Type of housing: Apartment/House

Arranged by: Independently - My choice

If returning, I would choose: Apartment/House

Why? I was very lucky to have two housemates, like I used to have in Holland. Living in an apartment is the most independant way for a living, compared to the other possibilities.

Personal comments:
They help you by giving adresses of housing agencies. Some of these only want students from this institute, so you have quite a good chance to find one by consulting them.

Describe host city: Students equally interact with the local and student community

Nightlife, Travel: Takes place mostly outside the university/student environment

Activities: Takes place both within and outside of the university/student environment

Personal comments:
Favourite pub was the Frog and Rosbif (2eme arrond). Favourite restaurants were around Blvd St Germain (6eme arrond). Good shopping also around St. Germain. The hammam at the Mosquee de Paris is an economical treat.

Course recommendations:
If you take Economics, get Schlacter as your maitre de conference; he's fantastic Christophe Jamin is also brilliant for law / law and economics

Personal comments:
You are worked into the ground and the admin is a disaster - we had end of year exams before the end of teaching. But overall fairly good feedback and lots of continous assessment, if you like that. Signing up for courses is also a bit difficult - you have to be on line the moment inscription opens and have a priority list and lots of alternatives as you won't always get your first choices. Courses with French students are marked harder than courses with just international students.

Language of instruction: French

Main source of funding:
Family

Other sources of funding:
Personal savings

Work opportunities:
It was not legal for me to work

Personal spending habits:
My flat was pricey, but good value for money. Food, at that time, was cheaper (the dollar having been stronger than the Franc then). I didn't use the telephone a lot, and when I did I used phone cards, so I was very aware of my spending. I spent more on travel because I took a lot more trips.

Travel, Housing: was more expensive than at home.

Nightlife, Overall: was the same price as at home.

Food, Telephone: was less expensive than at home.

I wish I had known...
Make sure you know exactly how your results are going to be counted back at your home university - because I was the first student from my university to do this particular exchange and beacuse the French and American evaluation systems are so different, I ran into lots of administrative problems once I returned home.

In my opinion:
Most people loved it.