Jasmin Wahl at CERAM School of Business, Sophia Antipolis, France

The semester at Ceram was definitely one of the best experiences in my life. Life at the Côte d’Azur is “légère”, people are friendly and the climate at the beautiful seaside is just fantastic! The other exchange students came from all over the world: Mexico, Canada, China, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Poland…This cultural diversity was the basement for a lot of fun and action. Unfortunately, we didn’t get in touch with many French students, but the few I got to know better were really committed to socialize with us.


The start:
The orientation day started with a “Welcome breakfast” after that we got provided with student cards and the information for our courses. At night there was a party at a beach club. As the price for the orientation weekend was about 140€, most of us decided not to take part and organize our own party at the beach instead.


The surroundings:
Antibes and Juan les Pins (JLP) lie directly at beautiful beaches, which can be very tempting if you should rather do some school work J. With cities like Cannes, Nice and Monaco nearby, there are always activities- culture, sports, nightlife…no way to get bored! Ceram organizes a party at least every Thursday which takes place in Cannes, JLP or further away with a shuttle bus option. The music is mostly House and a bit of Black music, but as everybody goes there, it’s fun even if you don’t appreciate the music a lot. You can pre-purchase the tickets at school, the price is around 12 €, but non-alcoholic drinks are free. If you want to dance to other music, you should head to Nice or Monaco, where you can find clubs playing Salsa, Reggae or whatever you like.
And Wednesday is “La Gaffe”-day: La Gaffe is an English Pub in Antibes with a happy hour from 9 to 10 where an English cover rock band is playing every Wednesday night. You shouldn’t miss that!


Antibes/Sophia:
Ceram is located in Sophia Antipolis, which is a technology park with scientific institutes and high-technology enterprises built in a pine forest. The life after work only happens in the towns where most students live: Antibes and Juan les Pins. Both places are very busy and crowded with tourists in summer, but except for some night clubs pretty calm “hors de saison”. It’s convenient to live there, because you can get all you need for your daily life in these towns. For grocery shopping I recommend “Carrefour”, a gigantic hypermarket on the way to Sophia where you can get everything, really everything. It’s a bit expensive though if you are used to Lidl, but the French pendant to Lidl is “Leader price” which is located in JLP, Boulevard Raymond Poincaré. There are other supermarkets in the city centres of JLP and Antibes, as well as some boutiques for clothes.


Restaurants:
You shouldn’t miss the take-away food: for Asian delicacies try the one in JLP at the corner of Blvd. Wilson/Av. Dr. Fabre. For huge burgers, you should check out the snack bar close to the “Village-Club”, they offer Baguette “Americain” with fries inside…Or the snack bar at the corner of Rue Vauban in Antibes when you walk down to the port from place Charles de Gaulle.
There’s a good place for Italian food in Antibes, rue du Petit four, where they offer a 3-courses-menu for 12 €. They have a take-away counter at the street, but also a beautiful cellar restaurant down the stairs. For a typical French experience, try the Absinth Bar in the street parallel to the Italian place; or the cosy Crêperie with an open fire in rue Vauban.
You can also find some affordable restaurants with French cuisine in Nice around the main station.


Money:
Yes, the Côte d’Azur is expensive. Roughly, you must afford the double amount of living expenses than you would have to in Remagen (including flat, food and leisure activities). But you get support from Erasmus and the French CAF (www.caf.fr) ; the CAF amount depends on your rent (I got about 20% of it), and you can also apply for Auslands-Bafög. There might be some other student bargains offered by Conseil Général (www.cg06.fr) like free bus passes etc.


Medical treatment:
There’s a friendly and helpful doctor in Antibes, av Pasteur (just next to the supermarket), and you will find pharmacies both in Antibes and in JLP.


