Nice Premium: Agnès Rampal, the FISE celebrates its 5th edition. Can you tell us about this event?
Agnès Rampal: Absolutely; for the 5th time, the City of Nice is organizing the FISE to support new high school graduates as they start their college life. After their final year of high school where they are in a protected environment, they enter a new life where they risk wasting a lot of time finding all the answers to their questions concerning academic orientations as well as practical life: the City of Nice wants to help them get through this transition as informed as possible.
Therefore, this one-stop service allows:
– To support them with the last academic orientation questions (ONISEP and university guidance counselors) and last steps of university enrollment (pre-registrations online with help from university staff) or in Nice’s private schools (ESCOM, ESRA, IPAG, IDRAC, ISECC, Praxis, and SUPINFO).
– To help them find housing with our partners CROUS, CRIJ, and real estate agencies (Foncia, Les Lauréades, etc.) and everything related to it (CAF for housing assistance, MAIF for insurance).
– To enable them to get their transportation cards with Ligne d’Azur and its special student offers.
It also involves presenting:
– Everything related to health: CPAM, MEP, LMDE, MAIF
– Everything related to their finances: with, of course, CROUS and its scholarships, the CG, partner banks (BP, LCL) as well as jobs and internships,
– Everything related to student life: with student associations: FACE 06 and Fac +, and CRIJ,
– Everything related to municipal activities in culture, leisure, and social matters with the young person’s listening point.
Nice Premium: What are the positive aspects of the first four editions?
AR: Bringing together all life partners in one place allows them to meet and move forward with new proposals; for the students and their families who come, it is genuinely a place that answers all their questions: they leave delighted, except perhaps regarding housing, which remains insufficient in relation to demand!
Nice Premium: What’s new for this fifth anniversary?
AR: This year new active partners have joined us: the Rectorate wanted to send each future high school graduate an invitation to the forum at the same time as the BAC notification, and the General Council has taken a stand where it presents its numerous offers for young students.
Nice Premium: What are the municipal projects regarding the University?
AR: The City of Nice has committed strongly to the next state-region project contract, where it will invest nearly 10 million euros in new rehabilitations and university constructions; it continues to develop the Saint Jean d’Angely district to make it a living area around and with students in the humanities and social sciences. It will continue to subsidize universities and student associations for specific actions.
Nice Premium: University reform is making headlines at the moment. What are your feelings on this subject?
AR: The French university trains our great teachers and researchers; it also graduates thousands of young people each year who enter professional life well-prepared; besides, it leaves almost 80,000 young people in France each year without any degree, which is a real waste. Thus, everyone agrees now that it needs reforming and giving it more autonomy is certainly a good idea: it will better meet local employment needs. This will indeed create a “healthy competition” among different universities, but this competition already exists at the European level with the LMD, which allows a student to study wherever they want, and internationally with the Shanghai ranking!
Nice Premium: Finally, what assessment would you make of the academic year in Nice?
AR: It is difficult for me to make an assessment: the President of the University can best answer this question; however, the year has been excellent academically since the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis is one of the rare French universities to enter the Shanghai ranking, which proves our excellence!
