Your opinion on SUPINFO

I agree that it is unacceptable not to be paid for work done.
It seems to me that this payment issue only occurred during the 2008/2009 year (problems with investors and partners who changed their policies, I think due to the crisis).
In any case, the new year 2009/2010 signals a number of developments/changes (positive ones, we are already seeing the effects on our campus), and we have had internal communications.

I just hope that your situation will be resolved quickly. :(

Hmmm... I admit that knowing the situation will not happen again in 2009/2010 doesn’t bring me much comfort; in fact, I even have some doubts about it.
I also occasionally teach classes at engineering schools or in Master's programs at the university; I have always been paid, even if it's generally 90 to 120 days later.
The regional director of Supinfo confessed to me his "shame" concerning such a situation but admits to being powerless to fix it. It is clear that even if I obtain this payment, it is out of the question for me to work for Supinfo again, and I have obviously spread the information to my colleagues and "Freelance" trainer friends....

Simply because investors have arrived and they are the ones managing the campuses (by "zone")

Apparently, the issue came from HSBC which had agreements with Supinfo (notably to lower tuition fees). The crisis went through there, the Madoff affair, and so HSBC blocked the floodgates.

Result: new investors, and no more exclusive partnership with HSBC! Apparently, it would be a sort of franchise, which would allow the different campuses more freedom (creation of student associations outside of SCO, junior enterprises, etc.).

The SCT is over (well, it's changing), return of teachers or certified trainers, etc. etc. etc.

Hello everyone,

First of all, I would like to indicate that I am in my fourth year at Supinfo Montpellier, that I come

from a computer science IUT and that I have obtained all my credits, despite a

turbulent year. I will therefore try to argue impartially, unlike almost

all the participants in this discussion, about the pros and cons of being at Supinfo.

Just like all the students describe, the school year 2008-2009 was among the

darkest for the school.

First of all, iCoach was launched in December 2008 and almost gave everyone

the first semester; my average during the exams was around 19.90/20. However, it is

important to remember that students were outraged by this platform and as soon as it was

used for the end-of-year exams, the results suffered:

Global average in ADO.NET: 3 (I got 3.5) and global average in Mac OS X Server: 2.5

(I got 2). All out of 20, needless to say these are miserable grades, but they

represent the state of mind of a majority of students, who after the first semester, relieved themselves

of a burden by relying solely on iCoach, have an explanation: In these

two subjects, it was student-trainers who wrote the quizzes. Be careful, still with the

meaning of this sentence: This represents 20% of the subjects taught.

So, is it really that easy to use SCT to write these quizzes rather than finding

real questions to make a true assessment of the level? Once again

it depends on the case: I will explain it simply by describing the operation of the

SGES software which is actually just a means to centralize all student papers on

the same server (a more "green" approach than at university for once) and thus save

precious time on grading. Argument in defense of SGES: The fact of taking

exams on software does not hinder the sustainability of the assessment because everything is done

to prevent cheating. On this point, SGES is far more advanced than iCoach and has a

certain maturity. So in form, those who argue against have mistaken the debate,

but regarding the substance, that's another story! The questions have between 4 and

6 answers, wrong answers deduct points, correct ones add, and not answering has no negative effect. There are always 40 questions to be

answered in an average of 1h30. And this is really where the substance is questionable: Some

"simple" subjects like English or management only take 20 minutes to cover

whereas the "sponsored" subjects like ADO.NET or Mac OS X Server, for example, were true

"death traps." These subjects have "laboratories," communities

of students passionate and specialized in a particular technology. In fact, by letting these

"geeks" establish the quizzes, Supinfo took a risk. I will conclude by justifying the

very low averages with two simple examples (I will remain vague as I do not remember

the wording of the questions myself): Firstly, in .NET, many questions had no

less than 12 potential answers with 7 correct answers. I remind you of the principle of

SGES: Wrong answer = Points deducted. Then in Mac, one question was asked:

"What is the wallpaper during the 3rd step of the Xsan installation?". To

conclude: These subjects were insurmountable for most who, as everyone says, must keep in memory a heavy and very technical program in less than 2 days to be

assessed 3 months later on trick questions ...

