Orientation in Lyon

June 13, 2017

Lyon is such a beautiful city! May 1st is a bank holiday, so I was fortunate enough to have the whole day to walk around and explore! The buildings are old and look like they are paintings. The streets were full of people walking dogs and children playing. We went to the Rhone River and sat for a while and swans swam right by our feet. I think got really lucky with the location of our apartment building because there are a lot of shops and parks nearby. I am excited to explore more of the city as I think it has a lot to offer that I have not seen yet!

Tomorrow, May 2nd, is our first day of classes and we have orientation in the morning. After our orientation I think we will have a few hours before class starts. I would like to walk around the area where our school is if I have time!

During our orientation, a few things stood out to me. First I really appreciated how well the school has accommodated us. I was not aware that we would be put on a French Health Insurance plan. Also, Aurele is available to us so often, during her power point she even found a gym that we could go to during our time. I really appreciate how much effort and planning they put into our arrival! Second, I did not expect class room rules to be stricter than in America. However, this makes sense as there is a more formal culture here so it would be very impolite to be late to a class. Third, I didn’t realize how many schools were in this one building. I find it funny that our classrooms change each day, but that is because there are 24 different schools sharing our building. I am not used to a University that is this small, so it will be an interesting change!

Written By

Jillian Barnabe

I am a student in the D'Amore-McKim School of Business and I plan to graduate in 2021. I chose to study abroad with this program as I felt it would teach me a lot about how to live on my own and be independent as well as how to adapt to cultural changes. I have always loved the French language as I studied it for many years in high school, so I though this would be a great opportunity for me to further my knowledge of the language and culture while earning credit toward my business degree. I am looking forward to living in Europe and traveling to different countries on the weekends and I hope to gain a lot of both business and real world knowledge from this program. I hope to do a lot of sightseeing while I am not in class as I have a strong passion for photography, and I cant wait to try all of the new foods in the places I will visit!