Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3
2015 Semester 1
DipLang (French), BCOM (Finance)
I’m a fourth year student studying DipLang (French), BCOM (Finance) and Law. I’ve
just come back from Lyon (where I was studying at Jean Moulin for 1 semester) and
for sure it has been the best semester of my degree so far. I would really rate Lyon as
a place to do an exchange especially if you want to improve at French.
Visa
To get the student VISA you have to go to Wellington, if you have the documents it
should be alright. Make sure you prepare the documents ahead of the week before
you go because some of them take a while to prepare. For the proof of
accommodation I had booked a hostel and so I showed the hostel reservation and
said that I would look for somewhere permanent once I arrived and this seemed to
be sufficient.
Accommodation
Before going to Lyon I decided that ideally I would find a colocation (a flatshare) with
French people. I had done a little bit of reading of the past evaluations before
heading to Lyon and I saw that the best way to find something is to probably book a
hostel for a few nights and search when you actually get to Lyon (this also avoids
being scammed as well)
I arrived in Lyon about a week and a half before the semester started and I booked
into the SLO living hostel for 4 nights. There are about 3 youth hostels in Lyon (SLO is
located in Saxe-Gambetta which is fairly central) there is also one in Vieux Lyon but
note that it’s up a very steep hill. I had done 5 weeks of travel before arriving in Lyon
and when I did arrive I was actually really sick. This made looking for a place to live
super hard but don’t be put off if you don’t find something right away. In the end I
stayed in the SLO for 5 nights (there I actually met some people who I ended up
being friends with for the rest of the semester which was pretty cool). On my sixth
night I decided to do couchsurfing. Couchsurfing is a website where you sign up and
can find hosts who have a spare bed/ couch who are willing to let you stay and a plus
is that it’s free. I ended up staying with 3 different couchsurfers (two were
colocations and the third was a French guy who had a studio) and it was a great way
to be shown around Lyon by people who knew the city well and also a good way to
meet people since I kept in touch with them during the semester as well.
Anyway back to the apartment. I tried using the websites appartager.com and
leboncoin (which is like a French version of trade me) however I didn’t find them
that useful (especially appartager as I didn’t want to buy the premium membership
so you can only receive offers and not make them) In the end I joined two facebook
groups one called Colocation - appartements étudiants Lyon and the other
Erasmus & International Students LYON 2014-2015 (ERASMUS refers to a European
student doing an exchange in another European country however for the purpose of
your exchange just consider yourself as an ERASMUS student as well)
On the colocation facebook page I saw a post from a French girl and her friend who
said they were keen to find a flatmate before looking for an apartment. I ended up
meeting up with them and as we got along pretty well they then started looking for a
place for the three of us to live (I was pretty lucky in that after that I didn’t do that
much searching). However I did look at some other apartments before I had met
them and hadn’t really found anything that was central enough (however there is
quite a lot out there so I’m sure if I had kept searching it would have been alright).
Because I went in January (which is semester 2 in Europe) this meant that it was
probably easier to find something, I had a lot of friends who had arrived in
September and were staying for a whole year and they had said that in September it
was really difficult to find anything and that most of them ended up in residents.
Also note that if you’re looking for a flat, most people will only be interested if
you’re staying for at least 6 months.
In the end we moved into an apartment which was in Hotel de Ville/ Croix Paquet
which was an ideal area being so close to the centre. It was actually a 2 bedroom
apartment and I ended up living in a smaller room (the landlord didn’t know that I
was there). Because my name was not on the lease this meant that I could not get
CAF (help from the French government) however my rent was 350 Euros a months
with charges included so it was pretty good. Note that if you do a sous-location (i.e.
sub-lease someone’s room, you will not be able to get CAF since your name will not
be on the lease. However usually sous-locations are cheaper and also applying for
CAF can be quite a process so I was pretty glad not to have to do that in the end.
I ended up living in the apartment for 6 months (from January to the end of June).
The apartment wasn’t furnished so we had to sort out all the appliances/ beds etc.
My flatmates didn’t make me pay for most of the things since I was only there for 6
months. But for the things for my room I looked on Leboncoin which had some
cheap things and in the end I sold my furtniture to my flatemates (since it would be
easier for them for the next person moving in). I really liked the apartment I ended
up living in. I think that obviously the central areas such as Hotel De Ville, Croix
Paquet, Codeliers and Bellecour are the prime places (i.e. the 1 arrondissement
69001). However other good areas would be Vieux Lyon (very touristic), Croix Rousse
(up a hill but a really nice area), Saxe-Gambetta and Garibaldi (which are between
the city centre and the university Lyon 3).
Money/ Phone
I left for Europe at the beginning of December and I had gotten a travel card before
leaving. This was great to use since it has no cost of using ATMs across Europe and
doesn’t have charges either. I didn’t open a French bank account since I was unable
to get CAF and thus I didn’t need one. Also since my name was not on the lease it
would have been a bit harder to set up (I would have needed to have had my
flatmates write a letter saying they were hosting me and had copies of their IDs and
bills etc)
For my phone, I joined up with Lebara. I was prepaid and my friend had shown me a
deal where for 15 Euros a month you could have unlimited calls and txts to French
numbers and 5 GB of data (only working within France). I had some friends on Free
which is also very cheap and I had been warned to not go with Orange since it’s so
expensive.
