– International Exchange report –

ES428A1

Journal:

Reflection on year abroad

Exchange year in Grenoble

2004 - 2005

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Fourth year student

Erasmus 2004 – 2005…

Maybe it should all start when I left the UK…But that’s not really my Erasmus year so let’s just recap what happened!

I left the UK thinking “Why on earth am I leaving all of this?? I’m quite happy here… Why do I need to leave this to go back to France?? Yes, fair enough France is my home country and I haven’t lived there for 7 years but there is no one waiting for me to be there to party anymore…” but there was no way back and so I went.

Before going to Grenoble, I had a quite heavy operation on my feet which should have been recovered from in September. But as a matter of fact, September was arriving and one of my feet was not healing properly which was becoming a bit of a concern for the nurse who was coming to do my bandages.

The situation was not catastrophic and although this was a handicap as I could not walk as much and could only wear sandals, it was compensated by the fact that I was on known grounds. Being French meant that my parents could help me move in, that I had a lot of the administration sorted out already and that I could communicate more readily in case of problems!!

September – “Discovering my new life”

I arrived in Grenoble with my parents on the 2nd of September from Toulouse, where I come from. It’s a region of France where the landscape is almost flat and yellow due to the dry climate. We drove via Auvergne, the region of old volcanoes, green hills and, that day, superb weather. Getting to Grenoble with its mountains slowly imposing themselves had a powerful effect on me. It’s very impressive at first; I felt as if I could dominate everything from the top along with being very tiny in the middle of those sometimes daunting shapes.

The start of term and all the actions that go with it went smoothly.

The highlight of this month was meeting the people in my halls. I guess that’s where my real Erasmus year all started: not when I moved in but when I met the people that were going to share my life for the next ten months:

  • There was the girl that was there on my first day of uni, when you arescared to speak to anyone. She later told me that she saw me from far andthought that I looked cool but she couldn’t dare speaking to me.
  • The Spanish girl. She lived on my floor along with manyother people. She had a boyfriend, was going to have a house with himaround Christmas time, she loved cider and parties. She was a really goodcook for tortillas!!!
  • The Portuguese girl; she loved gossip and even moreparties and Brazilian guys. She always said that I didn’t go out enough…
  • The American girl was on my floor too. She got sooo many things stolenfrom her but had such a good spirit!!! She was going out with one of theguys from Holland. He was the only vegetarian I met. Life wasn’t too hardfor him; he ate cheese and drank red wine. He lived in a house near theriver and had a really nice garden.
  • The two Italian guys who cooked pasta for you whenever you wanted. I ate pasta soooo many times!!! Ok, it was different recipes but still twice a day is a bit much!
  • The German/ Scottish girl drank a lot of wine and learnt all the coolFrench useless expressions!!!!

Getting to know each other was no problem as everyone is in the same boat and as eager to make friends as I was.

I started going to lectures, met the students there. They were mainly French and most of them knew each other already. Being French made my task of infiltrating the community easier! There was also a weekend away organised by the faculty during the first weekend of September to get to know everyone:

  • The two guys that were always doing the labs together and that always seemed to finish early… very impressive at first!
  • The three guys that looked cool and yet approachable after a few months…
  • The guys with the long hair that used to agree to be with me in labs even though I was not getting the idea at all. He was at all the parties too and trying to get me in there as well!!
  • The older guy that used to always turn his tongue seven times in his mouth before asking a question
  • The crew from second year that were taking the piss out of me in lectures because I wasn’t there all the time or because I was searching for my words… they didn’t mean to be harsh…
  • The guy from second year that agreed to be my buddy and gave good tips to get by through out the year
  • The first year guy that agreed to lend me his notes every week without saying a word

Yes, it was an engineering school and it’s the same as in the UK: it’s mainly boys!!

I also learnt the way to the International office quite early in the term for various reasons: filling in papers, choosing my modules, realising there was some clashes, choosing another module, realising that I had already done it in the UK, choosing another module, realising it was not enough ECTS, etc, etc… That was complicated, time consuming and stressing but I guess that at the end of the day, it was worth it.

I got into the rhythm of waking up early for lectures and getting home late from lectures!! The Erasmus rhythm kicked in too although doing engineering instead of arts or social sciences meant that I had far more hours than everybody else on my floor and therefore somehow reduced my outings slightly.

