How to go to graduate school in Paris

Subtitle: Especially if you're attending a new program - or maybe that's irrelevant and we can just call it Over-Planning USA Girl versus French System and Culture.

Sub-subtitle: How to go to the Master of Public Affairs program at Sciences Po.
(*A new program, based in English, having just graduated its first class in June 2007. I like to think of it as a young, vital alumni network. No jokes though, the grads were pretty damn lucky: "The MPA was proud to host His Highness the Aga Khan, key note speaker for the Graduation Ceremony in honor of the Class of 2007..")

So...
Where to start? Which foot first? Forward? Backward? Side-step? Two-step?

Put your left foot in and shake it all around.



Over-Planner Girl decided to lay it all out on paper. I come from modest means, worked for a non-profit for 6 years, and have no trust fund. I do have my wits, my health, a great family, fabulous lovers, wonderful friends and colleagues (whom I consider friends), and a few plants that I know love me despite my sporadic watering.

My list became such (a living document that floats between me and my financial adviser, my father, about once a week - we title each revision with a new "v.6" or whatever):

Sciences Po, Paris, France – Master of Public Affairs (it's good to title things)
Curriculum
Student Guide 2007-2008

The Curriculum link is there to let it sink in exactly what the hell you'll be studying.
The Student Guide: it may very well take a lot of searching to find this link - remember to bookmark links like crazy. They call the web a rabbit hole and you fall down just like Alice. But some websites are like ant farms - weaving down around up and about. You might try to return to where you originally started, but damn it all if you lost that original home page and none of the others have the same layout so you forget what you were even looking for in the beginning. All I'm saying is use your "open window in new tab" function a lot or bookmark like crazy. Anyway, the student guide has good information - in French, yet very helpful.

(Yeah, that reminds me. I am not fluent in French. I will be. But I'm not now. I spent three of my formative years in Buenos Aires and learned Castellano pretty well. During that time, in about 9th grade, I took a year of French from Madame Bousquet - god bless her. The boys considered her a MILF. The girls could have cared less about French. But somehow she drilled it into us in a very friendly, fashionably black way. When I visited Paris, I used what little I could remember - ou est l'toilet? s'il vous plaît - est-ce que - il y a - etc... And I have to say that I did not sense any disrespect or shunning or snobbery from anyone that I ran in to during those three days. Yes, granted, three days. But I really do think they take into consideration your effort. I also thank Mme B for the amazing accent she gave us. I recall distinctly when she explained that her accent, and the French we would learn, would be from central Paris. I wondered how many other places there were in the world that spoke French. My French does not suck. It has a long way to go, but I can at least read the Student Guide. And, um, you might want to get a grasp, too.)

Euro deposit for placement in program √
7000+ students at Sciences Po, 2300 are international

(Checkmarks are helpful - as is the strikethrough script. It's also fine to reaffirm and comfort yourself as you go through the list of things you need to do or know.)

The application fee is a non-refundable processing fee for submission of your dossier.
The deposit is the first payment of your tuition and will be deducted from the first installment you must pay when you register in September.

The study trip (there is only one study trip in the first year): All the airfares, accommodation and transportation relating to the visits are covered by your tuition (as are breakfast and one or two dinners). Other meals will be at your expense. All students will go on the study trip, they are not application-based.

2007-2008 Cost estimates (insert your own denominations here - one column for Euros one for USD)
First year tuition
Application fee
Accommodation (700/month x 12)
Utilities (50/month x 12)
Food (500/month x 12)
Culture / Leisure
Transportation (50/month x 12)
Health services/insurance
Books
Storage (USA)
Travel
Personal expenses
International flights (1 round trip or 1 one-way?)
MacBook laptop and all the buttons and whistles

Total - in Euros and USD

How to afford this:
Stafford unsubsidized
Stafford subsidized
Personal loan


Repeat for 2008-2009


Calendar
June-September: apartment hunting and securing
June-July: secure Stafford subsidized loan
July: One-way plane ticket, Mac computer, secure personal loan, find original birth certificate, 14 passport-sized photos (2: visa, 4: Carte de séjour, 4: school, 4: anything else),
August: U-haul moving trailer (Sun 8/12 10am – Mon 8/13 10am), U-Haul storage 8/01/07-08/01/09, health insurance, phone?, workplace health insurance for 8/1 – 8/31, Visa in Chicago 8/6, check Stafford Loan paperwork with ASA, secure health insurance, phone?, workplace IRA rollover?, life insurance?

