Academic advisor: Nona NADERI

Master 1 – Scientific Exploration

During your 1st year, you will start being exposed to research and development (R&D):

1. TER (travail d’étude et de recherche) is a research training supervised by a member of the master’s teaching team (or a researcher/teacher from another institution). This UE can be replaced by a "collective TER" consisting of the participation in a challenge (prepared by other M1 students).

2. Internship: an internship, either in a public research lab or a private company, to expose you to R&D in a different work environment. Students who do not succeed in finding an internship can instead register for a seminar or a summer school — école thématique — but we strongly recommend finding an internship.

You must do BOTH a TER + an internship.

Although they are marked as belonging to different semesters, they can both be done whenever you like, as long as they are completed by the end of June. 

TER (Research Training)

• 1/2 day per week for 4 months or 1 day per week for 2 months (64 hours of work, 8 days of work full time)

• Graded by the TER supervisor

• 5 ECTS

Some subjects can be taken by a group of students. This work can take the form of a review of the state of the art on a given scientific subject and/or the implementation of state-of-the-art models. If it is outside Université Paris-Saclay labs, please check with us first.

It is expected that you spend half a day to a day per week in the lab for 2 to 4 months. The work is usually not financially compensated. There’s no need for any internship contract to be signed unless it is taking place outside of Université Paris-Saclay or if you are financially compensated.

AI Challenge

As a TER, you can also elect to start preparing the datasets for the class "Creation of an AI challenge" during periods T1 or T2 (the class itself takes place in period T3). This is particularly recommended if you choose a challenge that is difficult to implement or requires time to prepare the data. Finally, you can also elect to solve one of the AI mini-challenges created by your classmates as a TER during period T4 (this is distinct from the challenge preparation TER). You will work in binômes (pairs of people).

In all cases, you will hand in a report of your work of 4-6 pages to the researchers who are supervising your work. They will then give you a grade. 

M1 internship

• At least 8 weeks full-time (or equivalent)

• No grade: PASS/NO PASS

• 5 ECTS

Regarding the internship, you have to find a public lab or a private company doing research in the fields of AI, machine learning, and data science. We will also share with you some proposals. If you want to do an internship in a public research lab, please check these advice, section "Searching and applying for an academic internship or PhD". Your internship has to last at least 8 weeks, full-time work or the equivalent of part-time work spread out over several months. If your internship lasts more than 2 months, you must receive, by law, a small gratification, see service-public.fr (about 600€ per month).

You need to contact us at least 3 MONTHS before you start your internship so we can approve it BECAUSE quite a few papers have to be signed. If you start before the signatures, you are not insured and the time already spent cannot be taken into account. You will not get a grade, but you will need a proof signed by the person in the lab who is in charge of you saying that you completed the internship successfully. You will have to hand us in a report of your work of 4-6 pages.

We can also validate an internship you completed during the summer.

In exchange for an internship, you can also follow a seminar or a summer school 

At least 3 days of full-time classes

• No grade: PASS/NO PASS

• 5 ECTS

We will make some proposals for schools, series, or seminars you can participate in, some of which are competitive to enter. Check with us if you want to choose one that has not been proposed by us. At the end, we expect you to send us a short report (about 2 pages) with links to the classes you followed and the projects you finished. Instead of a summer school, it is also possible to select seminars à la carte. You have to attend at least 6 seminars in our field (online or classroom) and write a paragraph for each seminar of what you learned in your own words, insisting on what it specifically brings to your fields of interest.

Timing

The TER takes place during the teaching period, most commonly in T4.

The internship MUST take place outside of the teaching period, starting in May.