We need to stop saying that all professors are just students: In artificial

intelligence, we had an extraordinary case in Montpellier: Our trainer (not from

Supinfo since we are in the provinces) stopped teaching as soon as she was not paid,

the matter was not followed from the moment she stopped coming to classes, so I cannot

tell you if she got justice. Supinfo did everything to ensure that we could still have classes: Replaced at the last minute by the referring professor in artificial

intelligence at Supinfo Paris, we ultimately had better quality classes with him, while his predecessor had less pedagogy than the worst of the student

trainers.

Then comes the status of the BDE of each campus: The SCO (Supinfo Community) is run by

the parent company in Paris. Each campus must therefore elect a committee of voluntary students to

create greater cohesion among students: In theory, however, deprived of all common funding, the BDEs are responsible for the expenses they generate. And practice has shown that

several BDEs have remained organizing the life of the school among themselves and opposed to the needs

collectively. Worse, the traditional integration parties have justified for some a

return to hazing. I will not name any campuses where these cases have been seen, but in

Montpellier none of that happened: The organized evenings were good-natured, and our

BDE also worked to organize various activities which truly brought the

students together. It thus depends too much on the motivations of the BDEs who create their own

association alongside Supinfo to manage a treasury unrelated to

Supinfo. In fact, in Montpellier several initiatives were taken by the president of the BDE

which were acknowledged by the higher echelons of the administration (lipdub, community site

for the Montpellier campus, ...). Some will say that this administration exploits its

students relying on their merit. Personally, I noticed that very few students

had realized that Supinfo managed to get through the crisis without making its

students lose strong partnerships (by creating new ones, e.g., VMware), encouraging

their involvement in school life and in more

personal projects. The crisis could have caused greater damage.

...But the crisis is not everything: It is clear that some innovative concepts of the school

have made the administration "limp" which was already known for its slowness and its immobility

in the face of the scale of the international network. Mr. Alick MOURIESSE has taken over the school since 1999, and

keeps bringing new things to his school. I do not know if our president (some would call him a guru) is publicly recognized, but judging his work solely on his failures

and on his personal life does not seem very "fairplay" ...

Now that we have criticized, supported certain arguments, it is necessary to take

a step back as some people call us "victims of fraud."

1 - Among serious students, former ones whose careers are launched and overwhelmed administration,

none will come to waste their time trying to explain how the school is not

a scam, for it is evident that it is not: I do not say that there is an impeccable

management of accounts, but using the registration money to reimburse expenses is not a pyramid scheme as has been said. This subject was created and set up by opponents of Supinfo, and therefore we must put things into perspective regarding all the statements made. For all the low blows, I respond: It is not impossible that Mr. Alick MOURIESSE has

other incomes than those from the school and its satellites. Jealousy should not legitimize

the virulence of certain statements.

2 - Let's continue to take a step back and see what is happening elsewhere: Other schools

built on a model similar to that of Supinfo, or whose vocation is higher education in computer science, adopt these same concepts that make Supinfo an innovative school: Specialized laboratories by technology, student-(specialist)/(apprentice-)trainer, and

I could go on as there are already enough. I also believe that Supinfo is cheaper than those who play in this field (average €1k) but it is obvious that this represents a considerable amount for a student and his family.

3 - Let's broaden our scope even further and, this time, by making the same mistake as the instigators of pseudo-studies on Supinfo: I worked with student-interns from different schools-universities. One day, one of the students at the university decided

to apply a modification directly on the production environment, without testing. It goes without saying, the production environment was destroyed. He justified that this way of doing things was what he had been taught. I would therefore be tempted to refuse all future collaboration with students from that same university. However, this is called generalization! It is therefore incredible for academics, moreover who claim to be more qualified than the SCTs they demolish while their pedagogy has been evaluated by a maximum of 5 people, to hear "I will not trust a student coming from Supinfo." This borders on discrimination. And when we read things like "They are idiots to pay €5k per...