Soft skills

Soft skills are increasingly expected by employers among young graduate engineers. Therefore ParisTech schools pay particular attention to their integration and promotion in the engineering curricula. Whether through internships, team work and project management, student life and the commitments it involves, soft skills are deployed in a transdisciplinary manner within ParisTech schools.

Schools have in fact been integrating the development of these skills into their educational system for a long time and are continuously improving it. The competency-based learning currently being implemented in schools will make a strong contribution to this. Indeed, if the scientific and technological base remains fundamental as well as all knowledge which allows students to understand their environment and to act in a complex and uncertain world (economy, project management, management, entrepreneurship, etc.), the students are encouraged to develop and become aware of these famous behavioral skills that they acquire and implement both in a scientific context and in the context of other educational activities, and to understand how they are essential for their professional life.

Practical work in pairs which represents on average 50% of teaching in ParisTech schools, projects – scientific or not – carried out individually or in groups, internships, as well as activities more specifically linked to the definition of each person's professional project are all opportunities for school students to develop these skills.

For example, engineering students learn to

• Know better themselves;
• Develop their critical thinking;
• Manage, or even lead a project;
• Control their stress;
• Manage conflicts;
• Take advantage of the skills of everyone in the team;
• Develop leadership and management;
• Communicate, whether on a project or about themselves when they are looking for an internship or job.

The schools integrate activities dedicated to communication into the course (e.g. theater workshop at the Institut d’Optique, negotiation). They also encourage student creativity (e.g. Night of entrepreneurship or the design workshops at the École des Ponts ParisTech).

Project management is a pillar of education in ParisTech schools because students develop numerous transversal skills; they learn to organize the team’s work, manage each person's skills, listen to the points of view of team members who, from their position, can provide a complementary perspective and enrich the project (e.g. disability, student from a less advantaged social background, international student), manage resources, manage conflicts, manage errors and learn from them, develop deliverables (e.g. specifications, prototype), communicate (e.g. develop communication materials – written or video -, oral presentation). The Institut d’Optique, for example, develops teamwork learning through experimental projects during the first two years. Chimie ParisTech therefore offers students the opportunity to carry out a transdisciplinary project in the first year and a scientific project in the second year. AgroParisTech students have the opportunity to develop their project management skills when they carry out experiments at the Grignon Experimental Farm or in the school's technology hall. Likewise, Arts et Métiers students can work on digital twins. In both cases, they have the opportunity to work on a real scale and to develop their critical thinking in relation to pilots.

All schools value students’ internship experience, which is a key element of training:

The École des Ponts ParisTech has, for example, developed a whole feedback system on the long internship in the second and third year, an exercise carried out in groups, so that each student benefits fully from it. This active pedagogy allows students to develop their abilities to

• Analyze a socio-organizational context;
• Analyze a difficult personal situation;
• Define a management problem in a multicultural context;
• Express yourself in a group;
• Develop as a group;
• Work in a group (regulated speaking);
• Be located in an organization, or even in a multicultural environment.

The students create video capsules on professional situations experienced with the help of the school's educational unit, as many supports which can be exchanged with all the students and allow the students to reflect on different situations and to understand how to resolve the difficulties encountered (e.g. salary negotiation, scheduling uncertainty, professional integrity).

ParisTech schools also offer their students collective and personalized support in defining their professional project. For example, it is the Professional Support for Students (Accompagnement professionnel des étudiants, APE) in Arts et Métiers which takes place over three years: Discover in Year 1, Deepen in Year 2, Professionalize in Year 3. In this context, the student learns to communicate about his professional identity, work on knowledge of his professional environment, develop his professional network, define his personal and professional interests and preferences, work on transversal skills.

The teaching modules dedicated to entrepreneurship, for example, also provide opportunities for students to develop their leadership and management skills. Some schools like AgroParisTech also offer intercultural training to students.

Student engagement is also taken into account by schools in the curriculum (ECTS, diploma supplement, etc.) and constitutes an element of promoting the behavioral skills developed by students outside the strict educational framework. Carried out in an associative environment, with diverse audiences, this commitment and the evaluation procedure put in place by schools such as AgroParisTech allow students to become aware of and value the skills acquired.

Finally, engineering students who get involved in student associations (student union, sports association, arts association, junior enterprise, humanitarian association, scientific culture association, etc.) implement the skills acquired within the strict educational framework: organizational skills, team work, project management, leadership… So many assets for their future career.