13
Apprenticeships at ESSEC: Practice
13.1. Introduction
This contribution is written from the perspective of the teacher supervising and supporting apprentices, on the one hand, and from the perspective of the teacher who has had apprentices on his or her courses for many years, on the other. Several aspects around apprenticeships are addressed:
- – the characteristics of the system as implemented at ESSEC;
- – student motivation for learning;
- – the organization of learning over time;
- – the geographical and intercultural dimension;
- – the experience of trust in the professional environment;
- – the challenges to be considered.
13.2. Presentation of the apprenticeship system in the curriculum (MiM) of the ESSEC Business School
The MiM (Master of Science in Management) program generally lasts three years. Students come either from preparatory classes followed by a year of pre-masters courses at ESSEC itself, or from another French or international academic institution with a diploma at the bachelor level at least.
The apprenticeship is aimed at all these students, whether they are French, nationals of another European Union country or citizens of a country outside this area. It consists of providing the student with the possibility to alternate between academic and professional periods, thereby allowing concepts learned in class to meet the real life of the company and facilitating an understanding of the content of the courses in a different way, at the end of the field experiences.
13.3. Students’ motivations for getting involved in the scheme
The benefit to the student is at least double. On the one hand, it is pedagogical: the apprenticeship provides him or her with 12 months of full-time professional experience alternating with academic periods at school. This gives him or her the opportunity to put into practice some of the concepts learned in the courses. From the end of the first period in the company, he or she will also follow courses with a different understanding because he or she knows how to better position the concepts proposed in the courses in relation to the reality of the company. As the student alternates between periods in companies and at school, he or she increasingly capitalizes on the complementarity of his or her experiences in these two worlds.
In addition to this educational asset, there is a financial advantage: in addition to direct and regular remuneration throughout the 24-month period, the student also benefits from the company covering his or her tuition fees during this two-year period. An apprenticeship thus represents a significant contribution to the financial budget for the entire school year, especially for students from modest backgrounds, both nationally and internationally.
Finally, and more generally, the presence of a “structured plan” covering a two-year period, both pedagogically and financially, is reassuring for many students. It provides calm and allows them to avoid having to deal regularly with the organization of their studies, internships and other experiences for the coming term or semester.
13.4. Organization over time
The positioning of the 12 months of professional experience over the duration of the 24-month contract is, in principle, quite free. MiM does not experience the gap year phenomenon, a one-year period provided for in some academic courses to allow students to acquire, around the middle of the program, professional experience of about one year before starting the second part of the studies with a different perspective. Such a continuous 12-month experience is not desirable, even less so as part of an apprenticeship contract.
13.4.1. Apprenticeships in two distinct periods
The very concept of an apprenticeship requires a more regular alternation between academic periods and work experience. The minimum number of periods in a company is two, with most often two periods of six months’ full-time work in a company, separated by a six-month period of study, and another period of study at the end to complete the studies. A two-period arrangement of the nine-month plus three-month type is possible, but quite rare.
Taking into account the internship at the end of the pre-masters year, the student has at least four academic periods alternating with three periods of professional experience, allowing him/her to have regular support in the business world to experience the practice of the concepts learned in the courses.
The organization of apprenticeships is very suitable for “project”-based work, and is very popular, among others, with auditing or consultancy firms, which have a strong seasonality in their activity, for example from January to June or from October to March. The challenge in the follow-up of the apprentice is to ensure an apprenticeship experience for the second period of presence in the company as well, rather than to repeat the tasks already carried out the previous year. This is easily achieved by allowing the apprentice to work on files from other industries or departments, for example one semester in “auditing”, followed by one semester in “mergers and acquisitions”.
13.4.2. Continuous learning
The alternative to organizing separate periods is to carry out an assignment in the company on a continuous basis. This provides an apprentice’s presence in the company for about two years on a continuous basis: part-time, two to three days a week, during school periods and full-time during school vacations.
For the apprentice, this formula is more demanding: he or she must constantly combine his or her professional obligations as part of the apprenticeship, as well as his or her academic obligations as part of the teaching. This is not always obvious and can also generate significant peaks in the workload that should be supported and, if possible, mitigated by the company and/or the academic institution.
It is certainly also the most restrictive formula, as regards the adjustment over time to the diversity of tasks to be accomplished during schooling, particularly in regard to international experiences. The timetable imposed by the apprenticeship does not allow a student to take a few months off to carry out an exchange agreement or other experience abroad. This is to be anticipated by the student and his/her tutor when considering the organization of schooling.
