Having finished my 5th year at uni and my glorious summer holidays, the time has come to find a job or, this being France, a stage which will allow a company of my choice to exploit my talents for virtually nothing and for as long as it takes for my CV to look sufficiently convincing to venture on to the French job market itself. This is not a problem in itself: the stage is the necessary rite of passage between uni and job for most graduates. What's more I have been lucky enough to find a stage in an organisation I like (as opposed to one I hate, or not finding anything at all). The organisation in question is Toute l'Europe - a website dedicated to all things European and a link between the French citizens and the EU, a necessary tool in my view to reduce the democratic deficit and get people informed on the doings of the Union. What's more, the people look friendly and it is a briliant way of getting sussed up on the daily activities of the EU, while actively working on what I like most: taking part in a huge EU information campaign.
All very well and I hope to start the stage soon, but this being France there is a certain number of formalities to see to. The most obvious of the these is that in order to do a stage I need a convention de stage, a piece of paper issued by my university that allows me to have this particular status. But hang on a sec, my university? I have none, being a graduate. So here we enter the mysterious world of the students who enrol at uni just to access the privileges associated to the student status. This is possible and necessary for two reasons. First of all, university in France is cheap: about 450 euros a year depending on your year and whether you take the student mutuelle (health insurance). Secondly, like so often in France, what you can do or obtain is not based on your personal situation but on your statut, which in consequence one often fiddles to get such and such subsidy or right. The student status offers among others cheap health insurance but also cheap transport, extra housing benefits and the aforementioned convention de stage.
So, having thought I was leaving Academia forever, I was set to enrol at university. I went to pick up my end of year results at the UFR of European studies (department) last week. As they were being printed out, I casually queried whether I could apply for a third year course in European studies. The secretary raised an eyebrow at me and asked whether I hadn't just finished my fifth year. When I acknowledged this was the case, she said to go next door, fully understanding why I wanted to be a student.
Next door turned out to be the department LEA, langues étrangères appliquées, or applied foreign languages. Perfect. It was closing time but a few students were milling about asking a harassed girl what to do. When my turn came (the harassed girl was putting her coat on and trying to get through the throng of people) i asked her what was needed to enrol on a third year course.
She looked weary: "which language?", she asked.
"Er, English, please" I said for obvious reasons.
Pause.
"English & what?", she sighed, "you take two languages."
"Oh, right, German then", I improvised, thinking of my German mark at the baccalauréat.
"Ok... are you a student here at Paris III?"
"Yup, just go my Mast... " I almost said proudly. "Yes".
"Right, then we need a CV, a photocopy of your ID, your old student card, a lettre de motivation, this year's results, your baccalauréat results."
"Is that all?," I asked jovially.
She nodded, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Do it Monday, it's too late after that."
I returned Monday, just after lunch (I know some things about French administration) with the paperwork. What had been a quiet corridor before the weekend was now a huge medieval cattle fair. Hundreds of students stood in chaotic queues outside the firmly shut doors, blocking the whole of the second floor. Would-be students dashed around clutching huge folders with photocopies and forms sticking out of them. Others, whom I later identified as Erasmus exchange students, look gormless & horrified at having landed here. I joined the relavant group of people outside a door and queued for an hour. All the time a fat little man shouted at students for being in the wrong queue, or having the wrong paper or being at the wrong office. An Italian girl almost in tears whispered: "But I've already queued there, they told me to come here". It turned out she had been hovering around for more than four hours.
At last I was allowed in. I was shown in to the office of the director of the department, and he promptly slipped out of it. For the next twenty minutes I helped his harassed secretary rename a Word attachement in hotmail and write an email in English. When he came back he asked me what I wanted. I explained I was fascinated by the prospect of completing my higher education with a degree in German and English, indispensable for a career in the EU. "But do you speak German?" he asked, I can't put you in the third year straight away if you don't speak German." "Weeelll, I did well at the bac, and my boyfriend is German," I invented wildly.
"Not good enough," he replied, his hand hovering towards the "Rejected" stamp or whatever it was.
"Ok! Second year! First year!" I trilled. He looked down at me.
"Ok then, some courses from the second year and some from the first". He told me to fill in a piece of paper, wrote "Ok" on my letter, signed it and I was off.
