A gorgeous city and mostly positive experience!

I absolutely love Lyon! It's a wonderful location that is beautiful, central, large enough to get all of the benefits of living in a big city, yet much smaller than overcrowded cities like Paris or New York. If you're looking to study here, I would definitely recommend it!

Going through the USAC Program was a little complicated since the classes and grading are not the same as what you sign up for. You basically sign up for classes, then are integrated into Université Lumière Lyon 2's CIEF (Centres International d'Études Françaises) courses that are built to prepare for entrance into a French university. You are broken up into levels (A1-C2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages), then you attend those courses (11 classes of 1 hour 45 minutes per week) with foreign students working towards a B2 or C1 DELF/DALF. It was hard work, and for me, Monday through Friday. Some days were so long that my body ached for sitting for hours at a time. It was also difficult to travel during weekends because of the late classes scheduled for Fridays and early classes scheduled for Mondays (they discourage skipping courses, but I definitely needed to sometimes). You can tell that this is an intensive program made for those who are seriously working towards the language skills to integrate into a French university, and since it was not my goal, it was a little difficult to remain motivated sometimes.

I would say that, overall, Lyon is a great study abroad city with a vibrant social scene for young adults, but I was less than impressed with Lyon 2's CIEF program.