UTRC welcomed seven master’s degree-level students with specialties in sustainable transportation and civil engineering from the Ecole Nationale des Travaux Publics de l’Etat (ENTPE) in Lyon, France, which is a highly competitive engineering school in France. The students are all participants in a national civil service program which requires that they complete a 20-week internship either in France or abroad. The internship must be related to a specialty that the students have to choose in their first year (civil engineering, environment, urban planning, transport engineering, or building engineering). The internship occurs after the second year of classes out of a three year program. The tuition and living expenses are covered by the French government and in exchange, the students are required to work in French civil service positions for eight years after they graduate.

These students, Dounia Khallouki, Maxim Peveri, Guillaume Faivre, Yohan Urie, Fabien Locatelli, Laureut Jacotot, and Mohammed Bailek, all wanted to work in New York and contacted UTRC in the Fall of 2012 to request an internship at no cost to the Center. In addition to contributing to the professor’s research and papers, the students are also required by their school to produce a lengthy technical and sociological report summarizing their internship pursuits. Upon returning to ENTPE in fall 2013, the students will present their work to a jury as part of their oral exams. The sociological part of the report requires the student to learn about and document the organizational structure of the office in which they are interning. In addition, the student must write this report in the language of their sponsor.