France : Reviews (Caen)

I loved this program SO much. The program begins with a tour which provides a perfect opportunity to get acquainted with the other students, and to get used to speaking French before being thrown into the homestay. I loved how much I was able to see, experience, and take away from this opportunity. I would recommend this program to anyone and I would do it again in a heartbeat! Absolutely a highlight of my KU experience, and my summer.

The tour of Normandy was fantastic! I really appreciated the time to visit historic places and taste exquisite food.

Getting to meet people from all over the world and engage with them was such a unique and one-of-a-kind experience. I was able to explore Paris and discover so many little niche places that I would not have been able to if I was just there for a short vacation.

While the time spent in Paris was amazing and unforgettable, I think the first week touring around Normandy has to be my favorite part of the program itself. We came into that first week split into groups of 2-3 people that already knew each other, and finished that same week with all 18 or 19 of us hanging out with each other voluntarily. I think it was just the perfect opportunity to make new friends with the people we were gonna spend the next month with. I was worried about not making friends on the trip, but having the collective experience of the first week set up the rest of the study abroad experience to be SO fun, SO fulfilling, and incredibly rewarding.

My favorite is part of the program was the weekly group dinners, which allowed us to try different types of French food at authentic, family run restaurants.

I found the schooling part of the program to be the most rewarding in an academic sense. The quality of schooling at the Etoile Institute was top tier, and I loved my teacher. I felt like I learned the language and a lot of culture.

I definitely saw the most reward at the end of the trip, academically and culturally. Academically, of course, was when I received my grade for the final exam and I passed. Even though I had taken French exams before at KU, this one was different. It was actually for the language institute in Paris and it had been a condensed course. Culturally, it was when I realized how naturally and easily I could travel around Paris and interact with people. Whether it was riding the metro, ordering a meal in French and getting a response in French, or just sitting and understand what was happening around me. I felt so good about the fact I had learned to be a part of a completely different culture and lifestyle.

I really liked getting to live with a French family, and getting to see what it would be like to live in Paris, at least for a short while.

I was forced to step outside my comfort zone. I was dumped into a foreign country that speaks a language I am not proficient in, with 20 people I've never met. It was scary, but worth it in every sense. I came out of the experience with so many relationships that we carried over back to Lawrence, having previously been convinced I'd stick with the one person I signed up with, whom I only kind of knew. I had language faux pas, made grammar and vocabulary mistakes, and was able to have grace for myself since we were all going through the same things together. Stepping out of my comfort zone in this way enhanced my understanding of the language I came to study in a way that I know I could never get studying just in the US.

I had a lot of financial anxiety during this trip. Paying for the program was one thing. It was about the same feeling as paying for college tuition and such. I had also applied for scholarships. Many of them were closed because I applied later in the year, so I definitely recommend to start planning in the fall semester, even if it is a summer program and especially if you want to visit museums and other countries. Anyway, once I got there, spending on money something necessary like lunch for the day made me panic. It took me a while to accept that spending money, even without an income at the time, was okay. It sounds very cliche, but you will make the money back. You have the rest of your life to work. You never know if will be young and in a different country with new friends and new experiences around every corner. Even if you're like me and it takes you three of the four weeks to realize it, I promise that seven euro student lunch deal is worth it.

As a more introverted person, staying with a host family was intimidating. I had no idea where I was staying, what the living situation was like, or if my host parent and I would get along. Throughout my stay there were many uncomfortable situations and it felt weird staying in someone else's house; however, I continued to converse with my host mom. This was not always easy, but by the end my host mom and I were spending time together outside of dinners and she even showed me how to make a few things in the kitchen. I truly believe this demonstrates how perseverance is crucial in both studying abroad and in life. You cannot overcome the scary or uncomfortable unless you pursue it.

To help future students, I would say that whatever your preconceived ideas of what a study abroad trip will be like are wrong--it will most definitely be better than what you imagine.

You WILL make friends. Everyone is equally as motivated to get to know the people in their program, so even if you go alone, you won't leave that way. Also, the scary everyday things that come with living in a foreign country won't stay scary. You'll get more comfortable, more confident, and more self-sufficient. Academic things I learned completely aside, I learned the most about becoming self-sufficient. It's an exercise in figuring things out on your own while having the safety net of the university there.

I learned a lot about French culture that I wouldn’t have understood in a classroom setting. There was a lot to learn, from etiquette on riding the train to entering a store.