Henry Gamble, Staff Writer—
Over the past two years, two French students from Nantes University have traveled to teach and study at Denison.
Nantes is located in Northwestern France, and due to a partnership between Denison and the Institute for International Education of Students (IES), an exchange program exists between Nantes University and Denison.
This year’s exchange student from Nantes is Anna Mocquard who studies British and American literature. However, this hasn’t always been her field of study. She initially specialized in both math and science.
One of the biggest differences between the French and American systems of education is the concept of track specialization known as lycée in France. Students choose theirs in the final year of highschool. It’s during this time that Mocquard and most other French students took an exam called the Baccalauréat.
While there are a multitude of variations of the Baccalauréat, Mocquard took the Baccalauréat générale, which serves as a preparatory exam to pursue higher education.
Fortunately for Mocquard, declarations of specialization can be changed. While studying at Nantes University, Mocquard took an interest in education, which led her to Denison.
For this reason, when choosing a class to audit as part of her IES exchange program, she chose an education course at Denison. In addition to auditing a course, Mocquard works as a Teaching Assistant for three French courses including French 213, 214 and 330.
So far, Mocquard has been surprised by the differences in size between Denison and Nantes University. Especially after attending the Banderstantch’s opening night celebration Oct. 4, Mocqaurd remarked that, “everyone knows each other at Denison.”
Mocquard noted that the closeness of Denison’s student body was due to differences such as required four-year residential housing on campus and the fact that students take courses outside of their major and minor.
In Nantes, Mocquard explained that students live either at home or in off-campus housing, and are limited to taking courses within their specialization.
Another striking difference is class size. Mocqaurd explained that the majority of her courses were lectures, sometimes holding up to 400 students, a strong contrast to Denison’s 9:1 student-to-faculty ratio.
Looking forward, Mocqaurd hopes her time at Denison will provide her with a better understanding of teaching. “I think this experience is the best way for me to familiarize myself with the education system and learn how to work together with students,” she said.
One day Mocqard hopes to teach English in France, either for middle school or highschool students.