An expat student in France

Paris is becoming more and more popular as a destination for education for expatriate students. A lot of reasons get credit for this rise in the number of international students in France, not only in Paris or the Ile de France region. Even though most education, politics and day to day conversations in most countries happen in their native language, just as it does in France, it does not seem to be a hurdle in the growth of education and even employment of talents from different parts of the world in France.

As a foreign student myself, I got to experience the life from this point of view. The experience might slightly differ based on factors such as how fluent one is in French, how familiar does someone seem to the French culture, the kind of situation, how different the culture of France is from one’s own culture, etc., but based on my overall pleasant experience in France, I can say that it is a rich experience as well, especially for those who are venturing out for the first time to reside in a new country.  As I have said earlier on one of my articles here – coming from India, a South Asian country, the cultural difference was immense for me. Therefore, the significance of the experience was more profound and it added a lot of new dimensions in my  perspective.

It is not quite possible to point out each and every experience I had during my  1 year and 2 months stay in Paris. But, the aim of this post is to highlight the things that I find more significant and would like to share. Some of these experiences were always existing around me  indirectly – for example expats in India experiencing them through my actions. However, this time, I was on the receiving end of these experiences and thus I can see more clearly the life of an expat in general, and the life of an expat in France. I would like to begin with the environment in one of the most international schools in the world – my home institution – ESCP Europe Business School.

Education Environment

In my home country, theoretical knowledge is more common. Knowing and understanding theories, calculating and computing things, and even inventing new ideas on paper – is how often things go about. Only when a research is sanctioned or required – or just before beginning a full-time job – does the practical activity exceed the theoretical one. In a typical classroom, the teacher explains the concepts and then asks the students if they have any questions. Probably it is because of the huge level of competition. India is a country where getting a 99 percentile among more than 2 hundred thousand of applicants in the Management Aptitude Examination might not even merit you an interview invitation by the top Business Schools of the country. Quite a few of India’s top Business Schools (the IIMs of different cities – where IIM stands for Indian Institute of Management) often rank in the world’s top 30 or top 50 Business Schools. The competition indeed is of its own kind.

In France, the class sizes were smaller where possible. The teachers hence expected more participation throughout a classroom session. There were practical activities which might sometimes be mentally less challenging, but they kept the students more engaged. Moreover, such activities inculcated other useful qualities in the students – for example, by working with students of different nationalities, the students can come to know about certain ways in which people from different countries organize or plan their work.

Studying in a management program where students are not only from different nationalities but from different study/work background, different colleagues had different expertise and team work hence became more efficient. We learnt to count on the expertise of different teammates, divide the work aptly and deliver on time. This was the most important part of the experience of studying in an international Business School as an expat. Even though the French students received the same experience, but being outside of our comfort zone or, in other words, outside of our home – I guess that the expats might put in more efforts in trying to engage with different kinds of people. Though, there can be clear exceptions to these – depending on each special person.

Patience

In my country, there are no two day weekends off for every working person. Mostly, in schools and in offices, the second Saturday of each month is a half-day – meaning – time to go to home after around noon. India's GDP (PPP) is world number 3 but the per capital GDP is extremely low. Hence, everyone is working and everyone is in a hurry most of the times (yet everyone is late, haha).

Therefore, it will not be a usual scenario in India that while there is a long queue in an office, the person working at the desk will have the privilege of working at his or her normal pace. Usually, if that is the case, someone from the queue will raise their voice to get things done faster.

In France, I once waited for an hour for an office to open at the time mentioned on the board outside. However, when it was time to open the office, the person opened the door and came out of the building only to say that she will be back in 10 minutes and began smoking in a relaxed manner. It was a big cultural difference to me. Now, when I am back to my home country for vacations, I find myself lame standing patiently in front of all the other people.

Be it a delay/problem in the metro (which is more common in the Paris metro or the RERs than the Delhi metro), or waiting in queues, or the paperwork, there is commendable patience in France. It is very impressive.