It’s been an interesting four months with Sciences Po. When you say the name “sciences po” to an exchange kid, their immediate gut reaction will be a flashback of that awful morning (or noon/evening depending where in the world you were) when we had to register for courses. I woke up at eight after a weekend of the Winnipeg Folk Fest– hungover and exhausted, my nerves were like an elastic band stretched too far, sitting down to register. Now, I suppose to their credit, they did do their registration online (versus the Sorbonne, where everyone lines up and registers on the first day). But there’s no real online portal, everyone registers at once, with everyone wanting virtually the same English courses. So the time to register came around and it’s hunting season: each course must be registered individually, logging back in for the next. Luckily I registered for the smaller courses first, but there was a moment when the whole site crashed and it seemed like I wouldn’t get into my main lecture, thus setting me back a semester for graduation. Not fun. In the end I was able to get all the courses I wanted, but it was a bit of a battle, and it’s unfortunate when that’s the first experience a student gets of their future school. Perhaps that morning affected my hesitation with the school after that.

By this point, the school has taken up a fifth of my academic career, which seems strange to me, since in many ways the school itself has taken up, what seems at least, like a smaller portion than that. Perhaps it’s the class time. I go to class about half the amount I do at UBC, with classes happening only once a week. In the long run, I think this is a terrible system– having a class once a week loses context, and often loses that bond you might have made with the prof and other classmates (sometimes, when class would get cancelled for that week, it would feel like I hadn’t been to class in months). For a four month exchange, this system was fantastic– it meant I was able to see that much more of Paris and the rest of Europe when I didn’t have class Mondays and rarely Fridays. In the long run, the system disconnects the student from academic life.

Not as much, perhaps, as the campus– or lack of campus– itself. I gotta say it: Sciences Po, you’re bad at making friends. Having yourself situated in the middle of one of Paris’s most bustling and influential neighborhoods has a lot of benefits. It also means students move through without an anchor– they come to class and they leave. The public space the university owns is abysmal, and trying to find a spot in the libraries is like fighting over a carcass after the lions are already on it. It doesn’t help that their welcome program cost two-hundred fifty euros, with those that took it saying it didn’t help anyway. All this made it very difficult to make friends in those first couple weeks; if my roommates hadn’t been so amazing, I would have felt quite lost. Gone are the days of res-life bonding and making new friends over an arts-one coffee.

That being said, Sciences Po provides an interesting lesson on regionalism. I’d never heard of the university before coming to France. In fact, I passed over the school the first and second time I went looking through potential exchange options because I thought the “sciences” meant ‘normal sciences’, not political sciences. None of my friends or family had heard of it either– “oh, Paris? You mean the Sorbonne? No? Oh well”. Turns out Sciences Po is the most highly regarded social sciences university in all of France: of their last four presidents, three graduated  from and Sarkozy dropped out of the institution. You can see, upon entering, that Sciences Po takes itself very seriously: all the administrators wear suits, all the profs are published authors, and all the students are the best and brightest. Or best and wealthiest– seriously, the school’s one block off of Boulevard St Germain and some of these kids, I’m sure, are wearing the stuff that could be bought from these stores. Going to the school, I’m told, is the gold card in life.

So does the school measure up to its shining reputation? Yes and no. I’ve had some pretty distinguished lecturers, including one of the foremost French Revolution profs, and a Race and Immigration prof who is often brought on to French media outlets to discuss the latest race riots in France. Having profs who are so evidently passionate about their own work went a long way in maintaining student interest. Plus, courses are set up for maximum class involvement, with most classes having around twenty kids, and all the kids expected to contribute to discussion and give presentations. It made for a great environment, one which the colossal UBC doesn’t have nearly enough of (the original reason I went into English honors was just so I could have classes which more resembled the sciences po model). Sure, this means you get those kids who speak to hear themselves speak (speak for the grades) about absolutely nothing (good future-diplomats), but ultimately discussions were very engaging. Add to that the incredible internationalism of the exchange community, and I had the pleasure of being involved in some very eye-opening in-class conversations. Isn’t that an ideal university environment? And yes, having a campus in the middle of the city has its drawbacks, but is there anything better than finishing a nine o’clock PM class and coming outside to the center of the buzz, to be rocked back into your energy thanks to the lights and sounds of St Germain, fashion central?

I guess in the end there’s something about the atmosphere at sciences po that threw me off. Everyone seems in conflict with each other here. The administration is more like a police force, with students having to fight for the courses they want, or the fact that they force students to miss no more than three classes at risk of failing the course (even if they’re sick, what the hell is that? Can someone say prison? Or better yet, high school?). These admin guys– in their suits and red ties– will even come into classrooms and check to make sure the prof is actually teaching. My favorite prof was really sick one class and since she couldn’t schedule a make-up class, her pay is getting docked. Meanwhile, the students at sciences po have a rigorous edge to them that drives them to succeed, and many of the classes will post the highest grades in the class (and the student’s names) for all to ‘bask in their glory’. Really, the atmosphere is more similar to Sauder, UBC’s business school, than UBC itself. When all’s said and done, I guess academically the two universities are on par. But UBC offers an environment which encourages cooperation,  helping students as much as it pushes them.  UBC, as difficult as it can be as well, is my home. I don’t think anyone can say the same about Sciences Po.