After High School...

I realize that this is sort of a bizarre topic for a blog post, but since I, my old American classmates, and new French classmates are all at some stage in the college application process, I figured it might be interesting to share with everyone some of the differences between the two systems.

American and French universities are not alike, at least not in terms of accepting students who want to study there.  I've had a really, um, interesting time explaining to my classmates why I'm even applying to more than one school (let alone ten).  Here, French students pick the school that they want to attend based on the school's programs of studies or certain departments, and that's where they end up going in about 95% of cases.  Students don't particularly try to win over a school's approval, and schools don't really advertise to prospective students.  College application simply isn't competitive the way it is in the US.

So, if it's not college applications, what's stressing French students out during their senior year?  Two words.  Le Bac.  The baccalaureate is basically the big standardized test that students take at the end of high school, and it's a really big deal.  If anything, I suppose I could compare it to our SATs/ACTs/AP tests in the US, but even that doesn't really do it justice.  The bac is a one-shot deal, meaning no retakes.  Plus, it honestly tests absolutely everything French students are supposed to learn in high school, and different groups of students take slightly different exams, depending on which classes they specialized in in high school, so teachers are obligated to teach as close to the curriculum as possible.  While actual universities aren't terribly difficult to get into, programs of studies can be, so a student's bac scores are extremely important for placement purposes.

The other really big difference between seniors in American and French high schools is the degree to which they know what they want to do with their life.  About a week ago, my homeroom teacher had to set up appointments with each student in the class to make sure everyone knew what they wanted to pursue after high school and had a plan to get there.  Students had to explain which university they were applying to, which field they wanted to study, which future career they wanted to pursue, and if they had a back-up plan.  While American students are encouraged to think and plan like this, a high school senior in the US doesn't necessarily need to have a perfect plan regarding their future- and in our system, that's okay!  Here, on the other hand, students generally reach a point of no return fairly early on, where it becomes very inconvenient to change their mind about what they want to do with their life.  Even in high school, students have to select a specific track to study (either the literary, scientific, or economic track) to prepare them for their post-secondary education.  Ultimately, this results in students having tons of depth in their chosen track, but sometimes not even a basic understanding of others.  My classmates (in the literary track) were astonished when I was able to do a philosophy homework assignment involving the theory of evolution without doing any research.  I was simply familiar enough with evolution from studying it in biology class in the US that my own knowledge was sufficient to complete the assignment, whereas my classmates had spent the night scouring Google for a simple explanation of the theory.

In some ways, the French system is more efficient; it allows students to pursue what they love early in life, and gain deeper knowledge in these subjects faster than their American counterparts.  On the other hand, French students admittedly miss out on having a broad range of basic understanding, even in subjects that they don't have a talent or interest in.  I might be a bit biased in this situation, but I think I truly prefer the American system, where students have a bit more opportunity to explore, and the flexibility to change their mind.  I know that I'm incredibly grateful for this year between high school and college to explore a bit on my own, and ask myself what I really want to do with my life when I go back home.  The more time I spend here, meeting people and experiencing things I never would have in the US, the more I question the things that I had once presumed about my future.  Fortunately, I still have plenty of time to figure things out... :)

A New Generation of Exchangers...

On Saturday, I went with a group of other exchange students to a city called Vienne, to attend a meeting for (can you believe it?) next year's outbound candidates.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with Rotary lingo, these are students who are going through an interview and application process in the hopes of leaving their native France late next summer, bound for an exciting, challenging year in a foreign country.  That's right, they're the 2014-2015 exchange-students-in-training.

It was absolutely crazy to see a whole new group of future exchange students, who are just beginning an amazing journey (and one that I'm nearly two months into, now!).  It was so strange to think of how far I've come in the past year, and how fast it's going by.  Even more bizarre to think that, a year from now, I'll be back home and these students will all be scattered around the world!

I was lucky enough to get the chance to talk to a couple of students who are thinking about listing the US as a top choice (they have to choose three countries, and only one can be an Anglophone nation).  As usual, it was interesting to see what impressions people had about the US, and how their impressions compare to the actual facts.  I got the chance to explain that it is indeed possible to live in America and not become morbidly obese, and that there actually are other populated parts of the country outside of New York, California, Texas, and Disneyland (the four general areas that people here are familiar with ;)).

My own host sister, Julianne, from my second host family, is hoping to go to South Africa next year, though she still hasn't finalized her application yet.  I'll be wishing her luck on getting her top choice, and possibly help her work through applications when I go to live with her family this winter.

A bientot!

At the Vineyard :)

Hi everyone!

I know this post is a little bit late, but things are starting to get sort of busy around here (in a good way of course!).  Anyway, I had a pretty great weekend, and got the opportunity to spend Sunday working on a vineyard owned by a local Rotarian and his family.

This beautiful vineyard is situated in a town/region sort of thing called Beaujolais, and it's one of the two regions of France in which the grapes are still hand-picked to make wine.  Here, it's too rocky and mountainous for harvesting machines, so all the harvesting is done almost exactly as it's been done for hundreds (thousands!) of years.  Of course, it wasn't easy to spend hours leaning over lines of wine grapes, carefully checking for ripeness and then cutting them off the plant... one bunch at a time... but it was amazing to put myself in the position of the workers that actually do this for a living, and all of those who have done it throughout history.  After all, Beaujolais has been a wine-making region since it was part of the Roman Empire!

After the harvesting was over for the day, the other exchange students and I got to look around the cellars and fermentation rooms, and see exactly how the wine was produced.

(My phone is not cooperating with me at the moment, and is refusing to let me transfer my pictures to the computer :(  I'll be posting photos as soon as I can get this all figured out)