In March, a good friend from GW, herself on a study abroad semester in the Netherlands, decided to come stay in my apartment for a long weekend in Paris. It was her first time in France, and it was a whirlwind of a visit: Morning pastries in Maison Levain; a tour of the Chateau de Vincennes (one of the castle-iest castles you will find in the Ile de France area); browsing vintage shops in the Marais; people-watching in the Jardin de Luxembourg; visiting the Louvre (a first for both of us!); and – dreadfully for those like me who hate following stereotypical itineraries – visiting the Champ-de-Mars to take aesthetic photos with the Eiffel Tower.
Although playing photographer for my friend’s Instagram Story was not my ideal way of spending a Saturday evening, her visit was both deeply relaxing and a fresh perspective on my new city through the eyes of a tourist. Of course, I have loved both of my terms as an international student in France; you learn to understand through coursework how your host society thinks and learns, and you learn through your everyday experience how regular people in your host country live. However, Paris by March had become quite grating to someone that was trying to assimilate into the local ‘mode de vie’. I was tired of getting stuck behind tourists around Odéon or les Halles when I was just trying to get home to Montreuil. I was tired of the morning rush to class in Chatelêt station, where I had a 50/50 chance of colliding into another commuter trying to make it into the train I just got out of. I was tired of dealing with my fully francophone courseload, where it took four times the energy to process information and where all tests, presentations, and essays required writing in a quintessentially French format that was far too rigid for my tastes.
This tiredness and frustration is, of course, to be expected. You will not always like the academic culture of your host university. You will feel isolated in a culture that you did not grow up in. There will be lonely, frustrating days, where nothing goes right and your other-ness will feel more apparent than ever before. And no, my fellow immigrants, refugees, and third-culture children, the fact that in the United States you also felt like or considered yourself an ‘other’ will not make you more able to adapt. Your alterity, however significant an affinity you feel initially to the host culture, will be just as strong in this new environment, and you will struggle on many levels.
Although I will not tell you that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, I will say that there are moments – even weeks or months – where ordinary life feels familiar and new challenges – especially administrative ones – feel like hills to be enthusiastically run up to, rather than unscalable mountains of despair. For example, after my GW friend and I finished up at the Louvre, we decided to wander aimlessly around the Rive Gauche as we slowly made our way to a chocolaterie for dessert. As we observed Paris on a remarkably warm, sunny day, I began enthusiastically rambling about Parisian local history, pointing out the Gothic mansion that makes up the Musée de Cluny, the cafe where Simone de Beauvoir visited and organized intellectual discussions, and the architectural uniquenesses and stained glass windows of the Eglise Saint-Sulpice. All of a sudden, though, my friend interjected my impersonation of a professional tour guide, saying, “You know, I don’t understand anyone who says that they hate Paris. I mean, look at all of this!”
And reflecting on all I knew about this city, famed for its lights, its revolutions, its intellectualism, its gastronomy, and its fashion, my brain snapped out of the mindset of Paris as the city of crowds and stress and academic exhaustion. I may never have idealized or dreamed of visiting Paris in my childhood, but how can I not marvel sometimes at the simple fact of living in one of the most beautiful cities in the entire world? Or, that I get to study and write this in the Bibliotheque Mazarine, the former personal library of one of the most important chief ministers in French monarchical history? Or, that when I need to cool down, I get to take long walks in the Bois de Vincennes, where the forests feel all encompassing, but the restored Notre-Dame de Paris is a mere half an hour away on the metro.
No educational institution, and no study abroad term is perfect, but it would be a shame to spend it all complaining. So have your friends visit you when they can, so you can reveal to them just what beauty makes up your everyday life.
Sophia Pavlenko
Spring 2026
GW Paris - Sciences Po (GW Study Program)
Elliott School of International Affairs
International Affairs Major