Students Opinion
A transparent academic overview written by current students outlining pros, cons, and honest guidelines for prospective candidates.
Strengths & Opportunities
- The best thing about this school is the field itself—a highly interesting and critical field for the future that uniquely combines software and hardware engineering.
- A wonderful, encouraging environment that pushes you forward to cross your limits, learn, and create more.
- Highly active student clubs fostering a collaborative peer-learning environment.
- Strong support and guidance for turning student projects into real startups through the school incubator.
- Cutting-edge specialization with high future job prospects globally.
- Small student groups — allows direct access to professors and personalized mentoring.
- Exclusive benefits and modern facilities provided to all Sidi Abdellah Pole students.
Challenges & Considerations
- The school is newly established, meaning some administrative processes are still evolving.
- Some courses might not be fully clear from the professor, requiring self-study and independent resource gathering. Fortunately, since the curriculum is in English, world-class resources (like MIT OpenCourseWare, popular YouTube tutorials, etc.) are widely available.
- You might encounter extremely difficult modules during the year where the entire promotion gets low marks, but your focus should simply be on avoiding the failing grade.
- Not all specialized laboratory materials and equipment needed for the tracks are fully available yet, but the school administration has promised to make them available soon (by next year).
- Students living far from Algiers must remain in the residence for long stretches of time. This can be personally challenging—especially during Ramadan due to distance from family and resto food quality—but achieving big goals requires sacrifices.
Who should choose NHSAST?
Candidates who have a strong intrinsic passion for computer science, robotics, hardware prototyping, or furthermore, love to see their work and innovations interacting with the physical world to perform physical actions, and are prepared for a rigorous academic environment.
Who should consider other options?
Students who dislike dealing with software (programming/coding), students who dislike working with physical hardware, students who prefer shorter study hours, or aren't ready for the study challenges.
Final Insider Student Advice
Your choice should stem from authentic technical interest. Autonomous systems engineering is the framework of the next technological transition. While the school is young and maturing, the state-of-the-art labs, excellent student initiatives, and peer-to-peer engineering culture make it a prime launching pad for dedicated students.
You may feel like you're not much into a field, but sometimes you just need to discover more about it and get your hands dirty. Therefore, you must search well, explore deeply, ask questions, and even try building some projects before choosing your future path. Once you decide, you need to work hard, make sacrifices, and do your absolute best to excel in your field. As the poet Ahmed Shawqi said:
وَمَا نَيْلُ المَطَالِبِ بِالتَّمَنِّي
وَلَكِن تُؤْخَذُ الدُّنْيَا غِلَابَا
وَمَا اسْتَعْصَى عَلَى قَوْمٍ مَنَالٌ
إِذَا الإِقْدَامُ كَانَ لَهُمْ رِكَابَا