I also had to found out where the surgery was because I still needed to get my bandages done… I could not fit into normal shoes yet due to the size of my bandages and while the weather was nice it was ok but it was soon to get chillier.

This was source of discussion and question with my new friends, being a bad point or a good point…

October – “Settling in”

Settling into a new country/ town always takes some time…

At the end of the day, I was still an Erasmus student lost in the jungle of French university life. I had left France when I was 14 and only came back for some holidays. Understanding university organisation, managing to tackle the administrative issues or even going out were not my day to day activities!! Even discussing topics more in depth than the weather without speaking like Jean Claude Van Damme was sometimes a challenge!!

I slowly found where were the best places to go shopping, to eat… Who were the people I got most along with…

In fact, I found one of my childhood friends in Grenoble. Being in the same town as her as great; she had her own apartment with a great view, in the city centre. She would come around my place for parties, see people to spend time with and I went to her place for quietness…

October allowed us to see the first snow on the mountains summits. It was pretty but didn’t stay long. Thank god that by then I could fit into proper shoes!!

After one month of lecture, I realised that there was no way I was going to cope with the maths modules I had selected and it was too late to change. It was not so much the context of the course as we were going through things that I had already done but more the way it was presented. Everything was based on the first principles and the demonstration of definitions and statements from those. For me, it was plain and simple gobbledygook! But I found the perfect solution: a French guy approached me asking for English lessons and I said yes if you can find someone to give me maths ones and he did!! Therefore throughout the year, whether it was raining, snowing or bright sunshine, I took my bike every Tuesday to go to take private maths lessons from 19h30 to 21h30…at 5 euros the 2 hours!

University’s holidays in France work the same way as at school meaning that we had half term holidays. I took this occasion to go to Torino with one of my floor mates. It was the perfect road trip! We left by car on the Friday’s afternoon, met my friend’s friends, didn’t understand much of what they were saying but tried my best, went clubbing, stopped by a bakery to grab some early morning pastries, immersed into the Italian culinary treats: ate pasta and pizza, drank some proper cappuccino, indulged ice creams… Torino appeared to be a beautiful town but the preparation of the 2006 Olympics games meant that scaffolding was everywhere and hid some of my friend’s town hidden treasures.

November – “Parties”

The routine slowly settled in: work, party, sleep… At the end of the day, I’m sure that it doesn’t sound that different to British student life but for me it was.

  • I spoke French everyday (!)
  • Wine replaced beer, French cheeses cheddar and baguettes white bread loaf.
  • My floor mates slowly became like a family, we started eating together and later on even went food shopping together.
  • Drinking was far from the main activity: we organised a lot of dinner parties at our place with people sharing various preparation tasks.
  • Everyone was speaking about everything and nothing until the early hours of the morning. The culture was international and everyone was eager to know each other’s.

On the 17th of November, there was a big party in the town centre. It was the day on which the wine of the year was put on sale: “Le Beaujolais Nouveau”. Everyone goes to town with a bottle in their hand and drinks… Depending on where you are and how badly you get affected by the wine, the evening can be fantastic or absolutely horrific. I managed not to lose my friends, not to get trampled on and to drink just the right amount to be merry. It was perfect and a very good night.

December – “Holidays”

The cold and the snow were finally there on the mountain’s tops. Grenoble’s climate meant that it was cold and sunny most days. This gave me such a “feel good” sensation!!

My foot became more of an issue: I had developed a bone infection, this explaining why the problem was still there. I was therefore put on strong antibiotics for 12 weeks… meaning no drinking during the festive season!

Christmas holidays in France are not very long (2 weeks) and I spent most of them celebrating, trying to do some work but also recovering from my infection…

December also brought me a boyfriend…

He was from Paris but came to Grenoble for a weekend and it all happened there and then… some people joke with the fact that it was quick but it was fine with us!!!

January – “Exams time!”

Yes indeed!

