Invited to Polytechnique. No diploma required.

In 2022, one Saturday morning, I found myself on the campus of École polytechnique, in Palaiseau, standing in front of a room full of high schoolers. I was working as a UX Writer at the time. I was there to talk about my career as part of the Entretiens de l'Excellence, a program where professionals come to share their profession with students.

I had no idea what I was doing there.

Clara-Louise, a friend of a friend, worked for the program. They had a gap to fill one year, she suggested I come. According to her, my background was interesting. I found it absurd. Me, talking about excellence. On the campus of Polytechnique. The school that produces the country's most brilliant engineers. Me, who went to 3 middle schools. Me, who skipped math in senior year like it was a sport.

I said yes. Not for the prestige. Because if someone in that room looked anything like I did at 16, they might as well know it's not over.

50 euros and "good luck"

After high school, I moved to Toulouse. Law school. I went three times. The rest was alcohol, drugs, and nothing. The kind of period you don't put on a resume but that exists in more people's stories than anyone admits.

I got caught up. I ended up on construction sites with my father, building wooden houses in south-west France. And then things went wrong with him too. One day he drove me to the train station, handed me 50 euros, and said "good luck."

I ended up at a friend's place in Toulouse. The employment office blocked my unemployment file over some paperwork I couldn't provide. No money, estranged from my parents, too proud to come back. I spent a year like that. One couch to the next at friends' places. One night, drunk, I shaved my head. I looked like a Trainspotting extra. No recruiter would see me.

I experienced poverty in the most direct way possible. By being poor.

The stuff you don't put on LinkedIn

During that year, I needed to eat. Selling ice cream from a cargo bike. Handing out flyers for the Salon du Chocolat, paid next to nothing. Loading trucks at 6am as a warehouse hand.

That's exactly what gives you hunger. Not "I'm hungry for success" like in a motivational post. Real hunger. The kind that makes you take any job because you don't have a choice.

After a year, at Christmas, I came back to my mother's. She agreed to take me back on her conditions: do the cleaning, the cooking, and follow up with the local employment agency. I put money on the table to prove I was serious. And I went back to school.

One gut feeling after another

I went back to school. Political communication in Lille, 9 hours from home. Fresh start, new city, nobody. Politics disgusted me fast. Too much circus, not enough substance.

So I wanted to join the army. Military intelligence. And then I signed up for ad school because I'd seen 99 Francs. The guy gives cocaine to his hamster and I thought it looked like a cool profession. That's how I pick my careers. A movie, a gut feeling, and we'll see.

Advertising stuck. Agencies, freelance, briefs on repeat. And then one day I spotted something nobody was doing yet in France: UX Writing. Writing the words inside interfaces. The buttons, the user flows, the error messages. Everything people read on a screen without knowing someone chose each word. I got in when there were no training programs, no job descriptions, no community. Leroy Merlin, BforBank, major corporations.

That's where I was when Clara-Louise suggested Polytechnique. That's the whole mess she found interesting. Not the last line on the CV. Everything else.

The looks that changed

When you show up in front of a room of high schoolers at something called "the Interviews of Excellence," on the campus of Polytechnique, the kids eye you with suspicion. They see a guy in a nice shirt who looks like he's done well for himself. Another privileged kid who made it, that's what you think when you see me.

I didn't give a motivational speech. I told them what I just told you. The middle schools, Toulouse, the couch, the ice cream, the Salon du Chocolat.

And then the looks changed.

The guy in front of them wasn't a LinkedIn profile anymore. He was someone who'd lived through stuff they recognized. We went from strangers to brotherhood. The real kind. Clara-Louise was right. I had things in common with those kids. Not the degree, not the network, not the clean trajectory. The real things in common. The ones people don't usually share on stage.

Excellence isn't a diploma. It's not a school. It's when you do something well, you do it fully, and the result speaks for you. Whether you came from Polytechnique or a construction site in south-west France.