Bordeaux School of Management/KEDGE

 

The not so good things:

When studying abroad, the hardest aspect may be getting adjusted to the topic of your classes or the form of teaching at a different institution. While attending BEM (now known as KEDGE due to a merger), in the English masters program, the focus is geared towards developing ‘soft’ skills. Which makes sense because the English classes aren’t necessarily intended for native English speakers, but instead French students. Most classes revolve around group work. The downside to being in the English courses was the amount of extra work you had to perform writing, if you worked with non-native English speakers. Many exchange students complained about this because we’d spend countless hours re-writing, trying to translate, and correct the work of some group members. One professor acknowledged that every year there’s a problem of some non-exchange students not attending class and dumping their work on the exchange students. Also, it may seem that you’re getting picked on constantly by professors because you do speak English. During one of sequences, in every class native English speakers and exchange students were always picked to present their ideas, while non-exchange students weren’t. You definitely have to be sure you work hard to get a passing grade because Bordeaux grades everything all at once, and then releases their grades during the summer. I’ve been gone from BEM for over 8 weeks, and just this past week was all my grades posted. Also, keep in mind, Financial Aid can’t process rewards until they get those grades back.

Now that you know the bad stuff, here are the good things:

BEM is a school that relies very heavily on socializing. The school thrives on its organizations; my suggestion is to at least join the wine club. During the warmer months they go to chateaus and do wine tastings weekly. I joined the cooking club, which was fun but the language barrier again was a problem. You can’t expect people to translate everything for you, but they certainly did their best.  I do feel my soft skills have developed a lot from attending BEM because I learned to express myself genuinely in different settings to people from different cultures and languages.  Also BEM has a very diverse range of English taught classes. The student body itself is very diverse, and they’re very professional and driven people.  BEM should definitely be applauded for the amount of internships provided to the students; constantly your e-mails will be filled with possible offers from companies like Samsung all the way to Chanel. If an exchange student is looking to stay in Europe and get an internship, I definitely think BEM is the perfect place to pursue that possibility.

I’ve heard really great things about BEM’s new merger and new identity as KEDGE. I think the good aspects of the school will only get better. They’re going to have an amazing new facility, and I think also a larger student body. If studying abroad there, you should be really excited because BEM/KEDGE is a really well known school that is known for taking care of their student body as well as they can. I’ve met really amazing people from that institution which I’m still in contact with today, who I hope will be lifelong friends.

 

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