Both in Boston and here in Grenoble, BU students are tackling major exams marking about half of the material being taught. This not-so-coincidentally falls right after this past Saturday, my halfway point here in Grenoble, which makes it the perfect time to have a midterm review of my study abroad adventure so far.
First, I have definitely taken advantage of the size of Europe. I have been traveling from country to country more frequently than I travel between Boston and my home in Connecticut when I’m not abroad. So far I have checked off Portugal, Germany and Hungary, with trips to Italy and the United Kingdom fully planned for the upcoming weeks, so I can definitely say I achieved my goal of exploring as much as possible. One thing I have learned from this is how wonderful low-cost airlines are in Europe, such as the one I frequent: EasyJet. As a poor college student, the cheap flights really help me discover new cultures while not breaking the bank.
Second, my French fluency has not improved as much as I thought it would have in the first two months here. I know I am learning new verbs, new syntactic structures and even slang, but I do not think I can consider myself fluent yet. My advisors have told me that they have seen improvement with how I speak and my pronunciation, yet I am having a hard time seeing that myself. I do not find myself thinking in French the majority of the time, despite the fact that in the classroom we go in depth with how to formulate French essays, with my host family I use French exclusively and the fact that I watch either “Friends” or “Pokemon” on Netflix every night in French. The fact that I am never in France over the weekends could be posing a problem as I always speak English with my friends when I am in other countries, but then again I still thought that my French would have progressed farther than it has. Moral of the story, I’ve found that becoming fluent in a language is hard.
Third, the cliché feeling of homesickness has definitely claimed me as a victim in a way. I don’t really miss my actual family, especially since they visited me here in Grenoble last week, but instead I miss my friends and my boyfriend back at BU. The first month in was definitely a low point emotionally. Now that time has been passing faster and getting more stressful with my midterm exams this past week, I am valiantly fighting past the homesickness and enjoying my time here.
Finally, being an international student is extremely hard. At BU we are incredibly lucky to have about 25 percent of our student population being international, but I think we do not give them enough credit for studying across the world from their families and friends. One comment I used to hear all the time at BU goes along the lines of “Wow, the international students never talk to anyone else but themselves. They should try to be with everyone else.” Before I studied abroad, I would not have thought anything of this statement as I naïvely thought that assimilating into another language and another culture is not difficult as long as you try. However, now I fully understand the struggle of international students studying at BU. When I go to my university here in Grenoble, I speak in French with the professors, with French students, and with other non-Anglophone students. However, after classes when I hang out with other BU or American students, I speak English. When with other native English speakers, English is the easiest and most effective form of communication. Yes, we can communicate with French, but it is much faster to make plans to other countries or to discuss the presidential election in English. So I now understand why I hear so many languages along Commonwealth Avenue. Sometimes you just need to speak your native language.
Overall, I have to say that this semester abroad is progressing quite smoothly. As a study abroad student, reflection becomes really key in discovering who you are, so even in a mid-semester check-in in the form of a column can really be one of the most helpful things to appreciate everything I have experienced and accomplished. While I hope that by the end of the semester my French will have improved by leaps and bounds, in the end I know that this will have been an amazing adventure traveling and learning.
