Companies at the heart of teaching

Learning with companies, not just at their premises

At Excelia Business School, companies do not wait until the final stretch of the course to come into play: they take part in the teaching itself, through classes, jointly run projects and the practical scenarios that punctuate every year, well before and well beyond the internship or work-study.

This presence changes the way you learn. Your course constantly alternates between the classroom and the organisations around it: each course thus finds a concrete extension, and several of them lead to a deliverable intended for a real organisation. This alternation changes the way a session is prepared just as much as the way its outcome is assessed. This grounding is also reflected in the location of the campuses: those in La Rochelle, Tours, Orléans and Paris-Cachan are set in active economic hubs that give you real-world ground to apply what you learn.

Projects carried out with real companies

In several of its programmes, Excelia Business School entrusts you with real issues, brought by partner companies: a client to satisfy, a deadline to meet, a presentation to prepare: so many conditions of a real mission. The format varies from one programme to another, but the logic stays the same: you respond to a real question, with real constraints.

• The consulting project places you as a consultant on an issue entrusted by a partner company: you analyse it, propose concrete solutions and present them within the set deadline, just as a consultancy firm would for its client
• The case studies produced by the school confront you with situations close to those faced by real executives, with no ready-made answer: the challenge is to learn to analyse, question and decide
• The student junior enterprise lets you respond to genuine company orders outside of class, as part of student societies: a way of managing a project, a budget and a client relationship even before you graduate

The programme and the point in the course when you experience this kind of project vary depending on which programme you choose: our brochure details, programme by programme, when these company projects take place.

Guest lecturers who come from business

Part of the teaching at Excelia Business School is delivered by working professionals who teach directly in class, bringing their current practice of the profession.

These guest lecturers notably include affiliate professors, professionals recognised in their field who work alongside the academic staff and coordinate projects, on subjects ranging from marketing to financial risk management. For a student aiming for a position of responsibility, this proximity is also direct access to the codes of an industry: how to build a case, argue a recommendation or respond to an objection is learned as much through contact with them as through contact with lecturer-researchers. It also concretely changes the content of a course, since the methods and reference points brought into the classroom are the ones these professionals use every day. The link continues, moreover, beyond class, when internships and work-study allow companies to meet students in real conditions, even before the end of their course, as part of the support towards employment offered throughout the programme.

Field missions

Two missions built into the course place students outside the walls of the school, within organisations that carry a general-interest or environmental project: an immersion different from an internship, which aims less at business performance than at direct exposure to societal issues. Like the projects carried out with companies, these missions are fully part of the academic course: they are supported and given recognition from start to finish.

Humacité© engages students in a mission serving associations, public institutions or local authorities, in France as abroad, while Climacité© applies the same logic to environmental issues, through contact with on-the-ground initiatives that respond to ecological transitions. The course of these two missions (duration, host organisations, preparation beforehand) is detailed on the page dedicated to the Humacité© and Climacité© missions, at Excelia Business School.