Marine Giroud

What is your Curriculum?

I joined the DTRN Master in Montpellier in 2012 following a Bachelor’s degree in Geosciences that I obtained at the University Claude Bernard (in association with the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon). At that time I was passionate about Geosciences and especially by Natural Hazards…However … I do not have the soul of a researcher … So I joined the joint Curriculum “Risk Engineer” proposed by the Ecole des Mines d’Alès (EMA). The training at the EMA coupled with that provided by the Master allowed me to tackle the great majority of the fields related to natural hazards: the academic / geological aspects in Montpellier and management and administrative parts in Alès. In addition, my time at EMA has greatly expanded my fields of competences. Indeed, when I integrated the first year, I joined a general engineer’s curriculum, which includes studying fluid mechanics, material resistance, thermodynamics but also chemistry, management,… Eventhough at first it was a bit impressive, in the end is a huge added value that taught me adaptability and especially versatility!

What is your current employment?

Today I am Consultant Engineer. I work in a French consulting group called Abylsen. Our fields of expertise are industry and services. I am far from my first love, but the position, which I occupy now for several months, allows me to further expand my fields of knowledge and discover new tasks. To put it simply, I am hired at Abylsen and I am sent to other companies that need to reinforce their workforce for short missions (from 4 months to 1 year). It is a very rewarding and demanding work.

Which skills are required?

This job necessitates a great capacity of adaptation (in any case you will need that if you try the double curriculum with the EMA), versatility as missions can be very diverse … For example my first task was in the field of transports (an area I had never learned before leaving university) and now I am doing continuous improvement in that company! For the rest, I would say that we must have a good feeling to be able to interact with the teams that we join.

How has you Master’s degree prepared you to your current employment?

As you can read, I no longer practice a job related to Geosciences so from a technical point of view the training I received during the Master is no longer useful … On the other hand this master’s degree has helped me develop other skills that I use every day: field work, team spirit, expertise in GIS software and good writing and oral communication skills.