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A Parent's Perspective
Will spent a year at Sciences Po in Paris doing his third-year Arts subjects in an Arts/Law degree at ANU.
He’d prepared himself well for the experience. He did an intensive French language course, since he hadn’t done any French at school or uni, and he went to Paris two months before uni started to be an intern in a human rights organisation. That helped him learn the language and the French way of doing things. At Sciences Po, he elected to do some subjects in English and others in French.
The hardest part was finding suitable accommodation. It’s expensive in the middle of Paris, but when he put together help from the French Government, the ANU, Youth Allowance and his own savings, he managed OK in a tiny studio apartment near the Eiffel Tower.
He soon hooked up with a whole group of like-minded people from all sorts of countries and cultures – thirsty for adventure, hungry for knowledge, wanting to bite off great chunks of experience on and off campus.
The whole experience really matured Will quickly. He’s a different person now – more confident, more knowing of how the world works, more rounded in that he got into things like theatre, music groups and salsa dancing. He’s developed a lot more savoir faire and a pretty decent fashion sense to boot.
He’s made friends from countries like India and Russia as well as France. Not that he cultivated them for any ulterior motive, but he’s well aware that maybe one day soon his new network will help him realise his international career ambitions.
Now he’s back finishing his Law subjects in Canberra. He can’t wait to go international again – a French-speaking part of the world, he thinks, in a human rights organisation if he can swing it.
Jeff Fitzgibbon