Study Abroad Fall 5015 Past Review

IES Abroad Fall 2015 was the best semester of my life. I highly recommend that everyone go abroad for a semester at some point during their time at college. I was lucky enough to spend a semester abroad in Paris through IES and it is a program that I would highly recommend to other students. I would recommend it for so many reasons but the top three would be their academics, trips and housing. IES BIA offers many very interesting coursing ranging from Economics, to Art History, to Green Growth. I was unfortunate in that I would not receive credit for any business classes I took while abroad. I therefore took many liberal arts classes such as Art History, Society Today, French History, Green Growth and French. Everyone in the program is required to take a French class in order to improve your skills but there are many levels to these classes and everyone will get placed in a class that suits their French speaking skills and needs. I was a mediocre French speaker going in and got placed in the 301 level class. I had an amazing teacher and had so much fun while also learning a lot of French. The IES classes are not difficult which is nice because I know a lot of people are planning on traveling and do not want to be bogged down by schoolwork. I can say that I never really did any homework and was still very successful in school. However, even though the out of classroom work is not terribly difficult or cumbersome the learning is still present. Many of my classes we would take field trips throughout the city and were able to see the art or culture that we were learning about. I had about 3 or 4 trips to the Louvre for my art history class. I also was able to go and make my own crepes for my French class when we were learning about ingredients and cooking. These kind of experiences will stay with me and I can honestly say that I will remember a lot of what I learned because when you can see or touch the learning it comes to life. IES runs a couple of school trips which are all well organized and educational. I participated in the trips to Normandy, Vaux le Vicomte and Fontainebleau, and Versailles. These trips are great opportunities to see your fellow classmates as well as teachers in a non-classroom setting while also experiencing French culture. During the trips you also get to eat traditional French meals provided by the program. These were some of the best meals that I ate while abroad and are way better than they sound. IES does a great job organizing these trips so that you have plenty of time to see the history or culture as a group but then you are also given time to explore on your own or with other students. These trips are not mandatory but something that I would highly suggest that every student try to participate in. The final part of my trip that I would like to share is my homestay. I was incredibly lucky with my host family and my homestay living situation. I feel that I had the best situation imaginable but every student that decided to do a homestay was incredibly pleased with their situation and would argue that theirs was better. My family would allow me to eat dinner with them any night I was home and wanted to eat. I was also able to talk to them and ask them questions about any part of their culture that interested me. As I mentioned before my speaking skills weren't superb but they never made fun of me or laughed and I can say that by the end I could easily communicate in French. My homestay really improved my experience in Paris and is a large part of the reason that I want to go back. I highly recommend a homestay to everyone studying abroad with IES and encourage anyone worried about language barrier or cultural conflicts to give it a try because IES is very accommodating. For those who believe that apartments better suit their needs the apartments provided by IES are also great but their occupants just miss out on the cultural experience. Overall IES BIA is an amazing program and I hope that many people chose it and have an amazing experience similar to the one I had.