The closest U.S.-equivalent I can think of are the national labs located around the United States, such as Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island. The work I did at the IRISA Lab was quite challenging, and it was extra difficult adding French into the mix. But I did my best!
The work culture at the lab was a bit different from that of Ginger Labs, too. One primary difference is how the teams took breaks. I think the French are more intentional about taking breaks. Each day, the team took a thirty minute coffee break around 10 a.m. to chat and get the day started. Overall, though, the typical, relaxed computer science culture was still present.
Now, I’m a student at ENS Rennes. The computer science department is special for a number of reasons at ENS Rennes, but I’d like to highlight one such reason. First-year masters students choose a research project that aligns with their interests and are matched with researchers at IRISA/Inria. Students work in the lab with their mentors once a week for an entire academic year. My project involves working with NVIDIA GPUs (the graphics processing units, or the part of the computer that helps it process images) and tinkering with CUDA code (CUDA is the language used to program such GPUs), and I’m working with Fernando Fernandes dos Santos and Angeliki Kritikakou. To top it all off, first-year masters students do an internship during the summer after their first year. I’ll be headed to Austin, Texas to work with Professor Işil Dillig. I'll have done so much thanks to ENS Rennes!
