French and International Business
Montpellier, France - Fall 2024
In the fall of 2024, I was graced with the opportunity to spend a semester in Montpellier, in beautiful southern France. The experience was certainly life-altering and strengthened my comprehension of the French language and culture. I was able to discover a French way of life and the culture that surrounds it while living abroad. I was able to take French and business courses that elevated my reading, writing, and speaking comprehension while living and exploring as well. When I began the semester in September, I was prepared to feel ostracized, out of place, and lost. However, when I left the country right before Christmas, I felt as though I was living alongside the French citizens as one of their own.
Starting the semester, I felt as though my comprehension of the French language was adequate; I had previously lived in Toulouse, France, and Montreal, Quebec, where I learned the language and culture at a young age. However, I spent the rest of my youth living in the United States and did not put that experience to practice very often. In any case, being exposed to French language and culture at a young age gave me a head start going into my fall semester. When I began my class load in Montpellier, I was mostly focused on obtaining a passing grade and devoting my time to these courses. However, as the weeks passed, I realized that French academic culture is vastly different from that of the United States. France’s culture is focused much more on self-fulfillment needs and ensuring a proper balance of work and personal life. I found myself spending fewer hours outside of courses on homework and more of my time discovering the city and exploring French daily life. A main goal of mine during my time in Montpellier was to leave the country having gained fluency in the language and have a strengthened level of grammar and pronunciation. I believe I was able to accomplish this goal, through my phonetics and grammar courses, in addition to the basic everyday interactions in the city. Phonetics lessons turned out to be much more useful than I initially thought, because they allowed me to work on sentence flow, pronunciation, and everyday communication. As a senior with plans to graduate in May 2025, I will admit I was mostly concerned about obtaining passing grades and ensuring all required classes were completed. As the semester progressed, however, I realized that French academia would not be too large of a burden for me to handle.
When I was not in class or spending time exploring the city of Montpellier, I traveled to other countries and cities within France, both with my program and on my own or with friends. For fall break, I was fortunate enough to visit distant cousins who live in Antwerp, Belgium, and friends of the family who live in Metz, France. I also made weekend trips to Barcelona, Marseille, and Toulouse. Several times throughout the semester, the program directors organized trips to small historical villages and castles in the south. I visited the Pont Du Gard, a Roman aqueduct built in the first century; the Peyrepertuse castle, a 13th-century fortress located in the French Pyrenees; the Calanques national park in Marseille, a stunning section of seaside cliffs, forests, and beaches; and much more. The opportunities I received to explore western Europe with my free time were certainly life-changing and gave me a much deeper understanding of the region I was living in.
With the French emphasis on work-life balance, I was able to not only gain academic experience though my classes but living in the busy city of Montpellier. Additionally, my housing arrangements were to be living with an older lady, a resident of Montpellier for more than 25 years. This aspect of my time overseas proved to be very difficult at first, but quicky I was able to pick up her way of living and we created a sense of family together. I ate meals with her every evening for dinner, and we discussed a wide variety of topics, oftentimes the noisy birds or American politics. Paule, my host, was a very useful connection to have while I studied abroad, as anytime a zipper broke or I needed a dry cleaner, she knew who to call and how to get it done properly. Through time I spent with her, I was able to see firsthand many differences in French and American culture. For one, we remained at the dinner table for hours, often into the late evening, just conversing about daily life, which is a very common practice in France. While mainly only concerning the south of France, it is still worth mentioning that I was taught a much more extreme measure of water conservation with Paule compared to in the United States. I took short showers, reused clothing and dishware when possible, and washed most dishes by hand (this was mainly due to the south’s dry climate, but also partially one aspect of living with Paule).
Another difference in culture that I found fascinating is how the French people are much more consistently using their public spaces. No matter the time of day, anywhere you went in Montpellier, I was able to see people of all ages enjoying a café au lait outside in the terrace space of a coffee shop or sitting in the park. In America, spaces like these are generally hard to come by (apart from large cities) and they are very often curated. The French willingness to exist in the spaces given to them was a very pleasant sight for me, having spent the majority of my life in the suburban car-centered sprawl of the United States. Due to the location of Paule's apartment, I was within a 10-minute walk of everything I needed to enjoy a fulfilling semester.
While also enjoying generally heathier food options, I was able to enjoy the French style of daily and weekly grocery purchases. In the United States, we often buy groceries in large quantities, with the intention to supply ourselves for several weeks. Because of the stricter food laws in France, and the proximity of their origins, My friends & I bought groceries more often and in smaller amounts. Smaller neighborhood markets around town put more emphasis on more consistent shopping. Fresher ingredients and healthier items generally are more perishable, which absolutely promoted a more sustainable life. I found myself considering meals one at a time and putting less emphasis on my weekly meal routine. This was a welcome change from the routine I had established in Clemson.
Overall, the semester I spent in and around Montpellier was one of the most enriching periods of my life. I was able to not only improve my French language abilities, but immersing myself in the French culture and way of life allowed me to feel completely as if I was a lifelong resident. I was able to view myself as an American from a foreign perspective while also viewing the French citizens from an American perspective, which allowed me to compare and contrast our different ways of living.