Experience report - Marseille Email: k.e.m.hulsen@tilburguniversity.edu Study Program: Bedrijfseconomie Exchange semester: Fall Academic year: 2017-2018 Host University: Kedge Business School Country: Marseille General information about the school For my exchange semester, I was staying in Marseille in the south of France. Marseille is the second biggest city in France and you experience that in the fact that it is a very busy city full of different cultures. It is one of the most multicultural cities in France. The university is located in an area called Luminy. It is outside the city center but right inside the Calanques National Park. The university is surrounded by other schools on the campus, such as Aix Marseille University. Because Kedge is on the other side than most of the schools I have not seen a lot of the campus. For lunch we would usually go to the cafeteria in the school building, and this is also where you can go to the gym. Marseille has a lot to offer. Around the Vieux Port there are multiple nice neighborhoods, such as Le Panier and Cours Julien. These are places filled with street art, cute shops and nice bars and restaurants. You can also go to the Notre dame de la garde, a church on top of a hill looking out over the entire city. My personal favorite place to go was the national park close to where I lived. The Calanques are a beautiful scenery, with high mountains and clear blue water, perfect for hiking, cliff jumping, lying on the beach and swimming. View from Notre dame de la Garde Calanques National Park Stadium Palais Longchamp Cours Julien I experienced the cultural difference between Marseille and Tilburg as very big. Marseille is a very poor city, with over 25% of the inhabitants living below the poverty line. The poverty can be seen throughout the day, but there is also a lot of amazing culture. Because the city is so multicultural you can experience 10 different cultures in 1 street.
Kedge Business School is a French school with permanent campuses all over the world. 4 in France, 2 in China and even one in Dakar. They offer an international bachelor of business administration and multiple electives, so there is a broad course choice. As a business school they are focused in every process within business: finance, accounting, marketing, management etc. The Marseille campus has the specific extra speciality of Sport courses. A large portion of all students at Kedge are exchange students. During my stay there, there were approximately 650 exchange students starting with me. A large portion is coming from the other campuses, such as the 2 in China, but there is a wide variety of countries where students are coming from. During my stay I had 6 courses and 1 extra language course. For each course you normally have 1 lecture a week. Sessions are 3 hours and can be in the morning, afternoon and evening. There is a very long, 2 hour, lunch break during which I could even go back home to lunch. Practical information Arrival For me my arrival was slightly different because we decided to drive to Marseille and have a few days holiday before, but the student association dedicated to exchange students helped students arriving at the airport and train station to get to their residences. There were shuttle busses that picked up students and dropped them of at the various residences all over the city. Orientation/introduction activities The student association Interact organized a introduction week together with the school. On Tuesday we started with presentations in the school building about administrative issues and academic information. We had a tour of the school after and then we had a bus tour where we got to see some of the highlights of the city. On the Friday after there was an optional activity which you could sign up for. On this day we got on a bus and had a 3 hour journey to a water park. The entire park was rented just for us. There were around 300 international students and 200 French students and there was a big party afterwards at the club that was in the water park. Housing For housing it was possible to apply via the school. This was not obligatory, but it was recommended. I applied when the deadline opened, around june and got the message they found a room for me quite late. Everything was arranged via the school and there was someone you could email about this etc. The university provided rooms in campus buildings. There are around 4 throughout the city. 1 (Estudines Luminy) is located on the main campus, where the biggest school building from Kedge is located. I stayed at Alotra, which is 5 minutes away from the main school building, at the Vaufreges campus, where the second smaller part of Kedge is located. There are also a few campus buildings located in the city centre (Campusea, Estudines la Timone). The campus buildings are quite simple. Alotra (my residence) was a quite old building. I had a room with my own bathroom which cost me 430,- a month. There was a common laundry room and 2 kitchens in the building. The atmosphere at Alotra was amazing and I would recommend it to everyone who studies in Marseille! It is the only one of all the campus buildings where there are common areas that are used a lot. My residence was located outside of the city centre. To go to the old harbor, which is in the middle of the city, it would take around 45 minutes. There is a direct bus line connecting the Luminy campus to the city centre and busses run every 10 minutes.
