STUDENT REPORT
Name of the University: Audencia Nantes, Grande Ecole de Management
Exchange semester: 5, fall 2011
General information about the school
Audencia School of Management is placed approximately 20 minutes away from the city
center estimated with tram, not far away from other universities and schools in Nantes.
Audencia is a privet business school with around 3000 students, ranged as number 6 of
business schools in France by several rankings. The difference from many other french
schools is the focus on globality. They are providing courses in english track where both
the lessons and the written material is presented in english. Audencia has a Master in
Management programme, which is called Grande Ecole in French, and is a prestige
programme only a few schools in France are able to offer. In this programme, it is
mandatory for all the students to study one semester abroad. They also have to study a
third foreign language additionally to english. This is probably one of the factors that
makes these students more open minded and with a particularly higher level of english
than many other french people.
The study structure is quite different from the Norwegian structure, both the amount of
subjects and teaching method. First, the semester starts early September instead of
August. Since the international students are divided into classes of 40 mixed with these
french Grande Ecole students, it will therefore become easier to intregate with the
french students and the culture. The students are being closely followed up by the
professors through the whole semester, where the final grade is a result of projects,
presentations, tests, class participation, class presence, mid-terms and final exams.
The process from when you apply for the exchange to the University until you receive
the final accept, is quite time-consuming. In general, France is a country with a desire for
paperwork and punctuality. For that reason you should be well in advance for deadlines
as it can take some time to get feedback. Despite this, when everything is in order it is
definitely worth it.
The residence
I had ordered my ticket for my 4 months period in France to arrive a couple of days
before the school started. The trip went well, but there were some difficulties, e.g. to find
the correct train from Paris to Nantes, as almost all the signs were written in french and
the fact that I did not know any french at that time. I checked in at a hotell in Nantes for
the two days before the contract at my residence La Brunelliere started. Those two days
I got to see Nantes from a tourist point of view, and I met some people from the same
exchange programme as me, as we had some contact through mail before we arrived
France. When I went to La Brunelliere, I met a totally different standard inside the
studio than I expected, and I must admit that you are able to find a lot better studio for
the same price back in Norway. However, if you are staying in Nantes longer than half a
year, it is possible to find a lot better flat with some friends in the city centre, even
cheaper per person. But for exchange students only staying for one semester, it is highly
recommended renting in a residence. First, because you will be almost guaranteed to
find a serious landlord that is used to handling with exchange students staying for a
short period. Second, because you will find most of the other international students at
these places. I was renting a studio (15 square feet) by myself, but I had the friends I
hung out most with on the other side of the hallway, and I always had people walking
home the same direction as me from social occasions. La Brunelliere has a service
minded and friendly staff at the front desk, except from some of the guards at night. So
do not play music any louder than what you barely hear yourself. Pregaming in other’s
rooms will also be strictly followed up, and then stopped by some of the night guards.
Sometimes one can get the impression that they have a bigger desire for patrolling the
hallways, hunting for pregames, than to guard the front desk to keep strangers away.
But anyways, it feels safer with night guards hired at La Brunelliere, than not having any
at all. The administration staff during daytime speak english well if some of the french is
hard to understand. They help you with the completion of the documents you need for
“The Caf” or any needs for copying or scanning. I would recommend to do the copying at
the school if you need it though, because it is really expensive at the residence, and
Audencia has a really good copy card plan for this (one hundred copies for 2 euros,
which you buy in the schools reception).
The School
The first day at school was at the second of September, and there was arranged an
informational meeting in an Auditorium for all the international students. The principal,
some of the teachers and our french student coordinator spoke to as about the school,
our subjects and the french culture. Our time schedule was set up with 10 subjects 3
days a week, and Thursdays and Fridays off. But the amount of school work indicated
that these long weekends should not be considered as holidays. At least we were only
supposed to buy one book, á 50 euos. The rest of the text we needed to read were given
by hand outs and articles from the professor or through campus net. It is also worth
mentioning that some of the days at school between Monday to Wednesday had lessons
between 08.15 AM to 08.30 PM, and it is not normal with any breaks during the session
of each subject, which usually lasts 3 hours. Between two different subjects there is a
break of 15 minutes or half an hour, though. The lunch time is set for an hour in the
middle of the day, and there is a big restaurant where the students at Audencia and the
University nearby use. You can buy a food card, and charge this through a BNP bank
card. Each meal costs 3 euros and it consists of a main course, side dish and a dessert.
You can choose between different lines where each of them offers different kinds of
food. The line in this restaurant quickly becomes very long, so it is best arriving as early
as possible after the opening time. If you are late, it is possible buying more simplified
meals at the school’s Cafeteria. There you can buy baguettes, quiches, coffee, croissants
or whatever you would like with your student card you are supposed to receive one of
the first days at school, but naturally it takes longer time. You can charge this student
card with any bank card you want, and it does not have to be a french one. The rest of
the school has computer rooms, where you basically can use internet, Microsoft Word
and Excel, these rooms are open 24/7 and you use the password on your student card
for access. In the library you will find the study places, but with a very small amount and
limited opening hours.
