5 Professional Resolutions for ESPRIT students

Hello ESPRITiens ! Considering that ESPRIT is more of a lifestyle for us than a school we attend, I thought of writing this post. If you’re anything like I am, you should have mixed feelings about New Year resolutions : I believe that every day is a new beginning, not only January the 1st. Though, I still plan for ‘a new year’. With new years comes new plans, new goals and new directions fueling your thoughts.. UNLESS you are an Esprit student ! what comes then, is new buisiness.plans to write maybe, or new exams, new projects and new tests. In a year, a 12 mounths year, you’ll only have the summer holidays to start a new… internship.
That’s why I think you should consider school before writing down any resolutions whether they are professional, professional, or professional. So, here are my suggestions for “professional resolutions” you should consider being a student at ESPRIT.

1 – Dont get good grades

Dont focus on getting good grades. Instead, invest your energy and focus on getting good knowledge, learning new things, practicing what you’re learning and having good fun. I think Espritiens dont have time to waste chasing good grades ! If we have to make pleadings, lectures, and role plays for english and frensh classes, write business plans and make functional prototypes for ideas we spend weeks looking for with teammates and mentors for innovation class, make presentations for financial analyses class, send tons of google forms to collect then analyse data  for statistics class projects, and even grab some glue and cards to make scrum boxes or scrum tables for software engineering class.. all.apart.from the basic IT projects we’re working on, where we spend nights on stackoverflow… then, we are not gonna make it ‘that empty’ to the finals to start ‘chasing grades’ (in case we already make it safe and sound to each semester’s finals ! ). So dont make grades your priority, instead make sure you involve yourself in the work and you have fun learning and creating. You won’t win having good grades but loosing the opportunity you had to create, work in team and sharpen your skills (because we all know exams do us no good ! neither good grades).

2- Dont write code !

The first resolution was “don’t get good grades” but the meaning was “do the work first, dont focus on grades”. Now the meaning from this one is “Do the abstraction first, but focus on code anyway”. Actually, you can’t “ignore the code” if you are at ESPRIT ! And that’s a double edge weapon I think ! During the elaboration of our Integration Projects (PiDevs) we keep coding for a whole semester, and those who are at fourth class have more than one PiDev a year, so we “write more code”.. passing so fast by those design sprints that we barely learn from them. You should resolve to take more care of designing, modeling, choosing the right technologies, preparing all the specifications and scrum-related documentation, and knowing which design patterns or which external APIs to use and why. I have always hated preparing UML diagrams, or doing what I called nonsense by then, like writing postconditions and preconditions of use cases !  or preparing ui mockups. I hated abstraction, so much ! But only when things got tough that I knew it’s importance : once you’re mind is so clear about what you’re coding, you’ll code it faster and even easier, and once you and your teamates no longer seem to be a team, scrum backlogs will get you back together.

3- Dont choose a specialization

Being in mobile systems or in business intelligence is the same for a student who deals with specializations as somthing to “decide on depending on” grades, subjects or gossips..! yes, gossips! Because at the end, all specializations come with subjects, projects, teamwork and high pressure. So, if you’ll try to make a deal picking the specialization that fits your limits. This is not gonna work, because in all cases, you’ll go beyond your limits once in fourth-year class. What matters is what you are intrested in, or what you love. What fits your personality and your visions for your future is what matters. If you do what you love, you will go beyond your limits (whether physical or mental limits). So, specializations are not decisions or choices, “they are who you already are”, and there is a quit good set of options for almost every student in ESPRIT.

4- Dont miss out on any school club

As with all resolutions, the key to success is not to be too over-ambitious, and to set just a few clear and achievable goals. So you are not going to join every club there is in ESPRIT ! No. If you’re going down this route, maybe just choose one or two new clubs or activities to try out. But it’s a must. Because if school projects and exams are hard work, with probable fun and expected results, clubs activities are hard work with guaranteed fun and immediate results. I shared my experience with ENACTUS ESPRIT ICT here , check it out and add the club you’re gonna join to your resolutions list.

5- Look for graduation internship early

You can change this resolution to “look for any internship whenever you can”. You need to get hands on experience, and we all know it. I won’t turn this into a speech about “school vs work” or about gaining experience and practicing your skills , but you must consider internships early. If you are looking for your graduation project, it means the party is over, and you’ll get back to your parents’ ! No more classmates doing the work for you, no more stolen presentations, and no more all-nighters (no ! all nighters are for life). So find the right internship. No mistakes allowed. To do so, you need to take your time searching.

Those are the resolutions I think should be set by ESPRIT students, but it’s always up to you, ESPRIT students, to set the ones that really push you forward once realised.
I wish you a year full of success, health, welth, and joy.