Bonjour!
I can’t believe how fast five months can fly by. ?I feel incredibly blessed to of been in Nice this whole semester, travel around Europe, and meet some incredible people from all around the world on the way. ?This semester has truly been one of the best periods of my life and I am a little somber that I have to transition from this faze of my life. ?With that said I am however very excited to come back to Texas and enjoy Tex Mex, my dogs, driving in a car again, and seeing my friends and family. ?I am going to miss going to the beach after class to enjoy a relaxing afternoon, the local kebab shop that sees us as regulars, the thrill of traveling all across Europe, but most of all I will miss all the friends I have made. ?I am so glad I chose this exchange program in particular because few to no Americans go on this exchange which allowed me to broaden my horizons and meet people from around the world. ?I know a lot of people who had incredible exchanges as well but did not have the unique opportunity of meeting as many international people as Garret and I because there were so many Americans within the program.
This month I took a break from traveling as I had to prepare for my final exams. ?I was however surprised by my girlfriend who visited me from Florence on her way back to the states from her exchange program. After she had left I began to focus on finals. ?I only had two exams because I had already successfully finished my five other classes. ?However, the last two classes were my toughest ones yet. ?They were upper level finance courses named as Valuation and Analysis of Risk and Performance. ?We had a week off of classes to study for our exams which helped greatly because it afforded me time to learn a semester worth of material. ?The valuation exam consisted of 10 multiple choice questions of theory and math and then there were about 5 workout problems. ?We had a mock exam to prepare for this final which was helpful but overall this final was pretty tough and we only had an hour and a half which was not a sufficient time. ?For the Risk and Performance class I had expected it to be much tougher but I was pleased to see that the exam mimicked the mock exam for the most part. ?It was a 3 hour exam which consisted of 20 multiple choice and workout problems as well.
EDHEC business school is not like the other exchange programs. ?It truly challenges your intellect and offers tough finance courses unlike the other programs that my offer an easy marketing course or wine tasting. ?However, I enjoyed the professors and the courses because I gained a lot from it. ?The professors were from all over the world and had a impressive and thorough understanding of the courses. ?The classes, while tough for the most part, were fair in that they did not offer pointless and time consuming work. ?They f0r the most part offered a final exam that consisted of most of your grade with a couple group projects accounted for as well. ?I would recommend taking classes at this school because you just need to pass to get credits at A&M as it is a pass or fail. ?This affords you the opportunity of taking upper level finance courses without the GPA transferring over and saving you from having to take the course at A&M.
After I finished my finals I spend one day on the beach in Antibes and one day in Cannes for the film festival. ?I just took a 20-30 minute train to these destinations to celebrate finishing classes and my final days along the Cote D’azur. ?I am ready to come back home as it feels like I haven’t been back in the states in forever. ?I will forever miss Nice and Europe and plan on coming back as soon as possible to revisit Nice and see even more places next time.
Jusque l?…. Au revoir.
