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 I've
spent a lot of my academic career trying to do something
different: foreign exchange programs, boarding school,
international universities… choices that were for the most
part atypical. What I found at The American University of
Paris was a group of like-minded people, students who, for
whatever reason, had decided that attending a four-year
university in the United States followed by an internship
leading to a clear career path wasn't for them. Many of the
people I met during my two years at AUP have returned to the
States by now, but a great majority of them, whether still
in Europe or in the States, have continued along the path
that we found at AUP: a path that continues to make us
different and distinct.
I met my best friend during my
first day of AUP Orientation four years ago. Like me, she
was a transfer student coming in as a junior, and like me,
she had been raised in the U.S. but felt that there was
something that America wasn't offering her. Together, we
discovered Paris, leaving the AUP bubble bit by bit as we
became more comfortable with our surroundings. Professors
encouraged us to go out and learn from the city that was
home to the university. A Paris cinema professor showed us
where to find the old nooks and crannies portrayed in 60s
film masterpieces. An English professor introduced me to
Naples through literature so deeply that when we arrived for
a class trip at the end of the semester, I felt I already
knew it. A class on cultural dimensions of the European idea
made the people living and existing around me make sense,
the politics that played ad nauseum in the background of our
lives something real and relevant.
Today, I'm still living in
Paris; my best friend has since moved to London. We both
tried to move back to the States at one point or another
after graduation, but there's something about AUP and Paris
that makes it impossible. Everyone I know who has studied
abroad complains about how hard it is to fall back into your
old patterns upon returning home, but AUP students find a
way to make sure that the normal and day-to-day is never
mundane again.
I graduated from AUP nearly
three years ago, but the University is still a large part of
my life. I nearly never find myself in the familiar
buildings anymore, but I've found a group of people – an AUP
student from Maryland who found a job in Paris, an AUP
transfer to Parson's who works in Paris art galleries, and
me, a writer and a Masters student at the Sorbonne – who
make it possible to live life in the way that we've all
decided works best for us: we've adopted the AUP attitude of
seeing Europe as a place that can be made into a home
instead of just a tourist destination, and have truly
assimilated it into our lives.
Please visit Emily’s blog:
http://www.tomatokumato.com
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