Fifth Week

Thanks for coming back and keeping updated with my adventures in France! I have a few exciting announcements to write about this week, as well as a few lessons that I have learned from my travels.

First, two of my friends from Canada have confirmed that they will be heading over to France to visit me during my fall reading week in November. In the 14 days that I have away from school, we hope to travel around Europe and visit a few countries. We’re still finalizing our plans on where we will end up visiting, but regardless of where we end up, it will be great to see some familiar faces.

For students that are preparing for an international exchange abroad, it is important to know that the facilitation of classes are a bit different in other countries than they are at the Odette School of Business. I am accustomed to creating a schedule for a semester, and having lectures each week in the same classroom unless some excruciating circumstances develop that cause a class to be cancelled. At Rouen Business School, it is important to be more alert and aware of the classes that you are registered in. Some of my professors teach alongside working in industry, so classes for one of my classes may not have a lecture scheduled one week while all of my other classes do have classes scheduled. This appears to be very sporadic; while I will have the same amount of lectures in each class by the end of the semester, specific classes will not have a lecture on some weeks. As a student, you have access to a personal timetable on the MyFirst section of Rouen Business School’s website which dictates which class is taught at what time and in what classroom the class is taught in. While trends show that most classes are taught in the same classroom, it is important to keep an eye out as classrooms for classes do change on occasion.

I took advantage of the four days each week that I do not have classes – this time by visiting Dublin, Ireland. It was very comforting to visit a country whose main language is English! It was convenient being able to read a menu from a restaurant, ask for directions without having to ask in another language, and read magazines in English. While I have attempted to stay up to date with current events, reading the latest edition of The Economist gave me a comforting feeling of being back in Canada. While in Dublin we visited a variety of historical sites with the ‘Hop-on, hop-off’ bus, toured the campus of Trinity College, and absorbed a bit of Irish culture at a local pub that had a band play some Irish folk songs. We also experienced the second day of protests at the Central Bank in Dublin from a group of protesters that call themselves “Occupy Wall Street”. There is an article about the protest in this Irish newspaper.

Pictured above is the 'Occupy Wall Street' protest at the Central Bank in Dublin.  Click on the image above to view the rest of my album from Dublin.

Thanks for staying updated with my adventures while on Exchange.  Be sure to read my article next week.  I will be in London, England this weekend and will be sure to have some interesting stories to share.