UTC’s Tech­no­lo­gy and Social sciences Depart­ment (THS) focuses stron­gly on ana­ly­sis and exploi­ta­tion of situa­tions faced by engi­neers today. This peda­go­gy is now deployed both within the fra­me­work of UTC’s class­work and that of placements/internships and end-of-stu­dy pro­jects. The TSH depart­ment is also invol­ved in the university’s appren­ti­ce­ship trai­ning pro­gramme with the same desire to work on situa­tions expe­rien­ced by stu­dents in companies.

Social sciences and humanities

The cur­rent com­plexi­ty of busi­ness com­pa­nies and the socio-eco­no­mic world has led the UTC Tech­no­lo­gy and Social Sciences Depart­ment (TSH) to focus on the situa­tions facing contem­po­ra­ry engi­neers. This pro­ject aims to build, teach and develop:

• approaches and tools to be used in these situa­tions (mana­ge­ment of inno­va­tive pro­jects, desi­gn of inter­ac­tive inter­faces, interculturality)…,
• know­ledge and research para­digms that will renew the ana­ly­sis and unders­tan­ding of these situa­tions. The THS depart­ment is par­ti­cu­lar­ly inter­dis­ci­pli­na­ry, mobi­li­sing and com­bi­ning know­ledge from cog­ni­tive sciences, infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion sciences, eco­no­mics and mana­ge­ment, phi­lo­so­phy, socio­lo­gy, etc.

Key figures

The pri­mor­dial posi­tion held by the UTC-TSH depart­ment can be bet­ter underts­tood with the fol­lo­wing key figures

• 115 cre­dit courses (CCs) pro­po­sed ;
• 30% of the courses fol­lo­wed by eve­ry gra­duate engi­neer of UTC-Com­piegne are THS-CCs;
• 2 500 stu­dents per semes­ter;
• Over 500 gra­duates of the MPI (mana­ge­ment of inno­va­tive pro­jects) spe­cial­ty pro­gramme of the UTC since 2000;
• 30 scien­tists in the UTC-Cos­tech research unit;
• 1 UxD spe­cia­list Master’s degree;
• 5 « minors ».

The pedagogical offer

TSH seeks to train engi­neers whose tech­no­lo­gi­cal excel­lence will be enri­ched by other skills. Its peda­go­gi­cal orga­ni­za­tion is struc­tu­red around three engi­nee­ring situa­tions: desi­gn, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, orga­ni­za­tion & management.

During the course, the student must focus on two of these three lear­ning lines and, for each of these situa­tions, com­bine "approaches and prac­tices" and "know­ledge" inten­sive skills.

Each of these situa­tions can be explo­red in depth:

• either in the path­way of the cross-dis­ci­pli­na­ry course Inno­va­tive Pro­ject Mana­ge­ment (MPI) ;
• or in the fra­me­work of the 5 ("minor") TSH spe­cial­ty courses on: digi­tal cultu­ral tech­no­lo­gies; sus­tai­nable deve­lop­ment; inno­va­tion and glo­bal cor­po­rate rela­tions; phi­lo­so­phy, tech­no­lo­gy and cog­ni­tion; contro­ver­sies, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and technology.

Focu­sing on the situa­tions of the contem­po­ra­ry engi­neer leads to the imple­men­ta­tion of an inno­va­tive peda­go­gy reso­lu­te­ly tur­ned towards the ana­ly­sis and exploi­ta­tion of situa­tions expe­rien­ced by stu­dents in cor­po­rate set­tings. This peda­go­gy is now deployed both in the context of inter­n­ships and end-of-stu­dy pro­jects and in the context of apprenticeships.

Research

The excel­lence of UTC’s TSH research work is reco­gni­zed thanks to a spe­ci­fic research unit UTC-Cos­tech (Know­ledge, Orga­ni­za­tion and Tech­ni­cal Sys­tems). Focu­sing on the rela­tion­ships bet­ween humans, tech­niques and socie­ties, the Cos­tech labo­ra­to­ry com­bines ambi­tious concep­tual research with a concern for expe­ri­men­ta­tion and tes­ting in tech­ni­cal, orga­ni­za­tio­nal and social realizations.

