Looking for a Master's degree? Discover the Objectif Master programme

As part of its student success programs, Inalco is offering all those of you planning to pursue a Master's degree next year the opportunity to benefit from the Objectif Master scheme, to support you from February 26, 2024 - and until March 24, 2024, the date for submitting applications on the Mon master.

Master's degrees at Inalco are selective courses. To maximize your chances of admission, it's important that you design your project now and prepare your application carefully. To help you do this, various workshops are being organized from February 26 to early April 2023.

Objectif Master: a course to maximize your chances of admission

To maximize your chances of admission, prepare your application carefully, in particular by taking part in the eight workshops offered to help you design your project and build your application

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The Master's degree: a selective course

Whichever direction it takes, research or professional, the master's degree is not simply an extension of the bachelor's degree. It's a selective course that represents a real qualitative leap, just like the transition between secondary and higher education. To prepare for it, you need to design a project in consultation with the teacher likely to supervise your research or internship in M1.

Important elements of the application file

In addition to administrative documents (completed application form, diplomas and transcripts, etc.), your application must include a CV, a cover letter and your project. These three elements are the most important and should be given your full attention.
The ability to highlight your skills in a CV and write a convincing cover letter is not something you can improvise. We strongly recommend that you take Workshop 3 "Writing a CV and cover letter". The know-how you'll acquire in this workshop will be useful in many circumstances other than the preparation of your Master's application (internship search, job application, joining a research team, etc.).
When applying for a research-oriented Master's degree, your cover letter will necessarily include a passage in which you explain the personal, intellectual path that led you to choose the subject you are presenting in your project (Why did you like this subject, under what circumstances did the idea come to you, what book, film or event inspired you, etc.).

When applying for a research-oriented Master's degree, your cover letter will necessarily include a passage in which you explain the personal, intellectual path that led you to choose the subject you are presenting in your project (Why did you like this subject, under what circumstances did the idea come to you, what book, film or event inspired you, etc.).
When applying for a career-oriented Master's degree, your CV and cover letter should highlight your resources (personal qualities, knowledge, technical and behavioral skills, networks of contacts, formal and informal sources of information...)

In this way, you'll be able to make the most of your professional experience.

As part of a professionally-oriented Master's degree

How to define your professional project?

• your project specifies what you envisage as your future career path: the sector of activity and its specific features, the type of administration, company or organization (size, location, environment...), the dimension of the host organization (national, international, ...), professions, functions and missions..), the professions, functions and missions.

• It shows the match between your chosen training and your intended career path.

• It indicates the steps already taken to carry out the internship(s) you are considering. Finding an internship that fits in with your project can be a long and difficult task. Anticipate and prepare this search by taking part in Workshop 6 dedicated to internships.

Below is a document that will help you prepare your Master Pro application.

As part of a research-oriented Master's degree

What is a Master's project?

The project is the main element of your application. It should have the following characteristics:

• Formally, it should be a two- to three-page document (Times New Roman, 1.5 line spacing, 6000 signs maximum).

• This document must have a title that announces the subject, defines an area and/or sets chronological boundaries, and announces a line of questioning. At the application stage, this title is provisional. It may evolve as you refine the definition of your subject and the related issues. It must nevertheless be carefully thought through.

• The project must indicate the general theme addressed, possibly the chronological and/or spatial boundaries that delimit the subject, indicate the language concerned, specify the discipline in which the subject falls (linguistics, literature, history, anthropology, etc.

• The project must set out a questioning, which will later become your problematic. At this stage, it's a selection of questions from among those that emerge from your theme and that you'd like to ask. This selection is made in discussion with your teachers. Some questions may be good, but have already been dealt with many times, while others may be too complex, calling for corpora or terrains that are inaccessible in the context of M1 or even M2. Make sure that your project is feasible.

• The project must include an embryonic bibliography (be careful to respect the formatting), which will include around five titles of books and/or articles related to your subject. In one or two sentences, you will justify your choice of each of these titles.

• The project must also explain how you plan to carry out your research. In other words, what your sources will be and how you will exploit them from a methodological point of view. Depending on the discipline in which your subject falls, you'll need to establish a corpus of texts in the language of study (published or unpublished), or carry out fieldwork, i.e., build up your own sources through observation, interviews or other techniques. You must also begin to imagine how you will collect and process this corpus or field data (methodology).

Below is a document to help you prepare your Research Master application.