Semester Abroad – Killing time? Me too!

This past year has been particularly challenging for our Year 3 students. In most cases, they would ordinarily have spent their Autumn semester preparing for Study Abroad and then their Spring semester away at one of our partner institutions. This year was very different and, while our Study Abroad Advisors (Jean-Michel DesJacques for French and Jose Ferreira-Cayuela for Spanish) did a fantastic job matching students up with our usual partners, the changing conditions over the course of the Spring meant that the shape and form of their online contact with those partners varied quite a bit. The one thing that united all of the students on their Semester Abroad, though, was that they were all also working on independent research projects for us at Stirling throughout the semester. That’s a standard part of our Semester Abroad and the topics this year were as varied as usual, from Simone de Beauvoir to representations of activist movements onscreen and much else in between.

Anyway, we thought it would be good to get some perspectives on this unconventional Semester Abroad from the students who’ve actually been involved and we’re delighted to be able to post the first of these articles by Pauline, who has just completed Year 3 on her International Politics and Languages degree:

‘Studying on the beach on the Côte d’Azur, hanging out with friends and practising my French at the same time, learning more about the French culture and lifestyle first-hand. That‘s how I thought my semester would go. Well, it did not. Due to Covid and ever-changing restrictions in France concerning classes and in-person teaching, I was not able to go to SciencesPo Menton for my semester abroad. However, Menton was not lost. Online classes were still on and allowed me to experience a part of French teaching from afar. This was no real replacement for the adventure on the French Riviera I had hoped for, but it was better than nothing. So, I made the most of it and tried to do my best in classes alongside my French classmates. To be honest, I did not do very well. The topics were complex, assignments were usually based on personal opinions and the way SciencesPo is organised was unbearably chaotic and spontaneous for my strictly-structured ‘German brain.’ My favourite class was my C1 French class, since it was one of the few opportunities I got to practise my French. Although it was on a Wednesday at 7am, I did not miss it once, especially since it was tailored specifically to international students.

One major difference that distinguished Semester 6 from my previous Uni years was the workload. Rather than spending my time organising friends and hobbies around my daily studying, the latter was not very present. There was not much preparation needed for the classes I attended and because I did not have to bring back grades from my classes, the motivation to throw myself into assignments was lacking. So, I threw myself into the assignment that did count, namely the individual research project I had to complete for Stirling.

The work I put into my project could be seen as excessive. I spent most of my time this semester on research for a 2250-word paper. That probably sounds like a bad thing, but it was my way to kill time. It was easy to get into it, too, because I enjoyed learning more about my topic and perfecting phrasing, vocabulary and critical thinking. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to write about police brutality in France. I study International Politics together with French, so the political touch was a must for me. My supervisor, Aedín ní Loingsigh, recommended different articles and sources I could focus on. Among these was also a film by Ladj Ly called Les Misérables. Sounds familiar? I thought so too. I made the connection to the Victor Hugo novel, searched for police brutality and was guided smoothly to my research question: “La représentation de la police dans Les Misérables de Victor Hugo et dans Les Misérables de Ladj Ly.”

One struggle I encountered right to the end was the length of my project. The effort I put it would have been better placed in a dissertation than a 2250-word project, which resulted in 5000 to 6000 words at one point in the process. I was too enthusiastic. I had read so much, I had too much to say. Cutting down my arguments was probably the hardest part. It hurts when you have remove sentences in French that you’re really proud of because they sound so good and you used such fancy vocabulary. But I did it and I was proud of the work I submitted in the end.

Other than focusing all my academic energy on my project, I spent most of my semester 6 recharging and reenergising, climbing Scottish mountains and going for walks. And as good as that felt, I am more than ready for a semester where the thought of how to kill my time will never cross my mind.

Although my Semester 6 experience was not quite the one I had planned, it is still one I appreciate. The little insight I got into the French education system only inspired me to put studying in a francophone country on my bucket list for the future.’

Many, many thanks to Pauline for starting this series of reflections on Semester Abroad and for this honest account of the semester. We hope you have a great Summer and we look forward to being able to welcome you back to Stirling in the new academic year!

Congratulations!

Many, many congratulations to our PhD student Fraser McQueen who passed his viva yesterday. Fraser’s thesis (“Race, Religion, and Communities of Friendship: Contemporary French Islamophobia in Literature and Film”) was supervised by Fiona Barclay, Nadia Kiwan (at Aberdeen University) and Cristina Johnston (as well as by David Murphy, in the early stages of the research). We look forward to celebrating with you soon, Fraser!

And if you want to read more of Fraser’s work, you can check out his articles in The Conversation here or his most recent article in Modern and Contemporary France on Christophe Guilluy and Michel Houellebecq here.

Voilà l’été! Summer updates

As we move towards the summer months – hoping the current good weather in Scotland might continue for a while – the blog is likely to get a little quieter but we’re going to try to keep the articles coming as regularly as we can. If you’re reading this as a French at Stirling student or graduate or colleague, do feel free to get in touch at any stage with ideas for blog posts and we’ll be delighted to receive them.

