Personal report Erasmus+ Exchange | Sorbonne Université Paris, Faculté des Lettres | Milou
Carstens | S3189546 | m.l.carstens@student.rug.nl
As part of my bachelor’s degree History, I had to choose a minor for the first semester of year three and one of the options was to follow a minor abroad, as an Erasmus+ exchange. To me, this definitely seemed the most attractive option, as I’ve always wanted to live and study in another country for a period of time. For me, the choice for Paris was quite obvious. In general, it is very interesting for a History student to study in France, because of the eventful and fascinating history of this country and of Paris in particular. Moreover, I’ve always been very passionate about the French culture and French is definitely my favourite language. For a long time, I’ve been dreaming of living la vraie vie Parisienne and of studying at one of the oldest and most renowned universities of the world, la Sorbonne. The idea of walking into the beautiful building of the university in the
quartier latin every day - in the footsteps of a lot of famous academics, writers and politicians - and follow the
most interesting history courses taught by leading professors seemed amazing, but also a little unrealistic to me. But in the beginning of 2019, I got to hear that this dream would become reality; I was actually selected to participate in an Erasmus+ exchange and to study at the Sorbonne from September 2019 to January 2020. I was extremely happy, and I immediately started preparing myself for this upcoming adventure. Fortunately, the University of Groningen gave me good support for preparing my exchange. They provided me with the
necessary information about the whole administrative process and about how to claim an Erasmus+ grant. From the side of the Sorbonne, the communication and information were not always as clear as I hoped, which I will explain later in this report. As I expected with a world city like Paris, the hunt for housing was quite hard and unfortunately, the average rent price is quite high in Paris. The university could only provide a few rooms while there were a lot of exchange students, so I would recommend you to start actively looking for accommodation by yourself as early as possible. Also, please be careful with this, since there are a lot of scams on the internet. In Paris, there are not a lot of student houses like in Groningen; most people have their own studio, or they rent a single room in the house of a host family or a landlady, like a did. Most people have small rooms and pay a lot of rent in Paris, so that is something you have to come in terms with when you want to live in this wonderful city. If you need more advice for housing in Paris, do not hesitate to contact me.
I also prepared myself by freshening up my knowledge of the French language a bit, among other things by using the Erasmus Online Learning System to which you will have free access. When I finally arrived in Paris in the beginning of September, I started my exchange with a two-week language course organised by the
university, because the education at the Sorbonne is completely in French. And I have to be honest: this was not easy. In high school, French was always my best subject and I’ve also received my DELF B2 language
certificate (which is the minimum level on the CEFR scale you need to enter the Sorbonne), but I still found it quite difficult to follow all my university courses in French at the beginning. The good news is that I got used to it quite fast. In week 1, I still found all my courses quite overwhelming and I definitely didn’t understand everything the professors said, but in week 2, I already noticed that my vocabulary was already greatly expanded. This is actually quite logical, since you make long days at the Sorbonne. This was sometimes a little intense, but after all I am very thankful for this, since I can proudly say that I upgraded my French level to C1 during this semester. In addition, of course, I have also gained an incredible amount of new knowledge at the Sorbonne. For a history student, the Sorbonne is absolutely un paradis: I was free to choose from a long list of the most interesting courses about a wide variety of historical subjects. I really have the feeling that I learned things at the Sorbonne that I could have never learned at my home university. The subjects were taught by prominent professors, which made the experience extra special. For example, I followed the course ‘Napoléon et
l’Empire’, which was taught by a professor who was one of the leading experts about this subject in France (and
so in the world), with numerous publications on his name. I also had the possibility to choose courses from other bachelors at the faculty of arts, so I followed one course of the bachelor Sociologie (Tradition sociologique 1), which I found a very useful addition to my history studies. The other courses I followed were: Introduction aux
relations internationaux à l’époque moderne, Écrire l’histoire des idées politiques, L’Europe et les enjeux internationaux au XXe siècle en L’Europe et le Monde.
