by mpeysale, March 7, 2014, 10:30 AM
La notion de travail et de sérieux revient dans presque toutes les réponses.
Seules quelques personnes estiment qu’un étudiant doit également développer de compétences transversales que lui apportent les activités extra-scolaires.
Pensez-vous que tout ce que vous utiliserez dans votre vie professionnelle sera appris en cours ou au contraire que la vie associative d’une école/université peut apporter une plus-value intéressante ?

by Paco H, March 9, 2014, 4:33 PM
I agree that the concept of working hard is found on both sides and I do find it interesting that few responses mentioned balance.
Personally, I do think that there is great value in doing other things outside of my academics. It is true that these sorts of things generally get pushed aside, but I try to find time. For a student’s first semester here at MIT, there are no grades. This helps students go out and explore their interests.

I also noticed that the the American side included phrases related to asking questions and having communication with the teacher. What do you think the general feeling about the importance of these things is?

by Rachel A, March 10, 2014, 2:18 AM
I think the French students have more comments related to relaxation and having fun than the Americans; American students on the other hand spoke almost unanimously about working hard. It’s interesting because I think MIT is a strong proponent of ‘work hard, play hard,’ but perhaps we think of fun and extra-curriculars as our escape or break rather than as a sign of being a good student.

by kelex33, March 10, 2014 , 8:35 AM
@Rachel A
Je pense que nous désignons les étudiants capable concilier à la fois les études et les activités extrascolaires comme étant bon, car c’est quelque chose de difficile. Nous sommes à un niveau d’étude équivalent, et nous considérons aussi les loisirs comme un exutoire. Mais je pense que la clé de la réussite réside dans la conciliation des activitées intra (cours, projets) et extra-scolaires(loisirs, travail étudiant)

by megania2014, March 10, 2014, 6:28 PM
Personally, I would think that the difference may be due to not how much time you have to do things outside of classes, but how you view those activities. I know I consider extracurriculars to be an important part of my life, but I don’t consider them part of being a student. I consider them separate from classes, so when asked what makes someone a good student I would just think about what makes someone successful in the classroom, on their tests, and so on. Maybe the reason that more different traits appear on the French side is that you think of extracurriculars really as being a part of your education, so that when asked to think about being a student you think about both the classroom experience and what you do outside of your classes?

by Paco H, March 11, 2014, 3:26 AM
@kelex33 Viewing extracurriculars as a key to success, I agree, is a difference between both sides in general. For Americans, I feel as if these activities are viewed as good and interesting, but not necessarily directly tied to success as a student (although one could argue they result in personal success).

by ifebakare, March 11, 2014, 4:19 AM
There is a common notion here at MIT which goes as follows: “Work, Play, Sleep. Choose 2″. It seems like this would be frowned upon in France as there is strong emphasis on work life balance.The work-life balance at MIT and in America in general is heavily skewed towards the work side. I believe this is because it is commonly believed that for you to succeed in your endeavors you must put in adequate amount of effort and time. And to answer mpeysale’s question, it depends a lot on the profession you go into whether what you learn in the classroom will help you. For highly technical roles like computer scientists and civil engineers, what you learn in the classroom is highly important. However take finance for example, you can learn a lot of it on the job so what is more important is that you have the ability to pick things up quickly. In summary, I think neither is more important than the other but the combination of what you learn inside and outside the classroom that ultimately determines your success. Apologies for the long rant!

by mbennaim, March 11, 2014,  4:30 AM
I would agree with most of the other American students that a work-life balance is important as are extracurriculars. However, I think that most people at MIT consider classwork to be the principal part of being a “good student.” Obviously things outside of classes are important for success in the real world, but at MIT most people focus on schoolwork. A big part of the MIT culture is about very hard on academics, so that may explain why so many of the American responses are about that. And for me personally, I feel like part of the point of going to a school like MIT is to focus on academics because I could gain the extracurricular skills pretty much wherever I go to school.

by dengxinyue0420, March 11, 2014, 7:16 AM
When I looked at the responses, I noticed that Americans are serious on coursework, study, and knowledge, but French mention different things. Although hard-working is focused by both sides, less by French, French also mention about personality of a person, not only on coursework. Also, Americans mention about life balancing.

by mpeysale, March 11, 2014, 12:55 PM
@ifebakare Je suis tout à fait d’accord que les aspects techniques de notre métier (l’informatique en l’occurence) sont appris en cours, mais les cours à l’école sont relativement déconnectés du monde du travail : en effet, on n’apprend pas nécessairement les technologies que l’on utilisera dans le monde du travail, mais plutôt les méthodologies d’apprentissage qui nous permettront d’être opérationnels dans de nombreux domaines. Ces méthodologies peuvent ainsi être directement appliquées via les activités extra-scolaires, et constituent une plus-value recherchée par les recruteurs.

by ahonorat, March 11, 2014, 4:04 PM
En fait je crois surtout que les français traditionnellement considèrent la vie étudiante comme un moment particulier de notre vie, où non seulement nous devons travailler, mais aussi sortir, se faire des amis, boire. La raison est très simple : on a peur de ne pas pouvoir autant le faire plus tard, il faut profiter de la vie tant qu’on est jeune.
Les responsabilités que nous aurons plus tard (être parent, ou être directeur dans une entreprise) nous empêcherons certainement autant d’excès qu’en tant qu’étudiant. Pour nous un étudiant n’a pas à être autant “respectable” qu’une personne plus âgée (mettons à partir de 40 ans).
Cest pour cela que nous en profitons maintenant. Bon il faut aussi relativiser cela avec le fait que beaucoup de personnes de notre école ont fait les “classes préparatoires”, et ont donc probablement sacrifié presque toute leur vie extra-scolaire pendant deux ans. On veut aussi compenser cela …

by Rachel A, March 13, 2014, 7:05 AM
Something you’ll often hear said at MIT is “I’m ONLY taking 4 (compared to 5, 6, 7+ classes). But someone recently pointed out to me that assuming those are 12-unit classes (meaning the faculty expect you to spend 12 hours a week on the class) then with 4 classes you have a 48-hour work week. We call it ‘only’ but the standard work week is 40 hours. Again, perspectives. So of course for a lot of us, life will slow down a little after MIT. Maybe there’s more the attitude of if I work hard now, I can relax when I have a great job and I’m well paid, rather than I’ve got to enjoy my university years and carefreeness while I’ve got them. I don’t know that people think about that much here.
But I think most MIT students do a good amount of fun, non-academic stuff.

by jraynal, March 14, 2014, 6:59 AM
@Rachel Qu’est-ce que les classes? Ce sont juste des enseignements sur une matière donnée ( physique quantique ou poney ) ou c’est un ensemble de modules? Pouvez vous ne suivre qu’une seule classe? Et comment gérez vous votre emploi du temps? Il doit tout le temps y avoir des cours qui se chevauchent. Faut-il avoir le don d’ubiquité pour rentrer au MIT? ;)

by ahonorat, March 18, 2014, 3:17 PM
J’avoue que 48h de travail par semaine, c’est beaucoup ! Ensuite nous avons peut-être moins de cours, mais tout autant de projets que nous devons faire chez nous. Cela prend aussi du temps. Mais souvent c’est vrai on ne s’y consacre que les jours précédents  …

by Paco H, April 1, 2014, 6:11 AM
The units for each course are supposed to correspond to how much time one spends per week, but it really varies and I’ve seen people report an average of about 9-10 hours/class on the evaluations. (And of course there are courses that say something like 12 but in reality end up being much less, or much more).
@ahonorat I really like the thought of student life being a particular moment in life. It’s good to keep in mind to enjoy yourself while your young.