Being now halfway through my year abroad with just four months left to go, it’s an appropriate time to make an update of the best and worst of going on an Erasmus exchange. I’m at Aix-Marseille University in the beautiful town of Aix-en-Provence right in the heart of the south of France. I must confess …
Tag Archives: Aix-Marseille
Assessment System
The assessment system at Aix-Marseille can sometimes be a mystery, other times not – depending on how organised the class is and how much the teacher communicates with you. This here is an overview of how I was assessed for the modules I took for the first semester. Français langue étrangère C1 Unlike the B1 …
Do you ever do any work?
Although anyone on an Erasmus year will go to all lengths – whether it be an immaculate Instagram or a chirrupy year abroad blog – to posit the year as a highlight, I can guarantee you that they don’t share even half of the struggles, and often tears, which go into it. Erasmus isn’t all …
Eating Out in Aix
Angkor Restaurant This restaurant is situated in one of the main restaurant squares near the clock tower in Aix, where I had a lovely sunset view and watched the starlings fly around once again. After a month of eating purely European food, I desperately was craving something Asian so Grace and I went to this …
Programme of study
Since arriving at Aix-Marseille, my Learning Agreement has taken many drastic turn in various directions. I was at one point signed up to study Catalan and Hindi until my Year Abroad tutor in Birmingham told me I wasn’t allowed to. So what am I even studying this semester? My degree programme at Birmingham is English …
Joining a dance group
November 2018 One of my friends in BALADS helped me to research which French universities in the south had ballroom and Latin dance classes. Aix-Marseille was the only one with an official-looking club, so I selected this university for my year abroad. March 2019 I sent a long message to the AUC Danse Sportive email, …
Welcome week: England vs France
As one of the modules I’m taking is a study comparing contemporary European societies, I thought it relevant to do a comparison of the most infamous week of the English university calendar with the French equivalent. Registration At the University of Birmingham everything administration-related is done online with high-speed servers on one single website. Here …
Finding accommodation for my year abroad
This was something I was very concerned about for a long time, not least because my very organised housemate had successfully gotten hold of a houseshare/flatshare with some coursemates for his year abroad. Meanwhile I had heard precisely nothing. As a precaution, I joined the student university group for Aix-Marseille where people were advertising flats …
An Aixpat-en-Provence 