# Hard work is everything The achievement I am the most proud of, as of now, is having been accepted into one of France's best engineering schools. However, I do not think it is because of the school's reputation itself; I believe my pride comes from the feeling that I *earned it through hard work*. Indeed, to get into my school, I spent two years in the infamous *classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles*, an intensive two-year curriculum during which high-school graduates prepare for the competitive exams for the French *grandes écoles*. This process is unique to France; no other country does anything even remotely similar, to my knowledge. In middle and high school, I had always managed to get good grades without studying much. That is why I was worried at the start of my first year of *prépa*: I knew that I was going to be mixed with other equally good students and that I was going to need to study myself to the bone not to get left behind. I feared I would not be able to pour the necessary amount of effort. It turns out that I was. In fact, I have never been more productive than during those two years. I owe it partially to a book[^1] I read during the summer holiday, which explained how *prépa* worked and gave advice on both the methodology and workflow a student should adopt to succeed. Basically, I decided from the beginning to aim for the moon, and to devote my whole mind and body to achieve my goal (see [[You do not get to do what a natural gets to do]]). For two years, almost without interruption, I studied from 6:30 to 22:30, six days per week, sometimes seven. I was able to focus for hours on difficult mathematics and physics problems, and it worked out. It did not go without friction, though. About halfway through my second year, I started wondering if it was not all meaningless. Why was I staying in a small room beating my brains out to solve a topology problem while most college students were partying out there? I still vividly remember an evening when I sincerely asked this question to my roommate, who awkwardly smiled in return and told me it would soon be over. Now that it is, I reminisce fondly about those two years. It might sound far-fetched, but I think of them as, I believe, an army veteran thinks of their training years. Indeed, within our class, we had a strong sense of camaraderie, and we were all studying hard for the same objective. Daniel Pink wrote[^2] that intrinsic motivation is driven by autonomy, mastery, and purpose. The environment of *prépa* was fertile ground for all those three components. Nothing is more satisfying than to work *of your own volition* on *complex* problems to achieve *an ambitious goal*. --- ## 📚 References [^1]: [‘Je Vais Vous Apprendre à Intégrer l’X’](https://www.integrerlx.fr/). Réussir sa Prépa Scientifique. [^2]: Pink, Daniel H. *Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us*. Reprint, Paperback ed, Riverhead Books, 2012.