A Year to Remember

I was told my year abroad in Paris would be stressful. My mother, a former JYF student, warned of the difficulties getting by in a second language, adjusting to cultural differences, and maintaining hyper vigilance of my safety in a foreign city. She also extolled this program, asserting that it was a year of immense personal growth and unparalleled immersion into the French culture. Looking back, I can agree with the second part of her stance. I feel that students on this program receive so much academic and personal support from JYF's staff, host families, professors, and other students, that stress was the lowest it could possibly be while moving to a new country. JYF's staff was always ready to help students book doctor's appointments, set up a French bank account, communicate with our French university, and resolve pretty much any conflict that could worry a student abroad. Additionally, I found Paris to be an incredibly secure and easily navigated city. I reveled in the independence the city's metro brought me, for which JYF helped students buy a yearlong unlimited pass. Sweet Briar provides safety nets that ensure comfort but do not eradicate the need to learn self-sufficiency in a group of 20 year olds living in a foreign country. The classes taught at Sweet Briar were truly once in a lifetime opportunities, providing insights into French culture through architecture, art, immigration, and theatre. These courses were also great ways to explore the city. For my art history class, we spent an hour and a half in the Louvre or Musée d'Orsay each week, surrounded by famous paintings while our professor gave detailed histories on literally any work you could ask him about. A course on Paris's history through its monuments took us through a new neighborhood each week, and we were able to see period styles, monarchies, and revolutions come to life as our professor informed us on the riveting stories each site had to offer. After classes at JYF's office, I would walk 5 minutes to the Jardin du Luxembourg and picnic or stroll around the Latin Quarter. In the evenings, I came home to delicious four course meals with my host family and we discussed, theorized and debated a range of subjects at the dinner table, providing a quintessential French experience. Weekend excursions with Sweet Briar provided an itinerary packed with guided tours, exquisite meals, gorgeous views, and visits to remote sites that would be difficult for a student tourist to get to on their own. My personal favorite was a weekend we spent in the south of France. One afternoon we took our chartered bus to the Van Gogh museum, a former mental hospital where the artist lived, and painted Starry Night, in the countryside near Arles. This is one unforgettable experience from my year abroad with Sweet Briar. For anyone wanting an immersive cultural experience full of unique opportunities for study abroad, this is the best program I could imagine.