I came to Warwick already knowing that I wanted to spend a year in France with the Erasmus programme. I had already studied French at A level and loved it. I knew that the only way to really quickly improve your fluency and confidence in a language is to spend time living there. I had already travelled to France a lot with my family so I knew that I loved the culture there and had always wanted to spend time living there – and I still can’t recommend it enough! The Erasmus programme is such a brilliant opportunity to explore the world while you’re young, meet loads of int eresting people, learn a language and generally have a really good time (doing a bit less work than we do at Warwick!) When you consider that you don’t pay any university fees, can still get your maintenance loan, receive an Erasmus grant and can receive money from the French government towards your rent (called CAF, which I’ll explain later) I really can’t think of a better time to spend a year abroad!
Where to go (and why I loved Grenoble)
From the people I’ve spoken to, most people end up loving the year wherever they choose to go. Having looked through the options, and knowing I definitely wanted to go to France; I narrowed my choices down to Grenoble and Paris.
Initially I was actually planning to go to Paris as I had fallen in love with the city when visiting it on family holidays. However, after some thought I decided that while Paris is a beautiful and exiting city, it may not be the best place for me to spend my Erasmus year. The main reasons for this were that I thought it would be harder to learn the language in a very touristic place and had read some reviews from other students who had studied there saying that it could be lonely and that the university was very disorganised. I then read some really positive reviews about time spent in
Grenoble and decided that the size of the city was perfect – big enough to still have plenty to do but small enough to feel friendly and to become familiar in a year.
With that in mind (and having google image searched Grenoble!) I applied to go to Université Joseph
Fourier, Grenoble. I absolutely loved my year there and completely fell in love with the little city. The city is completely surrounded by mountains in every direction so wherever you look and whichever street you are on you’ll find a breath-taking view to enjoy. There aren’t loads of tourist attractions to see but there are a few good ones and loads of good bars and restaurants to spend your Erasmus grant in! As luck would have it, my twin sister, who studies Economics at Exeter, also applied for an
Erasmus year and ended up at the business school in Grenoble, so we had a fun year in the same place!

The university
Université Joseph Fourier (and I think most other French universities – although I can only speak for
UJF) is very different to Warwick. For starters, the whole course is about 50 or 60 people and you’re split into small classes of about 20. To me, it felt a lot like being back at school doing everything with the same class. Bath University also have a link with UJF so there were two other English girls in my class.
In our weekly timetable we had a mix of normal lectures, and TDs (travail dirigé) which were support classes basically but weren’t optional like ours often are – although that didn’t stop a lot of the
French students from never turning up! The style of these depended on the teacher but we would usually be working through a problem sheet. Some of them would just work through questions on the board for us to copy down, some would call people up to the board to show how they’d done a question and some would leave us time to work on the problems and walk around the class helping.
It was also up to the teacher how much homework they set us, and whether they set any at all.
Below is a photo of my timetable from the second semester. It’s pretty hard to read but you can get an idea of how much contact time there is. The blocks on Thursday morning were actually specific to a module I wasn’t doing so I had that time free. The biggest shock for me was adjusting to two hour lectures and classes compared to our 50 minute ones!
All of the first semester was examined in January immediately after Christmas and all of the second semester was examined in May. As well as these end of semester exams every module had continuous assessment as well – at least two in class tests, sometimes three, and sometimes a problem sheet to do at home.

The main choice to make is whether you take Parcours A or Parcours B. In essence, A is more difficult than B and the people on A tended to be the ones that did the most work and B didn’t ever seem to do much really! I chose to do Parcours A because even in A most of the work in first semester was things that I had already seen in Algebra modules and in Metric Spaces. The first Algebra lecture started with the definition of groups! However, the work load and the difficulty did pick up quite quickly. For me, I wanted my focus to be on learning French, seeing different cultures, travelling and having a good time! I still went to everything on my timetable but didn’t spend half as much time working at home as I would have in Warwick. In hindsight, given that this was my approach to the year I think Parcours B could have been better for me. The main bonus in having taken A is that in the second semester we did a module on Measure Theory which I really enjoyed and will hopefully give me a head start in the Measure Theory module in third year.
There is some choice and I was able to choose a French module in both semesters and, in my second semester, a German module. Through my French modules, I was able to sign up to sit the DALF C1 exam. This is an internationally recognised level of French proficiency. It costs about 100 euros to take the exam but I think it’s worth it to be able to prove to employers that you really can speak
French!
Accommodation
Sorting out accommodation is one of the hardest parts of organising an Erasmus year. Since my sister and I were both going to the same place, we decided to spend a week in July in Grenoble as a family holiday to see the city before arriving to live there and to try to sort out accommodation in advance.
I had heard very bad things about the university residences and so had decided I didn’t want to live there. We looked at a few different apartments but they were quite run down and we didn’t find anything we liked. In the end we decided the best way to go was a private university residence.
There are quite a few of these around the city and they give the option to live in a block with other students in a studio apartment. The main downside of this is that you have your own mini kitchen in your room so you can be a bit cut off from other people when you all go back to cook in your own room. I would have much preferred to have a shared kitchen. Another factor with these residences is that they are very attractive to international students and so mine actually had more internationals than French people. It was also very close to the international business school, which teaches courses in English, so many of them didn’t speak much French and we would often end up speaking in English. I was frustrated by this at first but I actually ended up meeting so many interesting people from all around the world that I’m really glad I was there. But more about that in the ‘Making friends’ section! Overall, I probably wouldn’t recommend private residences. They do make life easy because everything is clean and ready for you and there is someone to ask if you have any questions, but they are a pretty expensive option and can be unsociable if you don’t make an effort to meet people.
I think the best option is probably a flat share (called a colocation), especially if you can end up living with French people. You can organise these through websites linking you up with other students looking for somewhere or houses that have a room spare. You have to gamble really on who you end up living with and what the house is like (although if you’re in Grenoble you could probably go and look round). Another option that a few friends did is to arrive in Grenoble without accommodation

