Chelsea Yount, originally from the US, is studying a Masters in Comparative Development Studies at EHESS Paris. So how is she finding life in the 'City of Lights' as an American?
Well, alongside the elegant boulevards, café culture, monuments, art, history, and romance you would typically associate with Paris, she is also finding that one of the predominant themes of life in the city is... bureaucracy.
For all its myriad charms, adapting to the French university system as an international student isn’t always a walk in the park. “As intriguing as the French academic system is, it's also one of the frustrating things about my experience,” Chelsea says. “As an international student, I got very little guidance in terms of the French style of writing - but did get marked down for it!”
Chelsie’s two-year Masters in Comparative Development Studies (ECD) consists of two semester-long classes in the ECD discipline, and a selection of other classes from a list offered by other disciplines that pertain to the topic. Graduation requirements include validation of a certain number of courses, a presentation in a student-run conference on a topic chosen annually by the directors of the department, a 30-page thesis preparation/proposal paper, and a 100-150 page thesis.
Getting to know the system
Despite the range and depth of the course, it seems for international students the initial difficulties presented by French university culture may be as much logistical and organizational as academic: “I'm a member of four different academic libraries and each has a different card and different rules about accessing books (only one library lets me check out books - all the others you can only look at them while you're there)”, Chelsie says.
“I was so lost at the beginning of my master's program that I didn't go in any of the libraries until February, mostly because I didn't know how to use them or that as a student of the EHESS I was allowed to use them.”
However, despite these initial teething problems Chelsie says that the one of the main things her experience has taught her is the need for persistence. “I found that if you seek out help - especially from your classmates or people doing their doctorates - you can usually get some answers”, she says.
“You just can't be afraid to 'rélancer' the email as they say in French and to call them. Unlike in the states, professors in France don't seem to mind getting phone calls and sometimes respond to the telephone more readily than emails.”
Chelsie says the variety of intellectual and cultural influences is a real feature of her course and department. “It's an interdisciplinary department focused on questions related to development”, she says, “So that means that both students and professors come from a variety of academic backgrounds (sociology, anthropology, geography, economy, political sciences etc) and we're encouraged to use studies from all these disciplines in our research.”
International encounters
This variety also extends to her classmates. “The students seem to come from all over the place - the French students are definitely in the minority. We have a lot of students from South America and North Africa, a few from Asia, and I’m one of two people from North America (the other is Canadian).”
No stranger to adapting to a new culture, Chelsie decided to pursue her graduate study abroad after studying in Dakhar, Senegal as part of her undergraduate degree.
“After studying in Dakar, I wanted to live abroad again,” she says. “So after graduation, I moved to Amiens, France to teach English. After two years I was ready to go back to school for a masters, so I looked into the EHESS, because I knew that Claude Fischler - a specialist in my field of studies - taught there.”
And despite the fact that the French system takes some getting used to, Chelsie says the positives comfortably outweigh the negatives: “I get to experience a different way of life, a different way of doing things, and a different academic system. As a student here I've had tons of opportunities to hear academics from all over Europe (and sometimes America) speak. I've also been able to present at a couple international conferences. School isn't anywhere near as expensive as in England or the US and they've even financed my trips to conferences.”
And then there’s Paris. “It's a fantastic city, full of interesting things to do, a really beautiful place to be, picnics in the summer, nice wine and cheese.” It may take a bit of persistence to iron out the creases, but with the chance to study with leading minds, a diverse array of classmates, and in one of the world’s greatest cities – and all at a fraction of the price of studying back home – graduate study in Paris will make any extra effort seem more than worthwhile.