Université Panthéon-Sorbonne: Paris I

It's not the university who provided this accomodation, as a student in paris you are obliged to find your own housing by yourself.

Friday night rollerblading fever! meet at 10 pm in front of Montparnasse and be prepared to race!!!

Banks! You have to be very cautious, French banks like to charge you for anything they can think of. When I cashed my Erasmus grant cheque, which was issued in Pound Sterling, they made me pay about 15% of its amount in charges (convertion, provision, the fact that I cashed it, etc...) The nightlife in paris is said to be expensive, but it doesn't have to be. Go to the bars that got a little dancefloor during the week (like Favela Chique at Republique, Latina Cafe Champs Elysees, etc). At the WE there are othercool thingks to do like the Rollerblading Parade Friday nights! And it's all for free!

At the beginning the Parisians were talking back to me in English because I was insecure and had quite a strong accent. I pretended to not understand English. Sure that was quite an extra obstacle at the beginning, but the easier I git used to communicating in French. At university teachers usually expect of you to already understand them brilliantly, I got called to the board in an Microeconomics class in the 4th week and didn't understand any of what the teacher was asking me about. I told him that I didn't understand but he thought that I was just pretending in order to be prevented from a "fail". I failed virtually all of my written class tests in the first bit of the first term. The problem was that my vocab was still too restricted, and it took me hours to read one page. I think I never worked so hard during the first term of university in my whole life. Although my marks were very bad in the first semester my French improved lots, and in the second semester I found it a lot easier to follow lectures and classes.

Paris is very multicultural, busy and fast living. Don't expect anybody to come up to you and ask you whether you need help. On the contrary, you often really have to keep bothering other students, academics, shop assistants, sports clubs etc until you get what you want. The best thing about it is that there's nothing over here that doesn't exist, if you want you can get whathever you want! If you go for it and be tough you'll have the best time of your life!