Université Paris IV Paris - Sorbonne

Never ever miss the 11e arrondissement's summer festival including performances and film screenings. I also loved most of the expos and splurged on a season's pass to the Pompidou Centre. Check out www.darwah-group.fr to know what's REALLY going on.

Living with a host could not have been more beneficial for my well-being. The woman I lived with was older, had grandchildren (whom I baby-sat and gave English lessons) and regularly hosted foreign visitors. She taught me how to knit, helped me understand the election process better, and connected me with her daughter and her daughter's friends who made me feel welcome in France. It was much easier to then transition into living on my own after spending my first few months in the care of a host.

A stay shorter than a year would have prevented me from becoming as nearly bi-lingual as I did while in France. Although I had relative fluency in the language before my departure, I still had mountains of work to accomplish to reach the level of french, written and spoken, that I now speak and this could not have been accomplished in the US. Before it was just a foreign language I happened to speak pretty decently, now it is a language I dream and write poetry in and express certain things in that can not be translated.

This wasn't the only meaningful travel abroad experience that I have undergone. It only happened to be the longest one, but living in France, combined with living in other countries, learning their languages and working on interesting projects has definitely shaped how I view my skills and what I have to contribute to various communities. You can't predict what these skills will be when you are abroad but once you've travelled and taken time out to immerse yourself in another culture, in another set of values, in other kinds of work, you WILL have skills, whether they be simply better coping mechanisms or the ability to translate medical documents in three languages, these skills give you a better understanding of the world.

Most things in Paris of cultural value are free to students. See if the Sorbonne can't hook you up with a "histoire de l'art" student card (should be easy if you follow the conference) so that you can get into most private museums for free. Movies are cheap, alcohol is cheap, everything is pretty inexpensive, and if you are out of cash, just walk around. If you plan to be there a year, make sure to get an Imagine R card for the subway.