"Marseille n'est pas la France" : Life in a Port City - AUCP's Bridge to the Middle East Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

The workload was reasonable, however it was necessary to do homework a few hours each night in order to keep up with the classes and keep improving our written french expression. The grading system was the typical french system, scores out of twenty, where typically scores fall between 12 and 16, in addition, the school corresponded these grades to the typical American letter system, with a 16 corresponding to an A, a 15 to an A-, ect. The teaching methods are similar to a typical lecture style, with some class participation, but not too much.

On-site administration of your program

For the most part the administration was fine and it managed many things very well, however there were a few critical instances with lack of important information or giving out information in an untimely manner and lacking a support system to understand how to live in France and manage problems with host families that I believe greatly weaken the administration.

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

I lived in an apartment with an elderly single women. She provided with my own, fully furnished room, food to make my own breakfast with and dinner most all nights of the week. Her apartment is 2 minutes walking distance from la Plage des Catalans and la Corniche, an excellent place to run. She is not near much public transportation (15 minute walk from the nearest metro stop) and it took about 30 minutes to walk to class or just about anywhere of interest, i.e. nightlife. I was treated amicably by my host mother yet it was clear that she was habituated to living alone as her daily routine consisted of watching television alone for the most part, she only had enough hot water in the apartment for one person to shower a day and she was not sure what to do with me outside of dinner conversations thus we did nothing together. I tried to do more with my host mother or at least talk with her more often then dinner, and sometimes her and I would talk in the morning or after I came home from school. Despite the small amount of interaction we had it was a very lonely and disappointing experience to live with my host mother.

The food was fine. It was not out of the ordinary amazing nor horrible, however there were a few dishes that my host mother made that were excellent. As for dietary restrictions, my host mother did not seem to understand that I do not eat a lot of meat and despite the fact that I told her when she asked what I do not like and that I simply tasted meat dishes she continued to cook a lot of meat. For lunches I ate a lot of bread and cheese, fruit, veggies, and sandwiches. We did find an excellent restaurant, "Chez Nous," that serves the most amazing crepes.

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

During our two week vacation we spent a mandatory week in Fez, Morocco. This was an amazing experience, but apart from this and a few excursions to nearby cities the program did very little by way of social events and directly providing non-academic events.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

For the most part it was safe but it is best to not walk alone at night.

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

We signed a pledge before arriving in France that we would only speak French over the duration of the program with dismissal from the program as a consequence of breaking the language pledge, and the entire group of students stuck to this for the vast majority of the program. Thus, I used French as the sole means of communication, with my host family, with my language partner (a young french person of the same college age), with my professors, with the directors, with the other students, with the servers at restaurant, with the owners of bakeries, with the computer tech who fixed my computer when it broke... There were only a few occasions near the end of the program when the students used english in communications outside of classes.

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• Host Family

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• Host Family

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• Americans

• The setting, I liked being near the beach and being able to watch the sun set over the Mediterranean whenever I wanted to.

• The administration.