Angers, France is home to one of CGE’s newest and most exciting study abroad opportunities. Hannibal-LaGrange student Cori Turner spent the Spring Semester at the Université Catholique de l’Ouest, a scenic campus in the inviting town of Angers. This program is excellent for students who desire to gain a French language foundation or to improve their language ability. Students can choose to live on campus or in a homestay with a French family (read some of Cori’s experience with a homestay family below).
“As the time passed throughout my semester, I began to realize more and more how different the culture was there than in the States. But what stood out to me the most was just wonderful the culture was. Sure, there are a lot of cultural differences you have to figure out, and growing accustomed to those differences might take a bit. For example, with their time the French are very different than Americans. Instead of eating dinner at 5 or 6, we started dinner around 7, which means we may not have even started eating until 8 or 8:30, depending on if we had company over. I thought it was funny to try to explain to my host grandma why I ate dinner so early in the States.”
“One of the things I definitely enjoyed was sightseeing. Since everything in Europe is just so close to each other, I could just take a TGV to Paris and get there in an hour and a half. But another little thing I enjoyed in Angers was the boulangeries (bakeries). I’d walk down the street on the way home from college and just smell the croissants and baguettes baking and it smelled heavenly.”
“If you have the opportunity to study abroad, take it. It’s a wonderful thing to just be immersed in another culture and language and experience it first-hand (especially if you’re trying to learn the language like I am/was). Bon courage!”
For more CGE Student Testimonials, click on the links below:
Arielle Coulter in Sydney, Australia
Alaina King in Thessaloniki, Greece
Ashley Moon in London, England
Jacob Mennear in Amman, Jordan
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