Endless Support

The number one aspect of my semester abroad with Sweet Briar College in Paris that will always stay with me was the endless support that every student received. There's an on-site staff of four people, while they have more professors taking care of all of the classes, for a grand total of about 20 students each semester. This meant that whenever I needed anything at all, there was no wait-time for getting help. The program partially focuses on signing students up for courses at a local university in Paris--for me, it was the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 3--but they don't just leave students hanging. We each had a top-notch advising session, where we looked at all of the classes offered and heard feedback from previous students about some of the available options. Then, they either registered us for the classes from their own office, or they walked us directly to see each of the departments' secretaries, to guarantee that we would be registered for our courses, and that all would be well. A few weeks into the semester, this initial support was dovetailed both with lengthy meetings about our academics, and how we feel overall about the university at which we take classes, and about our host families. With the goal of providing every student a built-in opportunity to practice French, each student was guaranteed a host family, and such housing was strongly recommended by everyone in the program. And yet, they didn't just assign us to host families and move onto the next thing. They asked us multiple times throughout the semester about how our relationships with the host families were developing, asking pinpointed questions that demonstrated both how much they were listening to us about the subject, but about how much they genuinely cared about our stay in France. They educated us about culture shock in ways most other programs, and most people at my home university, never really do, and they also provided students with free therapy, for even more individual and personal support. Throughout the semester, some of the in-house professors served as tutors both for the Sweet Briar classes and the ones at the various Paris universities, so each week, I received free tutoring for as long as I wanted, all throughout the semester. The group also engaged in a few paid-for excursions, including one to Lille and another throughout Provence, which included high quality housing, three-course meals, and all of the planning performed by someone else--so that all of the students could relax on these miniature vacations! Overall, though, throughout the semester, at any moment of need, from preparing for coursework, to practicing for an improvised speech competition at the local university, the staff was consistently there to help us out, and do whatever they could to make our stay a positive one.