The Exchange Programme with Université Paris-Sorbonne — ‘A Priceless Experience’

HSE Masters student Alexei Lukashkin talks about his impressions of the exchange programme with the French and comparative literature department (Littérature française et comparée) of the Faculty of Philology (Lettres) of Paris IV (Sorbonne).

My education started smoothly, as a gentle autumn allowed me to get to know Paris properly. I was lucky enough to spend the entire period at Cité Universitaire, the French capital’s university town. It comprises about 40 houses, typically financed by foreign countries: Argentina, Canada, USA, Germany, Spain, Libya, Morocco, Japan and others. Many want to study at this campus, with priority being given to Masters or Ph.D students.

The place has a unique concentration of intelligence, with high-level students of physics, biology, literature, history, philosophy and law casually gathering at one table to share a modest lunch. All of these people have different nationalities and different religions. In short, Cité Universitaire is a haven for young researchers.

The Sorbonne has minimal requirements for foreign students. We were permitted to register for disciplines from any year of study, and how many was up to each student.

I ended up with six courses, of which five belonged to the Master 2  Recherche level (second year of Masters studies) and the sixth to Licence 3 (third year of Bachelors). Two of the courses were on 19^th Century literature, which related to my research topic.

By default, exchange students visiting Paris IV use their coursework grades to determine their final grade for the semester, which is to say they don’t take exams. Naturally, this makes life a lot easier. The standard form of Masters testing is a so-called ‘mini-dissertation’, or a 35-40,000 character research piece. I loved my time working in the Sorbonne Inter-University Library, which uses the SUDOC system to indicate in which library a given text can be found.

The experience I gained was priceless. As for Paris, I can’t help but quote Hemingway: ‘wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.’