France

When I started looking at going to university in my home country of Cameroon, my first choice was computer science, but because I did not have any honours at the baccalaureate level, my application was refused in this field. I was directed to my second choice: physics.  

This did not discourage me. On the contrary, I was determined to prove that the lack of honours at the baccalaureate level did not define my true academic level. 

I arrived in France in September 2021 full of dreams, fears and a swirl of emotions that I still can’t describe clearly.

I am from Colombia and grew up in a number of different cities around the country. I completed my undergraduate degree in civil engineering at EAFIT University in Medellín in 2021. During my degree, I discovered a passion for research, knowledge and a specific engineering field: computational mechanics.

Finding accommodation that is safe, close to campus and affordable is a concern for all students. For international students, an added difficulty is that they often cannot see the accommodation in advance. And, unfortunately, there are those who try to take advantage of this and create accommodation scams. 

The idea of studying abroad started early for me. When I was a child, my parents would take me to France in the summer and it became my second home. When I started studying French and Italian literature at LMU Munich I knew that if I got the opportunity I wanted to spend a term in France.