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My name is Ammar, and I'm
in third year Arts and Business, majoring in history. I'm also in the International Trade
Specialization.
For my exchange, I went to Dauphine, in Paris,
France.
One of the big reasons for choosing Dauphine was the fact that they offered
a portion of courses in English and fulfilling ARBUS requirements.
That was really, really helpful,
with courses like Strategic Marketing and Business Ethics.
Another reason that I chose Dauphine was because they offered
François Langue Échange, which was basically French as a Second Language
and one of my main goals of going to France was to improve my French
and to have an understanding of my ability,
and the course level was really key for me,
so those were my the two reasons I chose Dauphine.
I took two courses in French, one that focused on
the arts culture in France, and in Paris in particular,
and the second one was
an overview of French media. So both of those courses
were taught in French and taught to basically to what level that my French
was tested to be. And I was at level B2, which is about
upper-intermediate French. I took 3 courses in English.
So there was one called Company Culture,
which kind of talked about the culture of companies and how
HR and management works to build the culture within a company.
The second one was strategic marketing,
which was kind of equivalent to the strategic marketing course we have
here at Waterloo.
That covered marketing strategy and how firms kind of develop brands
and internationalize their brands.
The final course I took was Business Ethics,
which was equivalent to what we have here
in Waterloo.
The content of that course is basically as the title insinuates.
And so yeah, those were
the five courses I took overall at Dauphine.
Okay, there are two types of courses that are offered at Dauphine.
So courses that are offered by the international office
are geared toward international students at Dauphine.
So people coming into those courses don't all come from
English-speaking countries,
and thus they have a little bit more of a challenge
and there needs to be a little more understanding
towards their ability in the courses.
So those courses tend to be a little easier,
if you are a native English speaker, just because
the types of assignments aren't very stringent, the teachers are kind of relaxed.
They understand that most people that are there are there
for exchange, and they're going to travel, they want to see
Paris and live
in France and see everything. So those courses tend to be on
the easier side, I would say,
so they're not as equivalent to a course in Waterloo.
But the one course I took in Strategic Marketing was one that
regular students at Dauphine would take if they were enrolled,
and that course was very equivalent to Waterloo's standards.
It was taught in English, and the
reports and exams that we had to write were very similar to a
course at Waterloo. It kept me on my toes.
Those are the two calibers of courses
you get at Dauphine.
One of the things that a lot of people, when they're thinking of Paris,
they have a lot of clichés in their head
they think that everywhere they're gonna go there's gonna be like violins playing and
love is going to be in the air
That's not really the case. Paris, at the end of the day is a very
international city.
It has its issues
and its strengths as well.
Don't go in expecting the clichés because if you're going to do that,
you are going to be sadly disappointed when you get on the Metro,
and it's packed and you can smell everyone.
It's not the lovely French experience you had in your head.
Or, you go to the Eiffel Tower, and you have to wait in
in a 3-hour line to go up the tower because it's just packed full of tourists.
But if you go with the expectation that the city is,
you know, a city with a rich history,
a diverse and international city
with a lot to offer in terms of its culture, and its arts,
fun things to do at night and day as well,
and soak in that you are going to meeting people of all sorts
of backgrounds, different socioeconomic statuses,
I think you will have a great time because again, there's a reason why
Paris is Paris, there is a reason why London is London,
There's a reason why New York is New York, Hong Kong is Hong Kong.
These are international cities with
a lot to offer you.
I think a lot of the stereotypes kind of come down.
When we hear about France, we're still hearing about a lot
of the old-world stereotypes,
like "Oh, everyone eats baguettes"... Well, baguettes, that's kind of true,
everyone does eat baguettes there,
but you know kinda always eating dessert and
but kind of always eating in dessert, everyone is dressed to the t; everyone looks nice all the time;
it's a very unique culture,
and it is, in certain aspects, but
at the end of the day they are also very similar to us.
You'll get people that are around our age that
speak English and are heavily influenced by North American culture.
They don't always dress to their best
and sometimes they are just in t-shirts and jeans.
and sometimes they are just in t-shirts and jeans.
