Life as A Pre France Engineering Student

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim and assalamua'laikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

Okay guys, I'm still alive! Just kidding.

Alright. I just finished semester 1 like a few weeks ago and of course, I will share with you about my program. I am a Pre France Engineering 16 student. It is a 20 month preparatory program for students with academic excellence who wish to pursue their studies in France, via the IUT (Institut Universitaire de Technologie) for the first two years before they can have access to Schools of Engineering (Ecole d'Ingénieur).

First of all, you will learn French like crazy intensively because you're going to study in France. For semester 1, we have 12 hours credit a week. Can you imagine we have two French classes in one day? Of course, the lecturers are native speakers of the French language and/or eligible to teach it. But, no worries. It's a language class. And we had our DELF A2 a few weeks ago. Everyone passed excellently. You can survive this. We also learned the culture and a bit of history of France. It's fascinating actually.

Next, we practice a fully French education system. That means no GPA or pointers etc. We use moyenne (average marks) system and we have three tests, Test 1, Test 2 & Final Test. Hence, average marks will be obtained from these tests for each semester. After that, your total average mark (the whole 2 years = 4 semesters) will be calculated to determine if you pass the cut off point. For JPA, officially it's 11/20. We learn everything the French way.

What else? Oh yeah we have Mathematics and Physics subjects. Take note that it's not SPM. We learn them like French people do. That means we do calculations and solve problems the French way. Be ready to adapt to a lot of changes. The lecturers who teach us have studied and gone through the education system in France.

Another subject is Science & Technology (SnT) class. It's actually three subjects combined into one. We have separate classes with different lecturers - Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Electrical Engineering. Yes, we learned the basic of the three engineerings first before deciding to do which one. Only during semester 2, then we will be streamed into our specialties (the engineerings).

Let's talk about the hardships. I won't lie - it's a tough program. Our class starts earliest at 08h00 and finishes latest at 18h00 except for Wednesday (the latest is 13h30). There will be a lot of homework, assignments and presentations. Things you will have difficulties to comprehend. There are weeks where you don't get enough sleep. It's the same as everywhere else. But, the lecturers are always available outside class if you ever need extra help. Utilise them.

One thing I learned here is that it's okay to fail. But it's not okay to give up. There are always rooms for improvement. There are always opportunities for those who work hard.

Well, that's all. There's not much to share about but hit me up if you have any question.