Elaborating on 'For ELMEHDI CHOUKRI, quitting CPGE is a good idea'.

(2025 update, I made it 🤞)

For the past 3 years, my future academic orientation was a big concern of mine, as the first 2 years witnessed the process of getting my baccalaureate degree, then after getting it with a top 5 grade in my class, I was met with having to decide what college I’ll get to attend, options were quite limited even though my grade allowed me all the possibilities one could have. As some might not know, I’d like to clarify that I am a geeky computer science enthusiast who would rather spend most of his days at home playing video games, or coding, the latter being a hobby that I picked up in my 2nd year of high school.

After some online research and extensive questioning of my tutors and cousins I ended up filling my applications for colleges I wanted: ENSA, EST, and CPGE, hoping to get my hands on a computer engineering degree. Unfortunately, being a troubled exhausted kid who had just passed the most stressful 2 years of his life, I made some huge mistakes when filling my applications due to lack of concentration, some of which I’ll be elaborating on in further detail in the next paragraphs. Fast forward a few weeks, I ended up in CPGE, and whilst being there, for the last 9 months, I’ve been doing just fine, nothing spectacular, but nothing too mediocre, but, throughout the whole experience I’ve been constantly doubting my decision and hating my life as I just refuse to adapt to a system I see as not a good fit for me personally nor for my career interests. I’m now considering a change of paths, so the rest of this paper will be dedicated to me arguing for both, staying, and leaving for other options. Coming up, I will be attempting to answer the following questions: what led to the consideration of leaving? And what are some arguments for, and others against staying in CPGE?

I had a lot of questions regarding future orientation throughout my whole senior year, most of which were shut down by cousins and people I usually ask. “Focus on getting a good grade first”, they all said, yet, to this day I thoroughly believe that it was terrible advice. After getting the results for my baccalaureate exam I started applying to colleges, and when filling the options on the dedicated website I made the crucial mistake of confusing EST with ENSA, which led to messing up all of my plans, and so when the moment to confirm the decision came, I was left with choosing between CPGE and EST, the most rational decision seemed to just enroll in CPGE and go down the 2-year CPGE into ENSIAS path, as going to EST with a 16.50+ grade was just too much of a mental burden, parents concern and more importantly, societal judgment which I always took seriously.

For the last 9 months, I’ve been hard struggling with my courses as I constantly felt unmotivated and was barely able to find the will to study chemistry, physics, mathematics, industrial engineering, programming, translation, French, and English. the reason being that most of these subjects are ones that have little to nothing to do with what I want for a career, the thing is, it’s simply impossible to just slurp up the pain and go on with your life, as the process of acing the CNC entrance exam is one that demands 12 hours of intensely focused work each day, daily presence is a necessity in all classes, and the whole system is absolutely strict in all manners, making it so you have to perform at your max. I started the year ranking top 10 out of 34 in most subjects but 3 months in, I started falling into slumps where I just feel like doing nothing which led to getting hard anxiety attacks, these slumps would happen about 2 times every 3 months, leaving me with the thought that the second year is going to be a disaster as these declines of motivation would happen more frequently, leading to me crashing at the exam and having wasted 2 years of insane levels of focus and energy put into nothing but despair, and like so the idea came to mind. In the eyes of many, CPGE is a good idea, a lot of praise goes its way, some of it is reasonable of course, while most of it is not. Firstly, a lot of people keep preaching about how CPGE teaches you problem-solving skills and overall just strengthens your intellectual capabilities. Well, sorry to break it to you, but, that’s just not how it works, studying optic/thermodynamics/mechanics /electromagnetism/electro-kinetics/~13 modules of chemistry in 9 months, while also studying 5 other subjects is meaningless. You are not forcing your brain to solve problems using the knowledge you have, as acquiring a good understanding of these subjects demands time and deliberate attention, to keep up with classmates you’d have to only memorize common questions and practice the popular problems. If you’d ask anyone who’s left the CPGE about literally anything surrounding subjects they’d be completely clueless about it. Goes to show how it’s not learning the material is what you’re doing, you’re just memorizing it in a manner that devastates your brain, and in my opinion, hurts your problem-solving prowess. I would much rather have the time I’m spending in this system, and the passion and energy I have left, be put into something meaningful such as empowering the actual problem-solving skills I’d be needing as a computer science engineer.