I don't think anyone can eat just pastries all the time and look
as good as the French do. So I mean there's a lot of differences,
a lot of the stereotypes will come down as well.
And yeah, I guess
I guess in terms of French culture,
the French also get a bad rep in a way.People say
that French people tend to be impolite.
I don't think that's the case.
French people are very welcoming for the most part, as long as you make the effort
to kind of, just as you would when you go to any country, or when people come visit you,
they tend to make an effort to know a bit of your culture.
As long as you make the effort to learn a little bit about French culture
and you're open to it,
I think you are going to have a very good time and people will generally
be very welcoming and helpful.
One of the downsides about the trip is that I don't like seafood.
I like all my meat really, really cooked and
that kind of takes out about half of French cuisine since a lot of it is seafood
and they like their steak tartare and
things that are not very well-done in my opinion.
So I didn't have a lot of the traditional French cuisine per se.
But I think one of the best things about France is
their bakeries
the wonderful variety of bread you'll get and desserts, it is delicious.
Also, I think an experience that everyone should try is seeing
the French take on fast food. It's fascinating.
Like, one of the things that will become a staple is donair kebab,
which is our equivalent of shwarma,
but it's more Turkish. You'll kind of find that throughout the city,
everyone eats it. It's a great late-night eat.
I think one of the big things is that
we're used to having 24h drive-through and MacDonald's and things like that,
but they don't have that in France. Things don't stay open all night,
so your only option will be to get a donair kebab which is
pretty much open until 3 or 4 in the morning.
But French fast food is also interesting,
if you go to a traditional fast food place, like MacDonald's,
their offerings are a little bit different -- you'll have the standard
Big Mac and French fries,
but you'll see people eat their French fries with mayo,
you'll get the McBaguette, which is the same thing as
a burger but with
baguette bread as the sandwich. And they have all these
other fast-food restaurants which we don't have, like Quick,
which is a Belgian fast-food chain.
So I think it's interesting, like there's a lot to explore, and if you miss home
there are some tastes of home as well.
Again, there are a lot of North American imports there as well.
I would say yeah,
try out some of the French cuisine, especially if you do like seafood.
. Because from all my seafood-loving friends,
they say it's fantastic.
Things will always be a little bit more expensive,
just because of the currency conversions.
So like a meal at McDonalds is about 5-6 euros,
which is about 8 dollars Canadian.
It ends up being a little more than what we pay here.
It's also because tax rate is higher in France, so a lot of things
are going to be more expensive.
Rent is definitely going to be expensive, especially if you are living off of campus,
like I did.
Rent definitely was definitely much more than what I paid in Waterloo,
so. I paid approximately 600 euros per month,
which is around $800-$850,
so it was definitely a lot more expensive than what you would expect,
iving in Waterloo.
But I think again it's fairly consistent with living in any big city.
If you live in Toronto, same sort of deal -- you'll be paying around $800+ for
a bedroom essentially.
but one other big things that is really great about France a
is that and if you go to school there the cafeterias are really cheap
because as long as you are a student registered at Dauphine, you're able to
get a subsidized meal for about 3 euros, which is really good on days when
you're at school.
If you go to museums, and a lot of places within Europe
you either get a discount (within France, you basically get free entry to any museum
essentially with your student card), so that kind of stuff helps.
Travel is definitely really cheap there, as long as you book in advance,
you're able to get fairly cheap flights or trains or busses or whatever
you're using to get elsewhere in Europe. It tends to be a lot cheaper than
coming from Canada and going anywhere else.
The standard of size is different in Paris
because you have such a big city and there's
a lot of constraint on space and real estate is really expensive.
Things will tend to be smaller, so your kitchen might not contain everything.
I was fortunate -- I lived in a suburb
and essentially my apartment was a little bit bigger,
more to a North American standard. But I had a lot of friends who lived essentially
in a one-room place where
they pulled down their sofa and it was their bed,
right in front of their mini stove
and their fridge. So I mean your expectations will change
and it depends on where exactly you're living in the city.
Actually, one of the things I'm going to say is that in France,
again because if the heavy influence over English, it's really, really easy to
spend your entire exchange
completely in English and I think that is one thing that people really need to
be conscious of.
