From Safi to SAP ( Part 3 )

in #sap6 years ago (edited)

Stay open, stay curious, everything is possible if you try the right way.

After passing the French and Moroccan exams, I was accepted to a number of schools. My best options for computer science were ENSIAS in Morocco and ENSEIRB-MATMECA in France.

I wanted to go to France. I just felt that my life will become normal if I only stay in Morocco. I wanted to experience something new.

The hard reality, my mother, main supporter, cannot afford to send me to France. I have applied for a scholarship and for a student loan as well in Morocco. one week before the deadline of the registration in the French school, I still didn’t get any answer.

People around us were more realistic, if I don’t have money, I shouldn’t go.

I owe it all to my mother

We only live once, if we have to do something special it’s now or never.

I can’t forget that summer. We were at the grandparents' house, it was super full of people, as usual, the whole family was there, my uncle from France, the family from Rabat, …

People were happy, but I wasn’t. Me, who smiles all the time, always telling jokes and making cool vibes.

My mother saw me, and then she came to me full of emotions, and braveness, she asked me: “do you really want to go to France?”.

I said “Hell yeah”

She said “can you get ready in three days?”, this requires a lot of paperwork, contacting the school, gathering more info, buying some winter clothes, suitcase, …

I said “yeah”.

She said “Then get ready. You are going.”

This conversation will stay in my mind forever.

I wasn’t sure how she will do it, she has been just brave and a huge risk taker. I asked about the money, she told me she will take a loan, the max she can from the bank, with the highest interest rate, and gives it to me. The amount she was talking about, was enough to support me for 3 months in France if I live on a budget, including the registration fee.

Imagine you are traveling to a new country to study, you are not used to traveling abroad, you only know the name of the school and that they are teaching computer science. Then, you have to get ready in three days.

I didn’t waste any second, I had one of the craziest three days, I barely slept 2 hours a day.

3 am, the last day before the registration deadline, I was still in Safi, in front of my computer trying to find flights. I was trying to book, my mother’s visa card didn’t work, suddenly the internet stopped as well. The last thing you could expect.

I was tired, stressed, … but somehow I didn’t feel lost. I knew that I want to go, and I felt I shouldn’t miss that opportunity. I didn’t care about the limits of my body, I was only focusing on one goal, getting inside that airplane.

I talked to my mother and we just decided to go to Marrakech and book the flight directly from the airport.

Finally, it really happened, and I made it to Bordeaux. :)

Arriving in Bordeaux

I arrived at midnight, super tired. I didn’t have a smartphone at that time ^^, I also didn’t know anyone in the city. But I knew my way: a bus, then a tram for 1h30 min. haha

A funny story happened, when I arrived at the bus, I had only 100 euros notes. The driver of the last bus didn’t want to accept them. And asked me to just go out find the change, but he doesn’t guarantee he will wait for me. It wasn’t funny after a tiring journey. I was trying to explain that there is no way for me to miss the last bus, I also knew that taxis are expensive in France, it would have cost me maybe 100 euros. I didn’t want to sleep in the airport either, actually, I wasn’t even sure if it was allowed there.

Finally, a Moroccan passenger stood up and paid me the fee 1,60 euros. :)

I arrived at my student dormitory, very late, the day after, I woke up, went to school. Registration is done ;)

That was the start of a life-changing experience.

ENSEIRB-MATMECA

Work first, party later.

First time in a French school, with French people. The first foreigners I am meeting. ^^

From the beginning, I had some funny stories. haha

In Morocco, we usually cheek-kiss 4 times between men, and in my city Safi, we usually don’t cheek-kiss girls.
Not knowing much about the French culture, I was doing what I grow up doing. haha, that was weird. French people cheek-kiss only with girls when they are friends, never between guys.

My student life started. The studies weren’t hard like it was in Prepa. The main challenge was to study with other people who have been focusing on computer science during the last two years while I and other ex Prepa classmates spent time learning about Chemistry, physics, … which we didn’t use anymore.

Prepa is cool if you want to keep an open view on many fields if you want to be a swiss knife army type of engineer.
Otherwise, if you know after high school that you are interested in a certain subject in particular and that you want to dive deep into it, then probably Prepa is a waste of time.

Prepa increases your chance to be more open, and schools, in general, increase your chance of becoming an expert on a certain subject, but they don’t guarantee this. It all depends on how motivated you are. Don’t blame it all on schools, they are most probably doing their job, you should do your homework as well.

Still living on a budget?

The money my mother gave me was enough for three months. We had a lot of pressure from a lot of people waiting to see how this risky experience will fail. For the only stupid reason of saying after “I told you so”, “ I told you it will fail”, and prove they were right. People, please.. ^^

After talking to some people in France, I figured out that it’s possible to work and study in parallel. That was my backup plan.

Miracles happen sometimes. After two months, I got the positive answers from Morocco. I could get both a scholarship and a Student loan. It was such a great news.

I took both of them. My small family consisting now of my mother and two brothers was so much in debt. My two brothers had also a lot of requirements and needed more money for their studies. My father was a little offline because we all supported our mother ^^

I took the responsibility of supporting both my brothers. I wanted them to get the best education possible.

I am super proud of them, they are both now studying electronic engineering and architecture in Europe. Unfortunately, without a scholarship.

Having money allowed me to do a lot of things. I could finally travel.

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Moving to ENSIMAG

Still, at ENSEIRB-MATMECA, computer science classes were a mixture of coding, algorithmics, and math. Obviously, I was ok with the coding classes compared to the rest of the class, but I handled better theory classes. I was the major in my class in Math 20/20.

After seeing some of my results, our Algorithmic teacher, Mr. Denis Lapoire, told me that there might be a possibility of transfer to ENSIMAG which is one of the greatest schools in Computer Science in France. Focusing more on Mathematics compared to my current engineering school. The funny thing is that there was no direct partnership between the two schools, it was just a freestyle application and trying to convince them that I have a nice profile.

Which I did at a certain point. I collected some recommendation letters and just applied, it worked.

I could never imagine that this scenario is possible when I joined ENSEIRB-MATMECA. For me, ENSIMAG was a school that I missed during my exams, and there was only one chance. I missed it. After that, I really started believing that “impossible” is just a word that people say to give you a quick answer. Most of the time no one will spend enough time and resources to fulfill your requests. If you want something, act as if it’s possible. “No”, only means you should try in a different way next time. Keep trying until you get it or you are not interested anymore.

After work, party.

The student life was not only about studying in France, it was also a lot of partying, meeting new people, games, fun, dating, …

Our school parties weren’t that attractive tho, as 90% percent were guys haha. I started my life studying in a male school and I was finishing my university studies in a male-dominated school. What did I do wrong in this life hh.

Outside of the school, there was a lot going on. Erasmus, private events, Meetups, professional events, and just a lot of random things.

I was always interested in doing new things, hanging out with different people. My network included not only French and Moroccan engineer classmates but also other nationalities (Chinese, Romanians, British, Koreans …) and other specialties or professions (Medicine, psychology, security agents, language, …)

I started to learn how to dance rock-and-roll and Kizomba for a while. I was a super fan of Latino clubs.

We also won once the best Erasmus picture in Bordeaux.

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Looking back at it, I think it was a wonderful thing to just connect with different people from different backgrounds. Today, my job is to build tools for people who are not necessarily engineers. They have their own way of thinking, their own vision of life and even different values.

Cheers from Berlin
Zak

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