“Fall of my junior year, I studied abroad in Paris, through Hamilton College Junior Year in France. If you’re a hard science major, then you can enroll as a semester student, even though its usually a full-year commitment. The program director helped me to directly enroll in the Parisian Science and Math University (Université Pierre et Marie Curie), where I took Comparative Physiology. My French vocab of animals and physiological systems wasn’t that extensive when I started, so each week’s new dissection was quite the adventure and surprise. Taking Biology in France was definitely challenging at times (like when I walked in to lab, and we were dissecting une blatte, a cockroach!), but it was a great way to meet living, breathing, French biology students; they are not used to having international classmates, so they’ll be excited to be your lab partner, even if you lean over and ask a question every two minutes. The program also hired a private tutor who was at the Medical School of the University, who worked with me one-on-one a couple hours a week to clarify my many, many questions. Above, a picture of my cousin, Casey (who was studying in Barcelona through Trinity College) and myself at Place du Trocadéro.”
-Madeleine