When you're talking to people and meet friends,
really make the effort to say
"Hey, I don't speak French, but I want to improve my French,
so let's continue this conversation in French" because what will happen a lot
of the time is that when you start talking in French, your accent
comes through and thus they will switch to English.
It's not out of rudeness, it're more so they want to make you feel comfortable so
they're going to speak in the language that you're most comfortable in
so you really have to make that effort to make sure that you
make that effort to to speak in French. And also,
you're going to meet a lot of students who are on exchange from North America.
So what I personally did was that I made the effort to not to hang out with them.
Not that it was anything personal, and as much as I love
having Waterloo folk and familiar faces around Paris,
I made the effort to not to hang out with them, because I wanted to,
you know, immerse myself in this new continent and meet people
and I think it was successful because I met people all over the world
and different parts of Europe that I would never have been exposed to
living in Canada.
I think one of the big things about exchange is that
you mature quite a lot.
When you're kind of on your own and you don't have someone to run to or someone
to speak to in a language
that will understand you, that's available
anywhere you go, and you have to deal with a new culture,
sometimes the French culture bureaucracy really
can be frustrating.
Things start to feel like
like "Oh gosh, I really have to figure my stuff out
and be on top of things".
That kind of situation
leads to a lot of growth, and again,
letting go of your all your comfort.
So like your friends are not going to be there.
In my case, it was a 5-hour difference,
so I couldn't just call my friends up anytime I wanted.
They had their lives in Canada and I had my own life in France,
and so you kind of have to really learn to adapt and become
versatile in a way.
When you travel around in Europe,
after you've become comfortable in France, you can speak
a little French, and you're comfortable,
well then you're in Italy and you're not going to find anyone
who speaks French there and the English
might not be at the same level as well.
So you're challenged with adapting to wherever you travel essentially
But at the same time, it's a
great challenge and you learn a lot. I remember having conversations in bars,
I don't even know how they worked,
but I was someone talking in French and English and they're talking in Italian
and broken English and somehow we understood each other.
Having that experience is kind of fascinating,
ike you realize how much you can get from the cues people are giving
and the general direction of what people are saying and you can get a lot out of it.
You'll learn a lot about different cultures,
and you'll be exposed to a lot that you won't be exposed to in Canada,
and it opens your eyes to
this kind of world beyond Canada.
Yes, you can go on a vacation somewhere and you see it for like a week
or two weeks and you go back home
and you're like "Okay well that wasn't home, that was just visiting."
But when you're living there, it changes your perspective
and teaches you to be adaptable. In the future,
all I want to do I is travel and live in countries besides Canada.
I mean, Canada's home, but I want other places to be my home
for a little while at least.
what you find is any
What you'll find is that anyone you meet that comes back from exchange is that they'll be fanatical about it.
And it sounds cliché, and you think that it's probably because
they put thousands of dollars into it and they're going to have to say
say that it was the
most amazing couple of months of their life. It sounds cliché,
but it's really, really true.
Again, you're going to have your highs and your lows, and some days
you think
"I'm not comfortable here. I just want to get on a flight and go home",
but then you have those other billion days
when you meet these friends and you're having a good time and you're sitting in
this thing that you only read about in textbooks or you saw pictures of on postcards,
and you're sitting there right in front of it.
Or to know that like your favorite author once walked in front of here,
or used to eat here on a daily basis.
When you get to have those little experiences and moments
I guess personal ref like reflection at when you have
, or I guess personal reflection... When you have that moment to reflect on where you are and how lucky you are
you really feel awesome about it and it's something you'll never forget.
I've been back for a couple of months now and everyday there's probably
at least a little bit
of a moment where I'm like "Oh god, I actually remember when I did that in Europe.
That was a lot of fun".
I would say that if you can,
put in all the effort. If you can make it happen, make it happen,
because it's something that's going to stick with you the rest of your life.
You're only going to be this age,
with this kind of comfort right now.
When you're older, you're going to have more obligations and circumstances will change
so if you can do it now, do it now. 'Cause, you won't regret it.