Adrienne Studies in Montpellier

I'm Adrienne Keiser, I am applying to Carlson this coming year, so I'm hoping to do marketing and a french minor. And I studied abroad in Montpellier, France for six weeks this past summer. All around it was a wonderful experience. That was my first time traveling outside of the United States, so I really wanted to get out there and experience french culture for the first time, because I've been studying it for a long time. We had one class - the elective class - at the University of Minnesota's office in Montpellier. And then we had one at the university in Montpellier. It was a lot less outside work, I would say. It was a lot of in-class speaking. The professors were like, "We don't speak any english in here. If you don't understand something or if you need to explain something, you need to explain it in french as best as you can." So it was really challenging, but rewarding to be in that situation. I got to do the homestay for two weeks and a dorm for four weeks. The dorms - they were really good. They were a little small, but they had their own bathrooms in them, and I was by all my friends, so it was a really good way to meet other people from the program, and other people from other schools. We had a lot of time and a lot of freedom to just go explore the city. We mostly hung out in the main town area, and that was where everything was going on, and it was so full of life. One of the best things to do was just sit outside in a cafe and watch people. I think that was one of our favorite things to do while we were there. The homestay was probably the best experience of the trip. My family was absolutely amazing. They had two little girls. We got along so well and we had family dinners every night. So I got really good french cooking, which was awesome. It kind of gave me what life is like for an actual french family, like somebody living in that area. The dad barely spoke any english, so that was a great way to practice my french as well. We would just talk about issues going on, differences between France and America. So it was a really good cultural experience, I would say, as well as building those really close relationships. I wish I would have been able to stay there longer because I felt, by the time I was leaving I was just starting to pick up on getting significantly better at speaking. It was always really fun to just put yourself out there and try to speak the language that I've been studying for so long.