sorted and stay in a hostel for a bit while looking for somewhere. There are a lot of adverts for rooms at the start of the year and I know a girl who found a really nice place that way. That said, I’m glad I didn’t do it this way because there’s a lot to think about when you’re moving to a new country and having to find somewhere to live just adds a huge extra stress to it. Also, doing it this way can be a problem if you need to open a bank account at the start of the year and I know people who had problems because you need a fixed address to open one.
While Grenoble is a small city with a good tram network, it can still make a big difference where in town you decide to live. The university campus is not in the main town and is roughly a 15 minute tram journey from the centre. My residence was right next to the main train station (the opposite side of town to the university campus) so it took me about 20 minutes on the tram to get to campus.
I much preferred being close to the centre to meet people easily. You’re also close to the shops, bars restaurants etc. as there really isn’t much on campus. You may prefer to be close to the university and travel into town when you need to instead but I preferred to do it the other way round. On the map below, number 1 (on the left) is the train station and where I lived. Number two shows the area that is roughly the centre of town and number 3 is where the tram line would continue on to campus for about another 10 minutes.
Making friends
I went to France adamant to immerse myself in the French language and to only make friends with
French people. As I said under ‘Accommodation’, I actually ended up living in a very international area and spoke more English than I really would have liked. I don’t regret it because I had a fantastic year meeting really interesting people from all over the world. However, if your main aim is to get really fluent while you’re there, I would recommend being quite strict with yourself because I found

it much easier to make friends with international people than with French people. The exception to this was the church I found which was a great way of meeting really friendly French people. I think it’s important to find the balance between making the most of both the French natives around you and also the huge variety of nationalities in Grenoble as well.
Travelling!
Grenoble is well set up for travelling around Europe. It is close to the borders with Switzerland and with Italy and that’s definitely worth taking advantage of! Grenoble is just over an hour from Lyon by train and about two hours from Geneva so I visited each quite a few times. These are also the main places to fly from. Grenoble has a tiny airport but that’s still 40 mins from the city centre and is only open during skiing season!
I would definitely recommend going to Lyon for the
Fête des Lumières in December if you can make it – they have loads of really impressive light displays and projected animations (like the photo to the right) all around the city so it’s a good time to see Lyon.
Near the start of the year I went down to the south of
France by train, to Avignon and Montpelier, with a big group of girls which was a lot of fun and we still caught some very good weather to enjoy the beach (photo below to the right).
I also spent a weekend with some friends in Milan where we got an overnight bus each way. While it wasn’t the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had, we saved on two nights of accommodation and the transport was cheaper anyway. Also after the January exams we had some time before classes restarted so a group from my class organised a trip to Budapest together. The photo to the right below shows the view over the city. It’s probably no easier to get to Budapest from Grenoble than from England but I found that on Erasmus I met a lot of people who were interested in travelling and also
I had more spare time for travelling than I would at
Warwick.
After my exams a group of us also travelled together around Spain and Portugal for ten days. We saw
Barcelona, San Sebastian, Lisbon and Lagos (Portugal not Nigeria!). Being in mainland Europe just means that you can get to everywhere much more easily than we can because there’s no sea in the way! I definitely suggest taking advantage of that and taking as many opportunities as possible to travel.

Skiing
I’m not a particularly sporty person and didn’t go to
Grenoble for the skiing but there are plenty of people who do and if you are into your winter sports then Grenoble is a great place to be. The university offers free lessons (!!) at any level so even if you’ve never skied before it’s a perfect time to start. I went to two lessons but wish I’d taken better advantage of the free lessons and used them more. You pay a fixed fee at the start to sign up with them and then you just pay for transport, which is also organised by them, each time you go. The main hassle is getting equipment. If you’re not too serious about skiing and you can borrow it then that’s the best option. Otherwise you can rent or buy a lot of gear from places like Decathlon. There’s a store near the Grand Sablon tram stop on the way to campus. Even if you don’t fancy skiing I really recommend a trip into the mountains in winter. It’s very beautiful in the snow and there are walking routes around if you just want to enjoy the views. Above is a photo I took at Chamrousse.
Money
As I said at the start, you don’t pay any university fees (even though you’re enrolled at two universities!) and I was actually eligible for a bigger maintenance loan because I was going abroad.
You also get an Erasmus grant and can receive CAF. CAF is slightly administration heavy to sign up for but is worth doing as you can receive anywhere between about 50 and 200 euros a month towards rent. It’s also a good introduction into the world of French administration so it’s a cultural experience as well! For more information look at https://www.caf.fr/ but if you’re in a private residence they should be able to help you fill it in and if you’re in a university residence apparently they often just take it off the rent you have to pay anyway so it’s much easier. I opened a French bank account with HSBC because I already had an English one with them. I had no problems with this but I think other banks may offer better perks for students if you look around.
Go on Erasmus!
Overall, I had such a fantastic year and really cannot recommend enough spending a year in Europe with the
Erasmus programme. I have had some incredible experiences, fallen in love with French culture, met lifelong friends and really improved my proficiency in the
French language. I’m able to come back to Warwick feeling ready for the hard work ahead rather than still exhausted from second year!
There’s so much I could say about my year that it’s hard to get it all in to a report but if you are thinking about going to Grenoble, please do contact me at s.copping@warwick.ac.uk
and I’ll happily answer any questions or meet up with you to talk about it more if I can.