My first month at Sciences Po Paris

New city, new faces, new university. I am just starting my fifth week at Sciences Po Paris, studying for a master’s in Public Policy. The last month has been a super enriching experience, and I wanted to use the chance to set up the blog section of my website to share some of the insights and observations I made during the last weeks. Starting into this new phase of my academic and professional pathway felt great. I can recall the moment in which I found myself in the Amphithéâtre Emile Boutmy, Sciences Po’s biggest lecture hall, listening to the words of France’s Secretary of State for European Affairs Laurence Boone, who gave the inaugural lecture for the academic year 2023/2024 at the École d’Affairs Publique. It just felt the right place to be. Living and studying in Paris was a goal of mine for quite a while – now, it has become a reality. 

How the university is structured, the courses are designed, and the teachers lecture the students is significantly different from how I experience higher education at Maastricht University. I find neither one or the other approach better. In my educational pathway, they complement each other. While Maastricht’s education was thought around Problem-Based Learning, in which the students themselves actively shaped and moderated the tutorials, in Paris, the teacher (either somebody from the academic world but also often practitioners) has a more dominant role in the tutorial rooms and lecture halls. 

Another observation I made is concerning the students. The students here are very ambitious—my French colleagues and the internationals alike. However, the role Sciences Po plays in their professional pathways differs quite a bit, especially at my faculty, the École d’Affairs Publique. For many French students, studying here brings them closer to a top job in the French administration. The university famously offers preparation courses the students take during or after their master studies for the Concours that lead towards the higher functions in French public administration. That does not mean that every French student at Sciences Po dreams of becoming the next Macron (statistically speaking, having studied at Sciences Po helps to become a French president), but for them, studying at this Grand Ecole is a step towards becoming part of the French elite. The international students, in comparison, seem to be more of a heterogeneous crowd with very different reasons to be here. 

I am very grateful for having this chance to meet so many bright people and fulfil my goal of studying at this prestigious institution. It feels right to be here, to widen my horizons and to meet people from all over the world with ambitions to change the world for the better. During the following year, I will protocol some more observations and reflections regarding my journey in Paris, understanding that writing and sharing helps me reflect on what I experience and because I know that there are not a lot of non-french sources out there to inform oneself about how studying at Sciences Po. So, in sharing my experiences, I might help one or the other figure out if studying here is right for them.