Université Paul Valéry: Montpellier III

Université Paul-Valery Montpellier III is an interesting school. First of all, one must understand that university is essentially "free" for French students (they only have to pay about 200€ in social security), so there is little motivation for students and for professors to learn and to teach, since they can fail and retake classes for essentially no money. The grading scale is 1-20, with about a 15-20 being an A. It is virtually impossible to get over a 17, no matter how hard you try on something. Getting a 9 is "passing", though, so it's not hard to be an intermediate student. The campus itself is neglected and ridden with graffiti. It really needs to be updated; it's kind of stuck in the seventies. The only redeeming quality were the coffee vending machines which my friends and I frequented. I did not realize that it would be in this state before I went to France, so it was sort of a shock. Montpellier itself is a very beautiful city, so I was surprised with the school's campus. We were required to take integrated classes with French students as well as classes geared for international students. The international student classes were beneficial and helped improve my French. Professors were nice and spoke only in French to us, and the workload was easy. I would have actually liked a little more homework to keep myself occupied. However, the international/integrated classes were confusing (professors wouldn't show up; tests were unclear) which was discouraging. We did not find out when our final exams were for integrated classes until about a week before the exam, so it was hard making travel plans, and we were forced to kind of sit around and wait.

J'ai étudié et terminé mon master en philosophie en études à distance, en m'inscrivant à l'université de Montpellier.
Cela m'a permis de travailler à mon rythme, en autonomie et avec les impératifs que j'avais à côté, en vivant et en travaillant en Italie.
Cela s'est tellement bien passé que j'ai par la suite passé une licence de lettre, toujours par le biais des études à distance, avec l'université de Montpellier.
Seul bémol: on se sent parfois laissé de côté par certains professeurs (pas de réponse aux mails).

Mes études à l'Université m'ont permis de :
- Développer mes compétences en langues étrangères (communication, capacités de traduction, compétences interculturelles)
- M'a permis d'effectuer un séjour d'un an à l'étranger (Erasmus à Lisbonne) et m'a permis d'obtenir une bourse Erasmus d'une durée d'un an dans le cadre de cette expérience.
- Savoir-faire didactique et pédagogique au sein d'un public non francophone