Small presentation
My name is bienfait alexandre and I’m currently between MA1 and MA2 of my engineering degree. last year I started my master’s degree in computer science with an option in computational intelligence.
I knew that i wanted to do an internship for a long time as I really wanted to have a first real experience as an computer science engineer. I felt that the potential experience of an internship could be way more interesting than 2 courses at the university.
Research of an internship
I started looking at companies to do my placement in Q1 of my MA1, but without finding any real opportunities or that I was interested in. I knew that the job fair organized by the Ecole Polytechnique de Bruxelles would bring a lot of interesting solution.
My first choices was to work in the Space industry, and that’s why i got really excited when i talked with someone from Space Application who was interested in my profil. However, although I kept in touch with him, I never managed to get a reply from him, the company or even his colleague.
How i got into the internship
At the Job Fair I spoke to a number of companies, including IBA. When I first heard about IBA, I was immediately drawn to the idea of working on something as impactful as proton therapy. The technology is fascinating, and I found it impressive to work in a company at the cutting edge of technology in its field.
Luckily, I know someone who works there and as soon as I sent him my CV and asked if he knew of any internship opportunities, I got an email from someone inside the company asking if I was available for an interview.
The interview
The Interview took place at IBA directly with Gregory Deschamps who’s in charge of the Beam development team and with Adrien Faucon who will be my supervisor for the whole internship.
This was my first interview ever and i had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know what type of question they were going to ask neither how far they would test my knowledge.
What I found hardest was answering the question, “Introduce yourself and tell us about your background”. It’s pretty hard to make a clear, concise presentation that doesn’t get bogged down in explaining details, and in which you manage to sell yourself by giving the qualities that could be required for the job.
But passing that stressful part, they start asking questions about my background and all the project that i have done during my past study years. They were really interested in the projects I’d done during my years as a student. They wanted to know more not only about the technical side but also about the project management/team management side. That’s were i fully understand the importance of course like INFO-F307 (Génie logiciel et Gestion de projet) whose main aim was to teach us how to code in the workplace.
During the rest of the interview, they presented the Goals of the internship and how I was going to fit in with the team.
What do i expect from the internship
I chose IBA because I wanted to work for a company at the forefront of its field, particularly in the medical sector, where high standards and exemplary quality are paramount. I saw this environment as an opportunity to elevate my own expectations for my work, gain valuable experience in software development, and ultimately learn to produce ‘clean’ and well-structured code by the end of this internship.
I also expect this internship to help me adapt to corporate life and understand workplace dynamics, even if they are specific to IBA.