Organisation of the Engineering course

ENSTA Paris curriculum is taught over three years, which are in turn divided into semesters.

Lessons

It includes three main types of lessons of roughly equivalent volume:
 

  • a common core curriculum of scientific lessons (approx. 670 hours)
    Taught during the first year, it aims to provide the future engineer with the scientific culture needed to understand the scientific and technical developments that they will face. Focusing on scientific openness, modelling, resolution methodologies and the mastery of certain fundamental tools, it covers all the fundamental disciplines of engineering sciences.
  • approximately 700 hours of scientific lessons of your choice
    During the schooling, elective courses offer in-depth training on cutting-edge scientific subjects, deliberately focused on the current concerns of applied research laboratories. The thematic lessons of the first year, majors and minors, extended by a personal laboratory project carried out by a research team in the second year, meet this objective of scientific openness.
  • approximately 700 hours of economic, human and linguistic training

Specialisation and professionalisation courses and subjects

Prepared by a first orientation in the second year in one of the three options offered, the specialisation course of the third year, devoted to in-depth lessons focusing on industrial applications, is organised into 12 tracks and 3 profiles.

Internships and projects

Schooling at ENSTA Paris also includes several internships and application projects. The research project, at the end of the second year, constitutes an introduction to research. The business world can be discovered via the operator internship in an industrial environment, between the first and the second year, until the graduation project, performed at the end of the third year.

International experience

To ensure that openness to the business world is paired with concrete international experience, the schooling includes a period of studying abroad. It can take various forms, from an internship to studies at a partner university.
Find out more about study visits abroad

Economics and management

A Law, Economics and Management department, headed by a teacher-researcher in industrial and public economics, associated with the Sorbonne Centre for Economics, ensures the consistency of education in legal, economic and management sciences.
The basic training in law, economics and management aims to give the future engineer the knowledge and culture allowing them to be a lucid and responsible person of society in their profession and in their daily life.

Modern languages, culture and communication

General culture

ENSTA Paris fully integrates general culture education into the curriculum. Led by specialists, it aims to provide an overview of the problems of the contemporary world, an introduction to the disciplines of humanities, arts and human sciences, and to develop, through presentations or memoirs, the ability to appropriate other languages, to promote curiosity and critical thinking.

Foreign languages

This education serves a dual purpose. The first step is to strengthen the linguistic skills essential to engineers in today's global context, by studying English and one or two other foreign languages. But the courses also have a strong cultural dimension and an openness to foreign civilizations, which is extended by language internships organised by the School. Learning outcomes in languages

English Courses

In the 1st year, the courses, which use a variety of media (press, video, literary or scientific texts, etc.), are devoted to the strengthening of basic skills. In the 2nd and 3rd years, the students, who all receive training in professional and scientific English, have the choice between several more specific courses with a cultural connotation.

A minimum required level of 850 points on the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) or 82 on the TOEFL iBT (Test of English as a Foreign Language) for which preparation is organized.

Non-English languages

In addition to the most widely used languages of the European area (German, Spanish, Italian, as well as French for foreign students, "French as a foreign language" alias FLé), students can study Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Russian. Many students start one of these "rare" languages at ENSTA Paris.

In addition to the second language, which is compulsory (1 hour 30 minutes per week), it is possible to learn a third foreign language.

ENSTA Paris gives the possibility to study seven different languages:

  • Arabic
  • German
  • Chinese
  • Spanish
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Russian

Language internships abroad

The ENSTA Paris organises summer language courses of two to three weeks, which allow the consolidation of the basics learned during the year and the immersion in a foreign culture. The language internship is generally extended by an industrial immersion course in the selected country. A wide range of work internships in Argentina, Italy, Japan or Russia is offered.

The skills of the ENSTA Paris engineer

The ENSTA Paris competency framework is defined on the basis of the School's education plan and the general engineering competency framework as expressed by the engineering qualifications committee. As the ENSTA Paris is a general engineering school, the skills are intentionally generic. These skills are acquired throughout the schooling through courses and projects, as well as work placements (operator internship, research project, graduation project). The three-year course leading to an engineering degree (semesters 5 to 10) is built on a logic of learning outcomes allowing the engineering student to acquire, throughout their training, mastery of the theoretical and practical knowledge and skills needed for the exercise of the duties of an engineer. These learning outcomes are detailed year by year according to the track chosen.
 
They have been grouped into 4 categories:

  • Core skills,
  • Engineering skills,
  • Interpersonal skills,
  • Intra-personal skills.

Core skills:

  • Know how to apply academic knowledge and have it integrated as regards a wide field of fundamental sciences, including mathematics, automation, physics, mechanics, computer science, economics, sociology and law.
  • Master and understand one of the scientific and technical fields of specialisation of ENSTA Paris in the fields of energy, transportation, mathematical and physical engineering or systems engineering.
  • Know how to carry out scientific, technological and economic monitoring.
  • Be capable of undertaking research work (in one's field of competence) in a research and development environment: define an applied research problem, conduct experimental, simulation or modelling work, analyse the results and perform a critical analysis of them.
  • Know how to present work and projects orally, in writing and in the digital sphere.

Engineering skills:

  • Know how to adapt and implement the engineer's methods and tools (modelling, digital simulation, computer science, statistical analysis, algorithms, etc.) in order to identify and solve problems, whether they are new or not or incompletely specified.
  • Know and master the means of documentary research and data sources.
  • Know how to take advantage of IT tools to carry out a project: simulation tools, design assistance, etc.
  • Know how to analyse and design complex systems. Know how to engineer a complex system and its contributing products by integrating a scientific, technical, economic and cultural dimension as well as controlling deadlines, costs and performance.
  • Lead the designing of the system in all phases of its life cycle: engineering, construction, production and retirement.

Interpersonal skills:

  • Be capable of taking into account societal values in the exercise of one's profession: environment and sustainable development, ethics.
  • Know how to take into account industrial, economic and legal issues: industrial risk management, innovation management, business financial analysis, intellectual and industrial property issues.
  • Be capable of working in an international and multicultural context: master fluent and technical English, both written and spoken, and another foreign language, to benefit from international experience.
  • Be capable of integrating into an organisation, leading it and making it evolve: commitment and leadership, management of a team focusing on a project, being proactive.
  • Know how to adapt one's level of language, oral and written, according to the interlocutors: specialists / non-specialists, hierarchical superiors / subordinates, etc. Master the tools of verbal and paraverbal communication to adapt to all types of situations.
  • Be capable of defining ambitious professional goals and developing a structure. Show creativity. To this end, be capable of being dynamically innovative.

Intra-personal skills:

  • Be capable of mastering one’s digital identity and e-reputation. Adopt a professional attitude.
  • Be capable of changing: know yourself, self-assess (question yourself and demonstrate self-criticism), make professional choices.
  • Be capable of acquiring and applying new theoretical knowledge and practical know-how.