In return for the particular challenges associated with this formula, there are of course advantages: the most important is probably to be perceived in the professional environment as a colleague in his/her own right, closer to the “regular” colleague than the “trainee” colleague. For his/her colleagues and direct superiors, the apprentice is present on the job almost permanently throughout the two-year period. The apprentice thus feels more integrated, or at least more integrated as opposed to learning in distinct periods, with his/her changing human environment.
In continuous learning too, the challenge is that the apprenticeship will remain an apprenticeship in the second year and that it will not become routine and be the same as the first year. This can be achieved by gradually changing the complexity of the activities to be carried out as part of a management control apprenticeship, or by changing tasks and assignments as part of a strategy apprenticeship.
13.5. The geographical and intercultural dimension
Apprenticeships, as discussed in this chapter, are mainly based in France; as the employer must be domiciled in France.
Geographical, and therefore also cultural, gaps will be noted in several areas.
For students eligible for the scheme, all nationalities are allowed. For international students, it is a great opportunity to live a long and evolving professional experience in an environment that is often typically French. It is also because of the opportunity to live this kind of intercultural experience that many foreign students come to France. The atmosphere in a company can often be much more French than that on the campus of an academic institution attended by students of dozens of different nationalities and cultures.
As for the places where assignments are carried out, they are not limited to metropolitan France. Apprenticeships can take place in the French overseas departments and territories, as well as in other countries, and can thus provide a particularly strong intercultural experience for apprentices. For example, in the context of what can be called a “European apprenticeship”, a French company transfers the apprentice to three different countries, including France: an invaluable gain in cultural experience for the apprentice in addition to the benefits of the professional experiences themselves.
Whoever speaks of geographical and intercultural diversity must also think of linguistic diversity. It goes without saying that a “European apprenticeship” system requires the mastery of several working languages, at least French and English. But even a “traditional” apprenticeship in France can also be done in a foreign language, particularly in English. It is this evolution that allows non-French-speaking students to participate in the system. The increasingly widespread use of English in writing and/or speaking greatly facilitates access to particularly interesting apprenticeship assignments for these students within multinational and multicultural teams.
13.6. The experience of trust in the professional environment
We are well aware that despite the schemas, mathematical formulas, rules and more, the economic and financial world could not function without the trust that the actors have in each other. Confidence is essential for a well-functioning economy.
In the field of apprenticeship, it is this trust placed in them by the company that impresses many students and has an overall structuring effect on the development of the apprentices’ personalities. The opportunity to be able to show what you know how to do, to take up challenges and succeed, while benefiting from the confidence of a hierarchy, is extremely motivating for students, and this is often even more so for international students from cultures where it is not common to trust young people at this level of the training process.
The dimension of the trust offered by companies can be partly explained by the length of the apprentice’s commitment: he or she commits for two years, which is often not significantly different from the duration of the commitment of a young graduate on a permanent contract, and very different from an intern who only comes for three or six months.
13.7. Challenges to consider
However, an apprenticeship is not purely beneficial for the student or the institution.
On the student side, the most perceived disadvantage is the decrease in flexibility in the organization of studies. This flexibility is a major asset for many ESSEC students. However, the apprenticeship contract binding the student to his/her employer for a period of 24 months becomes a structuring element for all studies.
Some are not offered every term, and the student’s choice of preferred courses becomes more complicated, and sometimes impossible. This can be particularly constraining if the student wishes to follow the pathway of a chair, center of excellence or specialization track.
The same applies to participation in international experiences (exchange agreements, double diplomas, internships), for which a minimum duration of six months is required to obtain the MiM diploma.
Finally, the 24-month link to a company prevents the discovery of other companies and their respective cultures and other sectors of activity, and thus limits the diversity of the apprenticeship experience during the MiM program.
In addition to the administrative management of the system, the institution is mainly confronted with the difficulty of properly structuring the course offer for each period (term). Flexibility and constraints, as well as the apprenticeship system, represent a continuous challenge with regard to the quality and quantity of the course offered, small sections of which must very often be adapted to applications for enrollment.
13.8. Conclusion
Apprenticeships have their place in higher education. They allow students to apply and develop the professional skills learned in their courses and to have an apprenticeship experience in a broad, theoretical and practical sense that is extremely intense and complementary. It is an opportunity to have a long experience in a company, assume responsibilities, live the trust placed in you by the hierarchy and honor it, discover more about yourself, your strengths and weaknesses and evolve accordingly.
Chapter written by Wolfgang DICK.