In France, there is more than one session of exams and one of them is straight after Christmas… I had 5 exams in 4 days which is quite bad but the teaching method needs to be mentioned. During the lectures, the teacher goes through the material. As the classes are small, any question can be asked and any clarification can be made id required. There is a very warm and open relation between staff and students. The content might require some further reading at home but only a minimal amount as time is spent in class deriving/ understanding equations. Please do not understand from this that the pace is slow, only that if you follow what is going on, it’s all there for you to pick up. Around once a week, there is a tutorial class. The questions are given beforehand but there are a lot of them and most of the time I didn’t have a clue on how to do them. I realised later that most people were in the same situation as me!! The teacher then spends the session going through all the questions, giving tips and guidance on how to do them and sometimes extra notes. These are very useful as the revision can then be based on those.

I didn’t do extremely well in my exams but I did ok so that I could then enjoy the snow!!!

Everyone was going skiing but I couldn’t because of my feet. It was such a disappointment as it was one of the reasons I came to Grenoble but it was better not to ski than having further problems with my feet at the end of the season!

I went to the ski trip organised by the faculty and discovered the joys of sledging!! The people watching thought we were crazy but no, only deprived from skiing! I also discovered the beauty of racketing and walking through magnificent paths in forests. Mountains are beautiful and the scenery is beyond description.

February – “Cultural experiences”

With the cold weather goes warm food!!

I taught the English guys how to cook “crepes”, proper ones, not the thick ones!!! It was good fun although managing crepes for 15 people almost at the same time was very challenging, especially when they ask you to make more mix at midnight!!

One of the French girls cooked us a local dish: “la tartiflette”. It is based on strong French cheese, potatoes and “lardoons”. It’s very good after a full day on the slopes!!

We also attempted a local dish: “la fondue savoyarde”. It is based once again on cheese but this time you mix it with white wine and dip pieces of fresh bread into it. Our attempt was successful and popular.

Half term holidays made more trips possible. I went to Geneva for a weekend. I would not say that it is a very interesting town to visit. We saw the clocks, the famous water gush in the lake, a lot of parks and gardens, the UN headquarters… The town is not ugly or anything, it’s just that there isn’t much to see.

I also visited family in Paris along with my boyfriend. I spent a week working, shopping… perfect holidays!

Perfect holidays if you put aside the fact that I had to find a work placement!

Most of the modules I chose were from 2nd and 3rd year (equivalent to 3rd and 4th). In France, it is compulsory for them to do a work placement (3 months for the 2nd years and 6 months for the 3rd years). This meant that the lectures were stopping around April/ May time and that I hadn’t completed enough ECTS to spend the rest of the year lazing around. There was no point for me to do 1st year modules and therefore decided to go on work placement… Finding a placement is not easy and is quite competitive. I tried using some contacts, filling online application forms, applying to offers received via the faculty, contacting big companies in the region, etc… After a lot of time spent doing those and only one interview I got a place in an audio numerical company called Digigram. It was a big relief to have it sorted!

March – “Skiing!!!”

The doctor finally gave me the green light to go skiing a little bit without any risk. I tried to pass on my passion by giving one of my friends a lesson but seeing how scared he was to go down on an almost flat slope made me realise how unnatural it can be for some people. He believed we were completely foolish!

Back into exams!!!

The second session of exams was held then for the students that were going on work placement in April (like me). It was once again hard but I managed! There is no set period given for revision, you have to do it on the top of the rest which is quite different.

In my halls of residence, life changed slightly as some people left and new ones came in… We traded 2 Russians and 1 Italians for 2 Italians but doors were still left open, sheesha was smoked and cooking was traded against washing up… routine really…

April – “Start of work placement”

The specificity of this month was the start of my work placement.

Digigram is a small to medium company (70 people in the world with 50 in Grenoble). They design audio-numerical solutions for professional. Their main customers are radio stations but also concert organisers, production studios, the telecommunication sector, etc. The technical aspect of my placement is described in my technical coursework report.

This placement was a French 3rd year placement both in terms of length (5.5 months) and of technical requirements/ knowledge. I knew it was going to be a challenge but I was ready for it due to the fact that my teachers, the Internet, the people in the department all said they were ready to help.

In actual fact, it turned out that people were quite busy and that my project was on a problem involving specific knowledge of the industry’s requirements. I therefore found that relying on my research and the Internet was sometimes the best option.

Doing modules from different years, meant that I hadn’t quite finished lectures (1st and 2nd year term’s last longer) and I tried to juggle the best I could between going to a few lectures and doing good work on my placement.