I was told to go to a meeting in the room along. I will not go into the detail but after a twenty minute wait, we had a half hour briefing by a very tired young guy who kept snapping that he hated his job. "Everything I say is of the utmost importance cos you're on your own and nobody will help you and make sure you don't confuse my department 212A and the other one 212B cos we're not on speaking terms and you dossier will get lost and now write what I say and don't forget to check the net but the server is down and there are too many of you, DAMMIT!, and I hate this job". And so on. Nobody had a clue what important information we were supposed to be writing down, but we all filled in the relevant forms.
At the end I asked where I could get my student card and he snapped "Look at page 13 of the brochure!", I did. Great, my department is at Asnières, in the far north west suburbs of Paris.
So this morning I set off for Asnières with every kind of photocopy under the sun, the letter of the guy with the signature and various forms. It took thirty minutes by metro to get there but another walk to the Uni which is in the absolute sweet middle of a nowhere, on a road/ industrial estate that leads from one dodgy suburb to another. Everything was deserted so I asked a caretaker where to go & he pointed me towards a dingy door down a dingy corridor.
Inside, a single woman had a classroom sized office filled with files, photocopiers and thousands of sheets of paper and brochures. She was on the phone and furiously typing at the same time, and mouthed at me to come in. She looked as if she hadn't slept in weeks. Through sign language she understood what I wanted and pointed to a pile of forms on a nearby table. Time to get the pen out.
I filled in eight pages (good thing I am still at the same uni, changing departments is something but changing unis withing Paris is like some kind of Herculean administrative task, those who come from out of Paris may just as well kill themselves straight away). They wanted to know the code of my parents profession (38 it turns out), my nationality (132), my previous diplomas (T & U), my high school student number (miraculously it was on one of my photocopies), all the details of my social security (hope that was the right number...), the nature of my housing, over 30 questions in all.
Thankfully she seemed satisfied with my photocopies and form, though I hadn't filled in some of the finer points of my health insurance, curreznt job situation, parent's retirement regime, and pet's allergies. If anything my lack of passport photo seemed to upset her more. I wrote the check and she gave me some yellow paper slips, various proofs that I am now a student. But what of the student card, indispensable for the convention de stage?
"Oh, you get that at the Censier branch of Paris III once you show them this" she said flapping the yellow paper. Tomorrow. Whatch out they can be quite busy. No bloody kidding. So tomorrow I am off to Paris III (again) to get a student card and a (fingers crossed) convention de stage. I hope things will go smoothly. One thing however is certain, I am never going back to the Asnières branch, it took me an hour to get home...
All very well and I hope to start the stage soon, but this being France there is a certain number of formalities to see to. The most obvious of the these is that in order to do a stage I need a convention de stage, a piece of paper issued by my university that allows me to have this particular status. But hang on a sec, my university? I have none, being a graduate. So here we enter the mysterious world of the students who enrol at uni just to access the privileges associated to the student status. This is possible and necessary for two reasons. First of all, university in France is cheap: about 450 euros a year depending on your year and whether you take the student mutuelle (health insurance). Secondly, like so often in France, what you can do or obtain is not based on your personal situation but on your statut, which in consequence one often fiddles to get such and such subsidy or right. The student status offers among others cheap health insurance but also cheap transport, extra housing benefits and the aforementioned convention de stage.
So, having thought I was leaving Academia forever, I was set to enrol at university. I went to pick up my end of year results at the UFR of European studies (department) last week. As they were being printed out, I casually queried whether I could apply for a third year course in European studies. The secretary raised an eyebrow at me and asked whether I hadn't just finished my fifth year. When I acknowledged this was the case, she said to go next door, fully understanding why I wanted to be a student.
Next door turned out to be the department LEA, langues étrangères appliquées, or applied foreign languages. Perfect. It was closing time but a few students were milling about asking a harassed girl what to do. When my turn came (the harassed girl was putting her coat on and trying to get through the throng of people) i asked her what was needed to enrol on a third year course.
She looked weary: "which language?", she asked.
"Er, English, please" I said for obvious reasons.
Pause.
"English & what?", she sighed, "you take two languages."
"Oh, right, German then", I improvised, thinking of my German mark at the baccalauréat.
"Ok... are you a student here at Paris III?"
"Yup, just go my Mast... " I almost said proudly. "Yes".
