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Why France is building a mega-university at Paris-Saclay to rival Silicon Valley

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Re: Why France is building a mega-university at Paris-Saclay to rival Silicon Valley

#11

Post by 0x4a42 »

gargarplex wrote: post #9
kbenzle wrote: post #2

Can anyone tell me why French institutions are so inept at translating their sites into English. It must be on purpose, a big f-u to non native French speakers.

The French are big with preserving their language. They once fined GE 600K€ for not translating some manuals into French.

Well, I'm not aware about this special case you are refering to, but this is a different problem than preserving the french language. What you are talking about is that when you are selling a product or a service in France, you must provide user manuals and support in the national language (french). So it's just a law which purpose is to guarantee that the customers will be able to have the best experience with what companies are selling them.

I guess that would not be possible in some countries like US where there's no official national language.

Re: Why France is building a mega-university at Paris-Saclay to rival Silicon Valley

#12

Post by agumonkey »

Red_Tarsius wrote: post #4

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system. – John Gall

Reminds me of Jussieu/UPMC, very large university, quite an architectural and administrative clusterfuck. Too large, unfinished, constant maintenance in progress.

Re: Why France is building a mega-university at Paris-Saclay to rival Silicon Valley

#14

Post by vidoc »

kbenzle wrote: post #2

Can anyone tell me why French institutions are so inept at translating their sites into English. It must be on purpose, a big f-u to non native French speakers.

Perhaps because France happens to have exactly one official language: French.

Re: Why France is building a mega-university at Paris-Saclay to rival Silicon Valley

#15

Post by bsaul »

I'm so fed up with this. I found a gardening analogie to the way our government handles the country development :

Normal people, whenever they want to grow plants, they start by looking at a fertile soil, with good sunny weather, and good water supplies around. Then they throw thousands of seeds all around and see what grows, and take care of it over time.

Now, in france it's different. We bring in 20000 liters of water in containers, buy 3 tons of fertilizers, and put one seed in the ground.

Re: Why France is building a mega-university at Paris-Saclay to rival Silicon Valley

#16

Post by x5n1 »

bsaul wrote: post #15

I'm so fed up with this. I found a gardening analogie to the way our government handles the country development : Normal people, whenever they want to grow plants, they start by looking at a fertile soil, with good sunny weather, and good water supplies around. Then they throw thousands of seeds all around and see what grows, and take care of it over time. Now, in france it's different. We bring in 20000 liters of wa…

The seeds are students or the startups, the water is billions of dollars or euros. That's what you need for Silicon Valley. Seasoned capitalists with money to burn. Government grants can not make up for the shark VCs that know what they are doing, or trying to do.

Re: Why France is building a mega-university at Paris-Saclay to rival Silicon Valley

#17

Post by vfrogger »

ryanobjc wrote: post #3

I feel like Saclay won't rival Silicon Valley any time soon. To me, part of the magic of silicon valley has little to do with Stanford (although the article references Harvard??) or the mega businesses, but the overall culture of northern california. For example, would Apple Computer have happened if Steve Jobs had never done LSD? How about BSD? Or many other highly creative and innovative systems. Maybe it's a coinc…

So you're saying this thing would have better results if it were built in Amsterdam :)

Re: Why France is building a mega-university at Paris-Saclay to rival Silicon Valley

#19

Post by yodsanklai »

kbenzle wrote: post #2

Can anyone tell me why French institutions are so inept at translating their sites into English. It must be on purpose, a big f-u to non native French speakers.

> It must be on purpose, a big f-u to non native French speakers.

I hate this stupid stereotype that French people don't want to learn/use English because they're too proud to do so. I've heard this countless times.

Truth is English isn't an easy language to master for native French speakers. It's similar for Italians or Spaniards for instance. And conversely, nobody expect americans or brits to be fluent in a foreign language.

As for institutions websites, I agree with you it's a shame they don't offer an English version more systematically. I just checked and it seems "impots.gouv.fr" (tax website) doesn't have an English translation (research and educational institutions always have one though).

I don't know why it is not the case. Maybe there's some truth in what you're saying. Some people may think it's not worth the cost since foreigners willing to live and work there should learn the language eventually. I disagree with this type of nationalistic ideology, but again, it's certainly not unique to France.

In any case, I think things are improving. For instance, more and more universities have English curricula nowadays.

Re: Why France is building a mega-university at Paris-Saclay to rival Silicon Valley

#20

Post by yodsanklai »

vonnik wrote: post #6

This entire article seems to misunderstand what Silicon Valley is, what universities are, and the difference between them. It's rather typical of the French statist approach, where change comes from top-down policy initiatives, rather than from bottom-up civic and economic activity. How bureaucrats does it take to teach a class on entrepreneurship? French universities, in my personal experience, are deeply underfunde…

> French universities, in my personal experience, are deeply underfunded (i.e. we can't afford chairs in all the classrooms)

I doubt ParisTech schools such as HEC or Polytechnique have chairs funding issues.

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