Get out of your room!

While days start to shorten and Halloween party is approaching, most of you – dear international students that joined our schools during the first semester – have started your lectures and found housing for the upcoming study months.

Acquainted with your new daily journey to-and-from school, you might already have your habits on the metro car door to choose in order to be less pressured by the crowd, on the best bus line combination to avoid traffic jams or on the safest bike lanes on which to ride.          

You have found – it is our sincere hope – the microwaves on the campus or the closest bakery to grab something to eat at lunchtime and understood how to access your weekly timetable and above all, how to find your classroom on the different campus floors and buildings.

In short, you are “academically ready”.

This is good news, congratulations!

In every city hosting one of our campuses, you will feel rather tempted to join a community which relates you to your roots, a group of persons from your home country or region. Discussions in a mother tongue, meetings around traditional dishes, practice of games brought from home… All this is comforting.

But this is just the beginning of your student life in France. The benefits from internationalizing one’s career also arise from an integration into the French, Parisian, Lyon, Bordeaux, Nantes life… To reach this, you will have to step out of your daily journey to-and-from school, to (for a while) leave your community rebuilt in France, in short, “to get out of your room” to open up to new discoveries.

Campuses are full of student unions and proposals: theme evenings, sports, voluntary actions, etc. You have to open the door of these initiatives so that to meet new people and slightly maybe integrate a new French “family”. This will allow you, after lectures, to better know and understand the way of living in France. It will also be the opportunity– why not – to develop your resume, to fine-tune your professional choices or even to meet future partners or employers.

One of many examples, the Jeunes Ambassadeurs programme in Lyon allows international students to be coached by a French professional, Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region economic player. Beyond the network to which this programme grants access to, it is also the opportunity to participate in events within regional prestigious places, in cultural, sports or economic-related visits. In other words: a great lever for integration in France.

We know that this is not easy. The phrase “stepping-out of one’s comfort zone” well conveys this need for effort and potentially, of discomfort when starting. But trust us, these efforts will be rewarded.

So, dare getting out of your room, seize the opportunities to fully experience your French stay, listen, force the hand of destiny! And if all this seems great to you but you don’t know how to find the keys to open the door of local life in your new city, get in touch with us. FIGS Education will also support you to facilitate your access to new spheres, new activities, new experiences.

We wish you all plenty of lovely discoveries.