Katherine Gurda, International Internship Program: Paris Summer 2024
While I was abroad I met many locals. The first one I met was the lady I was living with for my homestay. I had a lot of questions when I got there and it was interesting to hear a local’s perspective on where I should go for certain things and what I should do. She was really nice. At first I felt a little awkward because I was living in her apartment and I didn’t want to disturb her. After a couple days I got more comfortable doing different things around the apartment. A lot of the time I was interacting with locals was at supermarkets, stores, work, and doing various activities. I made a couple of friends and I still talk to some of them after the program had ended. I met some of them at work and the others I met while doing different things, for example at restaurants. It was nice to talk to them and hear their perspective of the city and different things. It was crazy to hear that a lot of them didn’t like Paris and thought it was ugly. It was so weird because we all thought the other was crazy because I thought the city was beautiful and they thought of it as ugly. We realized it was because they have gotten so used to it from seeing everyday so it wasn’t anything special and they were getting sick of it. While I thought it was gorgeous and was pretty much looking at the city through rose colored glasses. Being an American abroad a lot of people have a bunch of stereotypes. People assume things and for the most part will generalize you with other Americans. People are still really nice but if you are trying to learn a language a lot of time they will just speak in English because they think that it’s easier. A lot of college aged people are just excited to meet new people who are doing similar things to them in other countries. My program was an internship so the majority of my interaction with locals in Paris was through it. I would interact with them while we were doing work and was able to see how the French work environment differs from the US’s. I also got to see a slightly different side during our lunch break. During lunch no work was discussed and it was mainly just talking about daily life and just random things. It was a great contrast to be able to see both the social and the professional sides of the locals.
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