'iut, nous avons à peut près un trentaine d'heure de cours chaque semaine. Mais, même avec le travail à faire chez soi, je trouve une heure tous les soirs pour faire du sport sans trop de problème. Les heures de cours sont régulièrement réparties tout au long de l'année avec des périodes plus intense lors des examens par exemple.

Danielle, un des principe français est l'école gratuite. Il est donc possible de ne pas payer directement des frais de scolarité (à l'exception des frais d'inscription) Est-ce pareil aux Etats Unis? Nous sommes dans un IUT, autrement dit un college technique comme toi à parement.

 

Beatriz, en effet, c'est le gouvernement qui fournit un budget pour l'éducation ainsi, il reste à notre charge des dépenses de droit d'inscription (150€) ainsi que les frais de logement et de nourriture. Toutefois, une bourse peut être accordée par l'Etat sur critères sociaux (revenu de la famille, nombre d'enfants, éloignement de l'école par rapport au logement...)

Rachael, nous avons une trentaine d'heure par semaine soit le double de toi!!! Avec un peu de travail personnel chez soi également. Comment ce fait-il que tu passes autant de temps à tes devoirs? C'est un travail demandé par tes professeurs?

Pedro, l'égalité des chances est une des valeurs de la France, c'est pour moi, pour cette raison quelle est gratuite. Il y a de nombreux impôts: pour les sociétés, pour les ménages... qui permet cette redistribution.

Ca ne se passe pas comme cela aux Etats Unis? Comment ca se passe?

Yun-Han, je n'ai jamais comparer ma charge de travail avec celle d'autre école... Cependant, à l'université, il y a moins d'heures de cours.

 

Vous parlé d'une charge de travail importante mais quantitativement, vos heures de cours ont deux fois moins importantes.

  • Comment expliquez vous cela?

Le couple école/gratuit vous étonne. Pourquoi?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Depending on the college, tutition can vary a lot.  In general, the more presitigous the school or the better the education, the more expensive the tuition.  For example, a friend of my from home is going to a community college and she's paying less than 10% of what MIT's tuition would be.  Of course, we can apply for financial aid to help our families pay our tution, and there are plenty of scholarships we can apply for too.  It isn't too often that someone has to pay their entire tuition.  But hardly ever is college completely free.

To give you some numbers, MIT's tuition (that is, the fees you pay to the university) is currently $36,390 per year. Undergraduate room and board is estimated to be $10,680 per year, and books and expenses $2,850. So a student without finantial aid (which, as Danielle says, is not a common case) would have to fork out about $50,000 per year, which over four years makes the cost of an MIT degree 1/5 of a million. I guess that makes it hard to associate "school" with "free".

En france certaines écoles sont également payantes. Par ailleurs, ce sont aussi les plus réputés. Les frais d'inscription s'élèvent alors de 5 000 à 7000 € selon les écoles (hors hébergement et nourriture). Ces écoles sont surtout des écoles de commerce ou d'ingénieur.

About the workload,  MIT is a very "hands on" experience.  The school motto is "Mens et Manus" which in Latin reads Mind and Hand.  Students are expected to go to class for notes and to ask questions but most of our learning requires many practice problems, readings, research and labs.

Usually students take around 4 classes which is generally 12 units.  A unit is defined as how many hours a week are necessary for class, homework, labs (keep in mind class time is about 4-6 units on its own).  However, I'm sure I'm not alone when I say classes and all work generally take up more than the 50 hours that the units demand.

Vous étalez la charge de travail sur combien de jours par semaine?

Arrivez vous à prendre une journée complète, le dimanche par exemple, pour faire autre chose que du travail scolaire?

Vous avez l'air d'être vraiment submergé de travail, ici en France nous avons environ 30h de cours par semaine et ensuite c'est à l'appréciation de chacun de relire les cours 1h tous les soirs et de travailler 2 à 4h le week end, personnellement je fais la moitié de ca et je m'en sors bien. Votre système semble plus être comme dans une fac Francaise ou il y a moins de cours (médecine) mais énormément de travail personnel.

 

depuis quelques temps, nous sommes touchés par les grèves car les choix du gouvernement ne conviennent pas à une partie des étudiants. Le seul moyen que nous avons à notre disposition pour faire connaitre notre mécontentement est de manifester dans les rues.

Aux Etats-Unis, comment faites vous pour manifester votre mécontentement? je pense que vous ne faites pas comme nous mais est-ce aussi important?

J'ai une autre question, Pierre Antoine et Sébastien vous parlez de notre temps libre et pourtant j'observe que beaucoup d'entre nous ont associé au mot "école" le mot "ami", pour vous l'école est le lieu où l'on retrouve et l'on se fait des amis? Où l'on tisse le plus de liens sociaux? Est-ce dû au nombre d'heures que l'on passe en cours qui ne nous laisse pas beaucoup d'occasions de sortir et de rencontrer d'autres gens, différents? Ou bien est ce typiquement Français de considérer l'école comme un lieu où l'on apprend mais aussi et peut être surtout où l'on retrouve ses amis?

Et vous aux états unis, comment se passent les relations entre étudiants? Restez vous entre étudiants de la même formation, de la même école ou vos relations sont elle uniquement liées au travail ?

 

Sebastien, personally, I spread my work out throughout the week.  So I don't usually have entire days off to do something besides school.  But that definitely isn't the case for everyone.  My roommate takes every Saturday and most of Sunday off, and spends more time staing up late working during the week.