In the meantime, we’re looking forward to publishing a few more articles by some of this year’s graduating cohort and by some of our students who are about to go into their final year, and work goes on for us all! Our colleague Aedín ní Loingsigh put together a fantastic resource for our continuing students with suggestions of topics they might want to explore over the summer months as a means of keeping in touch with French. There’s nothing ‘formal’ for them to do but Aedín put together a series of topics and themes with ideas for films, books, tv series, podcasts, articles, etc that our students might find helpful in learning more about those themes. Some of the topics overlap with materials on our modules, some students might find the ideas helpful in starting to think about dissertations and other research projects, but, as Aedín explains, it’s just about choosing a topic that’s of interest and seeing where it takes you.

In a similar vein, but this time thinking about future students of languages, Sheena Bell of SCILT (Scotland’s National Centre for Languages) invited Cristina Johnston to make a short video last week, aimed at secondary school pupils who are about to embark on University degrees involving languages. The idea was to give some tips and advice for future languages students about ways to prepare for University over the Summer months and about how to make the most out of their time at University when they get there. We hope the advice is helpful and look forward to welcoming our own incoming Year 1 students in August.

SCILT were also involved in the organisation of a Q&A session last week with our own honorary graduate, French footballer Lilian Thuram. The ‘Conversation with Lilian Thuram’ was jointly organised by SCILT and the University of Strathclyde and it focused primarily on a discussion of Thuram’s book Mes Étoiles noires (My Black Stars)which has just been published in its English translation by Liverpool University Press. The wide-ranging conversation was led by our former colleague, David Murphy, now Head of the School of Humanities at Strathclyde, and his colleague Cédric Moreau. You can read more about Thuram’s anti-racism campaigning and about My Black Stars in this Scotland on Sunday article. And watch this space for news of Stirling’s role in the translation of Thuram’s latest book La Pensée blanche…

More news and updates to follow over the coming weeks!

Confidence, savoir-faire and future plans !

In yesterday’s post about our fantastic finalists, we mentioned that there would be a few longer, individual articles coming over the next little while. We’re really pleased to be able to post the first of these today, with Stuart’s reflections on his time at Stirling and his plans for the future, now that he has successfully completed his BA Hons in French and Spanish:

‘Salut tout le monde,

Very cliché to say, I know, but with my time at Stirling now at an end, these 5 years have seriously flown past! Especially the last year as it was slightly different as you may have noticed yourself! One very quick warning I would give everyone coming up for their 4^th year is: DO NOT believe anyone who tells you 4^th year is a nice wee breeze after 3^rd year! Both years are serious défis in their own right, and that’s even without a dissertation! Still, no pain, no gain as they say (on n’a rien sans rien, comme on dit) and reflecting back on my time at Stirling I would definitely say that I’ve gained plenty.

Stirling was my second chance at higher education, and I can safely say now that it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Not only in terms of all the friends I’ve made along the way, but I definitely owe my proficiency in French and the decision to pick up Spanish from scratch to the excellent and engaged professors and fascinating and relevant modules. This decision also ultimately led to my opportunity to be an English Language Assistant in Quebec, something which I’ll always remember.

Naturally, without any real certainty around travel abroad at the moment, you have to get somewhat inventive to try and keep your languages topped up, and for me, inspired by the French Crime Fiction module I took last semester, this has taken the form of trying to read Fred Vargas’ Commissaire Adamsberg series, as I absolutely loved Sous les Vents de Neptune and would recommend it to anyone as a great test of how far your French has come along (especially when it comes to the québecois expressions!).

I’m tentatively planning (which is the best any of us can do at the moment!) to undertake another ELA placement in Spain next year, possibly followed by a postgraduate in France if luck is on my side, but my time at Stirling has definitely given me the confidence and savoir-faire to manage once I finally get there!

Merci et adieu

Stuart’

Many, many thanks to Stuart for sending through this great blog post and for the kind words about his time at Stirling. On behalf of everyone in French at Stirling, we wish you all the very best for the future, Stuart, and hope you’ll keep in touch.

[Note from the blog: Stuart’s post also gives us a chance to add that, obviously, we thoroughly recommend Fred Vargas’ books in French but this gives us an excellent opportunity to remind you that the translations of them into English are the work of our own Professor Emerita of French, Siân Reynolds… Bonne lecture!].

2021 Finalists and their Plans

As we may have mentioned once or twice on the blog, this has been an incredibly challenging year in so many ways and for so many people. For our finalists, whose semesters abroad were interrupted by Covid, it has meant that they weren’t able to return to campus from those semesters to exchange tales of their travels with their friends and to settle into their final year of undergraduate studies. Instead, it has been a year of online classes, online assessments, online feedback sessions and so on.

