Why Grenoble
Location
Grenoble is situated in the heart of the Alps and is surrounded by mountains on all sides,
which makes it effectively lie at the bottom of some sort of bowl. This makes for a rather nice bit of
scenery, above all when the mountains are covered in snow!
Grenoble isn't far from Lyon, I would certainly recommend visiting it. In early December
there's the 'fête des lumières'. The city is lit up with various light shows, it's quite spectacular.
Grenoble is also close to Switzerland and Italy, making Turin and Geneva close enough for a day
trip!
Hiking
Surrounded by mountains, there are many places close by where it is possible to get away
from the city and enjoy the view/go for a swim. I recommend St. Ernyard (Chartreuse) – (see photo
above), le lac Richard and la cascade de l'Oursière (Belledone), Gorges de Verdon, but of course
there are many more too!
Skiing
I had never skied before coming to Grenoble, but being right in the centre of the French
Alps, it would've been rude not to give it a go. The university ran its own ski classes for which the
tuition was completely free, you just had to pay for transport there and back as well as your ski
pass, which was at a cheaper rate than normal.
Accommodation
I rented a room in a three
person flat which was right by the
side of the university. The landlord
had just finished building three
other houses to the side of it, (see
right) so I ended up sharing my
garden and courtyard with about
25 others mostly French and about
half of them were also students.
We all got on well & I really got a
taste of French culture with the
many soirées and apéros!
The rent was 400€ a month
but with CAF that came down to about 300€ a month. It was 'meublé' (furnished) so it came with
pretty much everything you'd need.
I would recommend to start looking for accommodation a month or two before going to
Grenoble, the reason being is that landlords are much more flexible with the length of a tenancy
than in England and they will let you leave with just a month's notice, consequently this means
that they won't start advertising a vacancy for the next month until the month before.
The majority of halls in France aren't very nice and I would recommend looking for a place
to share with natives. Shared accommodation or 'colocation' has a different spirit in France,
shopping is if often done communally and meals are shared.
Settling in
I decided to move to Grenoble a month before the academic year began, so that I could
take an intense French course. This was great as I got to meet other international students who
were also going to be studying in, as well familiarise myself with the city and build confidence in
ability to speak French.
Studying maths in France
Lectures and Problem classes
The education system is a little different in France, there's more focus on problem classes.
Lectures are fairly similar, apart from being two hours long (and everyone turns up to them!).
Problem classes (TD, Travaux dirigés) are also a far more central part of the educational system in
France; you'll normally have about twice the amount of time in problems classes as you do in
lectures. These problem classes really are an essential part of the university course, you will see
some nice ideas and will probably find that similar questions will come up on the midway exams
(CC, contrôle continu) and perhaps in the final exam.
Your score for the module is given by max{final exam result, (final exam result+average score in
CC)/2}, so these CC can be seen as being fairly important. There are some lecturers who like things
done in a rather specific way; I encourage you to follow this link for more information.
You will probably find it quite a surprise at first that there are far fewer modules to take, this
however doesn't necessarily mean less work: there is quite a difference between the exams you
will sit at UJF and those at Warwick.
L3 Parcours A, L3 Parcours B, Master 1
As an Erasmus student, I had much more choice over my modules than the home students
did. I took a language module each semester and then about half of my remaining modules from
the third year course and the other half from the first year of the masters' course.
For L3 (licence trois) maths there were around 20 people in a class that is for lectures and
TD. For L3 there were two classes: Parcours A and Parcous B. Parcours A was the harder one with
most of the students having recently came out of Prepa and now preparing for the agrégation.
Parcours B was seen as simpler and many students in Parcours A dropped down into Parcours B.
Almost all students in Parcours B were preparing for CAPES. As most students in Parcours A had
recently came out of Prepa almost everyone there didn't know anyone else to begin with. This
created an atmosphere a bit like those first few days/weeks of Freshers', well kind of, basically
most people were getting to know each other and as such this was a great time to make new
friends, however I did end up listening to many stories of people being scarred by Prepa (and
through out the year too, quite a popular topic).
I took the algebra modules from the masters course as I had really enjoyed Algebra II in the
second year and it seemed to continue on quite well from what I had already done at Warwick. I
also chose to write a 30-40ish page 'mémoire' (all in French) on a subject of my (restricted)
choosing and gave a presentation in French on what I had done. This was quite nice as it helped me
learn how to write mathematics in French 'properly' and also explore a part of mathematics that I
found interesting.
Most of the students on the M1 course already knew each other apart from a few whom I soon got
to know.
Personally I enjoyed these classes the most and regularly presented my solutions up on the
blackboard.
In case you're still unsure...
I would definitely recommend a year abroad. I really enjoyed mine, it was a great year
discovering another culture, improving my proficiency in French and studying maths in different
setting.
Before going to Grenoble I had recently finished the level 2 French course at Warwick, so to
begin with my language skills weren't amazing, but they were good enough to communicate with
others and go about day to day life. In doing so my French rapidly improved. If you're motivated to
improve your French and feel confident talking to natives, don't worry about the level of French
you begin with.
Academically, I would say that thanks to the modules I took and the French education
system I'm a stronger student and certainly feel confident coming back to Warwick.
Finally, The opportunity to live in another country in beautiful a city which has a such a
great culture doesn't come around often: make the most of it!
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at p.a.goodman@warwick.ac.uk