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The reason I chose IBML - the main reason - was because of the integration between the business and the French.
There are lots of places where you can study business and French separately,
but its only with IBML that you can really match the two together
and you can study the business in french, which was really helpful when I took my year abroad.
But also it gave me an opportunity to study some French culture so we had
French politics, which is a really key part of learning about France,
as well as French history, so the French Revolution, that kind of thing,
which I found really, really interesting.
But then also the key thing I think was the chance to go abroad to France
and to really immerse myself in the culture, to work and study - it was just fantastic.
On my year abroad, I chose to study so I went to Audencia Business School in Nantes
which is in West France and that was just fantastic. It gave me the opportunity to mix with
French students as well as students from all over the world - South America, Germany,
Australia, everywhere. And then in the summer after that
I started working at a small start-up company
in the same city. It was a green screen company where they filmed adverts and things.
My job was to call up companies and let them know about our services,
send them all the information and then
follow up any people who are interested, and that improved my confidence 100 percent.
Calling people up in French,
which is only my second language, was terrifying at first
but that - I think - is how I improved my French just 100 percent on the year abroad.
Well in my current job, I'm not generally speaking French day-to-day,
unless there's a French student who turns up and needs some help
but I think once I've done a presentation in French to French students,
I'm not scared of doing English presentations anymore. I can stand up in
front of a group of people and just speak
which I think before my year abroad, I wouldn't have been able to do.
And it's also opened a lot of doors for me. I'm now learning Spanish as a third language
and I'm considering going back to France when I finish here in July.
I think the year abroad just gave me a fantastic opportunity, both
socially and academically. Going abroad,
I met so many different people from so many different cultures, not only the French culture
but it's really inspired me to get out there and travel more
and perhaps work in other countries, not just France. And academically coming back
to university with just a renewed sense of purpose,
you've been abroad, you see the light at the end of the tunnel,
you can see what you can do once you've graduated.
And I think that's just a key part of going abroad