![\"AmyDivineyPicture\"](\"http:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/AmyDivineyPicture-570x427.jpg\")
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PARIS has not lost its charm since I\u2019ve been here. Actually, you\u2019d\u00a0be more right in saying that I have fallen under its spell; I did not\u00a0go back home. Or rather, I did, for Christmas\u2026 and then I flew right back to Paris. For another 12 weeks. Erasmus 2.0.<\/p>\n
While I love UL, and all the people I know there, there is just something about Paris. Although my wallet is definitely suffering, I have managed to do so many cool things. From eating the most amazing food to meeting bizarre, random people, to drinking cocktails from a baby bottle in a cartoon-themed bar, I have been having a ball.<\/p>\n
Of course it hasn\u2019t all been plain sailing, but then a semester\u00a0in UL wouldn\u2019t have been either. Semester two is well underway here and I\u2019m slowly growing to like my new classes. The lectures are less of a scary, incomprehensible, block of (French) noise now, but I\u2019m not sure if they are actually easier, or if I have just gotten used to them.\u00a0Which in itself is progress, and a large part of why I\u2019m here.\u00a0Every time I go into a class, the lecturers (and frequently the students!) say words I have never heard before. It was definitely a baptism of fire. It\u2019s funny the differences you can see in the way the education system works here compared to at home.<\/p>\n
I find aspects of the French one (at least in my university in Paris) a little strange. Well, in comparison to UL anyway. They usually do not provide photocopies or PowerPoints to sum up what we\u2019re there to learn and there is a much bigger emphasis on writing. Lectures are frequently like very long dictation exercises \u2013 the lecturer speaks and I attempt to get what they say down on paper. One of my lecturers even points out where she would like us to put punctuation marks.<\/p>\n
Classes here are generally much longer, and on Wednesdays\u00a0I have 5 hours in a row without a break across two subjects. The lecture as I know it doesn\u2019t seem to exist; instead they opt for more of a lecture\/tutorial hybrid here. If you have 4 hours per\u00a0week in a subject, you\u2019ll likely have them all in a row on the same\u00a0day, something that took a little getting used to after a year and a\u00a0half in UL, where continuity across the week is key.<\/p>\n
All of my classes are in classrooms bar one, and for that one, we are about 60 students in an amphitheatre meant for 300 (classic French administration there!). They also offer classes at 8 am (of which I have three this semester\u2026) and on Saturdays (thankfully I managed to escape that horror).<\/p>\n
The university itself looks almost more like an American high school than a Third Level Institution. It was built when ugly architecture was fashionable (thanks, 70s!) and hasn\u2019t aged very well. Actually, the stairwells would remind you of those more\u00a0often found in multi-storey car parks\u2026 it\u2019s definitely not the modern yet beautiful riverside campus we enjoy here.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s strange to be in a centre that is much smaller now, with no green space to speak of, and only one caf\u00e9! Long gone is the\u00a0agonising choice to be made between having lunch at the Stables or Scholars, and Starbucks is a trek of a ten-minute walk away\u00a0(the horror!). Here you are fighting with all the other students for a\u00a0seat in their inadequately sized (but pleasant) cafeteria. You would\u00a0think, therefore, that I had hardly a positive word to say of it. However, I\u2019m not sure that these things are negatives; they\u2019re just different.<\/p>\n
I suppose the point of Erasmus is to have parties and make amazing life long friends open your mind and see how things are done elsewhere, and maybe even bring some of these ideas back home with you. It\u2019s not just France\u2019s system that I\u2019m getting a\u00a0glimpse of though, but those represented by my fellow Erasmus students too: Spain, Germany\u2026even the other Irish students who
\nare not from UL have a different viewpoint to me.<\/p>\n
Plus, I\u2019m in Paris! The city of love and lights, where the Christmas Markets stretched the length of the Champs-Elysees, and the smell of freshly baked bread from the Boulangerie follows\u00a0you down the street each morning. Where on any given day you can have a drink in a typically French caf\u00e9-bar, see a Pixar exhibition, attend a jazz night or poetry reading, watch a rugby match or even go celebrity stalking spotting.<\/p>\n
So I reneged on returning to Ireland for Semester Two, and now you all know why: despite the battles I must face in the University, much like Anastasia, Paris holds the key to my heart (for now at least).<\/p>\n
By\u00a0Amy Diviney<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n