Alisa Gazizullina, winner of the Kaspersky Lab hackathon Secur'IT Cup 2018, completed her undergraduate program at a Russian IT university in 2019. During the 4th year, the programmer spent one academic semester in exchange in France and told what to prepare for Russian students in Grenoble.
I went for six months to the University of Grenoble after studying exchange at the Middle East Technical University in Turkey. Specialists of the department of international and academic cooperation of our university contacted me when I was in Ankara, and offered to spend the next semester in France. At that time, the policy was such that it was possible to go on an exchange only once, but since both programs were semester, it turned out to capture two countries and two universities at once.
After studying the programs and policies of the University of Grenoble, I just fell in love with him: in-depth specialized subjects that concern not general topics of machine learning, but its individual sections - higher-order optimization methods, signal processing, projective geometry, etc. And although the program which I was going to, was designed for masters of the second year of study, as a participant in the academic exchange program, I had the right to take courses of any level not lower than the current level of education at home university. For regular students at this university, there are two options for admission: you enter the first year and study one and a half years plus six months of practice or the accelerated option - you enter the second year immediately, you study for six months together with former freshmen and exchange students for one semester, you close the practice, and you are a master.
The nature of the French city also captivated me with the grandeur of the Alps, a contrasting mountain landscape, a relatively mild climate, a long summer, and I decided to go. All that remained was the encouragement of the professors of the host university: I applied, received approval, and proceeded with applying for a visa and collecting documents.
Training
After Turkey, I had 3 summer months to prepare for the next exchange. During this time, I planned to fly for another internship in Austria and a summer school in Germany. I thought I would make a visa through Austria, and with it I’ll fly everywhere further. But the Austrians took a long time to answer and did not endorse my visa application. Because of this, I no longer had time to re-apply for a visa to Germany, I missed both the internship and the summer school, and even a month remained before studying. There were risks not having time to get all the permits by the beginning of the school year. But I was more fortunate with the French, they quickly approved everything, and on September 17 I flew to Grenoble.
I traveled with transfers through Moscow and Lyon with two huge suitcases. It was hard, but I knew that I would need all this in the coming months: I had already collected things from my experience of living in Turkey, where I flew lightly. In Lyon, she took a bus to Grenoble, but did not even know where and on what to move further upon arrival to the city. Nowhere on the Internet did I find information about public transport in advance. In this regard, the Turks are more organized: even before arriving in Ankara, tutors contacted me and explained in detail how to get to the campus. In France, I was completely alone and had to find out everything myself. Only then on the bus did I meet a Chinese man who showed me the Moovit app. There you can track the routes, find out the schedule and find out which flights have been canceled today due to frequent French strikes.
Dormitory
Before going to the hostel Le Rabot with my suitcases, I decided to take a taxi and was already looking forward to going to bed in my room, but there was another test waiting for me. It turned out that my hostel is located on a mountain on which stands the famous Bastille fortress. The taxi driver just drove me to the stairs and said that further upstairs with these suitcases I have to climb myself. It's good that I met here two Poles who helped me bring things to the case.
I got a room on the 4th floor of 4 buildings of the Charteuse building for one person. I advise everyone else who goes to study there to choose this particular building. The furnishings are simple: a bed, a table, a wardrobe, a small refrigerator and a sink. But from the huge window a gorgeous view of the Alps opened. We had one shower per floor, but due to the fact that 11 people lived on the entire floor, there were no huge queues. Everyone calmly managed to wash themselves. On the ground floor of the hostel there is a large veranda where themed evenings took place on Wednesdays and Fridays.
The hostel is not on the main campus, so it took half an hour to get to the university one way. First you had to go down to the stop - this is 2 km - then take the tram that goes to the university. There were buses to the stop. These buses have a specific schedule: in the morning they run until 9 o’clock, and in the evening they finish moving along the route at 20:00. I could walk this distance, but in the evenings, when I was late at the university, it was not very comfortable to go home. Especially on Saturdays and Sundays, when on the mountain they completely turned off the external lighting in the streets and had to climb the mountain in complete darkness. Given that all around the walls of ancient buildings, some of which are abandoned, it was creepy. The fare was common for ground transportation, cost me 15 euros a month.
Yes, you can settle right on campus, where all movements will take no more than 10 minutes. But it will be more expensive, even taking into account my expenses for public transport. Therefore, here you need to choose: comfort or economy. In addition, for such a beautiful view and fresh mountain air, the administration of Le Rabot complex can safely ask for surcharges.
It is also worth noting that students in France can rely on partial reimbursement of housing costs under the CAF government support program. I found out in advance on the program’s website what documents should be provided, and filed an application at the organization’s office. The monthly payment for the hostel was initially 170 euros, but I received a discount of 30 euros and paid only 140.
By the way, an unpleasant surprise was waiting for me when I moved out. Upon check-in, I paid a deposit of 250 euros for housing, but received only 80 back. I cleaned before leaving and left the room in good condition, but I forgot to rush to remove a few sheets of paper from the table. Everyone there told me that the French were very picky when renting housing, both dorm rooms and apartments, but did not think so.
University and study
At the University of Grenoble, I chose the direction of artificial intelligence, which I began to study deeply with 3 courses. On the university’s website, a training plan is detailed, I chose 4 courses on advanced clustering algorithms, projective geometry and 3d-vision, pattern recognition and distributed data management. We were trained by top professors who are famous around the world in their field. When I was looking for scientific materials, in almost all articles the names of our teachers appeared - James Crowley, Cardelia Schmid, Edmond Bower, Eric Gorsier. Most professors are French.
