How to be a french student

Studying in France is, understandably, very different to studying in England. For a start you don’t actually need to read while at university. Thinking for yourself is not encouraged as the teacher gives you all of the information needed for the exam. That is of course, unless you are required to do a presentation. In which case you will be expected to speak for 30-45 minutes about a subject and essentially teach the class. This happened in one of my modules last year, and after each presentation the teacher would launch as many challenging questions as possible at the student(s) and leave them scrambling for answers they didn’t know. The rest of the time though, you will just be required to listen, make many notes (my record is 7 A4 pages in 2 hours) and occasionally read handouts in class. If you happen to be given a handout, to really fit in with the native students, you will need highlighters. And you will need to highlight everything. I mean everything, one student I remember ended up with sheets with big bright green rectangles in the middle of them, with maybe 3 blanks which included the less important words or sentences. The use of the internet, including Wikipedia, is also encouraged.