What are the common days?

During two days per month, all first year master students from Limoges and Poitiers meet to follow common courses around soft skills. The format of this teaching leads the students to leave their comfort zone, and encourages moments of exchange and sharing between students. This reinforces the spirit of promotion and belonging to graduate school. These days are an opportunity to work on the development of personal skills useful for professional integration, particularly in the world of scientific research. Students learn to know themselves better in order to communicate better, to cultivate a positive spirit, to prevent conflicts and to develop their assertiveness, to better understand the mechanisms of stress and how to manage it, to popularize research… They are also introduced to management, intellectual property concepts and how to build a business model.

Students learn about the socio-economic world which is also part of the research environment. During these days, students will learn to: better know themselves to better communicate, cultivate a positive spirit, prevent conflicts and develop their assertiveness, better understand the mechanisms of stress and how to manage it.

Two days with students: focus on November 23 and 24

Previous sessions: September and October.

On November 23, 2021, the students took an exam for the management course “Digital Innovation“. They also followed a course of “Project Management”, both taught by François Acquatella, lecturer at the school of management IAE of Limoges. These courses allow them to put into practice the knowledge acquired in class around management, conflict management, personal and relational skills.  They also learn to work in teams through project management but also to manage their stress and learn to know themselves better. All these skills are deployed within a project. For example, the students are working on the dematerialization of the student card, an application linking repairers (plumbing, heating, etc.) and customers, an application for home automation or to follow courses virtually via a virtual reality headset.

The next day, the students attended a “Soft skills” course. Self-knowledge, adaptation, discovery of the origins of conflicts … they evolve in a global approach of what is a researcher in 2021. Managing teams or a project, creating a company, developing relational skills and interpersonal skills are key skills today to evolve in the scientific field. This also allows students to have a diversification in the courses given. 63.6% of students find these courses quite relevant. Indeed, today, innovation and research are closely linked.

The end of the day was highlighted by the Défi sportif prize-giving ceremony

At the end of the day, the students all gathered for the Sport Challenge awards ceremony. Students had two months to complete as many miles as possible by walking, running, biking, or swimming in teams of 5-6 people. It’s a good way to exercise while having fun and getting to know your fellow students. Four teams competed and finally the blue team, with almost 713 km completed, won the challenge. The podium was also shared with the student who did the most kilometers: Illia Samotoi with 347,36 km . After the awarding of the prizes, the students were able to share a tasty snack all together and have a good time after class.

This collective event was very popular, 90.9% of the students enjoyed participating in the sports challenge. The moment they preferred was the snack followed by the moments of exchange with their peers, and the speech of Olivier Masson, the director of the graduate school. This event was widely perceived as positive and a “very nice” moment. One student said: “I find this event very interesting, it allowed us to get out of the daily study routine, and it allowed the students to create a good network to discuss and get to know each other better and to exchange words ….”. However, some students regretted the absence of some of their classmates.

What next ?

Following this first part, the students were able to come up with other ideas for nice activities for next year: integration weekend, hiking to discover the landscapes of Limousin, a meal representing the different nationalities of the students. Sports enthusiasts ask for sports activities in the countryside or camping. Some propose seminars outside their disciplines or the organization of meetings and sponsorship with alumni. 54.5% of them would like to participate in the organization… To be seen in the next episode!