Erasmus Report – Dominic Bull
Hello my name is Dominic Bull and I spent my Erasmus year studying at L’université de
Genève in Geneva, Switzerland.
Here is some important general information about what it’s like to spend a year living in
Geneva.
Geneva as a city
Geneva is a pretty, but quite small city. Probably the most beautiful part of Geneva is the
lake with Geneva’s iconic “Jet d’eau”: the highest reaching fountain in the world. If you
spend much time in Geneva’s centre then you will get very used to seeing it! There is also
the old town with a Cathedral which is a particularly nice feature of the city too and good
for fondue restaurants!
However, by no means is all of the city so aesthetically pleasing. Although from many places
one can see the mountains in the distance, often unfortunately what is in the foreground
isn’t so easy on the eye. I would say that the less central parts of the city do feel a little dull,
industrial and shabby. Both the Cité Universitaire residence and the maths department are
in these kind of areas I would say. So do your best to travel around to see some of the more
beautiful places nearby. I was told that some of the places on the other side of the lake such
as Montreux and Lausanne were certainly worth visiting.
In my opinion the city is not particularly vibrant in terms of night life or things to do and the
student life isn’t anywhere near as good as at Warwick. But at the same time, I know I was
not very active in looking out for things to do and because I was quite socially isolated in the
first term (due to the fact I was not living in student accommodation) I found it harder to
motivate myself to look for things to do. There is one street “Rue école-médecine” which is
the main street for bars and pubs which students often do go to. In general, I didn’t find
many particularly fantastic places to eat out either. Everywhere you go the choice of food
was rarely particularly exciting and yet it was often very expensive.
University Culture
It is worth bearing in mind that the university culture in Geneva and in Europe in general is
different from that which we know in Warwick. People tend to go to their local university
and so a lot of people go home to their families’ house every day. Furthermore, everyone is
far more academically focused, with less emphasis on university societies and clubs. In fact,
there were hardly any societies I felt suited me. I managed to join the university choir but
you had to pay quite a lot for it and also a lot of the people there weren’t students – not
necessarily a bad thing in itself, but a fair reflection on the slight lack of student culture
perhaps. This I found very difficult as I am someone who likes to meet people through
having common hobbies and interests. Every term however there was a University party
which I heard was good.
Accommodation
For Erasmus students, the most appropriate place to stay is at the Cité Universitaire. Many
international students and interns stay here and it is your best chance for making
friendships. Accommodation is scarce so as soon as your place is confirmed you will want to
apply here. Alternatively, you can apply for some of the other university residences but I’d
say the Cité is much better for a couple of reasons:
(1) General university residences are more for Geneva university students rather than
visiting international students and so they are more likely to always speak French
amongst each other there rather than at the Cité where English is commonly spoken
too.
(2) There is more at the Cité – a restaurant, social occasions and even a beach volleyball
court and sports facilities including a gym. The university residences don’t have
anything like that.
Absolutely DO NOT DO WHAT I DID and leave organising accommodation to the last minute.
I ended up renting a bedroom in this old lady’s house for the first term and it was very sad
and lonely so BEWARE!
Lanugage Barrier
I studied French to A-Level and got an A* but did not take any French language modules
whilst at Warwick. Unless you have previously lived in a French speaking country or have
French speaking family then you will find it very hard to understand the fast paced native
speaker especially when you are trying to understand a conversation where no one is
speaking directly to you. I could communicate well enough and understand enough to get
by most of the time and I should feel proud about that, but I couldn’t help but compare
myself to some of the native French speakers who could speak English perfectly well too. I
think my comprehension did improve throughout the year but even by the end I hadn’t
noticed that much of an improvement! However, I could communicate well on a one to one
basis, but again, it depended upon the person.
In particular, everyone in the Maths department tended to be native French speakers; they
were either people from Geneva, neighbouring France or from the neighbouring Canton de
Vaud. Since this was where I spent most of my time it was always very alienating not to
understand them, especially since it was a smaller group in which everyone knew each
other and would always have lunch together etc. I would also have preferred it if I hadn’t
been the only Erasmus student in the maths department.
Things to do
Although I said before that there isn’t quite the same culture in terms of clubs or
societies at the university, there are still lots of activities that the university
organises. There are sports clubs of every kind and more artistic things like film,
music and theatre so you can absolutely try and make the most of these. Although
be aware that they are paying!
At the beginning of term 2 there are of course opportunities for winter sports
including skiing and snowboarding. There are about 9 weeks worth of Saturday
skiing days with the university at various ski resorts. If you have gone skiing in the
past I would definitely recommend these. I had never skied before and so when I
went I really struggled, but if you go with a group of other beginners I can imagine it
would be a lot less intimidating and more fun. It is worth going a good couple of
times if you’re a beginner – you’re not going to get it right in one day!
For more experienced skiers/snowboarders there are a couple of week long ski trips
that are organised throughout the winter times as well which you shouldn’t miss!
Otherwise there is the ERASMUS STUDENT NETWORK or ESN who do organise trips and
activities for Erasmus students during the term time. They organise weekly pub nights and
then every two or three weeks there is usually something more special too. When I was
there the sorts of activities they organised included:
-
Fondue/Raclette Nights
Day or weekend trips to other cities including Lyon and Lucerne (Lucerne is
particularly beautiful)
Visits to see CERN (Home to the Large Hadron Collider)
A guided tour around the “Palais de Nations” home to the UN.
