Paris: Fall 2018 – Spring 2019

For both the Fall and Spring semesters of my junior year, I chose to study abroad in Paris, France. By spending the entire term abroad, I was able to experience a wider berth of the opportunities presented to me abroad, both int terms of academics as well as travel and cultural understanding.

Though the entire term was under the scope of the study abroad program CEA, I spent the first semester at the Cours de civilisation française de la Sorbonne (CCFS) [x], the foreign language institute of the famous Sorbonne university. By spending my first semester here, I intended to not only improve my French (particularly for my upcoming Spring internship), but also assimilate into a diverse environment of international students who all sought to learn and understand French language and culture. Thus, at CCFS I took both language courses (including phonetics, to improve pronunciation) as well as courses focused on literature and the history of Paris. By beginning my stay abroad in this program, I was able to improve my language proficiency for daily life as well as interact with students from all over the world–including Brazil, Korea, Canada, China, and many other students from the United States–who were not just improving their language skills for university requirements, but also job prospects, citizenship, and so on.

In the Spring semester, I split my time between taking classes at CEA headquarters in the Marais and an internship that took my throughout the city. AT CEA, I furthered my global studies curriculum by taking another French language course as well as a class entitled Media and Democracy, in which the relationship between media biases and influence impacted political perception and action throughout the world. My internship with the NGO Kid’s Empowerment, which is discussed in depth elsewhere, expounded on my understanding on the legal situations of migrant children both in France as well as throughout the entire European Union.

Throughout both semesters I lived with fellow study abroad students in an apartment in the 14éme arrondissement. Though I did not live with French nationals, however, I regularly came into contact with both the apartment concierge as well as the surely neighbor who vehemently disliked several of my roommates. Despite the fact that I did not volunteer or seek a job in addition to my internship, I regularly interacted with the world around me by attempting to always speak French as I moved throughout the city and always pay attention to cultural nuances and new information.

In addition to this, I spent a wealth of time traveling both throughout France and throughout Europe. Much of this travel, I like to note, was done alone–as I often wanted to build my own confidence traveling and often felt as if I could learn and experience more by not falling into the trap of hiding behind American nuances as restricting myself to the company of fellow study abroad students. In France, I made my way to Honfleur, Metz, Rouen, Orléans, Annecy, Avignon, Dijon, Strasbourg, Reims, Arles, Aix-en-Provence, and Nice. Though I was not able to visit even the majority of regions in the country, I wanted to travel extensively within France in order to increase my understanding on regional differences and the cultural practices that prevailed throughout the country. Aside from the various stereotypes that each region held against others, I heard different dialects, tasted different foods, and saw different slivers of culture and history.

Outside of France, I managed to make my way to both Edinburgh, Scotland and London, England as a visit off of the continent. In addition, I made my way to Amsterdam; Bruges, Belgium; Berlin, Dresden, and the Black Forest in Germany; Vienna, Austria; Budapest, Hungary; and Florence, Sienna, Rome, and Naples in Italy. Thus, not only was I able to reach out beyond what was slowly becoming comfortable in France, but also learn and travel to new places very different from what I was accustomed to (as well as seek out potential ideas for Grad school!).

Overall, the time I spent abroad opened me to new ideas and understandings previously absent from my life. Seeing the different ways in which politics, law, society, art, literature, language and so on manifested in different ways changed the ways I understood how they manifested within my own life and culture. The diversity and openness of my experiences allowed me to see issues within the context of global studies outside of the context of my own culture, and instead consider the ideas and outlooks of societies, countries, and lager interlocking networks of culture and innovation that precludes the direction of international studies.