Finally Graduated!

I am a Business School girl. I did the whole crazy french Grandes Ecoles thing from beginning to end. It all started after my Baccaulaureat, when i started Prepa. Let me tell you about it.

Prepa is the abbreviation for "Classes Préparatoire aux Grandes Ecoles" (preparatory class for what could be translated as Grandes Schools). Commonly called: La voie Royale (the royal way)The admission in prepa is based on your school results since let's say... second grade?

It is the most competitive education in France (with the Medicine school). Supposedly only the "crème de la crème" can be admitted in Prepa and every prépa student takes a certain pride in the fact that they are the most expensive students to the government (something like 15.000 euro a year per capita if i am not mistaken).

In reality, only the best students can get in top prepa (well of course, prépas themselves are ranked too!), and (upper-)average students can always get in the smaller ones that need to fill their places anyway. Both cases, you have to be slightly insane to send the application. Which i was. am. whatever.

As all the attendees of prepa know, Prepa is (if you will allow me to exagerate in order to make a point) the student equivalent of Guantanamo Bay for the Tipton three: a wonderful place where no law elsewhere applied is there recognized, of mental abuse, of sleep deprivation, of Brain-washing, of daily unacceptable humiliation and where the words fairness, kindness and smile simply disappear from your vocabulary [along with psychological balance] for want of meeting any reality.

Also you tend to lose grasp with this mentionned reality, particularly when it comes to set priorities. Your parents and old friends look at whats left of you- when they make it to catch a glimpse of you behind your maths books- in this weird and worried kind of way, not understanding why you feel so desperate or why it is such a big deal that you forgot the price of an oil barril in the US in 1979, they seem to think one can still be a decent student without knowing this. But they don't know nothing.

In the end, i did pretty fine in prepa (thank god, my parents, family and friends who all pampered me during those years) but one must know that Prepa Students along with Medicine Students have the highest suicide rates, the highest psychotrop-medication rate and another couple of titles that one should just not have to use talking about students.

On the good side, Prepa does make you smarter, stronger, faster and tougher. I don't regret doing it for a sec (which shows how wicked Prepa Students are!).

After the two years, you have the insane exams couple of months and if you're smart and lucky enough, you will get an interview in schools you actually want to go to. Some more tests, smartness and luck later, you may even get in the schools and pick your favourite one. and then, your life changes.

You start having a social life again, meeting people you re not forced to hate because of a sick competition spirit. You start going out, partying (and business schools students do know how to party). You get through awesome and dazzling experiences all starting with the "Week-end d'inté". You meet your old friends again, and yes, you do have time to actually do stuffs with them. On the educationnal side, you get international teachers that teach you stuffs you heard about, dreamt of but never learnt so far and on top of it all, they don't include Algebra or Matrix.

You get involved in associations (famous BDA, BDE, BDS...). you learn to master a ton of abreviation. you have a laptop, finally and spend way too much time on skype and msn to talk with people sitting a meter away from you. And most important of all you start to live!

There is a price though: just on application for the Business School, you can count something between 1000 and 2000 euros. then you have to include all the costs of travelling around in France to get to the interviews. And once you're in, just the school will cost you something around 23.000 euros. So you either have to be rich, or take a loan at the next bank. You do get pretty interesting rate in the banks. Those schools are good so it gives you a pretty good bankable potential. You also need to get the laptop, the appartment, the insurance, the food and all other things that anyone has to pay. It can be pretty heavy if you don't have Mommy and daddy covering up for you. Lucky me, I DID have Mommy and Daddy, glad to pay for me, like only parents can be.

And after two years in the school, crazy me decided one master would not be enough t ensure my success in the job market so i left for Sweden in Erasmus year and did a double degree. Lots of fun and two theses later, I was done with the studying part of the studies... Only the 3end of studies"-internship was left. As you know, i packed again all this sedish shopping and moved to Munich. I found a great internship and because it was so great...

I extended my internship from 6 to 12 months. So you d'think I'd be done after that because if you can count that was already 6 years of being a student. Well no, cuz two thesis was not enough, i had to register for one more year and write another full report on my internship, which thankfully did not take me a year ;-)

Finally, finally! I gave it back and presented it, got graded, and passed (pfiou). Six months after that, ... so almost 7 years after i started the crazy Grandes Ecoles thing, i finally finally received the pretty invitations for my Graduation Party, ma remise des diplômes.

And there i went. January 2008. With Mommy and Daddy, who well deserved to see their daughter up on a stage after so many years providing for her... I got a gown, and a hat. It looked kinda ridiculous and was playing the big girl, believing i did not really care...I mean it is just a ceremony and so long after I actually started working...

And then they called my name and i started walking through the full room, at least two thousand people, direction the stage. And my heart went kadam-kadam, my legs felt suddenly a little weak and i felt something that could be interepreted as...Well ...emotion. And pride. Weirdly and logically at the same time. Got hugged by my teacher and received proudly my degree; went to the side of the stage to wait for my co-students to join me and looked at it: nice blue frame, thick nice-looking paper...and whatthef! not my name, nothing. Blank spaces. I went on smiling Queen-of-England-style cuz i was on stage and a lady does not lose her smile for such a small thing as a darn fake degree...

and then when i was off, i found the responsible person who kindly informed me they lost my degree. Well it happens right, to lose stuffs. So I ...lost my mind for a short time, and freaked out and yelled. I think the words incompetent xxxxx and 23.000 darn euros in three fricking years might have popped up in the conversation but hey...

Then i left him there to recover, lady-like with hat and gown and pretty dress and went to the open-bar buffet to get wasted with my long not-seen friends.
Thanks to seeing them all again, to the catching up, the nice food, and maybe also the Champagne did help too, i relaxed and enjoyed my last evening as a (slightly drunk) student.

And now? Seven years later, well now i am officially in the grown-up world, with a real job, a rent to pay (almost on my own...), my real degree that they found back three weeks later, a stable relationship, a view on a new appartment, a budget to plan and stick to and a membership at the DAV. Am i responsible, or what?

But the embarassing pics of me in the gown, last instant as a student, can still be seen in my mom wallet.