Projects and internship activities (40 ECTS)

Numerical projects

Each semester (exept the last one) the students carry out a numerical project by autonomous working with the technical and scientific support of a teacher. The scientific subjects of the numerical projects are built with respect to the students’ interests and to the students’ career motivations. A numerical project consists to product of a program, to use of an advanced scientific software, to process and to analyse data, or to optimize or to parallelize an existing program; following a scope statement. At the end of the project, the students write a technical report about our production (accompanying the source codes and the results). The first and second projects (semester 1 and 2) are organized as a “code swimming pool” at the begining of the university period, following the “to learn to code by coding” principle. The third project (semester 3) is free, the students propose themselves a numerical project to realize during the semester.

Dynamical systems projects

During the course “classical dynamical systems” (semester 2), the students carry out a theoretical and numerical study of a dynamical system (about mechanics, astrophysics, electronics, biology, etc, following the choice of each student). At the end of the semester, the students write scientific articles about their systems.

Lab projects

During the first year (semesters 1 and 2), the students carry out a lab project within a research team of a partner laboratory. Subjects are proposed by these teams with respect to their current research activities and are freely chosen by the students. At the end of the first semester, the students present posters concerning their projects, and at the end of the second semester they conclude by an oral presentation with slideshow accompanying the write of a manuscript.

Final internship

The last semester (semester 4) is dedicated to a 4 to 6 months full-time internship in a laboratory or in a compagny (not necessary in a local lab, international internship is possible). This internship is necessary remunerate by the lab or the compagny which can be found by the student. At the end of the internship period, the student presents a master’s thesis defense (presentation with slideshow) accompanying a master’s thesis manuscript.

Other activities

  • The students must assist to scientific seminars organized by the partner laboratories (sem. 1, 2 and 3).
  • The students must participate to an eHealth hackathon (a week-end during semester 1)
  • The students can participate to an internship concerning astronomical observations at Pic du Midi Observatory (one week during semester 3)
  • The students can participate to summer schools or to summer internship in a lab or in a compagny (summer between semesters 2 and 3)