Hello, my name is Isabelle Chaye Mauvarin,
and I am currently Head of a Test Division at
RENAULT Automobiles, this
including acoustic tests, of course
but also other areas, like crash test,
or fuel consumption vs performance tests
and fuel flow parameters,
we have, for these subjects, various test rigs.
So you start your career in a mainly technical role
and as an engineer you also discover
the way a company operates
what the technical challenges are,
it enables us to begin learning
about what a car is all about,
understanding automobiles
and parts ; technically speaking
itis very important
to anchor one's class knowledge in something
in a real, technically difficult, area
then you can move on
with the technoical background
to managing a team,
generally in the same area
of your previously acquired skills
since we must transmit our knowledge
and our know-how,
we can engage all our energy
multiply tenfold our forces and possibilities
with the support of a team
and still remain active in a specialty field.
We can choose to evolve
staring with a technical path
such as that of acoustician
and change to another path,
another technical area
so we can - how shall I put it? -
have different segments in one's career path
You do not need to stay a manager
youdo nit ned to stay in a same specialty field
what you did is build a personal path
brick by brick,
step by step
At UTC your training relies on a tripod
something with three pillars
or three legs, as you wish :
one is th strong, well based technical skills
that you acquire here,
then come the inter-personal skills,
languages, etc, what used to be called
humanities
which are also very important
because the technical skils are is not enough...
And the 3rd pillar or leg is to
know how to sort things out smartly
which is the definition of "ingenious"
in the pragmatic rendering
and that is something you learn at UTC
and even to develop our ingeniosity.
OK so the UTC AZVI grad has a rich horizon ahead
because everything that lives, vibrates,
and vice versa, life is a vibration
so necessarily there are lots of phenomena
physical phenomena that relate to vibrations
and noise abatement will always be a goal,
and likewise the damage caused
by vibrations
and how to use them intelligently
because "sound" is not just
noise reduction
we might even want to hear and listen to sounds,
so, in short, acousticians have lots of work
and probably will never stop.
And, of course, the automobile sector
if you are employed there
is an industrial sector
at the cutting edge of these technologies
in both the 20th and 21st Centuries
and we talk about multimedia,
the Internet, etc, so cars tend to
be played down a bit
but nonethless the car business
- when you think globally -
there are plenty of people ,
indeed, counties that do not have access
to this "magic" product, the car
which enables and enhances your mobility
and so many who aspire
to have a mobility means
so the coming big changes will lie in
technologies that enable and enhance mobility
mobility is a "must have" in life.
And as soon as you have mobility you have vibrations,
and with vibrations comes noise,
so, plenty of work out there ahead
for acousticians.
For today's students
I would say, first, acquire the technicalities
in some domain or other
that pleases them and that is the starting point
and they then enrich this base
and not jump steps
and afterwards, if they want to move elsewhere
and add bricks to bricks
at least the base is solid
so acquire somthing
with which we are happy,
develop it in a company environment
after which, all the roads ahead will be "wide open"