Ensuring the employability of our students

The University cares about the future of its students

Strongly rooted in its territory and resolutely open to the socio-economic world, the University of Pau and Pays de l'Adour (UPPA) has long been attentive to the future of its students. Whether at the end of the Bachelor's degree, Master's degree, Doctorate, DUT or engineering degree, the employability of its graduates is remarkably high.

Clément Bleuet is a student at the "Ecole Nationale Supérieure en Génie des Technologies Industrielles" (ENSGTI), one of UPPA's two engineering schools. He has student-entrepreneur status and is the bearer of an ambitious waste management project called "Trognon". For the past two years, he has been benefiting from the entrepreneurship support program set up by the university.

"We provide all students who wish to do so with a set of free, tailor-made services to help them develop their ideas and mature their projects", says Jean-François Belmonte, head of entrepreneurship at UPPA. ''L’EntrePau'', the student incubator located in the heart of the Hélioparc technology park in Pau, is the flagship. Like Clément Bleuet, about twenty students from Pau, Bayonne, Anglet, Tarbes or Mont-de-Marsan are followed each year by the university. The proportion of students enrolled in an entrepreneurial initiative is admittedly small, but it nonetheless reflects a fundamental trend. The university is not content to simply train well-trained minds, it also helps students to project themselves into the future.

A personalized accompaniment

« In class, many of the speakers are professionals or former students who share their experiences with us, which is very enriching » says Héloïse Pontalier, 27, who holds a Master's degree in "European and International Studies - European Jurist" from Bayonne in 2016. Depending on the course of study, UPPA also offers the opportunity to do professional internships or to go abroad. For example, Héloïse chose to prepare her third year of a law degree at the University of Linköping in Sweden, via Erasmus. A turning point in her career, she says, a unique experience that encouraged her, once she had obtained her Master's degree, to go to England to find her first job abroad. The former student from Pau is now a lawyer in Dublin (Ireland) at Pure Storage, a Californian company that develops 100% flash data storage hardware and software.

"We support our students from the Bachelor's level onwards, helping them to find their way and build their professional project," says Frédéric Tesson, UPPA vice-president in charge of the Training and University Life Commission (CFVU). The university relies in particular on the University Orientation and Professional Integration Service (SCUIO-IP), which provides information on courses and professions and offers the support of specialists to help students prepare their CVs and cover letters, find internships and find job offers. The SCUIO-IP also organizes visits to companies, provides guidance to the professional world, and organizes events on careers for Master's students. This is an effective strategy given the very good results of the surveys conducted by the institution's observatory (ODE) on the future of students. The latest study conducted on the class of 2016 shows that 94% of professional degree graduates, 89% of Master's graduates, 94% of PhD students and 96% of engineers are now working.

Training linked to the professions

Recently, a larger program called SPACE, for "progressive and accompanied specialization of student programs", has integrated tools dedicated to professional integration at the Bachelor's level. Certified in 2018 for 10 years, SPACE includes a "welcome, orientation and individualized support" component that includes a back-to-school questionnaire, an individual interview and an intermediate support assessment offered to almost all undergraduate students. "We pay particular attention to students in difficulty, to prevent them from dropping out, but also to the most promising students", emphasizes Frédéric Tesson. SPACE also aims to adapt the curriculum to the needs of the professions by emphasizing their professional and international character. The aim is to be as close as possible to socio-economic realities by organizing the courses into blocks of skills: cross-disciplinary, such as English for scientific degrees, or specific, linked to professional prospects, such as banking in economics and management. All the UPPA's Bachelor's degrees should be concerned by 2022. This is certainly a "disruptive" innovation for a university that is more than ever in tune with the times.

Infos

Figures of the professional integration of the students of the UPPA class of 2016 - Surveys conducted by the UPPA Student Observatory (ODE)

• ODE : https://ode.univ-pau.fr
  Free access: professional integration rate by field of study, testimonials, alumni directory, list of internships completed...
• UPPA Career Center : https://univ-pau.jobteaser.com/
  Offers companies the possibility of communicating directly with UPPA students: distribution of internship, work-study and job offers

Contacts

• SCUIO-IP :
  https://scuio-ip.univ-pau.fr
  scuio-ip @ univ-pau.fr
• Campus Pau :
  Presidence building, Pau
  Tél. : +335 59 40 70 90
• Campus Côte Basque :
  Maison de l’étudiant, 77 rue Bourgneuf, Bayonne
  Tél. : +335 59 57 41 61