By Grace Woidat<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the Fall of 2023 I had the pleasure of studying abroad in Paris through IES where I was able to pursue learning in international marketing, as well as various aspects of French culture. Despite enrolling in the Business and International Relations program, which primarily offers courses in English, my desire for immersion led me to taking a majority of classes in French. In one such class, I learned how to conduct business and adhere to professional cultural norms in France. However, my most gratifying, and most challenging by far, experience was enrolling in a class at Sorbonne Universit\u00e9 and understanding what it looks like to be a university student in the French schooling system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sorbonne Universit\u00e9 has an academic legacy dating back to 1257, and has been a beacon of academic achievement both in France and abroad. While I did not exactly get into this institution the traditional way, I was evidently still thrilled and proud of myself for passing the test and having on-par language proficiency to be able to enroll. The course I completed was Penser du genre<\/em>, or \u201cthinking about gender,\u201d which took the format of a once a week 3 hour lecture in French with other native and ERASMUS students. I had the privilege of learning from esteemed Sorbonne faculty who spoke about their various areas of expertise concerning themes of gender, sexuality, and history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From these lectures and other provided sources, I completed a final written dossier<\/em> on a research subject of my choosing. Based on a course I had already taken at SCU\u2014Musc 132, The History of Hip Hop<\/em>\u2014I was inspired to examine stereotypical images of masculinity and femininity as they appear in hip hop culture and analyze these images against the contextual backdrop of colonialism and theories of hegemonic masculinity. Completing this dossier and research in written French and attending my Sorbonne lectures were by far the most academically challenging endeavor I\u2019ve yet to encounter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now back in the states, I wanted to reflect on my experience and what I\u2019ve learned about the differences between French and American academic expectations. One main thing that I noticed is that, at the Sorbonne, it was not exactly the professor\u2019s job to help you. Their objective is to simply instruct in exchange for conducting their own research, so I was told to not expect any office hours, email replies, or extensions. This turned out to be exactly true, and now I never take the attentiveness and care of Santa Clara professors for granted!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, it is common, even expected, for students to push back against a professor\u2019s lecture and spark debate in class. This was both enthralling and very confusing to watch as an exchange student (half of the time I couldn\u2019t follow the debate). Although we are always encouraged to ask questions and want to understand more in class, I hadn\u2019t witnessed a student challenge the proposal\u2019s of a tenured professor and their life\u2019s work before! <\/p>\n\n\n\n The last thing I learned, which is going to sound corny and anticlimactic, was the importance of being oneself and having confidence in that. I struggled with a lot of anxiety attending my Sorbonne class each week, knowing that my language skills were arguably the weakest and that I\u2019d inevitably be called on in the discussion-based course\u2014not to mention being an American in a gender studies class tended to prompt some looks anytime Donald Trump or American politics came up. However, by the end of the semester, I had the realization that I shouldn\u2019t have to feel that immense pressure to blend in and be the perfect student. The most important thing wasn\u2019t where I came from or if I could pass as a local student, but simply the fact that I was showing up and venturing outside of my comfort zone for an incredible academic and cultural experience. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Grace Woidat During the Fall of 2023 I had the pleasure of studying abroad in Paris through IES where I was able to pursue learning in international marketing, as well as various aspects of French culture. Despite enrolling in the Business and International Relations program, which primarily offers courses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1755,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","kk_blocks_editor_width":"","_kiokenblocks_attr":"","_kiokenblocks_dimensions":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,5,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bronco-stories","category-school-life","category-students-abroad-blog-posts"],"gutentor_comment":0,"qubely_featured_image_url":null,"qubely_author":{"display_name":"IB Minor","author_link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/internationalbusiness\/author\/mferrari\/"},"qubely_comment":0,"qubely_category":"Bronco Stories<\/a> School life<\/a> Students Abroad Blog Posts<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"By Grace Woidat During the Fall of 2023 I had the pleasure of studying abroad in Paris through IES where I was able to pursue learning in international marketing, as well as various aspects of French culture. Despite enrolling in the Business and International Relations program, which primarily offers courses […]","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1755"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2785,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2784\/revisions\/2785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/internationalbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}