International Week: A Blessing, A Curse

This past week, the ESC-Rouen campus was a buzz with activity, mimicking Bloomington during Little 5 quite a bit!

In France, we have two official breaks – whether you’re in elementary school, high school (called lycee), or college. One is in February, when I was lucky to travel to Italy and Greece, and one is the week after Easter (Paques), where I’ll be in the lands of kilts and Guinness.



However, some students have a third week off during ESC-Rouen’s International Week. Let me explain: Among the many academic programs ESC-Rouen offers, there is MGE (Master des Grandes Ecoles – their version of an MBA) and IFI (their version of an undergraduate degree). During International Week, MGE students typically have finals, because they are on quarter systems. IFI students usually have year-end presentations, worth 25% of the year’s grade, and various conferences to attend. However, international students can take MGE or IFI classes during their time at ESC Rouen (aka Rouen Business School/RBS), but are not considered fully-enrolled students so they do not have IFI year-end presentations. Confused yet?

Moral of the story, if you are an international/exchange student and are enrolled only in IFI classes, you get another week of vacation! I, however, was not that lucky (not that that’s a bad thing, because I am trying to stick to a budget!). Because I am taking 1 language class, 2 MGE classes, and 2 IFI classes, I had a final last week and this week, in addition to two reports and a final next week as well. But before you start to feel any pity for me, starting the week of April 11th I will be down to just two classes that meet Monday and Tuesday mornings! Ah, c’est la vie francaise.
So here’s a pretty frank review of how my International Week went.

The Good:
Monday evening I went to a “liste” party. Essentially, it’s elections time on campus for student government; and groups of 25 create a list (“liste” in French) of those on their ticket. And competition for votes is intense! Remember my free car ride to school? They do stuff like that! And if I were a true student with voting ability, I could text anyone in any list requesting something, “I need a ride to the mall,” “I want a bottle of wine,” and they’d do it! This party was at a friend’s house, and it was quite intense. For ESC-Rouen’s small size, about 3,500 students, the time, effort, and money vastly outweighs that put into Indiana University’s IUSA elections in relative terms.



Also, the weather has been gorgeous! Of course, there is some rain: This IS Normandy. For instance, I was walking home two days ago, the sun was out and shining, I was happy as a clam, and BAM – the rain clouds opened up. Good thing I had my umbrella. But truly, spring really has sprung here in the North of France, flowers are blooming, windows are opening, and it couldn’t be more perfect.

Lastly, campus is bursting with energy! Liste events have taken over campus during the week, so there was a DJ pumping music behind the school’s Chateau (main office building) every afternoon. Free food and drink = quite pleasant! Everyone is in a good mood, for the most part…

The Bad:
Exams! And papers! And lots of other catch up work and things to work on for the coming week, summer, and 2010-2011 school year. Partly, this is my fault: I did just enjoy a 5 day trip to Italy, right? I shouldn’t be complaining. But this week has been a lot of work on the computer and a lot of studying. And who wants that when Spring Fever has hit?

Plus, exams, and classes for that matter, aren’t structured the same here as they are in the US. Whether you like it or not, in comparison to France – and most of the world except for Northern Europe – the US is extremely Type A, organized, and clear. Here’s a example: Up until an hour before my final in International Economics last week, I had no idea where my exam was being proctored. I looked up online, checked all the normal bulletin boards, but no luck. Finally, in desperation, I went into one of the offices and explained in broken French to a secretary what was going on. She logged into an administrators’ file and sent me on my way. Apparently, they had posted the exam site: But in a random location on the 3rd floor of the B building. Welcome to France.



Another example of the French style of higher education? For my most recent exam in Cross Cultural Issues, the directions very clearly stated, “Choose I or II, and III.” I took that to mean write responses to either I and III OR II and III. I chose II and III. But 50 minutes into the 3 hour test – all essay questions – the proctor said in French, “I talked to the course director and everyone who has Prof. Rabasso must answer numbers I and III, all other students must write II and III. Well, I have Professor Rabasso. I went up to explain what happened – I had worked for 50 minutes on the wrong question – but they gave me no pity. I was simply out of luck. So I had to scramble to finish questions I and III in the remaining two hours. So it goes.

But don’t think that these negatives outweigh the positives. They haven’t. And from what I’m gaining from reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People right now, it’s not always the situation I can change, but I can decide how I react to it!