The Expat

We interviewed a student who used to go Monta Vista and has now moved to Grenoble, France about the contrast in attending school there. Read the longer and less edited version of her interview below.

Q: What was your time at MV like?

A: For me my sophomore year and freshman year were very differently so it’s hard to sum it all up. I think it was just like a typical Monta Vista student life, like school work and going to school events but again focusing on grades. [...] My sophomore year was a lot more vivid and I started getting used to the whole focusing on school work and thinking school work was the most important thing, and grades, I got used to it more. It was more normal for me in my sophomore year, but in my freshmen year I was more shocked by how focused everyone was on getting into college. I felt more like an outsider during my freshmen year?

Q: Where did you move to?

A: I live in Grenoble, France and I’m going to an American school here that’s very small.

Q: How does that school compare?

A: I think the most important thing to note is that my class is 11th and 12th grade combined and we have 12 students, so the biggest difference is I went from a school that has over 2000 students to a school that has 42 students. It’s a really really small school, [smaller than my World Studies class]. For me I don’t speak French so I am really just limited to the people that speak English who are in my school, so that’s a very big difference. For the school life, I have a class where it’s just me an one other person. It’s a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is if you don’t understand something you can really take the time to understand it in class with the teacher. The bad thing is for the whole school hour you need to be focused because you can’t just pretend you’re not there.

Q: How do the students compare?

A: At my new school, there’s a lot of people from different places, so it’s not really one type of person. Also, most students don’t really stay at my school for longer than a few years, so it’s not really one specific type whereas I think Monta Vista has more of one specific type or most students have an academic goal that’s more common across the whole school. Here since it’s more different people, that’s not really the case. [...] In my class there’s one person who’s also very academically driven, one out of the twelve, but mostly not as much. For me, I kinda lost the academic drive I had at MV just because of the environment, if your environment doesn’t push you, it’s hard to push yourself.

Q: How is it living in France?

A: In Europe, most of the cities have centers so a downtown area and that prompts you to go outside and get a coffee and buy things you don’t need. In Cupertino, I wouldn’t really go out unless I had a place to go. That was mostly just school, but here in France you can go out and go somewhere to hangout. I go outside more.

Q: Which do you like better?

A: In America, I like the people more. People have this mentality of like “we’re in this together” like when you go grocery shopping, they’re like “Hello, how are you today?”. People are just nicer in general than here. Here it’s more like they’re polite but not friendly with you. Like you’re a stranger, there’s more of a distance which I don’t really like. They just seem kinda cold, but they’re not trying to be mean. But I couldn’t say which one I like more cause there’s just pros and cons to both.