Living costs I financed my exchange period by combining a lot. I have my loan from back home, I received the Erasmus grant and furthermore I saved a lot of money over the summer holiday to spend during my time there. I expected life in Marseille to be more expensive than at home so I wanted to use my savings for this. Most of my money was spent on accommodation. It was a lot more expensive than my room in Tilburg. Another big expense was groceries. The supermarket closest to my residence was quite expensive so this cost a lot more than expected. Another big expense was travelling. I wanted to make the most of my time there so I tried to visit a lot of different places during the weekends, which of course was expensive. Housing - 430,- a month Food - 40,- a week Transport - 40,- a month (student discount on a month pas) Books - 0,- because we did not need to buy any books Miscellaneous - 30,- a week Academic calendar I arrived in Marseille on the 1 st of September. The introduction week started the 5 th and the classes started the 11 th of September. We had a midterm break from 30 October till 5 November and the last classes were in the last week of November. My exam period started 4 December and lasted until the 13 th, but this was very different per person. International Office There was no special international office at Kedge, but there was a special administrative team in charge of all the international students. They would respond to emails very fast and were of good help with all the issues. Social activities The university had a very active organization (Interact) for international students. There was a party almost every week for which you could buy tickets for around 10,-. The student associations also organized activities such as dinners and sport activities. The contact with local students was not as frequent. You would have group projects with other French students but I would mostly spend time with other internationals. At Alotra we lived together with around 150 international students, so there was always someone to hang out with. I tried using my free time for travelling, but mostly around Marseille because I wanted to see this part of Europe while I was there. I visited Nice, Monaco, Cassis, Montpellier and Carcassonne in France and went on 2 weekend trips to Rome and Barcelona. Halloween party Barcelona
Culture and languages I feel that there is a big cultural difference between Marseille and the Dutch culture. At home everything is very structured and precise and this cannot be seen in the French culture at all. Everything is very chaotic and you need a lot of patience every day. Another shock was the poverty in Marseille. I did not know the poverty would be this visible in France. I liked how relaxed everyone was in France. At home everyone is always very busy and everything has a very specific deadline, and I liked the more chilled way of living in Marseille. What I disliked was that they were not very open to speaking English. I feel like this is a French stereotype which is very true. Even in international classes the French students could be very separated and not willing to speak any English with us. To improve my French language skills I did attend a language course at the university. These courses were great. You got divided into groups based on your current level of French which meant you were in a class with people at your own level. Personal development I feel like these few months on exchange had a great impact. I feel more independent and it is a great asset in my future development. I feel like I am more open to other cultures now and I am already looking at going abroad again next year. For me the best experiences were meeting a lot of people from all over the country. At my residence, you were surrounded by people every minute of every day and everyone was very open to each other. It was an amazing experience and I would recommend it to everyone! I doubted for a long time whether I wanted to go abroad and I haven t regretted it for a minute. Barcelona Evening at Alotra Academic information Academic level at host university On average, I would say the academic level of the host university was lower then what I was used to in Tilburg. The courses were very understandable and there was not a lot of homework. However, you had large group projects for almost every course which cost you a lot of time. Every lecture lasted 3 hours and most of them had the same structure. Usually the first hour and a half consisted of theory, where the teacher explained concepts and theories. The second part of the lecture consisted of group work, cases and exercises to work with and understand the theory explained in the first section. Exams For all my courses I had a written exam. Most of them existed of a multiple choice section and a case study. It was all quite similar to cases we had studied in class so the exams were not too difficult. They were at the same level as the classes and all lasted 3 hours.
Other Kedge does not have a real library. There is a public working space though, with rooms you can book for groupwork and a lot of places to sit, and even a nap room! There are not that much computers available and they kind of expect you to bring your own laptop everywhere. For none of my courses I ever had to use any physical books. For 1 course I had to use an online book which was available via the online library from Kedge. Description of courses Course Prerequisites Exam ECTS Comments International Law BBA-B2-LAW-001-E-L-MRS None Written 5 Very interesting course, great professor Community Mangement None Written + case on 5 Very easy BBA-B2-MKT-006-E-L-MRS laptops Sustainable Development KBA-B2-STR-01-E-L-MRS None Written 5 Very popular course, big group assignment International Asset Management None Written 5 Good finance course but confusing group work BBA-B2-FIN-003-E-L-MRS HR and team management KBA-B2-HRM-001-E-L-MRS None Written 5 Very interesting, a lot of practical work Digital Communication BBA-B2-MKT-004-E-L-MRS None Written 5 Simple course, the group work was interesting Tips My one tip: go on exchange! Any specific Marseille tips are to apply for a room in a student residence. This way you get to meet the most people and make the most of your time. Try and visit the cities close to Marseille: Cassis, Aix en Provence and Montpellier. They are very close by when you take a bus and are really cheap to visit! Montpellier Carcasonne Rome Cassis Vatican City Nice