I can’t believe that the program is over. I’m writing this from my hotel room in Rome and the past weeks have been unreal. I stayed in Europe for 2 and a half weeks after the program ended and I have a couple more days left. Since I left Paris I have been to Interlaken Switzerland, Milan, Venice, Florence, Sorrento, Vatican City, and now Rome. I can’t believe that I got to experience all of this and do all of the things that I got to do. I am beyond grateful to everyone who helped me to be able to do this program and those who have helped me along the way. 

Through this program I got to experience working internationally, traveling, and different cultures. I was able to learn a lot about the work culture in France. It is a lot different than the US. Overall I like the French working culture more. They work to live instead of live to work and you can definitely tell within the differences. In France the lunch break is at least an hour and no one does any work or even talks about it. After someone goes home from work and on weekends, they don’t do any work or even check their emails. There are probably some exceptions to this but for the most part this is true for everyone. I like how when people are home they don’t think about work and use this time to focus on home and their life. They try really hard for a good work life balance. The French also get a lot of vacation days. The amount varies by job but it’s usually around 25-35 days plus holidays. It’s fairly common for people to use these to take a month off over the summer. 

This program allowed me to go to so many places that I loved. During the duration of the program I went to Nice, Aix en Provence, London, Tours, Mallorca, and St Gilles. I got to experience so many different cultures. Without this program I’m not sure if I would have been able to visit all of these places or when I would have been able to go to Europe. I made a bunch of friends through this program that I probably would have never met otherwise. I had so much fun getting to know them and doing everything with them these past couple of weeks. I even met up with Elise, the other girl from Pitt, in Florence. We also have plans to hang out when we get back to Pittsburgh.  

I learned throughout this whole experience that I do want to work in Europe. I don’t think that I want to live in Europe for the rest of my life but at least for a little bit. With my career choice, accounting, there are a lot of opportunities as it can be done anywhere. Every business needs accountants so it gives me the ability to choose where I work so living in Europe for a while is definitely a possibility. I already have an internship for next summer but for the summer after that I think that I am going to apply to internships in Europe. I also love how close all of the countries are to each other and how much history they all have. I have enjoyed being here so much. This was definitely the best experience of my life. 

I have grown a lot during this program. Personally, I have become more independent. I was living with a person I didn’t know and had to do a lot of things by myself. There was no one who was going to wake me up if I overslept or help me make my lunch. When I went to Paris I didn’t know anyone so I had to make friends and figure everything out, for the most part by myself. After the program ended I also was traveling solo for a week and a half. With that I had to figure everything out by myself and get comfortable doing things alone and meeting people to do things with. Academically, I enhanced my French knowledge. My speaking skills have improved a good amount and I can speak more fluently now. Professionally, I made many connections. I made friends with a bunch of the people I worked with, and those can be useful connections in the future. This was also my first full time job so I got used to working 9:30-5:30 for 5 days a week. This also meant I had to have good time management to do this, travel, visit the different sights, and do school assignments. I also found out more about where I want to work in the future. It confirmed that I would like to work in Europe for at least a little while in the future. 

A key take away that I learned was how important it is to a good work life balance. It’s important to work to live and not the other way around. Making sure you enjoy your life is fundamental. I am also living off campus next year. This was a great way to figure out living by myself, without a meal plan, or items provided by the school.

Overall I loved this program and am so grateful for it. I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who helped me, I could not have done this without you.