C'est Ma Vie: An American in France

Hey! How's France? How are you enjoying it? What's it like living over there? The usual questions. But answering them is hard. It's so much fun! It's eye-opening. It's frustrating. It's a different reality. First, allow me to make a little introduction. HEC School of Management is comprised of several programs: the MBA, the Specialized Masters, the PhD, the Executive MBA and the Grande École. The Grande École is similar to the undergraduate colleges in the U.S. and many liken it to the "Harvard" of France. And like Harvard, the Grande École is extremely difficult to get into. After high school, students attend a 2-year preparatory school to study for the entrance exam. Although an extremely small percentage gets accepted, the Grande École makes up the majority of the students here on campus - they are well over 1,000! In contrast, the MBA program is about 200 students. Despite the name HEC-Paris, the school is not really IN Paris. It is situated in a suburb of Paris called Jouy-en-Josas. (It is very close to Versailles - former home of King Louis XVI and the royal family.) To get into the center of Paris via public transportation will take a good hour and a half. So not having a car on campus is quite inconvenient. Most students take the unofficial "shortcut", which is a path that winds through the woods and leads you to a rear gate. At night and on the weekends though, this gate is closed. Students then have to make a choice - climb the wall and jump or go all the way around to the main entrance/exit and walk for another 20-25 minutes to the town train station. (NB: Some well-placed trash bins saves you a couple of bloody knees!) My first night in Paris I went to see a movie on the Champs-Elysees. We arrived at 9:22 p.m. and decided to purchase tickets for a 10:30 p.m. showing. Normally, one would go right up to the window, ask for a ticket and pay. Not in France. According to the ticket seller, they were not open until 9:30 p.m. So we ended up standing there for 8 minutes watching the ticket sellers chat and do their nails until 9:30 p.m. Finally, we were able to buy the tickets! Class scheduling is rather "different" too. Most weeks a class will take place on a Thursday. But every once in a while, it will change to a Wednesday. Also, it is never in the same room. You have to go into the main MBA building and look a TV monitor to find out where your class is taking place. Sometimes it's in another building so you have to run to get there on time! It's almost like going to the airport and checking the monitors to see what gate your flight is taking off from. And unlike Stern, where most classes last the entire semester, the classes here vary in length and duration. Some classes last only three days but you are literally sitting in the classroom for six hours at a time. Campus life? Well, everyone eats in the Restaurant Universitaire (aka dining hall) which debunks the myth of all food in France being good. It is however, really cheap. For 2,82€ you get a plain yogurt, salad, a choice from the dessert bar (mostly mashed fruit sauces), and the plat du jour. And just yesterday, the Restaurant Universitaire decided to go on strike. Talk about a good way to make you appreciate the leftovers from dinner being resold as lunch! Besides, you can't say you've lived in France unless you've lived through a strike or two (or more)! For evening social gatherings, there is the Piano Bar, which is a student run bar in the MBA dorm. However, given the fact that the majority of HEC students attend the Grande École, the biggest social thing is this Thursday night party in the KFet (a student-run café adjacent to the gym.) Imagine a large cafeteria-like space jammed with 1,000 Grande École kids who range in age from 20-24 yrs. The music is techno, 80's, and some European pop all mixed together. Now, picture MBAs (average age is ~30yrs.) partying it up with scantily clad Grande École girls while inebriated Grande École boys pee out of second floor windows and fences. I kid you not! But all quirks and crazy collegiate antics aside, HEC is a great place to be. The student body is the most international I've ever experienced. Eighty percent of the MBA students are from countries outside of France. I have classmates from China, Spain, Africa, Argentina, Mexico, Austria, Poland, Russia, you name it. In addition to great course offerings in entrepreneurship, finance, and marketing, HEC also uses international case studies and offers classes that target personal development and cultivate creativity (e.g. The Art of Communication and Find Your Inner Clown). Many professors have years of industry experience and fly in especially to teach the MBAs. The entire atmosphere is much less U.S.-centric, and I hear so many other perspectives on politics and business processes. My Geopolitics and Developing Markets class is taught by a former ambassador with very strong opinions and every class is filled with debate between her and a student from the country being discussed. It's extremely eye-opening and entertaining at the same time! Yes, it takes some adjustment transitioning from Stern to HEC. You're out of your comfort zone and you have to take responsibility for what you want and/or need done. The "French Way" is not very customer-oriented, and the administration could use some systems to help courses and other activities flow more smoothly. HEC is small compared to Stern, but it represents so much more of the world and encourages you to take on that same broad perspective. Plus, being close to Paris isn't so bad either. =)