I’ve now completed my semester abroad and am back home. Now that I’ve gotten a refresher on the American lifestyle, I’m ready to compare college life in Cergy to the one in Pittsburgh.
When planning my semester abroad, I always heard people waxing poetic about charming streets gushing with charm and daily markets with farm-fresh produce. Cergy honestly has a pretty suburban feel, with only the port and the houses near it sporting that old-world aesthetic. I’ve only really spotted something like this in the outer neighborhoods of Paris, one ironically next to a supermarket.
Speaking of the supermarket, that’s whete I mostly went shopping—the Auchan in Cergy, a centerpiece of the 3 Fontaines shopping center. Don’t take me as an uncivilized Yankee for this! It’s the nearest grocery store, and it’s full of people at all hours of the day. The mall still holds its own kind of flair. Here one can find wines and cheeses from all corners of France and beyond. The mall is also connected to ENSEA by a footbridge and stands above a suburban rail and bus station. It’s the perfect location for grabbing groceries after class or a Paris museum crawl. The nice ingredients and great location also makes it easy to cook fresher meals: beouf bourguignon, pasta alla gricia, blue cheese burgers with real Roquefort. With the guaranteed 90 minute break, if I don’t go out for lunch, I can run to Auchan, grab some ingredients, whip up something fresh, and make it back for the next class. My week-to-week shopping varied a lot more to reflect this, grabbing what I need when I need rather than planning meals.
Cergy Préfecture, the region of Cergy with ENSEA, is also something of a colleges town. Not a college town, but a town of colleges. Rather than one college with schools of multiple disciplines, multiple schools coexist: ENSEA for electronics, CY Tech for STEM, ESSEC for business, and possibly more. ENSEA gets together with these schools for sports and the occasional party. I crossed CY Tech’s campus to get from ENSEA to Auchan, and I stayed in an ESSEC dorm; they’re that close. I got roped into a weekly MMA and grappling class, and it was a great opportunity to meet students from all sorts of schools and regions of France.
My classes also had a different structure than at home. My classes at Pitt happen without fail at the same time every week, possibly with a lab session also at the same time every week. The classes at ENSEA, however, can vary in timing. The day and time a class happens can change week to week, and the schedule can change. This means I have to check the calendar page pretty regularly for updates. If a class has a lab, it is normally the only time the class meets that week, and a class’ labs will be grouped to happen several weeks consecutively. This flexible schedule means I don’t have class as often as Pitt, and days can randomly open for me to get time to explore Paris. On the other hand, that time to sleep in or to complete a lab can be replaced with a class on short notice.
Overall, my time at ENSEA has been more spontaneous, with all its drawbacks and benefits. It gives me the opportunity to try new things and explore, but it also requires me to keep a close eye on my schedule and not leave things to the last minute.