It is often believed that schools you attend after CPGE are of prestige and value, ones that pump up your image in the eyes of the employer, thus, increasing your career prospects. This has a lot of truth to it, though not applicable to the field of computer science since the knowledge required for a CS engineering job isn’t being gate-kept from learners, examples can be seen in the thousands upon thousands of tutorials/courses on YouTube/Udemy/other websites regarding multiple branches of CS. One can learn whatever he pleases, so as long as he is motivated to do so. Therefore, the difference between 2 graduates looking for a job in the field, is only measured by skill, and not what degree one holds. None of this is fantasy or just some unreal out-of-the-field statements, as most HRs only demand a degree of any sort as a means of bypassing the automated filtering system, also, they tend to focus way more on interviewing the subjects and evaluating the skills they’re required to have.

When you finish your education in CPGE, you would have learned how to manage yourself in front of a crowd, how to explain ideas/chains of thought to a tutor or a colleague, how to talk to higher-ups, and how to never burst out your anger on anyone under any circumstance. This is a skill I am very glad to have built up throughout this year; furthermore, and as commonly preached, the system does teach you a lot about managing stress and time and resources well, because of how the system runs itself, an unorganized person completely crumbles. Moreover, you also learn how to take care of your health, your sleep, and your relationships while simultaneously having to deal with school assignments, etc. Limit-testing-wise, the system takes you to your wit's end, a scenario that, unfortunately, not many get lucky enough to experience.

To go from the normal high school regime to the CPGE regime, students have to adapt. You now have to study more often and with more focus … but most of what you have to adapt to is submitting to the dictatorship of the all-mighty “teachers”. These all-powerful beings run their classes unbothered with the opinions of the students, and so often they try to provoke scholars for no reason, leave alone their rigorous demand for insane/unhealthy work ethics. In addition, the system breeds toxic competition into the students, as each candidate competes with the top 5000 best students to pass one exam, in day to day school life, everybody pulls every trick up their sleeve to push down their classmates, especially when being a resident in the rooms provided by the school. Add all of that to the ways the brain gets altered and you get a completely dysfunctional human being both emotionally and intellectually, making it so they could profit from them as much as they please. Some people who would rather keep their mental health, and seek some sort of mentorship or extra tutoring to help themselves, the fees for such services rise to 4000MAD a month, which is a huge price considering you’d have to work for the exam in 10 months+ prior.

“But CPGE is the only option available”, not really though. At the end of the 2020/2021 season I will have applied to both ENSA/ENSAM, getting easily accepted through pre-selection I will have to pass an entrance exam that shouldn’t be a problem if I prepare well enough that is, of course. In addition, starting the 2021/2022 season I will be enrolling ENSA’s integrated preparatory studies curriculum which is just a CPGE curriculum on easy mode. That will garner me 50+ free hours in contrast to what I had in CPGE. Therefore, I will be able to do a lot of things, and as planned, these things will be the following; I will be using 50% of this time studying actual CS and programming skills that will help me consolidate my image as a good developer and simultaneously help me land freelance jobs, both granting me a respectable sum of money, and boosting up my CV. Furthermore, the other 50% will be allocated to another part-time job. Seeing the great amounts of time I’ve spent previously studying mathematics and physics, I will now be able to tutor people for cheap fees. While the ideas seem overblown, they to me, sound like a good business that can scale with the more experience I get. This option, makes sense to me, as I will also be taking care of my health and will be working towards the betterment of my skills in the CS field, while not wasting too much time on uncalled-for subjects.

In conclusion, I see that following the second option is irrevocably the right choice, as instead of spending money that I don’t have, I will be now making money to take care of myself and fund future plans of going to berlin to follow on with my career oversees, And instead of spending energy and potential in a nonsensical program that doesn’t suit my interests, I will be sharpening the programming skills that I will be needing in the future. In addition, I will now be able, thanks to the free time, to enroll in 1337 in the upcoming years, to help myself network more, and enhance my odds for landing my first job.