Amazing Study abroad program

As a part of the multicountry program, I spent a month and a half in Paris with the students who were doing the Paris program, and I can attest that the experience of cultural immersion and excursions is equally as robust as the multi-country abroad program. While in Paris, we travelled to different parts of Paris and we were often accompanied by a member of the team or a historian to all of our activities, which ensured we would experience France from the point of view of a local or expert.

Overall, the program's mission is immersion, so there is a great emphasis and effort put towards ensuring that students experience the country as a local would. This means the team of the program is greatly involved in helping the students navigate and integrate into local life. For example, I remember the program arranged for all students to arrive at the same time so that the director of the program could pick us up and welcome us to France. Another example of how APA goes about immersion is excursions. At the beginning of the program, students receive both an academic and an excursion calendar. Meaning upon arrival, I had a calendar packed with plays, concerts, wine tasting, and cheese tasting. museums visit, and weekend getaways to different parts of the country are already planned and organized for me to attend. To go back to the involvement of the team, I remember how the founder of the program would sometimes join the cohort to attend concerts, we had mental-health workshops, and students were invited to have coffee chats with the founder of the program. Going abroad can seem daunting, but APA has such a diverse team and they are so involved, I not only felt supported, but I felt like I joined a family.

The program offers students of the Paris program the choice to either live in dorms or stay with host families! Staying with a host family was one of the highlights of my experience. First, the "host family" structure looks difference for everyone, for the families we lived in depended on our preferences and requests. Staying with host families helped with my homesickness as I had a support system to whom I went home to every day abroad. While other students of the Paris program who chose to stay in dorms had the benefit of meeting other international students of their age, who could provide community while navigating Paris together.

While the reality of this program was fun, adventurous, exciting, and beautiful, it was also difficult in some ways. As a French program, immersing yourself in French in the classroom and at home can be a challenge and, at times, tiring when you are not used to speaking French all the time. But APA builds in tutoring time to ensure that students' written work is up to academic French caliber, and the program pairs each student with a Tandem(a local French student) to ensure each student continues to practice oral French.