Before coming to Paris, France, to study for five months, I had the idea that the system of education would be similar to the United States because of the fact that I would be studying in a program specifically designed for Americans. While there are some similarities to the American way, the education that I have followed since arriving has closely resembled that of a typical European country. At first, this change was slightly jarring and took some adjustment, but I am grateful for the opportunity to learn what it is like to get an education outside of my home country and to use this different experience to deepen my cultural immersion. Part of adapting to a new culture involves comparing and contrasting common methods and practices used by the people between home and host countries. So, I began to look at the differences I noticed between things like the execution of education and asked myself why each of us do it the way we do. When examining this point of view, I realized that both France and the U.S. have the same goals in mind, which is to educate their people effectively and efficiently. They simply have different ways of going about it, and knowing this makes it easier for me to accept and take advantage of the differences here.

As for the differences, they have a lot to do with the work/lecture balance and the weight of exam grades. In most U.S. schools, class grades are based mainly on a large number of assignments, a few tests and perhaps some participation points. Here in France, the amount of assignments I’ve had to complete outside of the classroom for a grade has shrunk to nearly zero, and the assignments I complete in class rarely count as a grade. Instead, a lot of emphasis is put on showing up to the lecture, listening and participating in in-class activities. My grades are made up of two categories: participation and exam grades. Participation is so heavily valued here that most professors allow students to miss only two classes before their grade is impacted or they are at risk of failing the course. With exams, there are typically two throughout the semester, and they each count for about 25% of our final grades. These differences took me by surprise at first, but the reasons behind them make a lot of sense. Teachers here want their students to be engaged and able to retain knowledge just as teachers do in the U.S., but they use different methods of achieving this goal. As I said before, it has been so cool to see another educational system from the inside, and it has shown me that, despite differences in institutions, people across the globe are not as different as we tend to think.