Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship with a length of 3 or 4 years are the most common ones. The certificate awarded after successfully completing a 3 or 4-year apprenticeship is called "Certificat Fédérale de Capacité" (), "Eidgenössisches Fähigkeitszeugnis" (EFZ) or "Attestato federale di capacità" (AFC).
École Polytechnique
Four years of intensive study are required for the engineering degree: one year of military service (for French nationals only) and scientific "common trunk" (eight months and four months, respectively), one year of multidisciplinary studies, and one year of specialized studies ("majors"). With the X2000 reform, a fourth year of studies, in another institution than Polytechnique, was introduced.
The curriculum begins with eight months of compulsory military service for students of French nationality. In the past, this service lasted 12 months and was compulsory for all French students; the suppression of the draft in France made this requirement of Polytechnique somewhat anachronistic, and the service was recast as a period of "human and military formation". All the French students spend one month together in La Courtine in a military training center. By the end of this month, they are assigned either to a civilian service or to the Army, Navy, Air Force or Gendarmerie. Students who are assigned to a military service complete a two-month military training in French officer schools such as Saint-Cyr or École Navale. Finally, they are spread out over a wide range of units for a five-month assignment to a French military unit (which can include, but is not limited to, infantry and artillery regiments, naval ships and air bases).
While French students stay under military status during their studies at Polytechnique, and participate in a variety of ceremonies and other military events, for example national ceremonies, such as those of Bastille Day or anniversaries of the armistices of the World Wars, they do not undergo military training per se after having completed their service in the first year. They receive at the end of the first year the full dress uniform, which comprises black trousers with a red stripe (a skirt for females), a coat with brass buttons and a belt, a small sword and a cocked hat (officially called a "bicorne"). Francophone foreign students do a civilian service. Civilian service can, for instance, consist of being an assistant in a high school in a disadvantaged French suburb.