Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Still Thinking

I have been trying to get to the truth behind the number of hours per week required for a student visa. Unable to find anything online, I had the foolish thought that perhaps I could email Campus France for the answer. They told me the average is 30 hours a week, which is a bunch of n'importe quoi (it's completely ridiculous to think that anyone spends 30 hours a week in classes!!), so it's back to hunting the info down on the web.

I'm getting more excited about the job itself though, so a lot of it will depend on if I can figure out some kind of student plan that will work. It looks like the most likely option would be taking classes at Alliance Française, but I'm worried that I would have trouble managing the job and classes. Teaching isn't a job that you can leave at the office, you have to come home at night and make lesson plans and grade papers, so even if I would only be working 15 hours a week, I could count on at least 7 hours working at home, and then to have 15-20 hours of class on top of that? Even if it were just conversation classes, they still take up time, and I wouldn't feel right just missing classes all the time. It's exhausting just thinking about it.

But then I think of the opportunity to live in Paris, continue to work on my French, keep travelling around Europe, keep eating pastries (ummm, better strike that from the list, actually). It is probably worth it. It's not like I have much to go back to anyways.

Quick question to Paris dwellers: is €1050 enough to live on per month for a 25 year old?

So yeah, lots of thinking to do, and really quickly, because I need to figure out if I'm sticking around or heading home for good in July.


Hey blog readers, are you on Twitter? Because I just joined! Drop an email and give me your name. We can stalk each other, it will be fun.

6 comments:

Monique Geisler said...

hey I just did too!

mmoyal85

shannon said...

I'll be living on much much less than that in Paris.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, I'm not skilled in French immigration (that said, I can rent you my passport ;) )

Just remember that a lot of universities in France don't really account for students. My former university, Langues'O (INALCO in Paris) was like that. I mean, really. I registered there and was a student while being in Canada. Long long story, but I NEVER attended a single class in... 5 years, and never had any trouble with the CROUS.

Okay, I had excuses: couldn't live in Paris, was studying Chinese and had a agreement with my teachers to study by myself and only come for the final exam. Oh, and by the way, I did graduated!

I wouldn't recommend it to a serious student and my story is more complicated than that, just to say that it was common at my uni. that students wouldn't attend classes for whatever reason. Nobody cared.

au soleil levant said...

Monique - I'm following you on Twitter!

Shannon - good to know

Zhu - thanks again for sharing your experiences! My problem is more that I'm too much of a goody-goody to miss classes all the time. I'd either have to work my teaching schedule around it, or just bite the bullet and not go.

Diary of Why said...

In answer to your question: Sort of and not really. You will have to be very, very frugal and it kind of makes traveling out of the question, unfortunately.

Good luck to you! I completely understand your dilemma, I was there myself a few months ago. It would be challenging, but at least you'll be in Paris!

au soleil levant said...

DoW - thanks for $ issue input!