I also had an additional course in learning the French language, which I did not know at all, but somehow got into an advanced group. The teacher there spoke only French and pretended not to understand a word in English. But it helped me to quickly go deep into the language. Plus, we worked in tandem with a French student who studied Russian, and helped each other.
In general, it will be useful in advance to find the guys who are studying at the university, where you are going to exchange, and discuss courses with them. Get feedback on professors and disciplines because there are subjects that are difficult to pass through exams. It came in handy for me: the students explained that in some courses the material disclosed in the lectures and the topics tested in the exam vary.
In general, studying directly at the university did not take much time: I had one pair a day, only on Thursday - two. We were not asked much homework, but I myself spent most of my time studying. She was detained in the library, read, studied some materials on her own. I wanted to use all this time in Grenoble with maximum benefit. Moreover, I did not know with what results I would end the semester, because this university has no intermediate grades, and you do not understand what you will get at the end. The indicator of knowledge was only the final exams.
Students from Syria, Turkey, Poland, Belgium, Nigeria, Algeria, China, the USA, of course, France studied with me. But it struck me that there were so many Russians. It got ridiculous when in a hostel in the kitchen we started talking with someone in English, and then we found out that both were Russians.
Time out of school
I had little free time, but I tried to devote time to myself and every morning I went down the mountain for a jog along the promenade. When the weekend was given, I went with friends to museums, visits to which are free for students in France, went to neighboring cities, flew to conferences, hackathons to other countries.
Frequent trips erased the idea of distance in my mind, for me it is only a couple of hours on the plane, and not a certain number of crossed borders, cities and seas.
My young man, who also studied at Innopolis University, flew to me from Russia to European hackathons. So the distance is not an obstacle to the desire to spend as much time as possible together.
At the Secur'IT Cup 2018 Kaspersky Lab competition in Budapest, we took first place and became the first winners from Russia at this hackathon. We developed a project based on a combination of homomorphic encryption and artificial intelligence, and received a cash prize for it.
My studies in France captured the New Year holidays, so 2019 we also planned to meet with a young man in Paris. But at that time in the capital there was an active movement of “yellow vests”, so we had to change plans - we celebrated the New Year in Milan. A popular place to celebrate the New Year among my friends French students, since you can get from Grenoble to Milan by bus in 7 hours, and the price depends on how much you plan your trip in advance. But flix bus often offers discounts and you can even manage to buy a ticket to Paris for 1 euro, this was during my stay in Grenoble, and tickets at this price were available for a long time.
Features of France
It was hard for me in terms of money, because the products in the store were expensive. I later found out about the presence of such a familiar Auchan in Grenoble and basically bought it in the store nearest to the hostel, which had expensive meat, and in principle, the products were much more expensive than in ordinary stores. But it was inexpensive to stick to a healthy diet: fruits, vegetables, and cereals were cheaper there.
By the way, in France it was just a paradise for me as a cheese lover. In Turkey, I really missed him, because there are no hard cheeses, they promote local production. When I flew while studying in Turkey with a report to a conference in Nice, I first tried French cheeses there, which struck me with a variety of flavors. Then I decided that if I ever get to France, I will definitely buy them every day. Mom asked me beforehand not to experiment and not to try all kinds of extreme types of cheese, such as the famous Casu Marzu with larvae, and I did not try to buy them. But once at home I found that I bought cheese with bedbugs! He looked very handsome, and I thought I bought a cheddar, but it turned out to be a passing one. Of course, bugs are used only in its production: they gnaw through the crust, due to which the correct air circulation occurs, and they are removed before sale. I was scared to try, but I cut a piece and it turned out to be so tasty, after which I bought it every day and then brought it to friends for treats.
What seemed rather strange to me in France was a bureaucracy: for example, in some banks, to open an account, you need a birth certificate translated into French. I opened an account in another bank, where they did not require this document from me, I needed only a passport. But when they gave me the card, they said that the password from it will be sent to me in a paper envelope for mail. And mail was delivered to the hostel simply at the reception, where in a common box lay my super-important envelope with the password from the card. It is good that there are conscientious people and no one is touching other people's letters.
My friend, who also studied in France and rented an apartment, had to buy a sign with a name on her mailbox for 30 euros. Otherwise, the mail would not have arrived.
Buying a sim card cost me 18 euros, and then every month 10 euros were automatically charged from me. And at the end of training, in order to close the SIM card, I had to send a registered letter, it cost 2000 rubles. Keep this in mind in your spending plans.
And, of course, we all heard stories that the French do not like to speak English, and even if you try to contact them, they will pretend that they don’t understand anything. I sometimes had difficulties because of this. Once I was late for the plane and did not understand which tram to get to the airport. In a hurry, I turned to passers-by in English and only one girl agreed to help me, but when she explained everything and I already ran on, she shouted after me: “Why couldn't you ask me in French?” And then in French, I found out that locals are afraid to speak English because they just don't know it well.
Especially language problems are felt in medicine: it is very difficult to find an English-speaking doctor. When I tried to explain what problems I had, the doctors, even if they tried, still did not understand and could make an absolutely wrong diagnosis. Therefore, I advise you to still tighten the local language before the trip, at least learn elementary phrases. When the French hear that someone is trying to speak their language, they immediately change their faces and actively try to help.