A Special Trip to France-- A Memo of One-Year Study in ESC Rennes School of Business
Time:2011-06-02 17:44:32 Clicks:
At the beginning, I would like to thank International School of JUFE to give me the chance to have a study in ESC Rennes School of Business in France. The exotic experience that I learned will be the most precious memory in my life.
At the middle of August, I set out to go abroad. During the 11-hours fly, I was a little excited about the most romantic country and with an ideal expectation in the future study.
When I first arrived in Rennes, the capital city of Bretagne where almost English is not popular at all, and I had almost zero knowledge of French, even worse I felt quite uncomfortable to directly face with a complete different culture, so called culture shock. Why they wear all black, eat only tomato and potato, sleep late, stay late at night just to have a party, all shop closed at 5 pm ? In one word in French, JE NE COMPROND PAR.
As the time goes and the beginning of the study, I found I quickly melted into school life. At there, I started to make new friends and meet different people who are not only just of different color skin and hair.
NEW COMPANIES I MET
It is astonished to find out that my classmates coming from over 6 different countries, who are of various personalities while independence. I still remembered that Mona, who is from Egyptian, invited me to her house and spent a whole afternoon exchanging and sharing our ideas about the study and French life. We talked about different view of life, study and work. There is one unanimous conclusion that French really live for work.
Another Russian lady Julia impressed me most deeply, who was extremely straight and direct whenever she expressed her idea. Her straightness let everyone like her, which was I never thought of and met with beforehand. People are quite unique I have to say, just as one saying goes ‘Everyone is a masterpiece of God.’
All friends come from all over the world like Canada, US, Morocco, Ghana, Nigeria etc. Of course, the most precious harvest was worthwhile making my cheer 4 Chinese Classmate who was coming from Henan, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Shandong and Suzhou. The diversity of multi-national culture has broadened my horizon but gave a real experience getting touch with another thinking way.
THE STUDY IN ESC-RENNES
French education has two different systems: public school and private school. It’s considered education is free and the rights to receive education is given by God and this is safeguarded and carried out by government since the great revolution and Napoleon’s transformation in education system and law building.
ESC-REENS belongs to the private school so called ‘Ecole’, which means to train special elites.
All the courses are strictly carried out under the ISO and a series code and approval from British and American Academic Institutes.
Classed are taught by school faulty and outside consultant, usually using the form of case study and group work. In-class discussion with teachers and students are also very common. Students are welcome to ask and express ideas at any time during the class, and actually I did. And I felt quite free to express in such an open discussion environment and teaching method.
I remembered at the first class of Organizational Behavior, our professor Asha, requested people of different nationality to form a team for a long-term work---a thesis writing task. It was a huge task for me. From the beginning to choose the pertinent find relevant reference to the final hand-in, all the procedures were intensive and interesting with the firm collaboration with my French friend though sometimes it was extremely hard to listen a strong French-accent English. I was once upon desperate though; mutual understanding and compromising helped me finish the task and got a B, highest mark.
FRENCH LIFE & PHILOSHIPHY
French people usually wear black. You can only tell limited several different colors in the street: black, white and red. Maybe black is their favorite color, from scarf, shirt to trousers and shoes. It was obvious to tell the foreigners in France, who usually are in some bright color, which also reflects the conservatism in French personality. They are low indeed.
Nevertheless, I get to familiar with the French and I found that they inside hearts are open and welcome. Take me as an example, once I got lost in the street when I was studying the city map. Periodically, some passengers were so voluntary to come and ask me if I need help though using their limited English. By the way, it was really modest to ask French if he or she can speak English before the conversation. “Vous parlez anglais?” will be very useful.
I tasted French life style, spending plenty of time talking in a little bar, reading local news and trying to get used of all kind of local food Crepes, cheese, butter and wines.
It was really nice to hear that people say hello to each other when getting to the bus to driver, when shopping to the casher and when meeting friends. French looks down up those who are impolite and rude. Just image the embarrassments when two strangers come across without saying a word.
TRAVELLING & CITY OF RENNES
The city of Rennes, capital of Bretagne is a garden city with beautiful gardens and many nearby sight seeing. The town is kept the very original customs passed from the early immigrants. And it is also the smallest town in the world to own ‘metro’ (subway), the public transportation is convenient while I still can see a lot of people cycling to work for the environment protection concerns.
I also traveled to the north Europe where Belgium, in Brussels, French is the most popular language while in Bruges where English is more available compared with French while people talk in Dutch. I saw the old-fashion building, the gorgeous Catholics and the local customs which interest me a lot. In Holland, I saw tulips and experienced the spectacular scene of thousand of tulip flowers.
As a conclusion, the trip to France not only enriched my academic knowledge but also broadened my view and let me realize the importance of communication among; thus, people can easily get to understand each other and in this way, it’d be better to help build comprehension and eliminate the contradictions.
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