From: i0c0256@zeus.tamu.edu (IGOR)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.french
Subject: Re: Engineering studies in USA and France
Date: 30 Sep 92 20:26:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: zeus.30SEP199215264303
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <2AC9D9BD.7639@news.service.uci.edu>, jpd@chaos.eng.uci.edu (JP Delplanque) writes...
> 
>In article <92273.215718COMTET@FRECP12.BITNET>, <COMTET@FRECP12.BITNET> writes:
>|>
>|>I think that the American Engineering studies are far too
>|>much oriented on the direct productivity of their engineers without giving them
>|>theoretical tools to understand what they do.
>|>
>	The real question is more pointedly: What is an engineer in France?
>	As it was pointed out a few months ago on this newsgroup, most
>	people entering a "Grande Ecole" in France have no intention whatsoever
>	of becoming an engineer. They want to become manager, banker, get into
>	politics may be, but certainly not spend their time designing and/or
>	calculating. In actuality, the people doing an engineer's job in France 
>	are those with a BTS or a DUT.
> 
>	By the way believe it or not, most engineers here understand what they
>	do! You cannot hold a creative job if you don't. True that a BS in 
>	engineering does not guarantee that you are  completely aware of all
>	the details of thermostatistics but that is not the kind of knowledge
>	most urgently needed to get a blender to work. Leave research to
>	researchers, and engineering to engineers!


I totally agree with Jean-Pierre, I do not find that the french system
is putting any kind of emphasis on what actually works AND is useful...
If most of the french engineers are willing to spend three years in one of
those envied generalist schools, it is because moneywise the french
society puts an emphasis on people that we'll be managing teams. Then
again if you wnat to be a the top in terms of technological development i am
not quite sure that you should leave the managers to think about new machines.
If you were so sure about your knowledge of things when you leave your school.
Why do you think companies like aerospatiale or snecma are imposing you to do
R&D for five years before climbing in the corporate ladder.
 They want you to know exactly what you're talking about. To this extent
i would think that a engineer in the US is far more ready to do that and WELL.
The main scandal about France is twofold: first the description i just 
gave does not apply to people from X,( i was told at an interview back in france,
that THEY did not need any inteligence test because they were ALREADY
 intelligent, Who did they think they were  to make such an outrageous 
statement?) second what would yu expect from a country that barely pays its
professors, having lived in the US you may have noticed the rather humongous
difference in  status between profs over here and over there.
Finally if those engineers were THAT brilliant, how come france is
hardly making it in terms of economy..... See how brilliant our managers
are : we could at least do what the japanese did for a while that is to copy...
but we're not even that smart. Finally, those governement owned companies 
which allow this X problem i was talking about to pertain, are not even
making giant profits as expected... just for example look at why the 
cellular phone
is having problems to develop in france... I could speak on thomson and others
but it would be to damm easy. For info you may wanna read 
francois de closets's last book 'toujours plus'.....





Igor
Texas A&M UNiversity
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				Phil Collins
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.french