Emily Kormann reflects on what she hopes to gain through her study abroad experience in Nantes, France.
Studying abroad is becoming more and more real by the day – I have accepted my spot at IES Abroad in Nantes, France, bought my plane tickets, emailed with my host family, and chosen the luggage that I’ll soon be packing a semester’s worth of my life into. I am feeling nervous and excited by turns, but I’m hoping that excitement prevails soon as I get closer to leaving. I’ve been meditating more on what I want this experience of studying abroad to be, and here’s what I have so far:
I want to speak French fluently, or at least something approaching fluency, after this semester, and a huge step toward that goal will be complete immersion. Despite the many French books I read, French movies I watch, and French songs I listen to, I’m still in the United States surrounded by English speakers and can disconnect from French at any time. While in Nantes, I want to come back from a literature class where we analyzed a French classic – maybe Flaubert’s Madame Bovary– and continue speaking French when I get home with my host parents, telling them about the delay on the tram on my way to class or a particularly insightful comment uttered by one of my classmates. That skill, the ability to speak articulately even after a long and potentially stressful day, is one of two things I most hope to gain in Nantes. The other, mastering non-academic French, is one that also can only be learned in France. By studying in Nantes, I’ll be able to learn new facets of the French language. A real, spoken language is often different from the language we learn in a classroom; connotations of words, vernacular phrases, and idiomatic expressions are all necessary components of language but are difficult – almost impossible – to master in a classroom setting.
I also just want to enjoy my time abroad. This will be my first time leaving the United States, so I really want to visit as many places as I can while still fully appreciating where I am in Nantes. By the time I come home in June, I hope to have visited Prague, Krakow, Vienna, Berlin, and as many other places as I can, but I hope I will have also identified which café in Nantes has the best coffee and which park I find the most peaceful. I’m going to try appreciating the little things in Nantes first, like which boulangerie I prefer, and work my way up to the big stuff, like which European city I’ll be jetting off to next weekend.
-- Emily Kormann, '16