Engineering at ESPCI Paris - PSL
Master
Overview
Since 1882 ESPCI Paris - PSL has been educating 90 innovation engineers per year who are capable of inventing the future and solving the world’s great challenges of tomorrow.
The "diplôme d’ingénieur” engineering degree is unique to France and is synonymous with first-rate education. At the international level, students can build on this degree through a PhD. ESPCI Paris - PSL, one of France’s finest schools of engineering, offers a 4-year course of study blending theory and practice that equips student engineers to pursue a PhD in engineering, for competitive standing in the international market.
The engineering program at ESPCI - PSL is a comprehensive 4-year course of study that blends multidisciplinary scientific coursework, close interaction with research, and international exposure to industry.
The program boasts small class sizes and frequent contact with teaching faculty, who are regularly on campus conducting research. This encourages informal and enriching relationships between faculty and students.
Learning outcomes:
Nowhere else can students receive as comprehensive an education in science as at ESPCI Paris - PSL. Students discover the rigorous concepts of physics and biology alike, and learn the unique approaches adopted in the field of chemistry.
This multidisciplinary physics/chemistry/biology approach is further bolstered by even distribution between theory and practice. 50% of class time is spent conducting experiments. The daily experience at ESPCI is to confront each discipline through a real-life lens, and to learn by doing. Student engineers become familiar with the full set of experimental techniques, from spectrometry to chromatography, laser optics to microfluidics.
As a complement to its physics/chemistry/biology cross-disciplinary approach, ESPCI Paris also provides student engineers the opportunity to take an active role in their education:
- through laboratory work
- through sessions with a mentor, an innovation introduced by Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, during which students work in groups of four to reflect on a topic presented by a professor. Topics for discussion must be inspired by research and reach beyond the scope of the corresponding classroom session.
Who should apply?
Two-thirds of ESPCI Paris students are admitted following competitive entrance exams taken after their second year of PC-track preparatory classes for Grandes Écoles (common entrance exam with École Polytechnique) and following review of their written exam essays through the Écoles Normales Supérieures (ENS). A few spots are reserved for students recruited from the A PC BIO competitive entrance exam (BCPST track).
ESPCI Paris also practices degree-based admissions (2nd year CPES, MP or PSI CPGE, DUT, L2, L3). These are based on applications, oral exams, and interviews, and for some, on internal ranking of students from preparatory classes through the Fédération Gay-Lussac.
Several tracks are open to international students.
Structure
This is a three-year course of study, with an optional fourth year. During the first two years, all students take core courses providing fundamentals in physics, chemistry, and biology, plus courses in socio-economics and foreign languages. Fifty percent of class time is spent conducting practical exercises, to familiarize student engineers with a maximum of experimental techniques. Students begin to specialize in their third year of study, choosing from tracks dominated by chemistry, physical chemistry, physics, or biotechnology. Students begin the third year with a four- to six-month corporate internship. Following the internship, students dedicate four months to their chosen field of specialization, followed by a laboratory research project of at least eight weeks.
Options for the fourth year are broad, with the option to continue one’s studies in France or abroad. Students can opt to pursue a dual degree (Agro ParisTech, MINES Paris - PSL, ISAE-SUPAERO, IOGS, HEC, ESSEC) or, as a majority of students do, pursue a Master’s in Research. Approximately 70% of ESPCI graduates continue on to a dissertation. Some students travel abroad to continue their PhD studies, at universities such as Imperial College, MIT, Harvard, or Cambridge.
This program is accredited by the CTI (Commission des Titres d'Ingénieur) which is the French body in charge of carrying out evaluation procedures that lead to the award of the engineering degree “titre d’ingénieur diplômé”.