It is invol­ved in nume­rous field stu­dies and tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lop­ment acti­vi­ties, cove­ring a very broad spec­trum of themes: health tech­no­lo­gies, digi­tal wri­ting, deve­lop­ment of per­cep­tual sup­port sys­tems, digi­tal demo­cra­cy, com­pu­ter science and trai­ning, mana­ge­ment of know­ledge and intan­gibles, eco­lo­gi­cal transition.

Pedagogical Aid

The Peda­go­gi­cal Sup­port Unit (CAP) is a sup­port ser­vice for tea­chers and UTC as a whole and is atta­ched to the UTC-TSH Depart­ment. It provides:

• Sup­port for the use of tech­no-peda­go­gi­cal tools:
  • Peda­go­gi­cal platform
  • WebTV plat­form
  • Inter­ac­tive digi­tal tools

• Peda­go­gi­cal sup­port approach for tea­chers:
  • Awa­re­ness enhanced
  • Trai­ning
  • Coa­ching

• Sup­port approach for the ins­ti­tu­tion UTC:
  • Sup­port for the pre­ser­va­tion of the UTC peda­go­gi­cal model
  • Sup­port to the tran­si­tion from high school to university
  • Peda­go­gi­cal exe­ge­sis of UTC stra­te­gy (com­pe­tence approach)

Languages and language skills

The forei­gn lan­guage cur­ri­cu­lum offers the pos­si­bi­li­ty to learn the fol­lo­wing lan­guages face-to-face: English, Ger­man, Man­da­rin Chi­nese, Spa­nish, FLE (French as a forei­gn lan­guage), Ita­lian, Japa­nese, Portuguese.

The ongoing digi­tal tran­si­tion and recent peda­go­gi­cal changes encou­rage stu­dents to pur­sue lan­guage lear­ning with a view to achie­ving a level of C1 – Mas­te­ry in accor­dance with the CEFR (Com­mon Euro­pean Fra­me­work of Refe­rence for Lan­guages) during their course of study.

1. Lan­guage choices to be made as part of an ove­rall pro­ject.

2. The need to obtain a B2 level in English through an exter­nal test. (TOEIC – with a mini­mum 785 points in the lis­te­ning and rea­ding test) or other tests reco­gni­zed by French HE lan­guage skills regu­la­tions. This level is a condi­tion for gra­dua­tion, in accor­dance with the requi­re­ments of the Com­mis­sion des titres de l'ingénieur.

3. Towards mas­te­ry of lan­guages to faci­li­tate inter­na­tio­nal mobi­li­ty and the pos­si­bi­li­ty of lear­ning 3 or even 4 lan­guages during the engi­nee­ring course.

Uni­ver­si­ty exchanges take place on 5 conti­nents and in 43 coun­tries (140 uni­ver­si­ties and 17 double degrees): Alba­nia, Argen­ti­na, Aus­tra­lia, Aus­tria, Bel­gium, Bra­zil, Bul­ga­ria, Cana­da, Chile, Colom­bia, Czech Repu­blic, Den­mark, Ecua­dor, Fin­land, Ger­ma­ny, Greece, Ice­land, India, Ita­ly, Japan, Lat­via, Leba­non, Mexi­co, Moroc­co, the Nether­lands, Nor­way, Poland, Por­tu­gal, Roma­nia, Rus­sia, Sin­ga­pore, South Korea, Spain, Swe­den, Swit­zer­land, Tai­wan, Tuni­sia, Tur­key, Ukraine, Uni­ted King­dom, Uni­ted States, Vene­zue­la. (This list of coun­tries is constant­ly evolving).

For forei­gn stu­dents, the FLE (French as a forei­gn lan­guage) course consists of inten­sive pro­grammes during the inter-semes­ters and French lan­guage courses at 6 levels (A1=>C2) in accor­dance with the CEFR (Com­mon Euro­pean Fra­me­work of Refe­rence for Languages).

Contact and documentation

Contact

Domaine des langues

Mark Kay

 +33 (0)3 44 23 44 23

mark.kay@utc.fr

Contact

Domaine des langues

Carole Lefran­çois

 +33 (0)3 44 23 44 23

carole.lefrancois@utc.fr

Contact

Direc­teur du dépar­te­ment TSH

Michael Vicente

 +33 (0)3 44 23 43 65

michael.vicente@utc.fr

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