In light of such difficult and strange circumstances, we have all been impressed by the commitment, engagement and good humour with which our finalists have approached this year. With all that in mind, it has been particularly lovely to hear back from so many of those finalists in response to our traditional request for info about plans for life after graduation. Regular blog readers will doubtless have followed these posts from year to year and it’s great to see the same diversity of plans and the same enthusiasm for the months and years ahead from this year’s graduating cohort. As ever, we wanted to share their plans with you (with their permission!) so, in no particular order, and with some longer individual posts to follow, here goes…

Victoria, who has just completed her BA Hons in International Politics and Languages, has accepted a conditional offer at the University of Edinburgh to continue her studies with an MSc in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. She also intends to continue learning Arabic and to do an internship in Morocco next summer to investigate the field of Gender Studies in North Africa more fully. Scott, whose BA Hons was in French and Spanish, is also building on his interests in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies and looking for a range of academic fields to investigate in preparation for a planned Master’s. If Covid and the Foreign Office allow it, he’s hoping to be in either Iran or Tajikistan this time next year conducting some kind of area research, much like what he was able to do during his semester abroad.

Like Victoria, Lochlann has also just completed his degree in International Politics and Languages and is planning to move to Edinburgh but is hoping to manage to spend some more time abroad as he thinks about possible postgraduate studies. Having done a Combined Honours programme, he’s interested in a Master’s in either Translation or International Relations further down the line. And postgraduate study is also on the horizon for Emily, who has completed her BA Hons in French and History, and who is planning a summer of part-time work and free-lance translation before starting her Master’s in Publishing at Edinburgh Napier in the Autumn.

As for Julia, who is graduating with a BA Hons in French, during her Semester Abroad at Université de Tours in the Val-de-Loire region in central France, she had the opportunity to take informal conversation classes with French students who were studying medicine. This really sparked her interest in teaching English abroad so she has accepted an offer to study an MSc TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) closer to home at the University of Glasgow. Teaching is also on the horizon for some of our other finalists and, as ever, those teaching plans take different forms. Callan, for example, who has just successfully completed his BA Hons in French with Spanish and Professional Education, is off to the Scottish Borders in the Autumn for his probationary year as a secondary school languages teacher. And Stuart, who has just finished his BA Hons in French and Spanish, is planning to spend a year as an English Language Assistant in Spain (he previously spent a year in Quebec as an ELA) before undertaking a postgraduate qualification in teaching, hopefully in France. Nathan, who has just finished his BA Hons in French with us, is taking a gap year in the first instance and then has his sights set on time in Strasbourg, CELTA qualifications and perhaps a career in teaching further down the line. And, Christina, who has completed her degree in Modern Languages and Business Studies, is also taking a year out before undertaking a postgraduate qualification in Education and TESOL, and hoping very much that travel will be possible again soon.

Natasha, who has just completed her BA Hons in International Management with European Languages and Society, has managed to spend some much-needed time traveling and exploring the Scottish Highlands before leaving the UK. She is currently spending a month in Andalucía (Spain) where she is putting her language skills to the test. In July, she will temporarily return to her family home in Germany where she plans to continue the job application process, get vaccinated, and consider returning to a summer option/opportunity in Switzerland. In terms of longer-term work plans, like others in our graduating cohort, she has TESOL on her mind but she is primarily focused on working in a Marketing or Communications role wherever the wind takes her. 

And then there’s Paige, who has just finished her BA Hons in English Studies and French: ‘I started studying English Studies and Secondary Education at Stirling University before changing to English and French after thoroughly enjoying studying French as an additional module in first year. I was particularly excited about the opportunities in France and French-speaking countries that studying French would give me, especially the opportunity to live and work in France as an English Language Assistant for a year with the British Council. As a future teacher I knew the classroom experience would be invaluable and this opportunity would even allow me to see if teaching is the right career path for me. Now that I’ve finished my degree, I’ll be studying to become a Secondary school English teacher. However, after my experience of French at Stirling and particularly due to my experience as an English Language Assistant, I plan to teach English as a foreign language in France in the future (instead of teaching English literature in Scotland/ an English-speaking country). Working as an English Language Assistant has given me the desire to teach English in other countries such as Japan, China, Vietnam… before returning to settle in France: my second home. I can’t wait to qualify as an English teacher and I’m excited for my next chapter!’

Cameron, who studied French with Spanish and Education at Stirling, really enjoyed his time abroad in third year, which he spent living and working in a small Spanish town and then travelling around French-speaking countries in Europe (including France, Monaco, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Belgium.) When the pandemic passes, he’d really love ‘to live and work abroad again as it was such an enriching experience.’ As he says: ‘I suppose that explains why my plans for next year include staying on at university to study a subject related to languages: I’ve applied for an MA in Translation and Conference Interpreting at the University of Leeds, as I really enjoyed studying translation in my last two years of university and I’d love to learn a lot more about interpreting. I’m not sure what the future holds after that, but I’ll be taking it step by step.’

And Adriana, whose degree is in Business Studies and French, is planning to work in Gibraltar, hopefully in an area related to event production or similar, but more generally in a post that will allow her to develop her professional experience in Business or Management. She’s planning to do that for the next year or so with a view to then doing a Master’s in Event Organisation – ideally in a country she hasn’t lived in before – to be able to work as part of an event company.

We’re looking forward to adding to this list of plans over the coming days and weeks and, above all, we wish all of our graduates the very best in all their endeavours and we look forward to hearing from them over the months and years ahead!