Technopole-France: Engineering in Toulouse

The Toulouse region can be compared to Silicon Valley in the way in which it blends a vast concentration of tech firms, heavy industry, research, and universities. The core industries of the region include Aeronautics and Aerospace, Biomedical Engineering and Cancer Research, Agribusiness and Food Systems, and Ecological Engineering. Not only is it home to Europe’s largest space agency, but the European headquarters of Intel. The area boasts over 500 hundred companies connected to the Aerospace industry alone. This tech hub has the fasted growing GDP not only in France, but in all of southern Europe.

Toulouse is a warm, sunny city famous for its pink stone buildings. It is now the fourth largest city in France with a greater urban population of approximately 1.4 million. It is located in southern France nested close to the Mediterranean, the Pyrenees, and the Atlantic Ocean. Because of the size of the university (almost 120,000 students) and the dynamism of its knowledge-driven economy, Toulouse is a young city, dominated by a population under 35 years of age. It is hospitable, surprisingly inexpensive for Europe, and offers the best of the big city while preserving many of the advantages of a smaller town. A first class public transit system makes the city a snap to navigate.

 

The Year Abroad: Two Parts

During the fall semester students will complete much of their degree in French and Francophone culture while developing their language skills intensively. Students will be able to count a unique course on the history of aeronautical engineering towards the French major. Although the focus of the fall program is devoted to French and Francophone studies, students are encouraged to sit in on or take engineering classes at any of the 8 engineering schools within the Université de Toulouse network.

The spring semester will be devoted to an internship experience with a company or research lab in the Toulouse area. These include companies like Airbus, Dassault, ATR, Zodiac and Novartis. Because the university’s engineering schools and research labs are so connected to the private sector, students in the Toulouse program are likely to find internships in just about any engineering field that interests them. The University of Toulouse will support students with company site visits during the first semester and help coach them through the process of applying for and securing internships at private firms and labs through the fall semester.

The Experience

Toulouse has been a hub for European trade since at least the second century BC. It was the capital of the Visgoth Kingdom in the fifth century and home to one of Europe’s first universities, founded in 1229. Located on the Garonne River, the leafy canals and walkways that crisscross the city have been designated a UNESCO world heritage site. The contrast that defines modern Toulouse, however, can be summed up in its proximity to both Aerospace Valley and the famed Roman city of Carcassonne.

Student will be housed in comfortable student apartments in downtown Toulouse for the whole year. The University of Toulouse will provide opportunities to participate in excursions to the cultural sights of Toulouse and of surrounding areas. Its status as a tech hub of Europe and its location in southern France converge to make it an ideal base from which to explore more of Europe.