The Cluses boarding school decision

When I was a little boy, my transition from 5th to 6th grade and beyond, wasn’t an easy one. After a rather few good years at my all-boys, elementary school, I went to what was called in France a middle school with a much looser structure, pretty mediocre teachers, made worse by a construction site setting, as the school was completely rebuilt to accommodate a growing number of students. I stayed in that establishment until the end of 8th grade.

During the three years I was there, I couldn’t concentrate, do my homework as I had absolutely no interest and no motivation to learn. The only thing I could do fairly well was to be the class clown, but that was about it. I simply couldn’t find my footing in that place. I felt ambushed between my terrible grades, my lack of aspirations and no apparent options.

So, one day, towards the end of the school year, as I was in sitting in the school-bus, on the way home at the end of the day, the kid next to me, who was no other than Marcel, the son of my elementary class teacher, told me he was going to register for the entry exam to l’École Nationale d’Horlogerie (the national watchmaking school), a very strict boarding school, a sort of technical establishment, located in the town of Cluses, no too far from home, but quite difficult to access.

I thought this sounded new, cool, totally unknown, and I thought I should do the same. A few days later, with the registration deadline looming, still not realizing what that school would be about, I mailed my application.

I showed up at the exam, passed it, while my buddy Marcel failed. Unbeknownst to me, that totally spur-of-the-moment decision would have some pretty intense consequences onto my future. Not only would I do much better in that school, if not watchmaking, learn about personal structure and discipline, plus meet some classmates that were going to significantly influence my future.

To that very day, it’s hard to imagine what the alternative to that totally random choice could have been!