A Montreux Sunset
Author: Meg Bozarth | Majors: Civil Engineering, French | Semester: Summer 2023
I’ve always been fascinated by France. As a child, I was enthralled by the stereotypes: romance, food, the language, art, music. Yet as I am today, that interest has changed to include French phonetics, literature, law, geography, history, horticulture, politics, science, and engineering. When I came to college with a lot of transfer credit, I had the option to graduate early or pursue additional studies. I took the chance given by the Honors College Fellowship, and chose to study French.
This summer, I had the opportunity to study abroad using funds from the Honors College Fellowship. It was a huge step – I had never left the country before, rarely spoken French with a native speaker, and felt pressure from my peers and mentors in engineering to get an internship instead. Yet the French department did not give up on me, finally convincing me to go to Grenoble, France with their faculty led study abroad. The program gave me both the opportunity to earn some extra credit towards my French major as well as to improve my mastery of the language – both things that I needed and desperately wanted. I was curious about French engineering literature but couldn’t quite read it yet. Going to Grenoble gave me the chance to work towards that level of fluency.
While in Grenoble I was able to take courses Monday through Friday every morning from 8:30 to 12:30. Each course was taught by a French professor on topics such as language, culture, politics, art, and literature. In class I learned materiel ranging from vocabulary and grammar to how to set a table in France. I learned about gastronomy, savoir vivre (French manners), government, health, family, and even myself. In combination with afternoons spent roaming Grenoble and evenings with my host family, my French improved drastically from the program. I now have far fewer spelling errors, a greater vocabulary, an improved ability to read scientific materiel, familiarity with colloquial expressions, knowledge of French history and geography, and a wealth of memories from my mistakes and victories. I improved from a B1 to a B2 level of French mastery.
My favorite part of studying abroad was the opportunity to stay with a host family. Living with three French children and two adults provided a window into the culture that I would not otherwise have had access to. For example, one of my strongest memories is from eating dinner with my host family. After eating three different kinds of salads, sausage, cheese, bread, and Greek yogurt with sugar added for dessert, the children suddenly got up from the table and ran to the side of the house. They began to conference amongst themselves. To my delight, the children came back into view, parading with pool noodles, water guns, and a swim trunk on a stick for a flag. They then proceeded to stage a strike, protesting the hour of their bedtime. Instead of getting upset, their parents negotiated a contract with the kids, allowing them to stay up for another hour to swim if they went to bed afterwards with no complaints. When I later asked why they approved of their children’s demands, they told me that protesting against parents is good practice for the real world. It was a very funny and incredibly French experience!
If you are considering going abroad during your undergraduate degree, do it. As an engineering student, I know firsthand how hard it can be to find the time. But believe me, it is so worth it. The world is so much bigger than the United States, life is so much larger than college, and the human experience is so wonderfully diverse. Take a chance, find a program that can give you some useful credits and send you somewhere you’ve never been, and buy your plane tickets. Even if it’s hard, you won’t regret going abroad.