Present:
I am currently in the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA, working on a thesis project about Hybrid Electric Vehicles with Dr Sadegh and being a Teaching Assistant at the same time.
September 1999 - July 2000:
I was a third year student at the Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Arts et Metiers (ENSAM) in France, a leading institution in the fields of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, that also brings general education to its students in scientific and technical fields as well as in non-scientific fields such as marketing, economy, business,... The school is composed of eight campuses displayed across France: Aix-en-Provence, Angers, Bordeaux, Chalons-en-Champagne, Cluny, Lille, Metz, and Paris. The third year is usually spent in Paris, whereas the two first years are spent on an other campus.
Note: Before entering ENSAM or any other French "Grandes Ecoles" Engineering Schools, one needs to study for two or three years in "Classes Preparatoires", and then pass a competitive exam.
I have spent my two first years in Lille, northern France. Instead of spending the third year in Paris as all other students do, we had the opportunity to follow a double degree programme in Mechanical Engineering with the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA. I found this opportunity very interesting as far as the possibility of discovering the culture, the dynamism, and the industry in America are concerned.
I therefore chose to follow this programme. Since Georgia Tech has created a satellite campus called Georgia Tech Lorraine in Metz, France, the programme is organised the following way, by the two institutions ENSAM and Georgia Tech Lorraine :
- 1 semester is spent in Georgia Tech Lorraine, including classes in Mechanical Engineering,
- 1 semester is spent doing a project (PFE, Projet de Fin d'Etudes) in a team. The project can be in any field in Mechanical Engineering, such as, for example, Acoustics, Controls, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, Materials, Vibrations,...The students don't choose the project that they will be working on, they only choose the field. Several projects are found in different schools in France, and therefore they are not all in Paris.
- 1 semester at least in Atlanta, USA doing both the project and following classes. The project is in fact the continuity of the PFE, and is called thesis. It is a single person work.
I have graduated from ENSAM in June 2000, following classes in Dynamics, Controls, Numerical Methods, and Fluid Mechanics at GTL and ENSAM in 1999-2000. They were taught in English by the following teachers from Atlanta: Dr Ferri in Dynamis, Dr Heck in Controls, Dr Wileman in Numerical Methods, and Dr Desai in Fluid Mechanics.
From February until June I was working on my project (Projet de Fin d'Etudes, PFE: report and appendix) in Controls in Metz, France, both at ENSAM-Metz and at Georgia Tech Lorraine. It dealt with Neural Networks applied to a machining example, my team mate was Mikhel Hawkins, our american supervisor was Dr Sadegh and our French supervisor was Mr. Martin.
I believe that this program is one of the most interesting that are available at Ensam, since it permits to get a Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering of a leading institution by doing one semester after the ENSAM curricula (3 years), and gives an interesting experience in the United States.