Engineering students return to ESTIA

Sitting on the bench seats in the main hall of the new ESTIA building, Clément, Mathieu and Anaïs are working side by side on their laptops. As second year students on the engineering course, they returned to college at the beginning of September and are delighted to be back in their engineering school after a year and a half at home. “Last year we were able to come into the building but starting the new academic year in person is really doing us a lot of good. Working like this is better because spending eight hours a day on your computer alone at home is not easy,” they all say.

The ESTIA Berri building was opened last March and complements the other two buildings of ESTIA (the French Institute of Advanced Industrial Technologies) located on the Izarbel technology park in Bidart. With an area of 4,500 m2 over three levels, this building offers three amphitheatres, eight classrooms, offices and meeting rooms, a cafeteria and a technical room of 200 m2. This room is equipped with machining equipment, laser cutters and 3D printers as well as a full range of tools, and enables students to design their own prototypes.

“Once again we can really experiment with our work in the technical room,” Laurie Toizat says happily; she is an engineering student and President of the Estiarropa association which is developing a project to reuse textiles. There is also tangible enthusiasm within the teaching body: “Everything is coming back into place naturally, both here and in the international programmes with 240 students in England and Spain, some fifty students setting off in January all over the world and we are also welcoming students from abroad to make up 15% of the total student numbers at Bidart,” reports Xavier Fisher, Director of International Development at ESTIA. “So only the barrier gestures are left to remind us of those times of social distancing and lockdown.”