Practical information
Schools often have an international team that takes care of the exchange students,
arrange activities and gives you information that can be useful as a student in a new
country, new city and at a new school. At Audencia we had a so called IC team, which
were supposed to help us with such stuff. They were not that helpful, so the group of
around 80 international students arranged activities more or less ourselves and through
the activities for the rest of the school, which was a lot. So all together we did not have
any problems regarding this topic. However, the IC team had made an arrangement with
the BNP bank in Nantes. This contract was free of charges, and we were even supposed
to get 40 euros for free to create this account. The BNP account was helpful concerning
the monthly payment for the rent of the studio, for the phone subscription and for the
“Caf”. These operators preferred a french bank account because of the simplicity and the
expenses of transferring through a foreign account.
“The Caf” is a money support for students and other people earning under a certain
amount of income per month. This scholarship qualifies even international students and
contributes well in housing expenses.
As an exchange student in Europe, you can also receive the Erasmus Scholarship. This
application procedure is mainly taken care of by the BI business school, you only need to
sign some papers and to write a review from your experiences from staying abroad. As a
new student in a new city and country, you can also ask ANSA about questions. If you are
a member you can ask the contact person of your city or someone from the board. This
is an organization for students by students, going abroad from Norway. They arrange
meetings for all the students in France several times during the semester. Included in
this membership you have their support if you need any help, and they provide a travel
insurance. One of these meetings are provided for new contact persons, and this year it
was arranged in Nice, most of the charges covered by ANSA. You can also sign up as a
contact person for your city yourself, if no one else has. Elsewhere there will be an
election. I did so, and I still work as a contact person for Nantes, as there are not many
Norwegians there. I know now the city very well, therefore I am able to help new
students quite well.
The infrastructure is well organized, and the tram is most used by students for transport
to and from school. You can buy a single ticket lasting one hour, a monthly ticket or a
season card. If you don’t stamp you ticket, or even worse, if you don’t have any ticket,
the controllers will hunt you down and they will make you pay a far greater amount. Out
from the city, the train is very useful. There are a lot of cities in the area worth visiting,
among several you have the village Angers, from there you can rent a car and visit
several well known and beautiful castles. If you take the train to Rennes, which is a nice
city itself, you can take the bus from there and visit the famous Mont Saint Michel. In the
start of the semester it was moreover summer, and we could take the train to La Baule,
which is a beautiful beach near the coast. The tickets for the train are cheaper if you buy
them a few weeks in advance, and if you have plans of using the train a lot, it would be
smart to buy the “12-25 Carte” for 50 euros. You can get up to 70% off the original price,
and this also applies for the train to Paris.
Experiences made abroad
The examination period starts somewhere in november. But there are a lot of
presentations, mid-terms, one exam and several projects until 2 days before the first
exam. It is therefore really important to follow the lessons and work frequently from
the start of the semester, otherwise it will be hard to be enough prepared for the three
days of the 9 exams. These dates were the 19th, 20th and the 21st of December. Audencia
is really late giving back the final grades. I did not get mine until the end of February. But
if you need them faster, because of an application to a master programme, you might get
them faster if you ask your student coordinator at the school. You should also compare
your Learning Agreement with the amount of credits at the Campus Net at a regular
basis, because I had some issues with them changing it without informing anything. It
finally went in order, but be aware of this, because I have heard that other exchange
students in France have been through this problem several times earlier.
Before I went to France, I heard people talking about their exchange experiences saying
it was their best time of their lives. I knew it would be totally different and fun, but I was
a little doubtful to their statement. When I got to France, the first weeks were amazing
and the other international students were easy to get in touch with. We all explored new
places in the city center, cafés, restaurants, clothing stores, and french macaroons. We
went to La Baule several times, one of the beaches only half an hour away by train from
Nantes. We went to the school arrangements, at the regular place for Audencia students
at Wednesdays. But when the “honey moon” phase ended, we found out that school
needed more priority, so this life style had to be regulated to a more acceptable way to
keep up with the paper work. The language was a bit of challenge, even though we had
classes to learn french in different levels. It is probably not any big surprise that the
citizens in France, and especially people from smaller cities like Nantes are very proud
of their language. So “you should” speak french. To be quite frank, not many others but
people in our classes spoke any well english. I would recommend people taking an
exchange semester in France, to be prepared with a certain level of the french language.
It is also worth mentioning that in my opinion, the french school system is a lot harder
than in Norway, but it is an interesting and learning challenge when you first manage it.
During the Autumn vacation we had a short break before the last part of the semester,
and we took the opportunity to travel to Morocco, since the prices from France are not
that high, and one of our friends knew the country very well. When we were deeply
engaged with our books the last period in France, it was really nice to have our closest
friends among the international students across the hallway. The solidarity between us
consisted through the whole semester and many of us are still in contact, planning to
meet the next time. After this short semester abroad I am actually able to say that it is
the best time of my life in many ways. I have learned so much about myself, others, new
countries, new languages, new cultures and knowledge I never could be without, and
could even be useful for my career at a later point. My next step is to finish my bachelor,
then I want to take my master programme abroad. I absolutely recommend other people
going to France or abroad in general!
Courses I have taken
this semester in France
Subject
Final
Exam
Case
study
Class presence and
participation
Number of credits
L.A.
Management control
French
Labour Law
Entrepreneurship
Insurance
Financial Analysis
Marketing strategies
HRM
Information systems
Strategic management
TOTAL:
80%
15%
100%
35%
60%
70%
10%
15%
10%
70%
3,5
3,5
2,5
2
2
4
3
3,5
1,5
4,5
30
60%
50%
50%
65%
40%
30%
100%
40%
50%
40%
10%