Project monitoring in a graduate engineering school

Ecole Centrale de Lille (EC Lille: a French "grande ecole" or "graduate engineering school") trains engineers who follow a wide variety of scientific and technical courses. First, the students have to pass a highly competitive entrance exam, after two years of preparatory classes. They then spend three years in the school, training to become multidisciplinary engineers. An important component of the curriculum is based on a Project-Activity: on his arrival, the student undertakes a team project to which he will devote at least 300 hours during the first two years. The paper situates the Project-Activity in its context, specifies the goal that it represents in the training of students, and develops the system of monitoring set up in order to increase the success of such an activity.