Transportation- Car vs. Public transport:
Of course it’s very convenient to get everywhere you want by car, e.g. for trips to the beautiful countryside or when you’re going out at night. I was glad to have my car with me, because my apartment was almost in Golf Juan, which is a 20 min walk from the center of Juan les Pins, and it’s not recommended to walk home alone during night time, especially when you’re a girl.
But you should be aware that French people are tough drivers, traffic rules are only randomly respected, street signs sometimes unclear (especially in Nice), parking space is scarce (and expensive, only during the winter season it’s free of charge in JLP and Antibes) and your car won’t look as neat as before your trip through French cities…

Public transport is really cheap (1€ for 3 hours or 12€ a monthly bus pass, about 4€ one way to Nice by train) and you can get almost everywhere you want. The line 1 takes 50 min to Ceram, whereas the 100Express will be there in only 15 min, but the 100 is only running from Antibes Centre, Place Charles de Gaulle. And it can be very annoying when the bus drivers are striking (which used to happen at least every Thursday) and you have to figure out how to get to school in time. It really depends on where you live- close to Antibes Centre: no car recommended, you will always find a bus that’s running and there might be problems to find a possibility to park your car. Further away from Place de Gaulle: it’s up to you.


Accommodation:
Ceram recommends to look for accommodation before coming to France. Most people (like me) did so. If you already know that you want to live on your own, you should check out the residences on the homepage of Ceram. In JLP: Le Tropique (highly recommended, clean and lots of students, free internet) or Couleurs Soleil. In Antibes: Résideal. These are the ones I’ve seen from inside and you shouldn’t face bad surprises concerning prices or cleanliness. And if you don’t speak French, it’s definitely easier to deal with hotel staff who speaks English. Single-Apartments are about 450€.
It’s of course cheaper to live in shared accommodation (I paid 370€ in a 2-person-shared-accomodation). You can find flatmates through a list where you can sign in on the homepage of Ceram, but you maybe have to face the problem that you don’t get along with the flatmate you haven’t met before and you don’t have the security if they really show up after you have booked the apartment and paid the deposit. I would rather book a single apartment for a few weeks and ask your new friends if they want to share accommodation. Many people moved out of their pre-booked apartment because of untidy flatmates, cockroaches, bad neighbours or general conditions like expensive rent…


Courses:
There’s a wide range of different courses you can take, both in English and French. The only problem is, that the information you get in the syllabus is not sufficient for being sure that you made the right choice: it’s not explained if you will write an exam at the end of the semester or if you have to do group work, an extensive case study or just a presentation. Almost all exchange students changed their courses after the first lessons. You have a trial period of two weeks for doing so.

I took the Globalisation seminar (English), which was a good method to get to know the other exchange students. It was a bit tough at the beginning, because the focus was on the global financial market and the professor expected a lot of reading before the course- what nobody told us before. We wrote a test and a group case study of 20 pages (“Mafia and its impact on the global economy”) for which we had two weeks of time.

I also took International Business Law (English), Psychanalyse et Management (French) and the French language course.

The courses are very personal (sometimes only 25 students) and it’s comparable to the German high school system: you have to present yourself in the first session and participate actively (sometimes even oral marks!). So you cannot disappear in the crowd- especially if you’re an exchange student.

The range of sports courses is really good, you can go for rockclimbing (highly recommended!), golf, sailing…You need a medical certificate for proof of being able to exercise the chosen sport, although it is mentioned differently on the Ceram-leaflet that you only need it for competition. It should be in French or English; the easiest way is to get the document already at home before going to France.


Language:
For the daily conversation and if you don’t consider taking French courses, it’s sufficient to have the French language skills from school. There were exchange students who didn’t speak a word of French, and they got along really well- but to immerge in the culture in that you live, I would recommend at least an average knowledge of French, especially when it comes to organizational things.
For French business courses, your knowledge from school is probably not enough. The professors are really clearly to understand if you are used to listen to French people (e.g. television or longer stays in France before your semester abroad), but this is not the case for the other French students. It’s a good idea to tell the teacher that you are a foreigner, and most of them consider this fact and try to help you.

The English courses were not a big problem, sometimes it turned out to be a bit difficult to understand the pronunciation of the French teachers, but as there are French students whose English language level is in most cases not very good, the professors are aware of that fact and explain important things twice.


Conclusion:
If you like living in an extraordinary culture with 300 sunny days per year, as well as meeting interesting people from all over the world and having awesome experiences – then I can only give you one advice: take the opportunity and go there!