The University/ Academic/Course Load
I decided to do all my courses in French apart from one, which I did in English. This
meant I was in the C.E.U.F program. All exchange students at Lyon 3 have to do FLE francais (i.e. learning French as a language which under the C.E.U.F is 5 credits) and
also Initiation.. (which is a culture paper which is 2 credits). I would suggest that if
you really want to improve your French, you do your classes in French. I had done up
to Fren334 and that meant my level was good enough (and much better than some
of the other international students who were also studying in French). At the
beginning I did find some of the teachers hard to understand and there would be
some sentences where I would not catch what was going on but as the semester
went on I found it much easier. Also for your exams you can get a sticker to put on
your script which says you are an international student and with this I think you are
marked a little bit easier – so don’t forget to get those!
I ended up doing 32 ECTS (a full semester is normally around 30 ECTS). The good
thing about Lyon 3 is that as an exchange student you can do courses across multiple
faculties as long as there is no clash (so really it’s quite like Otago). As well as the
language and culture papers I ended up doing Management des Entreprises which I
counted for BSNS105 at Otago, 2 translation courses which were for ERASMUS
students only and Economie Europeenne. The paper I did that was taught in English
was International Finance. In total I credited 4 papers back to Otago: 2 French
papers, BSNS105 and a 300-level Finance paper.
Just before the semester started there had been the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris
(which was a terrorist attack against a magazine). Because of this, many institutions
and places around France increased their security. At Lyon 3 the main entrance was
always closed at we had to use the back and side entrances. Also for the first term
there was security who would check student ID cards and bags before you could
enter. This lessened over time and eventually the security was no longer there,
however they never opened the main entrance for the entire semester.
Lyon 3 is situated near the Sans Souci metro stop, so it really is not very from the
centre of Lyon at all. The campus itself is actually pretty good and there are cheap
places to buy lunch there as well. The classes are a bit different from Otago in that
instead of multiple lectures a week, most classes have just one longer lecture
(usually between 2 to 3 hours) and a tutorial. I was surprised to find that during the
CM lots of the class would just be talking the whole time and there was just a
constant buzz of chat going on, sometimes the teachers would get angry but other
times they would just let it slide. The lectures known as CM are not compulsory to
attend however the TD (tutorials) are compulsoryand you can only miss a maximum
of 2. It was very easy to make friends with other exchange students in the classes
but no so easy to make French friends (it can be quite hard to meet people in the
lectures). It was far easier to meet French people when going out to clubs and bars
so that’s probably the best place to do so! In terms of exams there tended to be a lot
of memorising and repeating information opposed to actually application and
writing your own ideas so remember when studying that it is often important to
know very specific dates and facts.
Chantel, the woman who is in charge of the international students studying in French
was really nice (as long as you remember to speak to her in French) and I found that
overall the university was really well set up for exchange students (the relations
internationales were also willing to help and at the beginning of the year they helped
people with accommodation (for residences) and setting up bank accounts.)
Transport
I had a Télécy card which allows you to use the metros, the trams and the buses
around Lyon. Also for just 15 Euros you can have access to the VeloV (the bike
system around Lyon) for the entire year. The metros normally open around 5h00 in
the morning and close at around 00h30 at night. As a student it costs about 28 Euros
to use the metro unlimited per month (this is a really good deal). Note that you have
to ‘recharge’ your metro card on the first day of each month (i.e. you just go to the
machines and scan your card and pay 28 euros, it’s very easy to do). This means that
even if you sign up for the card on say the 15th of the month you still will have to do
the recharge on the 1st. So maybe think about this when you arrive because it might
be better not to have to pay for a whole month if it is only a week before the start of
a new month.
Life in Lyon
Lyon is a great city for a student and because it’s not too big you get to know your
way around pretty well and it’s easy to meet up with people. Known for its food
there’s lots of good places to eat as well. For my supermarket shopping I went to
Leaderprice which is probably the cheapest supermarket (cheaper than New Zealand
supermarkets) and has a good variety of products too.
The main tourist attractions would probably be Vieux Lyon (and the traboules),
Fourvière, Le Parc de la Tête d'Or and Confluence. There aren’t really that many
beaches too close by, but there is Grand Parc Miribel Jonage which is just a little bit
out of the city and has a lake where you can go swimming.
In terms of going out there are ERASMUS parties which are a great way to meet
people at the beginning (I only went to the first couple since it isn’t that cheap and
once you have friends there are better places to go). Also at the QG there is
something called ‘Happy Mondays’ where there are student nights there which was
always a good time. Le Sucre is an electro club in an old sugar factory which is a good
place to check out as well.
Travel
I travelled for 5 weeks before my exchange and during the semester I only made
trips during the holidays. Also since I finished exams on May 6th I had about 2
months to do some travelling afterwards as well. Easy Jet and Ryan Air normally
have the cheapest flights. It is also a good idea to look at the flights leaving from
Geneva instead of Lyon since they are often a lot cheaper. Also since Geneva is only
about 90 minutes from Lyon you can find blablacars (a car sharing website which is
great for getting between places and cheaper than the train) that are only about 10
euros! My favourite places I went to were Marrakesh, Istanbul and Barcelona
I think that if you are heading to Lyon you have made a really good choice and I’m
sure it will be the best semester of your degree!