Payments to Sciences Po:
TUITION DATES. The dates for tuition payment for 2007-2008 are the following :
--One payment by international transfer before October 31st 2007
OR
--4 installments
1) 25% at the time of registration (along with social security and complementary health insurance payment as required). This can be made by cheque or credit card payment at the Student Administration office.
2) 25% December 3rd
3) 25% February 11th
4) 25% April 21st
June-Sept ‘08: Internship [return to USA? FR? Other?]; travel expenses; housing

Stay tuned to our next episodes as we discuss:

The major headers / issues for the calendar and plotting the rest of your life include:

Financial Aid - the Stafford Loan, financial entities that give loans and aren't corrupt, the Loan Police, and realizing that there is good debt and investment debt and stop sweating you're not having a heart attack it's okay to owe a bit here and there.

Housing - the ins and outs of Craigslist and other websites, to colocate (roommates) or not, where to look, what are the agency fees and what are the charges, an attic room made for a 16 century maid or a 2-bedroom, the CAF, a picture tells a thousand words or how to trust your intuition, wire transfers, and reminders that USA is big and Europe is more condense.

Visa - the elaborate system to get the sticker with my ugly photo on it (thanks, Walgreens), the paperwork, the registration, the paperwork, the copies, the originals, the notorizing, the drive, the wait, the approval by some totally cute boy behind glass wearing such a great tie and pants combo.

Medical insurance - Europe is ageist, get coverage, get covered.

Travel - a round-trip ticket requires that you return within 365 days, get a one-way and make people visit YOU for the holidays.

Moving/Storage - getting from here to there and still keeping those things you acquired while you were a grown-up.

Phone - we think we're so free in the USA - get a phone in Europe.

Computer - I switched to a MacBook and went all out on it.

Transport in Paris - following the links on the right I found out about Velib, add annual membership to Velib into budget but are there other costs? Metro, buy a bike, taxi, bus, mule, ride a Remy?

Banking in Paris - which bank, how bank, patience bank.

As you can see, some of these items I have yet to really find out about. So, stick around to see how it all pans out.





So, yeah, on a totally personal note, I haven't really cried too much yet. I've lived here for 6 years and have made some amazing friends and have loved my job - I'm quitting to further my career not because I want to escape it.

It hasn't felt too hard to leave, but leaving feels hard. I've been tempering my excitement and have rather blushed when telling folks around here that I was going to Paris for grad school. I say that it's a departure for me - knowing full well that I've traveled all my life except for spending the longest amount of consecutive time here. I say that, knowing full well that my supervisor always reminds me of the time when we were interviewing her - about 2 years into my job - and I informed her that I wouldn't be here much longer and that I was going to go to grad school. I guess there's something to be said for incubation.

It's kind of odd though. Once you tell people you're leaving there's a window of time for your welcome and spotlight. After about a month people tire of hearing about you leaving and after 2 good-bye parties they're ready to see you to the door. For the movers-on it's a bit harder. Although it's always been said that it's more difficult for the left-behind. While it seems that everyone around me has moved on and keeps trucking, I feel a little stagnant - packing, seeing the same walls day after day, wondering what they're doing, spying through the secret left-over passcode entry email. And I know what it's like to be left. You gotta pick up and move on, continue on, feel the sting of the pain of sadness and then keep going. If the sting keeps reappearing over and over it makes the separation harder. I got new glasses and showed my ex-boyfriend (now good friend). I went from thick rimmed glasses to no rims. "What's different about them? I can't remember what you wore before." The after-work drinks I was going to get a week after I quit suddenly disapated into one person going on early vacation, another having her parents in town, and suddenly you slip off the calendar because life continues.

I don't expect to be noticed or remembered. I just wasn't ready to be forgotten so soon.

I've been looking forward for a long time though. I think that's why I haven't cried much yet. I will feel that homesickness when I get there. I will want to look back and thank god for online photo albums so I can cry over this and that back then.

But there are these odd little things that make me tear up:
I didn't wash the towel my last lover used and when I packed it I felt sad. In cleaning and packing I found a few things my ex might want. It's almost like break-up all over: these should be your things. The last Friday in town when the sun is setting so perfectly rosy over the buildings and lakes. The sound of the buzzing cicadas on fire. The slow yellow glow added to the green leaves as a sign of autumn. The last dive weekend where each block hosts a pile of used couches, clothes, desks, cookery, tvs, more clothes, books. The last time I visit my local liquor store.

I did my tarot cards last night. No, I'm not a hippie but I got it as a gift and tried it once and it was dead on. So, every now and then, I tap in. It confirmed only good things in the future, only good lessons in the past.

We shall see. Nous verrons.