Louise, students' relationships are different depending on the student (obviously).  For me, I have my friends within my major that I work on problem sets and projects with.  In addition to them, I have friends outside my major who I spend my free time with.  There are also a lot of extracurricular groups here to get involved in, from student government, to acappella groups, to Greek life, where you can meet plenty of new people outside your major.

Do you have similar extracurricular activites at your university?

Sebastien, our homework assignments are very challenging and often cannot be completed without collaborating with other students and/or attending the professor's and teaching assistant's (TA's) office hours. Learning at MIT is strongly based on problem solving, so our homework assignments are designed to develop our ability to solve complex problems. So, we spend more of our time doing our homework than sitting in lectures.

I am very interested in hearing some answers from American students to Anne-Sophie's question, dated 2009-03-12 07:33:50. American students do not go on strikes, so how do you show your disagreement with policies imposed upon you? Compared to European grad students, most graduate students at MIT are usually quite passive ("let me just have some free food, graduate as soon as possible, and get out of here" -- ok, I'm exaggerating a bit). But the truth is that we don't complain much other than among ourselves. I have the sense that undergraduates are more active and politically organized.

In general, students do not go on strikes. Because we are paying for our education, if we really disagreed with a policy, we could withdraw from school. As you can tell from the earlier posts, a lot goes into an MIT degree, so after suffering through a few years, it would take a huge disagreement to cause for a student to withdraw. If students did strike, it wouldn't be that effective because the institute already has our money. However, there are exceptions to this. Just recently there was a leak about a secret group organized to explore new dining options. MIT students are very passionate about being involved in school policies, so many students organized protests in response. However, I would not call this a strike. By no means did students stop doing their work or attending classes.

I would say that the strongest way in which students can protest a policy is by reaching out to important alums. Most of MIT's funding comes from alumni donations. Therefore, if the alumni threaten to remove their donations, MIT usually listens. I guess this is a normal trend for Americans- if the protest touches their wallet then they will do something about it, otherwise they don't really care.

As David said, undergraduates are definitely more active and politically organized, but I would also say that graduate school is more like a job, where for undergraduates, school and school policies are life. Therefore, it makes more sense that students would be organized and passionate about issues such as dining, which does not really affect graduate students.

I have a couple of questions for the French students about the topic of strikes:

  1. The strike seems to be a common way to express one's strong disagreement with policies in France. How efective are they? Does the government usually change the policies as a response to strikes?
  2. We have heard that the students in Brest went recently on a strike. What were the reasons?

Il est vrai que les grèves et les manifestions sont asez fréquentes en France. Cependant elles n'aboutissent pas toutes à des résultats convaincants mais plutôt à des compromis ..

En ce moment il y a des grèves concernant les IUT. En fait, jusqu'à présent les IUT bénéficiaient d'un budget précis donné par l'Etat. L'Etat voudrait aujourd'hui qu'un budget soit donné a l'ensemble de l'université ( Fac et IUT) et qu'à l'intérieur de chaque université le budget y soit réparti pour les fac et les IUT. Le risque est donc que les IUT (qui coûtent plus cher que la fac) bénéficient d'un budget moindre et qu'ils ne puissent donc continuer a fonctionner normalement : suppréssion de profs, perte de le qualité des IUT ... De plus, tous les IUT de France ne fonctionneraient du coup plus pareil et ne seraient plus comparables d'une ville a une autre.

Pauline, I find it interesting that a concern for the students is that different IUTs in different towns could not be similar. In the US, competition between schools is regarded as positive and healthy. Top schools resemble football teams, as they compete to hire the best professors and admit the best students, to attract funding, to offer the best education, and to produce the best research. Also, since schools are quite heterogeneous, they can cater to different interests. For example, MIT is very focused on research and has a huge research budget, while many universities (e.g., community colleges) do very little research and focus on education. The kind of education you get from a community college and from a research university is quite different, and students choose accordingly.

Thus, American students who want to attend top research universities often go to college at a place very far from home. The immense majority of MIT students are not from Boston or even from the state of Massachusetts, but they come from quite far away. How common is it in France to attend a college far from home?

Arrivé à un certain nombre d'année d'étude, il est fréquent que les étudiants doivent partir plus loin pour continuer leur études afin de se spécialiser dans les domaines qu'ils aiment. Cependant, je suppose que ce n'est pas les même distances qu'aux Etats Unis ! On ne fait rarement plus de 5OOkm

I'd actually like to build on David's question.  Some students in the United States see college as a way to get away from home and see a different place.  On the other hand, there are students who prefer to stay closer to home.  Is there any sort of trend in France regarding this decision?  Is location much of a factor in deciding on a school?

Pour répondre à Yun-Han Huang,

En France aussi c'est pareil. Certains étudiants préfèrent aller dans une université qui est plus proche de chez eux alors que d'autres veulent partir assez loin de chez eux pour découvrir une autre ville, un autre endroit. 

Je pense que la tendance dépendrait de l'âge. La localisation de l'école est plutôt importante, du moins pour pas mal de jeunes français. Je pense que ce sont surtout les étudiants de 18 à 20 ans qui aiment rester assez près de chez eux tandis que ceux qui ont plus de 20 ans aiment parfois vivre dans une ville plus lointaine pour découvrir d'autres endroits.

D'autre part, accueillez-vous des français dans votre université? Pensez-vous qu'il y ait une certaine tendance chez les étudiants américains de partir étudier dans des pays étrangers, comme en France ?

Questions aux américains:

  • Vous parler souvent de cas pratique, de problème à réaliser en dehors des heures de cours en groupe. Que sont ces traveaux concrètement? Pouvez-vous donner des exemples?
  • Comment exprimez vous votre mécontentement face à la politique?

 

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