Door to IAU Main
I admit, I’ve been a little bit tempted to cheat and backdate some entries on this blog so it looks like I’ve been posting more regularly than I have been. Mais non, I won’t do that. But it is harder than I thought it would be, making time to post regularly, especially now with classes in full swing.
Speaking of classes! Let me tell you about my school and what I am taking this semester. IAU is an American university study abroad program, so it is not as though I am just taking classes straight up at a French university, surrounded by real live French students. Pro: I’m not overwhelmed by university-level French studies and expected to know everything about life here already like most the students who have lived in France all their lives. Con: It’s harder to meet actual French students. But four out of my five professors are actual-factual French men and women, and they do their best to expose us to the culture. And as I’ve written before, IAU has a working relationship with the French political science school next door, resulting in a handful of their students taking classes with us! I don’t have any of them in my classes, but I see them around, and now and then, they hold fun little culture-sharing sessions about French board games or French music, topics like those. Otherwise, the students here come from all across America, with a handful from other places, too, like Canada, England, and even China. There are just over a hundred of us in total, which gives it a cozy feel—in a way, almost like being back in high school again, where you at least recognize the faces of pretty much everyone who goes here. Not like big old Penn State!
Speaking of classes! Let me tell you about my school and what I am taking this semester. IAU is an American university study abroad program, so it is not as though I am just taking classes straight up at a French university, surrounded by real live French students. Pro: I’m not overwhelmed by university-level French studies and expected to know everything about life here already like most the students who have lived in France all their lives. Con: It’s harder to meet actual French students. But four out of my five professors are actual-factual French men and women, and they do their best to expose us to the culture. And as I’ve written before, IAU has a working relationship with the French political science school next door, resulting in a handful of their students taking classes with us! I don’t have any of them in my classes, but I see them around, and now and then, they hold fun little culture-sharing sessions about French board games or French music, topics like those. Otherwise, the students here come from all across America, with a handful from other places, too, like Canada, England, and even China. There are just over a hundred of us in total, which gives it a cozy feel—in a way, almost like being back in high school again, where you at least recognize the faces of pretty much everyone who goes here. Not like big old Penn State!