Christina-en France!: First Week of School

Bonjour à tous !

I had my first week of regular classes this week, which went well! Not a lot of fun pics this time, but my next one will have tons because it’s about my weekend in Paris with Breanne!

After showing up to my 9:45 AM mathematical modeling class, a first year math class taught in French, there was no sign of the prof…or the students. Awe, man! Not the start I was looking for on my first day of school. I found out later from a bulletin board (because that’s how they do things in France…not online, but old school bulletin boards), that the first class was postponed until next week.

My next class wasn’t until 3:30, Series and Sequences, a second year math course taught in English. There are only about 12 students in it, mostly guys, mostly French besides 2 guys from China. The level of math seems higher than in Canada. Faster, more compact lessons. There is a lot of new terminology and notation, which was overwhelming to me, especially in the beginning, but I arranged a meeting with my prof to go through all of that. He was very helpful. This book has been a great help as well!

I only had 1 class each day on Mon, Tues and Wed, which left a lot of time to go through my notes at the library. Good thing I did, because in tutorial the prof would give us a problem and we’d have a few minutes to try and work it out on paper, then he’d call on one of us to put the solution up on the board in front of everyone. Terrifying! But I’m sure it’ll help me improve in math. Here’s a typical classroom, we just don’t fill it.

I had my first French class, Problèmes sociaux de la France contemporaine, on Thursday. That is going to be an AMAZING class! Thirty exchange students from literally all over the world, comparing our societies and cultures. We’re not graded on our knowledge in sociology, nor our level of French, but the majority is based our participation (no exam!!). Prof seems great too. Next weeks’ topic: tobacco and alcohol in France and our countries. Everyone smokes a LOT here compared to “Smoke Free Ontario”, I think it’ll be a cool topic!

Mountains in evening from campus

Did my placement test Thurs night for my other French course with about 200 other exchange students at Université Joseph Fourier. I went on a historical tour for exchange students one night this week too! This was the first place in France to get electricity. It was in Grenoble!

I had a hot chocolate here a couple weeks ago (I think this pic was in that blog). Then they said this was a common place for royal people to “get their heads’ chopped off” during the French revolution…kind of tainted my image of the square. It’s still beautiful though!

We learned that this bridge was the first to be built across this river (L’Isère). I cross it on my way to school or the centreville. It’s just a pedestrian bridge…I get why now. The 20 of us jumped on it at once and it bounced for the next 2 minutes!

Here’s a little history for you: Grenoble is one of the flattest cities in France. This is because there used to be a HUGE glacier here, and then a lake, and then after years of deposits: BAM Grenoble!