Academics...

For my semester abroad, I chose to concentrate on studying French. It’s true that French doesn’t exactly relate directly to my computer science and finance majors, but hey, learning another language never hurts!

Of all the French programs abroad, the program at l’Institut d’Etudes Françaises pour Etrangers (I.E.F.E) in Montpellier was the best choice for me. I.E.F.E. is a part of Montpellier’s University of Paul Valéry. I.E.F.E. offered five different levels of French for international students, and in addition, they also offered art, history, literature, and culture courses.

Every week, I had 17.5 hours of classes:

• 11.5 hours of French language
  
• 2 hours of French civilization & history of ideas and traditions
  
• 2 hours of French Théâtre
  
• 2 hours of Business French
  

All the classes had no more than 20-30 people, but the best part was that I got to meet a lot of students from ALL over the world. Just in my French language class of 18 people, we had students from USA, Brazil, Columbia, China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Greece, Holland, and Iceland. Talk about a mix of accents! But the diversity made the learning a lot more fun and interesting!