University life

Well time seems to be flying by now! It is now 3 weeks today since I moved into my room here – it definitely gets better as time goes on, although I would give anything to have a sofa and a proper kitchen now!

Looking back on the past 3 weeks, I feel that a lot has been achieved – we have (almost) conquered the French administration system and can understand (the majority of) French lecturers!

Many people may be wondering what the university is like so I thought that I would give you an insight into the campus. There is not just one university on campus but a whole collection of them. The University I am studying at (Université Pierre Mendès France) is for law students and economics students. There are roughly 60,000 students on campus which means there is always a great atmosphere. There are big open spaces surrounded by views of the mountains which invite many students to sit and have a spot of lunch or do some work on their computers etc. I even saw one man juggling the other day! There are plenty of places to get food on campus ranging from the university restaurants (3 courses for €3.15) to sandwich and salad bars to cafes, to fast food places. In addition to all of these places to eat, there is a post office, a selection of banks, a place to hire bikes and a little shop.

The tram line goes straight through the middle of campus and into town which makes it a great way to get around Grenoble. I bought a year tram pass which has already been used more times than I can count – definitely a good investment!

My halls are about a 10-15 minute walk away from the law building and lecture theatres. It makes it a very easy to get into uni and still be able to come back to my room between classes if I need to.  The walk into university and back is by a footpath lined with trees which is lovely at the moment as all of the leaves are falling off and there are a lot of conkers!

We have been very lucky with the weather so far as it is still very hot and sunny! We had one day of storms a few weeks ago, and when it rains, it pours!

Surviving week 1!

Well we’ve managed it! A whole week of classes and we have come through the other end in one piece! I can’t say that it has been easy – it most certainly hasn’t, but it has taught me a thing or two:

1) French lecturers talk really fast

2) You actually have to concentrate on the whole lecture to understand what is going on

3) You long for the half way mark as there is a break so that the smokers (majority of the class) can have a cigarette whilst we can get a cup of coffee for 50 cents (bargain!).

The classes on the whole have been manageable and it feels like a huge achievement to get to the end of a lecture and realise that you have actually learnt a lot. Going through my notes today, I realised that most of the horrible red squiggly lines telling me that there is a spelling mistake were for not putting in accents which means that the majority of the words I typed were almost correct – bonus! However, I can’t say that it all makes complete sense! There were a lot of times when the lecturer would say a word that I did not have any clue what it meant – cue guessing how it is spelt and turning to google translate!

Yesterday we went to try to buy our ski passes. We went to the sports office and asked to buy them. We were swiftly instructed that we were in the wrong place and had to go to the swimming pool (obviously we should have thought that we need to buy ski passes at the swimming pool……!). When we got there, we were informed that we need a photo to put on our card. As we didn’t have one with us we could not get a card – wasted trip!

This morning we got up bright and early for our last 8am lecture of the week. As our timetables did not tell us where the class was and the portal was not working, we decided to go a bit earlier to see the secretary to see where it was. Her response was ‘look at the screens in the lecture theatre hall’. I hadn’t even realised there was screens in there, so we decided to trust her and went off to find out. When we got there the screens weren’t turned on (of course!) so our next step was to hang around and hope to see our lecturer appear so we could follow her in. This didn’t happen and so we have no idea where the class was! Next step: coffee! We waited until 9am so we could go to subscribe for our French class and then discovered that the secretary’s office in the language building was not open! Next step: buy stamps for Britain. As our morning was turning out so badly, we should have guessed that they would have run out (I will get round to writing to people soon!). Finally, our last thing that we thought we could do was to try to sign up for our tutorials, but when that secretary wasn’t there either, we decided to give up for the morning and head back to our rooms hoping that the afternoon would turn out better! Thankfully there were no hiccups this afternoon - just 4 hours of sitting in a hot lecture theatre!

It’s a lovely sunny evening here so we are heading off to get some pizza and wine!

 

Settling in and finding our way!

Well I can safely say that I have learnt a whole new meaning of the word ‘unorganised’! Who knew that going to university in a different country would require so much paperwork?! Maybe I should have guessed! Let’s just say that the university staff aren’t exactly speedy at getting anything done! The first week has gone by in a blur of standing in queues, being confused, getting stressed (and eating ice cream to cheer us up) and gazing in awe at the magnificent views of the Alps. We have spent our first week without our student cards. This means that we couldn’t get on the internet in our halls of residence, we couldn’t get money cards and so couldn’t eat in the university restaurants (3 euros for a 3 course meal!) and we couldn’t apply for CAF (funding from the French government for accommodation) – one little card is so important! We took our laptops to university most days last week to get on eduroam using our Aberdeen login details – times are tough! But when you look past all of the administration, the university is amazing. It is set in such a great location and everyone is so cheery. Hannah and I have been out exploring the city and trying to become French (including plenty of wine!).

On Sunday we decided to do the tourist thing! We went up la bastille on the cable cars and the views are breath taking! After having some lunch at the top, we came down to go on the tourist train round the city. Definitely worth the cheesy music and funny looks we got from people as we went round the city.

Yesterday our classes started - no amount of French language classes could have prepared me for what was in store! All you can do is try to type as much as possible! It was helpful to sit behind someone who had a laptop as I could make sure I was on the right lines with some things! Hopefully it will get better – watch this space!

Today I got my student card – hurray! The internet is finally working and I have submitted my application for CAF. Next step: money cards!