International Day of Sport (April 6): Sport is a core of École Polytechnique’s education strategy, and a key factor in the development of students as future engineers
As the leading French institution combining top-level research, academics, and innovation at the cutting-edge of science and technology, École Polytechnique’s various undergraduate and graduate-level programs are highly selective and promote a culture of excellence with a strong emphasis on science, anchored in humanist traditions.
While it offers a comfortable and stimulating environment for students to concentrate on their studies, the engineering school believes that personal development, team spirit and attention to the community are also very decisive in their success and their ability to face tomorrow’s challenges. To instill students with these values, École Polytechnique puts sports at the core of its education system. All students from the historical Ingénieur Polytechnicien programme are required to practice sports at least 6h per week and can choose to practice from 16 different disciplines.
“Throughout our history, sport has always played an important role in the education of our students.” said Commander Marc Mander, Head of the Sports Training Office. “It is a real success factor. In general terms, this training really helps our students to develop a community spirit and to feel a true sense of belonging within their year group and the Institution. It also helps them to open up. They open up to others, open up to the world, and they get to know themselves! Some are brilliant students, but they really come into their own when we take them out of the classroom.”
These qualities are very important in future engineers, in a context of an increasingly challenging world. Climate change is bringing about sudden and systemic evolutions in societies in order to adapt and fight that change. Among them are technological breakthroughs that allow the use of cleaner energy, new mobilities, new use and better protection of the environment, and so on. The engineers being trained today at École Polytechnique are the ones to imagine and conceive these technologies. While professors cannot tell students what the future is made of and what technologies to develop, they can instill them with the right values that will help solve tomorrow’s challenges.
Bringing different cultures together towards a common goal
Having students participate heavily in sports and helping develop this sense of community is also key in a context where École Polytechnique is an internationalised school. In an environment where 40% of students and faculty members come from all around the world, practicing global sports brings them closer together.
“Sports allows them to learn to live in a community, to consider people around them, to develop an understanding of cultural diversity, to know how to work together intelligently in order to achieve a common goal, and to thrive for excellence and to keep challenging and surpassing themselves.” added Commander Marc Mander
Giving them the feeling of belonging to a wider world, especially when in contact with students from other countries, and learning to work collectively prepares them for a world where global open innovation and collaboration will drive innovation and research.