Alumni Spotlight: Ana Strofer

I went to Paris for the summer since my aunt lives there and my mother had an art exhibition in the Dominican embassy. That was 2 weeks before I started the Summer Study in Paris program. I mainly chose this program cause I have a cousin that did it a few years back and she liked it very much. I chose Paris because the Dominican legal code follows the French code, so it's very important to know French in order to be a lawyer in my country. I've known I wanted to be a lawyer since I was in 8th grade.

This program offers a variety of interesting courses in English, such as film studies and photography. These were the 2 courses I took besides French since I really love films and photography. For instance, for my film studies class we got to go to a movie theatre that played "La Boheme", a silent movie from the 1920's. We even got to see it with live piano music. This was definitely one of the most memorable things from my trip!

The fact that I could go and study abroad, even if it were only for one summer, has definitely had an impact on my future, since it has given me the chance of meeting different cultures and different people and has allowed me to make great friends. This trip has given me the personality I have today because this kind of experience forces one to open up to unknown people and learn so much! Also this kind of experience allows you to be more cultured, and I'm certain it will really help when I apply for jobs or even for college.

Highlights: The highlight of my trip consisted of all the friends I made and all the places I went around Paris since it's such an amazing city surrounded by art and history.

Morning: Every morning students in this program had the opportunity to go on a variety of excursions around Paris. Some of them included: Musee d'Orsay, The Louvre, and The Eiffel Tower, among others. Students get to their destination usually by taking the metro. Sometimes when students wanted to go to a different place other than the ones offered, they could arrange to do so with a group of friends and go together (as long as they told the program instructors where they were going and as longs as they returned on time for class.

Afternoon: In the afternoons students had to attend their classes in La Cite Universitaire from 2:30pm-6:30pm. Some students had class later than others and others had classes that ended earlier. It would usually take about 20 mins to get to campus from the hotel by taking the tram.

Evening: At 7:00pm students had dinner in a variety of restaurants near the Adagio Hotel. These included Japanese, Italian, and Chinese restaurants. After dinner, students had the choice of either staying in the hotel or going on evening excursions or activities such as going to the Latin quarter for dinner or desert, going to concerts, and other activities.