Projects and internships

/// Projects to stimulate creativity

Throughout your studies at ENTPE, projects will stimulate your creativity and bring you into contact with operational realities and working as part of a team.

• The “innovation project” in year 1 will give you the chance to consider innovative proposals in the context of sustainable development (a petrol-free city, a sustainable campus, etc.).
• The “planning project for the benefit of local areas” in year 2 will require you, as part of a group, to study a real case scenario and design a global sustainable planning solution including issues concerning equipment and/or mobility, the neighbourhood, the environment, etc. with reference to a territorial diagnosis.
• Certain third-year areas of specialization may include projects conducted in small groups of 2 or 3 students requiring the application of knowledge acquired on the course to respond to a real order from a local authority.
• The “final year project” in year 3 is designed to enable students to demonstrate their capacity to identify issues, their autonomy, their spirit of initiative and their critical analysis. It constitutes the culmination of the course and gives rise to a written dissertation defended before a panel of examiners.

/// Internships to acquire professional experience

Internships are also considered as a gradual move towards professionalization.

• In 1st first year, a 4-week work placement in a professional environment is carried out in a government department, a local authority or a company. This can also take other forms at the student’s discretion.
  Aim: to discover the professional environment.
  Context: integrated into a team or in direct contact with users, the student must use this placement to analyse the content, the organization of the team work, the suitability of the organization to fulfil its role and the capacity of the organization to meet the demands of customers, users, citizens, etc.
• In the 2dn year, an 18-week professional internship (MSP) is carried out in France or abroad.
  Aim: the internship may focus on a study, an experiment, a project or a worksite, and must result in the actual production of something. It also provides students with an opportunity to take part in the functioning of an organization and to test their managerial and conceptual capabilities.
  At the end of the internship, the student presents their work individually before a panel of examiners and is assessed on the basis of both the technical production and the student’s sociological analysis of the organization. Each student’s experiences will also be used in the framework of seminars on human resources.
• In the 3rd year, the 3 to 6 month long Final Year Project requires students to answer a particular technical question by using methods and tools specific to research.
  It gives rise to a written dissertation enabling the future engineer to explore in depth a subject of their choice in connection with their program.
  This work is an opportunity for students to demonstrate they have acquired the skills required of an engineer. They must demonstrate autonomy, rigorous drafting skills and an analytical and critical spirit, while at the same time applying the knowledge they have acquired over the course of the program to an innovative subject. This work may be carried out autonomously or in the context of an internship in a laboratory, a company, a government department or a local authority, either in France or abroad.