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This year, I am studying Electrical Engineering & Computer Science in a one-year Master of Engineering program at UC Berkeley. This program combines technical courses and leadership ones as well as mixing them in a year-long capstone project. Mine was about autonomous driving, meaning we have to work on a car in order to allow it to drive by itself. Thus, this project is about robotics, sensors, controls and machine learning, which are the classes I took in parallel.
When I first arrived, what was very striking was how huge the university is compared to what we've been used to in our engineering schools. Indeed, 40 000 students are enrolled at UC Berkeley in very diverse departments.
The best class I took in the Fall semester is, without doubt, the Introduction to Machine Learning, which is basically a mathematics class I was very glad to study again, especially in a very applied context rather than a theoretical one. Classes are also taught very differently, mostly because of the number of students. Every class is composed not only of some teachers but of a group of a dozen Teacher Assistants, which are currently enrolled students who often aced the class in a previous semester. Every week, these TA give Office Hours, during which students can ask questions about the class material or the current homework. They also teach during Discussions, which is a review of the previous week's material in small groups to make sure the students understood it and to go over some exercises.
Moreover, even though the amount of in-class time is very small compared to what we have back in France, the out of class workload is significant and we learn a lot from weekly homework.
All in all, this year starts very well and I'm already starting to feel that one year is definitely not enough to experience everything the campus has to offer.
Pictures taken on Berkeley campus and in SF:
Thank you, Louis, for sharing!
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On the 14th of December the gadz'arts based in Houston shared nice moments together
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In Novembre 2018 a group of students apprentice visited Silicon Valley and Greater Los Angeles to discover companies and enjoy some must-see attractions in SF and LA.
In Los Angeles besides taking a stroll along the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the students visited such companies as Sherline and Applied Medical.
Once the students reached San Francisco shores, walking tour at Stanford University and some visits of the Stanford labs were on the students agenda. Here is Alexandra BRIAND's (Am 216) reaction to the visit:
"Very interesting tour, very nice campus. The IPRL lab is impressive, the experience of touching through a machine is amazing. A big thank you to the laboratory professor for showing it to us. A big thank you also to the 2 members of the laboratory for their presentation and to Oriana Peltzer (Bo 215) for the preparation of this visit."
The students visited Corbin and Applied Medical companies while in the area.
Here is some comments about Corbin's visit from Marcellin Bric (Am 216):
"Corbin company offers motorcycle saddles and accessories all over the world. We could see the passion for the product through the CEO's enthusiastic speech. We were lucky to observe manufacturing operations and get to know different options available for customers. Honestly, it was just amazing. Then, we discovered another company's activity. Corbin also produces one-person electric car named the Sparrow. I would like to thank all the technicians and staff for providing us with such a great experience."
Photo: Corbin Sparrow Electric Car
Photo: At Applied Medical
In addition to the Stanford campus and labs visit, the students had a chance to visit such Silicon Valley giants as Facebook. Here is what Chloé BEAUDET (Class 2016) shares about the experience:
"Very informative visit! Our FB hosts showed us the premises, which allowed us to note the comfortable employees workstation set ups and ergonomic environment. This way the employees can stay as long as possible in their workplace. I enjoyed the presentation on optical cables. I thank all the speakers for their time and their consideration of the school. The conference allowed us to become aware of the size of the company and different professions in Technology it offers. Our FB hosts, some of them Arts et Métiers alumni, were able to convey the values and vision of the company and present, in a pleasant way, technical subjects, in adequacy with our engineering training"
Tuesday November 20th, despite heavy smoke from the wildfires, visiting Arts et Métiers students spent fun time with their peers from the A&M Parcours US program.
Thank you to all the alumni and students helping the group with the visits! AFAM is looking forward to having other gadzarts taking such educational tours in the Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles.
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