A trip to a Carnival
And these were always really fun and a good way of socialising. However, different
people go to different events and so there will be a good number of people you
might only meet once or twice through the events. Really, to have a good time, you
need to make friends with people that you’ll see regularly, and this is why I stress the
importance of living at the Cité Universitaire and making a good group of friends
there. This creates a much better opportunity for networking, and will more likely
lead to you being invited to parties, trips away from Geneva and other things that
you must make the most of when abroad.
Studying Maths in Geneva
Studying maths at the university of Geneva is a fairly different experience from that at
Warwick. The most obvious differences being the smaller number of students and the
rather less modern building in Geneva. In fact, for some reason that escapes me, the maths
department was in a random building most people in the university have never heard of,
and only in the second floor and one half of the sixth floor.
The general difficulty of mathematics courses in Geneva is higher than at Warwick, as is the
average calibre of student (which could be intimidating); although perhaps everything
seemed that much harder in Geneva because it was all in French! There is a fairly similar list
of core 3rd year maths modules at Geneva, with equivalent courses to “Introduction to
Topology”, “Measure Theory”, “Algebraic Number Theory” and others. However, there are
some important differences that make things harder to do a truly equivalent “3 rd Year”.
There are a good number of “third year Warwick modules” that are taken in second year at
Geneva. For example the Geneva equivalents of “Complex Analysis” and “Geometry of
Curves and Surfaces” are taught in second year as compulsory modules. This means that
there can be clashes in times between these important modules and others third year
modules you might want to take. Also “Galois Theory” is included in the second year
“Algebra II” module so you’d have to repeat some of second year algebra to be able to do
Galois theory! Furthermore, often with more advanced modules, there were certain topics
in which the others had a much better basic grounding. In particular, with anything that
involved geometry, I felt it was assumed that everyone had a strong background in
geometry when in fact I didn’t. This was also quite limiting as they did seem to have a lot of
geometry modules that I then shied away from and this limited my module options. The
year I was there, there didn’t seem to be many algebra modules which I found
disappointing. I was misled by the fact that the modules change year on year, and the new
modules didn’t reveal themselves until a long time after I had chosen Geneva – about two
weeks before term starts in fact!
The number of courses they are supposed to take in Geneva are a lot greater than at
Warwick. In Geneva they take about 6 modules per term and they are often more
demanding than their equivalents at Warwick. If you do plan on doing the G106 course then
I would have a word with the Erasmus Co-ordinator at Warwick as to how many modules
you have to do. Personally I think it should only be necessary to take as many modules as
would be necessary at Warwick.
For each module you usually have a two-hour long class per week plus an hour long
(sometimes two) of support class. However, there are 14 weeks per term so don’t think that
there is any less to do. In fact, it is almost compulsory to make sure you do all the exercises
on the exercise sheets, with new sheets to do every week. However, it is worth it as most of
the TAs are very good and will be able to help a lot – I would say their standard is higher
than that of the TAs at Warwick who can be far more hit and miss.
Most exams are also ORAL exams so be aware of this too. You pull a question out of a hat
“un tire au sort” and you have to do it up on the board in French. You are graded from 1 to 6
(6 is best) and a 4 is a pass. With some examiners more than others it is easier to get high
grades (for example Pavol gave me a 6 in an exam I really hadn’t revised well for). Different
lecturers have different ways of briefing on the exam material too so don’t get caught out.
With all this considered I would say that if you are planning on trying to do G106 – that is,
an MMath with the third year abroad counting – then consider that it is SO much more of a
challenge than just doing a normal third year at Warwick. In particular, there seemed to be
a disproportionate number of “4th year” level courses in Geneva and I really just couldn’t put
my mind to so many of them. With all the other pressures of trying to get along in a new
place with a language barrier and all the other unforeseen little complications, it really
wasn’t quite so practical to try and make the year count. So please if you choose to go,
make sure you have a good idea of other things that you can get out of a year abroad. Don’t
work so hard on trying to make it count as your third year, only to realise you could have
spent your time taking it a bit easier and making the most of being abroad.
Further General Information
Transport – The transport around the city comprises of buses and trams which are always
clean and on time. The best thing is to buy a TPG pass which means you can use all forms of
transportation, also including the train to the airport and the “mouettes” – little boats that
take you from one side of the lake to another.
Money – I would suggest setting up a “Post Finance” bank account as it is important to have
a Swiss bank account for the Erasmus grant that you’ll be paid from the University (in Swiss
Francs). Using a Post Finance debit card means you don’t have to worry about extra
charges/the exchange rate when you use bank cards from home. Obviously you can’t set
this up straight away so before you go I would suggest getting a Halifax credit card for the
best exchange rate (avoid Santander!!). I used to alternate between using that and my “Post
Finance” debit card.
Supermarkets – There is quite a large range of supermarkets that people I knew used to go
to. The main ones in Geneva were called “Co-op” (not the same as the UK chain funnily
enough) and “Migros”. There was a Migros right by the maths department so that was
where I used to do all my shopping, although as always it was quite expensive and in my
opinion there was not as good a quality or range of products as in British Supermarkets like
Tesco or Sainsbury’s. Otherwise you can also find Lidls and Aldis scattered around the place.
I knew some people who would even travel into France to go to a “Carrefour” which wasn’t
too far away and where some of the products were a LOT better value. I feel I probably
should have done this more often.
Thank you for reading my report! I hope it was informative and if you have any further
questions I would be more than happy to answer them at my Warwick address
dominic.bull@warwick.ac.uk or else on Facebook!