Looking back, I can say that I am lucky that all my courses turned out so good after all, since this doesn’t exactly come naturally at the Sorbonne. If you want to study at the Sorbonne, you should be able to cope with the fact that this university is not always very well organized, especially in comparison to what we are used to at Dutch universities. I already noticed this during the preparations of my exchange: the website of the Sorbonne is hardly up to date and the catalogus of all the courses that we could choose from became available for us only a few weeks before university actually started. I had to select my courses quite last minute and moreover, I had to generate my schedule completely on my own, which is like a complicated math equation when you want six different courses, all with lectures and seminars, to fit into one week. When you finally got it all figured out, the next step was to actually enroll for the courses, which went according to an extremely old-fashioned and complicated procedure; you couldn’t register for your courses online, but you had to do this on the spot, by writing down your courses on a form. Consequently, you had to get these forms signed by different
people and to hand them in at the administrative office, which led to a lot of waiting in long lines, getting lost in the labyrinthine building of the Sorbonne and stressing about whether I was actually correctly enrolled for the courses I preferred. During the semester, I still experienced a few administrative problems, but fortunately, everything worked out well in the end. In short, this chaotic aspect is definitely the downside of the Sorbonne, but on the other hand, this is also part of the real French experience.
The quality of the education was, in my opinion, quite comparable to that of the University of Groningen, although it was, obviously, a little bit harder because of the French language. The teaching method was a little more conservative than I was used to: the professor had a lot of authority and is almost always the only one speaking. During the seminars, there was not a lot of interaction, except that for most courses you once had to give a long presentation (more like a lecture) for a grade. In my opinion, these presentations were a fun and great learning experience, since I had to prepare them together with French students. The assessment also consisted of so-called devoir sur tables (again old-fashioned: the professor wrote questions on the board that you had to answer on a sheet of paper), book reports and essays. Fortunately, most professors took into account Erasmus students when giving grades and the fact that it was more difficult for them than the native French speakers. I did have to work quite hard in Paris, but I was also rewarded for this with some good grades.
Therefore, it’s a challenge, but above all an enormous chance to study at the Sorbonne, among the real French students. I would really like to disprove the stereotype of the French as an arrogant, private people, since in my experience, my French fellow students (and the French in general) were precisely very spontaneous, thoughtful and very open to others. There was a student association at my faculty which frequently organized
apéro’s (so-called “borrels” in Dutch) or other activities for Erasmus people, where I met a lot of nice French
students, as well as other international students, who came from all around the world. Something that I really liked was that the different faculties at the Sorbonne are almost autonomous universities, so most people I met were also studying history or something related to that. In Groningen, I’m used to be the only history student among my friends who are all studying medicine, law or business economics, but in Paris, I was suddenly surrounded by a lot of nice people with who I shared my interests in history, culture and art.
If you’re interested in these things, Paris is definitely good choice for you, since art, culture and history are highly regarded anyways in this city. The university regularly organized cultural events and excursions, such as interesting lectures, a visit to the stunning opéra garnier or a concert by the student orchestra. There are endless special museums in Paris, most of which you can visit for free as a student. I definitely recommend you to as much cultural activities and to visit as many museums as possible, but save this for the wintertime, when it is too cold to be outside. In summer you have to enjoy the French pique-niques as much as you can in one of the many beautiful parks or at the Seine: all you need is your friends, a bottle of red wine, a fresh baguette from the
boulangerie, some delicious French cheese… la vie est belle! One cliché about the French is definitely true: they
know how to enjoy life. So, don’t worry, because this Burgundian lifestyle will continue throughout the year: in the winter you can enjoy your glass of wine while sitting at a heated terrace of one of the many traditional French bistros.
Paris is, indeed, as romantic as in the stories and the movies, but you should not forget that Paris is also a vibrant world city that is characterized by its dynamical and sometimes a little hectic character. To enjoy living in Paris, I believe you should be able to cope with sometimes stressful and chaotic situations. For example, during my stay I experienced the longest strikes since the 1980s, which completely disrupted the public transport in the city for 2 months. Paris is a city which is full of surprises and where you will never, ever get bored.
In short, studying in Paris was an amazing experience which I have learned from a lot. But whether Paris is the city for you or not, I would definitely recommend everyone to go on an Erasmus exchange, because I truly believe that wherever you might go, it will always be a wonderful and enlightening experience. I learned a lot about France, about myself and about life in general during this trip. Moreover, maybe even the most special part was that I met a lot of people from different countries, thanks to which I learned a lot about many other cultures, and I made friends from all around the world. I still speak with this people a lot and some of my friends from Paris even already visited me in Groningen!
I hope to have informed you sufficiently about the drawbacks but especially about the advantages of studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. If you have any questions or just want to chat about studying in Paris, I am of course open to that, just send me an email!