"Right, then we need a CV, a photocopy of your ID, your old student card, a lettre de motivation, this year's results, your baccalauréat results."
"Is that all?," I asked jovially.
She nodded, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Do it Monday, it's too late after that."
I returned Monday, just after lunch (I know some things about French administration) with the paperwork. What had been a quiet corridor before the weekend was now a huge medieval cattle fair. Hundreds of students stood in chaotic queues outside the firmly shut doors, blocking the whole of the second floor. Would-be students dashed around clutching huge folders with photocopies and forms sticking out of them. Others, whom I later identified as Erasmus exchange students, look gormless & horrified at having landed here. I joined the relavant group of people outside a door and queued for an hour. All the time a fat little man shouted at students for being in the wrong queue, or having the wrong paper or being at the wrong office. An Italian girl almost in tears whispered: "But I've already queued there, they told me to come here". It turned out she had been hovering around for more than four hours.
At last I was allowed in. I was shown in to the office of the director of the department, and he promptly slipped out of it. For the next twenty minutes I helped his harassed secretary rename a Word attachement in hotmail and write an email in English. When he came back he asked me what I wanted. I explained I was fascinated by the prospect of completing my higher education with a degree in German and English, indispensable for a career in the EU. "But do you speak German?" he asked, I can't put you in the third year straight away if you don't speak German." "Weeelll, I did well at the bac, and my boyfriend is German," I invented wildly.
"Not good enough," he replied, his hand hovering towards the "Rejected" stamp or whatever it was.
"Ok! Second year! First year!" I trilled. He looked down at me.
"Ok then, some courses from the second year and some from the first". He told me to fill in a piece of paper, wrote "Ok" on my letter, signed it and I was off.
I was told to go to a meeting in the room along. I will not go into the detail but after a twenty minute wait, we had a half hour briefing by a very tired young guy who kept snapping that he hated his job. "Everything I say is of the utmost importance cos you're on your own and nobody will help you and make sure you don't confuse my department 212A and the other one 212B cos we're not on speaking terms and you dossier will get lost and now write what I say and don't forget to check the net but the server is down and there are too many of you, DAMMIT!, and I hate this job". And so on. Nobody had a clue what important information we were supposed to be writing down, but we all filled in the relevant forms.
At the end I asked where I could get my student card and he snapped "Look at page 13 of the brochure!", I did. Great, my department is at Asnières, in the far north west suburbs of Paris.
So this morning I set off for Asnières with every kind of photocopy under the sun, the letter of the guy with the signature and various forms. It took thirty minutes by metro to get there but another walk to the Uni which is in the absolute sweet middle of a nowhere, on a road/ industrial estate that leads from one dodgy suburb to another. Everything was deserted so I asked a caretaker where to go & he pointed me towards a dingy door down a dingy corridor.
Inside, a single woman had a classroom sized office filled with files, photocopiers and thousands of sheets of paper and brochures. She was on the phone and furiously typing at the same time, and mouthed at me to come in. She looked as if she hadn't slept in weeks. Through sign language she understood what I wanted and pointed to a pile of forms on a nearby table. Time to get the pen out.
I filled in eight pages (good thing I am still at the same uni, changing departments is something but changing unis withing Paris is like some kind of Herculean administrative task, those who come from out of Paris may just as well kill themselves straight away). They wanted to know the code of my parents profession (38 it turns out), my nationality (132), my previous diplomas (T & U), my high school student number (miraculously it was on one of my photocopies), all the details of my social security (hope that was the right number...), the nature of my housing, over 30 questions in all.
Thankfully she seemed satisfied with my photocopies and form, though I hadn't filled in some of the finer points of my health insurance, curreznt job situation, parent's retirement regime, and pet's allergies. If anything my lack of passport photo seemed to upset her more. I wrote the check and she gave me some yellow paper slips, various proofs that I am now a student. But what of the student card, indispensable for the convention de stage?
"Oh, you get that at the Censier branch of Paris III once you show them this" she said flapping the yellow paper. Tomorrow. Whatch out they can be quite busy. No bloody kidding. So tomorrow I am off to Paris III (again) to get a student card and a (fingers crossed) convention de stage. I hope things will go smoothly. One thing however is certain, I am never going back to the Asnières branch, it took me an hour to get home...
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