Study abroad: best experience of my life
Last semester I was given a unique opportunity, the prospect to study abroad in France for an entire semester. To tell you the truth, it couldn’t have come at a better time. I was having a tough semester, falling into the rut of monotony, but one day I stumbled upon a flyer. It was time for change, and this was a perfect opportunity. It was a program for Electrical and Computer Engineer majors. After going to the pre-departure meetings, I found out that another student from IIT, Erik Meade, would also be participating in the program.
The program was right for me from the start, I took classes that I would have taken the spring semester had I stayed at IIT, along with a “survival French” class. The classes were at a graduate college in Cergy, a Paris suburb, 35 minutes away from the city. When the day finally arrived to leave, I was anxious as ever—I had gotten everything ready from my passport to my visa. Upon arriving, our contacts were waiting, Professor Philippe Marc and his wife, Dr. Vanita Misquita, Director of Overseas Programs, who were both very helpful all semester long. I met up with them, and we waited for four other students arriving from the University of New York at Buffalo. Others arrived over the weekend, until all eight of us were there, including the final two students from the Colorado School of Mines.
The living arrangements made for a different experience than I would have ever experienced outside a college campus. I had been living in dorms, with cleaning services and meal preparation. All that went out the window in this low income housing and the cozy little “flat” I was in. Now, I had to do all the grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning. Everything. I shared the flat with a French student at another school, her name was Aviv. We had separate bedrooms, but that was it.
It was really an eye-opener, no one to cover for me if I forget to clean or go shopping, which was also a different saga in itself. I had to learn how to budget, since I had a sum of money that had to last the entire semester. The first time that it really hit me, was when we were in the grocery store, comparable to a Wal-mart Supercenter. Everything was in a foreign language, and all the prices were in a different currency. It forced me to use all that I had, trying not to look like a foreigner struggling as he went through his pocket translation book.
The graduate school that I was attending was called École Nationale Supérieure de l’Electronique et de ses Applications (ENSEA), or the Superior National school of the Electronics and of its Applications. The freshmen year programs are roughly equivalent to the US college junior. We had 5 different teachers, who had volunteered to take part in the program and teach in English. They were mostly fluent and strangely, the language barrier was not much of a problem inside of school. Most of the terms were technical so they were standardized, but when a challenge did come up, a short game of Pictionary or Charades cleared things quickly.
Our class schedule was something that none of us had ever seen, with classes different every day and three hour blocks with 20 minute breaks in the middle. There was even a four hour lab for our circuits class (we actually realized we needed all of those 220 minutes). It was not a rotating schedule, or anything that looked like it had a pattern, but apparently is quite normal in French colleges. We mastered it as much as we could, and tried not to be late for class. That’s something else different, the schedules, as mixed as they were, were very strict, and being late was not something easily tolerated.
The courses were all very tough, just like at IIT and we had our share of homework, since we were all taking 14-18 credits. In the start of the semester we had group study and homework sessions, we basically helped each other out with any problems we ran into. As the semester progressed, we broke away into smaller groups, not because of any problem but because of different paces. The exams were just as hard as they are here, and made up the majority of our grades. The grading system was very different, being on a scale of 20, where a 16 or 17 was the top of the class and 14 was average. This was an issue all semester because it was almost impossible to predict our own grades. All grades were also posted, for everyone to see, another standard that we had no idea about.
This trip was not all work and no play; we had two 15 day vacations, not to mention the three day weekends. I was able to travel all over Europe during my breaks, as I used Europe’s very cheap international travel. I was able to go to Madrid and Barcelona in Spain; Rome, Sicily, and Venice in Italy during my first trip, trying to enjoy the southern areas and warmer weather. During the second break I went capital hopping. I took a ferry to London, and another to Dublin. I flew to Amsterdam in Holland, and then took a bus to Berlin, and my last stop was in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. On the long weekends I headed to different parts of France. I saw the vineyards of Bordeaux and the gardens of Versailles. And a few times a month I would take the train down to Paris and spend the day wondering around the City of Love.
Those five months in Europe will probably be the highlight of my college career, an experience I will never forget. It was my first time ever leaving the country and something I hope to repeat. It put me in uncomfortable positions and made me get through them. I can now say that I know how it feels to be on the other side of the language barrier, as many of you are here at IIT. Granted, there were problems there that others and I ran into, and I mean problems, but they only made the short time more rewarding. I could not recommend this program or any other study abroad program more.
The last thing that I want to do is to mention all the resources that allowed me to participate in this program, first to thank them, second so that others can take advantage of them. First and foremost is the international office at IIT. Located on the fourth floor of the main building, they can help you with just about everything, or in the rare case, show you who else can help. Their website is www.ic.iit.edu. Second, is the Gilman Scholarship program, a federal scholarship program that awarded me a significant scholarship that really helped make this trip get off the ground, literally. The scholarship’s website is www.iie.org/gilman. Lastly are the Alumni Association and the SOAR program, which also awarded me a scholarship, allowing me to go on this trip. The website for the program is http://www.iit.edu/alumni/groups/soar/.
If you have any questions about my trip or studying abroad, feel free to email me at sludden@iit.edu. I also have a blog and many photo albums on Facebook, and both can be accessed at shanonssemesterabroad.com. There is also a study abroad interest form that the international office uses, if interested, please fill one out at this website http://studyabroad.iit.edu/SA_Interest_Inventory.php
