Education (CPGE / ISIMA / OU)

My education and my perseverance to succeed has taken me to destinations I only dreamed of when I was younger. Since the first time I went to the USA, I’ve always wanted to come back for a longer period of time, and the partnership between my French engineering school and the University of Oklahoma made it possible. But to get to ISIMA, I had to go through the CPGE first, 2 years of hard work to prepare for competitive exams which allow students to attend the best engineering schools.

CPGE

After high school, I decided to go to a scientific CPGE (Higher/Graduate school preparatory class) to later attend an engineering school in computer science. During 2 years, I learned how to work efficiently because the workload is very high. We have written exams each week, as well as 2 to 3 oral exams to verify the recent knowledge we saw in class during the last 2 weeks, in addition to many assignments to do everyday. Everything is done to train us for the competitive exams at the end of the 2 years that will rank us to see which school we sorted we can get into.

The classes I had the most hours were in Mathematics, Physics, and Industrial sciences, but we were also trained in Chemistry, maths applied to Computer Science with Python, English and French / Philosophy so we wouldn’t have only scientific knowledge but also a good thinking and communicating ability.

On top of that, I also had to complete a project which would count in the exams. Every year there is a theme students have to comply as best as they can, during my year it was “Societal issues: environment, safety, energy”. I decided to analyze the optical sensor of a computer mouse because this is a tool widely used which efficiency can have a role in the health and perfomance of the user.

Even if it was a lot of pressure to attend the CPGE, the atmosphere between each student was very friendly and we helped each other a lot, which makes the experience very interesting and rewarding.

ISIMA

After my exams, I was admitted to ISIMA (Superior IT Institute, of Modelisation and their Applications), an engineering school specialized in computer science. It is situated on the Cézeaux campus in Clermont-Ferrand, a city best known for its volcanoes and the Michelin headquarters. This school is part Clermont-Auvergne INP, a member of the INP group, a network of engineering school which is also a guarantee of quality.

First year

During the first year, I’ve learned some theoretical aspects of computer sciences, such as Automata Theory and Formal Languages and Graph Theory, but also some maths and applied maths with Numerical Analysis, Probabilities, Differential Calculus, Linear Programming and Data Analysis.

The goal of the engineering school is not only to give us the knowledge we’ll need for our future works, but also to understand how everything works and why hardware and software are interconnected so we all have the understanding to work on different systems and create optimized solutions to problems. We then learn Processor Physics, Data Transmission, Signal Processing, Digital System Design, and Control Engineering.

In computer science specifically, we learned imperative programming using C, functional programming using Scheme, Unix operating systems as well as Algorithms and Data Structures, Databases, and an overview of Cybersecurity.

In addition, every French engineering school need to provided classes of humanities and social sciences, that is why I did Corporate Management, Expression and Communication and took classes of English and Mandarin Chinese.

At the end of the year, we completed a group project I present in another post: Q-learning.

Second year

During the second year, I got more specialized in Software Engineering and Information Systems, but many classes I did in the first year were useful to understanding new courses, and there were still some general classes in common with the other departments.

Among the new technical learnings, there was Object-Oriented Programming in C++, Java and C#, Web Development using React, the creation of REST Web Services in C#/.NET and how to design a system with UML.

I also learned more about IoT devices, Networks and Security and System Information, but also about the Docker technology, Software Architecture and Quality, how to efficiently use a Software Forge through GitLab, Simulation, Ergonomics of HMI, Database Development in PLSQL and how to build Tools for Logistics and Transportation Scheduling Problems.

Regarding the humanities and social sciences, during the year I continued English and Mandarin, we still had a class of Expression and Communication and Management, but we also had a class of Project Management.

During the year, I also had to do a group project, I present it in another post: TIG stack, and the end of the year ended with an internship I did at Invivoo in Paris.

IsiLabs

During my extra-curricular activities, I’ve also joined the IsiLabs club of the school as the communication manager. This is a club where computer enthusiasts meet to work on their personal projects, and share their knowledge with other students. Regularly, we would also organize events where someone would present a specific topic while remaining simple enough for everyone to understand, or one to help students install and use tools they might need to use to complete school assignments. Other events include, Capture the Flag, code breaking or even lock picking. We would also participate in bigger school events organized by the BDE (Student Union Office).

My goal was to make sure every student of the school got the information of such events by sending emails and Discord messages, as well as introducing the club to new students and motivate as many interested people to come as possible.

Shortly after I arrived at ISIMA, the corridor - where all clubs have a room to meet - has been closed soon after another Covid-19 outbreak hit. The first challenge my team and I faced when we took over was to find another place to meet, and my personal challenge was to make sure students would come back. As a result, I managed to convince more people than the previous year to come, and improved our Discord server so it would be used more often outside club hours.

OU

Rather than doing my last year at ISIMA, a partnership with my school and the University of Oklahoma allowed me to fly to the USA to obtain a double degree.

The main difference with the university in the USA, is that I can choose my courses. I wanted to continue to learn more about software engineering but also some new technologies, so I took classes in Algorithm Analysis, Computer Architecture to learn about assembly, Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies, PDN Programming, Distributed Operating Systems, Computer Security as well as Data Networks and Computational Learning Theory to complete my coursework.

During this program, I did a master’s thesis entitled “Evaluating the Impact of External Factors on the Stability of the Ethereum Network”. In brief, I studied how external factors such as cyber threats, geomagnetic activity, and media coverage, have an impact on the network of this blockchain. In the end, I found that they don’t have a visible impact, at least based on the time range studied of a few months and the data we collected, but that the nature and volume of cyber attacks vary between the blockchain’s nodes in comparison to other servers.