How to say hello in Dutch, the French version of Affirmative Action, and Young Adults Bible Study

*WARNING*- This is a long one and if you don’t care anything about reading about the French higher education system, my school, and their version of affirmative action, then you should skip down to the *****

Friday morning was grey and cool, but it hasn’t begun to get really cold here yet. Class was fairly interesting because we watched a tape of a news show about Sciences-Po. It was talking about the “revolution” that the current director started in 2001. It’s the first program of its kind at any elite school in France and was highly controversial to begin with. It’s a kind of affirmative action, but it’s not at all the same thing as in America so don’t start jumping to conclusions. I guess for you to understand why this is such a big deal in France you need to know a bit about their colleges.

I will take this opportunity to tell you just a tad about higher education in France. I’ll do my best to give you the gist, but to be honest, I don’t even fully understand the nuances of it all so this is just to the best of my understanding. France has a public university system which is good, but not prestigious. Anyone can go to a university as long as they passed the Bac. (Le Baccalaureate is the big test at the end of high school, kind of like the SATs but harder and subject specific and there is a pass/fail standard.) Then they have... Les Grandes Ecoles. In reality these Grandes Ecoles don’t have an equivalent in America. The closest thing to compare them to is the Ivy League, but it’s really a different system. These schools are not part of the rest of the university system. They are smaller (only 4% of students attend a Grande Ecole), they have more money, are generally focused on a single subject area, they are ridiculously competitive, and you are almost guaranteed a job upon graduating. If you graduate from a Grande Ecole you are pretty much set for life. Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but seriously, the next generation of the French elite is made up of those who come from a Grande Ecole. Students who graduate from high school and are going to go to a Grande Ecole first go through a couple years of preparatory classes called Prepa and is geared towards the school you hope to attend. (Kind of how some students go to junior college first, but WAY WAY harder) After Prepa you have to sit for a very challenging entrance exam at the Grande Ecole of your choice and then hope you are selected. If not...back to square one.

Technically there is no standard definition or official list of Grandes Ecoles. Higher education establishments which are not part of the university system are legally called “écoles supérieures”. Sciences-Po is not technically a Grande Ecole because there is no Prepa class for it, but because it isn’t part of the university system and has a competitive entrance exam, it is considered an école supérieure. In reality, however, it does get lumped in with the Grandes Ecoles because it is so selective and highly prestigious. Officially it is l’Institut des Etudes Politiques (IEP). Basically all the students at Sciences-Po want to go to ENA- Ecole Nationale d’Administration, which is another Grande Ecole and is the postgraduate school for public administration from which almost all high ranking members of the French government graduate. To get an idea of how truly selective these schools are, the thirteen top Grandes Ecoles (one of which is Sciences Po) combined graduate fewer than 5,000 students a year and account for only 1% of French higher education.

Did you follow that? It’s complicated. All that’s to say that Sciences Po has the reputation for being a very prestigious school which extremely high admission standards that is only accessible by the elite. I knew it was a good university and highly respected but I didn’t realize how much clout it carries in French society. When I’m talking to a French person or someone who has lived in or knows a lot about France, and I tell them I’m studying at Sciences Po, they always raise their eyebrows and say “Really? Congratulations!” But the point of this explanation being that you have to understand the French system and the school’s reputation in order to understand why the recent changes are such a big deal.

Anyway the video was explaining how, since 2001, the director of Sciences Po has been trying to increase socioeconomic diversity in the student body and make the school more accessible to students from lower economic classes. When I was first watching it I basically understood it as affirmative action and it kind of annoyed me and I could understand why students were upset about it. But once I understood it better I changed my mind. Although it’s called a type of affirmative action, it has absolutely nothing to do with race. Of course there is some correlation between economic level and ethnicity, especially in Paris, but the actual process is not based on the color of your skin. Fort he past few years, Science Po has been sending recruiters into some of the high schools of the economically depressed suburbs of Paris to invite the best students to apply. This is important because most of the students from those areas see Sciences Po as an unattainable dream and won’t bother applying. But instead of having to sit the rigorous exam that is based all on writing, these students are admitted based on their school record and a 45- min interview. This is because students from poorer schools, often immigrants, might be as capable as another student, but not express themselves at the same level in written work because that’s usually the area they are most disadvantaged. It has been called a revolution because it is the first policy like this to ever be tried in France, although so far only 189 students have been admitted this way (there are no such things as quotas). There was a lot of controversy initially, but now it has become more accepted and many think other Grandes Ecoles should follow suit. Frankly, I think they’ve actually managed to improve on the American idea of affirmative action, and it’s really a necessary step because of the way the Grandes Ecoles reinforce the class divisions in French society.

**** One of the girls in my french class, Rosemary (that’s the english translation), is from the Netherlands and she’s really sweet. There are quite a few other kids from Holland here and so I sometimes end up in a group with a lot of them. I figure one benefit of being around so many internationals is at least maybe I can pick up a few phrases in other languages. Friday after class, my other English speaking compatriots vanished and I was hanging out with Rose. Suddenly I realized that all of her friends had joined us and I was the only American in a group of 7 Dutch people. They all speak English very well (Universities in the Netherlands are all in English) but when they get around each other they obviously switch to their most comfortable language. I don't blame them, I'd do the same thing. Every now and then they’d stop and translate, but sitting there having no idea what they were saying really made me feel like a foreigner for the first time since being in Europe. Around French people it’s fine cause I speak the language, but with them I definitely felt like an outsider. Surprisingly though I could often tell what they were talking about, if not the exact words. My other friend Claire walked up and started telling a story and I surmised that she was talking about her French teacher wanting to move her to the next level and her not really wanting to go. They didn’t translate it and about 15 mins later we were talking about French class in English and Rose started to explain that “Claire..” and I finished with “was told she can go to level three but she doesn’t want to?” The look on her face was pretty surprised. “How did you know that?!” I told her I heard Claire tell the story and I kind of just guessed that’s what she was talking about. “You speak Dutch!” she said. Not exactly, but I was impressed with my ability to generally know what subject they were talking about. Some words are similar to English words so that helps I’m sure, and being able to read body language and such was also helpful. I told Rose I want to actually learn some Dutch phrases so she told me “hoi” is hi, and “bedankt” is thanks.

I had been looking forward to Friday night all week because it was my church’s first Young Adults Bible Study of the year. It’s a biweekly event at the Pastor’s apartment in Paris, and I really enjoyed going when I was here last time, but I wasn’t able to go often because the study abroad program booked all our weekend. Anyway, it was a good time. Saw a few familiar faces and met a few more. The numbers were a bit lower than usual but it is still that transition time of the year. We had dinner and chatted and then, since the young adults minister is away on vacation, one of the student leaders, a French guy named Amandeo, led it. Since it was their first meeting of the year we were talking about our purpose as a group and what our mission is, kind of the same stuff we had been doing at home before I left. I enjoyed it, but there was definitely a brief moment when I was sitting there thinking that in a few hours everyone in Daytona was going to be doing the same thing, and that made me miss FNBS and everyone at FBC. But it was great to be around other Christians and other young adults since my only chance to make friends so far has been at Sciences Po. And I’m very glad that I get to make my own schedule this time around and get as involved in Emmanuel and the young adults group as I would have liked to have been last time.