Bonjour à tous,
On remarque ici que pour les étudiants de l’Enseirb, les deux principales caractéristiques d’un bon emploi sont d’être bien payé et de nous rendre heureux. Chez les étudiants du MIT, le salaire semble être moins important et l’accent est principalement placé sur l’intérêt du travail, il doit être passionnant avant tout et permettre les rencontres humaines. Je suis assez d’accord, être heureux d’aller travailler est une chance mais il faut aussi gagner sa vie pour pouvoir vivre et faire plaisir à sa famille.

Que ce soit pour les étudiants du MIT et de l’ENSEIRB, on constate qu’un bon travail est avant tout un travail qui nous plaît, mais qui permet aussi d’avoir une vie agréable via un salaire décent. Cependant concernant les américains, on voit revenir plusieurs fois l’idée qu’un travail plaisant est un travail qui a un impact sur le monde technologique actuel, alors que les français se limitent à un accomplissement personnel.

I agree with Maxime that MIT students put more of a focus on a good job being one they have interest in over salary, and with Pierre that the ENSEIRB student’s responses are limited to personal achievements while the MIT students talk more about impact and not negatively affecting others. I wonder if this relates back to our discussion on Individual/Individualisme because the desire to make an impact could be both selfless and selfish depending on the situation, hence why the ENSEIRB students might not have put it down.

I agree that the MIT students tend to put less emphasis on good salary and seem to advocate for jobs with altruistic purposes like “contributes some social good.” Though, I personally think that these altruistic responses are representative of MIT students but not necessarily quite representative of Americans, do French students generally associate having aspirations like this to help others and better society when it comes to jobs?

In my opinion, Europeans are less obsessed with making money and more with enjoying life, so a job that aligns with their interests contributes to this notion of happiness.

I agree with the previous responses that state that the MIT students want to have jobs that do more social good. Personally, I think this comes from a growing dsitrust of big business in our generation, especially after the 2008 recession. Everyone is wary of potentially working for a company that is a net negative to society. From what I understand, europeans usually try to make sure companies are more moral than their American counterparts. Why is it then that none of the ENSEIRB students mentioned the ethical side of a “good” job? Is it something students are concerned with?

I think the MIT students didn’t mention salaries much because in the U. S. salaries are pretty high in general, especially after graduating a good school, so maybe MIT students take a good salary for granted or it’s not an important factor in choosing between jobs since salaries are already very competitive. However, the salaries are not that high in France and maybe that’s why it’s an important consideration. It is also interesting to see some ENSEIRB students mentioning flexible hours whereas it’s probably not in even option in American jobs.

I agree with Sule that the difference in mentioning salaries and enjoyment is probably rather unique to MIT rather than the US in general. We’re usually told not to worry about money, because as MIT grads we should expect to earn enough, but that we should carefully consider our impact on the world. The ethical concerns might also be coming somewhat from the degree to which ethics rest in the hands of corporations in the US. There are so many extremely powerful companies that can cause immense social change, and the government doesn’t do much to regulate them, especially the biggest tech giants. I wonder if there’s less of a fear in Europe that companies will be allowed to take unethical actions.

I agree with Anthony, that the emphasis on social good has to do with a distrust of big business and also with Emma, that this is because the decisions made in these corporation are largely unregulated. Maybe in France there is less of a fear of working for a “bad” or “corrupt” company because there exists more government regulation on these large corporations?

Pour répondre sur le côté éthique du travail, je pense que si les étudiants de l’ENSEIRB ne l’ont pas mentionné, c’est qu’il est contenu dans l’épanouissement de soi-même dans son métier. Je ne vois pas bien comment quelqu’un pourrait prendre plaisir à travailler si l’objectif de ce qu’il fait nuit beaucoup à son environnement. Cela dit, comme la perception de ce qui est bénéfique ou non est propre à chacun, on peut trouver des personnes pour travailler dans des entreprises peu éthiques.
En France comme ailleurs, je ne crois pas que les géants technologiques soient suffisamment controlés dans leurs activités. Cependant, comme ces entreprises offrent assez peu d’emplois dans notre pays, il est normal que la peur d’y travailler soit peu ressentie.

As a counterexample to what I think Paul is saying, I think that there are people here in America that are not ethically happy with their job, but they stay because they would have trouble finding another, or it pays really well. For instance, this summer I will have an internship with Chevron, a large oil-and-gas company, but as someone who deeply cares about the environment, I am not ethically happy with many of Chevron’s policies, or even its product in general. I am working there this summer primarily for the large-corporate experience in a chemical engineering industry. There are a plethora of reasons to take a job, but one of the things that we consider makes it better are the values the company stands for. What each person values in a job though, varies person to person.

After reading Paul’s comment closer, I have realized that I missed where he actually argued what I just commented as a counter-argument. Woops… So essentially I agree with what he said!

I agree with Paul that people may have different belief systems and in turn may believe that working at one of these “bad” companies isn’t so bad. But, I think that oftentimes people may believe and acknowledge a company is unethical but will work there anyway since these companies tend to have the highest salaries. At MIT, people refer to this as “selling out” - is there a similar idea of this in France?

En effet, Knhicks, travailler pour Total (première entreprise pétrolière française) est plutôt bien payé et offre de belles opportunités de carrière. C’est dans ce cas qu’il faut faire un choix entre son éthique personnelle et une excellente position dans une entreprise.