Grenoble Ecole de Management

Grenoble Ecole de Management Ranska Syksy 2013 330042

Grenoble is a 160 000 people small city in the south-east France in the Rhône-Alpes region. It s a student city with 60 000 students coming every year. It s also a technology hub in Europe; lot of big technology companies are present in Grenoble and it houses several research centres. Grenoble Ecole de Management is an esteemed business school in France and in 2013 it was ranked 6 th in the French business school rankings. ORGANIZING YOUR STAY IN GRENOBLE What to prepare at home The help you get from the school is great. After Aalto University has nominated you for the exchange, Grenoble Ecole de Management starts to send you emails preparing you for your exchange period. There are lot of emails and most of them contain very valuable information about the school formalities as well as life in France. In the instructions they have detailed information what you need to provide the school in order to secure your place. When your host university has chosen you to go to Grenoble, the choice isn t final until you have an acceptance letter from Grenoble Ecole de Managment. The school also gives you good instructions how to prepare your stay and what documents to bring with you. The guide for exchange students emailed to you by the school can also be found in the website (http://www.grenoble-em.com/1865-international-students-2.aspx) It is a valuable guide book for you before your departure. You need to make sure to have some documents with you, and make sure you take some copies of them. You may not have access to a printer at Grenoble for some time. Make sure you have at least: - passport copies - GEM acceptance letter - couple passport photos - travel insurance documents (repatriation insurance included) - Finnish healthcare card copies (get the card from KELA automatically) - Birth certificate translated in French The things you need to prepare before your leave are not bad when travelling inside Europe, compared to for example travelling to the States. Flights The school advices you to not book your flights before you get this final confirmation letter that arrives sometime in June. I waited until then to book my flight tickets. I flew to Geneva, which is about 150 km from Grenoble. The plane tickets for Geneva were a lot more inexpensive, compared to Lyon that is the other big city near Grenoble around 100km away. From Geneva to Grenoble you can take a train that costs between 25-30 euro, if you are under 26 years old. After you arrive in France you can buy a 50 euro Carte Jeune, that allows you to buy train tickets even cheaper. It s useful if you plan on travelling in

France with their rail company SNCF. (http://www.sncf.com/) The other option is to take an airport bus from Geneva airport to Grenoble. The one-way ticket is 32 euro. (http://www.aerocar.fr/en/) The bus and train both take a bit over 2 hours, the train a little longer. I came to Grenoble by train and left home by bus. Both work really well. Accommodation I found my apartment through internet before arriving. I found it on a Facebook page that is designed to bring together students and landlords. The page was recommended by the Grenoble school among many other apartment searching tips. I booked my apartment in the beginning of august through emails. Of course it s a bit uncertain to pay rent deposit without seeing the apartment, but I took the risk, because I didn t want to live in a hotel while searching for an apartment in Grenoble. It turned out to be a good apartment, with reasonable rent and distance from the school. I lived with a girl roommate who I did not know before, but we got lucky and became good friends during my stay. My apartment was from privet market which can be a bit tricky in France as they normally require a French guarantor. My landlord rented his apartment solely to foreign students and was aware that this was not possible for most. In return he asked a deposit and a Finnish guarantors signature, for example your parents. Due to this guarantor problem a lot of students end up in residents that do not require French guarantor. In Grenoble student residences come in many different shapes and forms, others right next to school, others further and the condition of the apartment varies too. The residences tend to be more expensive that the ones you find in the private market. The rents are in the same level with Helsinki rents, so a cheap apartment is a true find. One cheap living option is the CROUS residences that are supported by the French government. Unfortunately I heard a few stories were the renter just turned away at the door, because the apartment was too hideous. There were also problems with internet, hot water and heating. If you want to leave cheap, you need to give up some comforts. Welcome Desk at GEM Grenoble Ecole de Management organizes a welcome desk and the team is there to help you through the first days and formalities. They help you to get your bank, insurance and housing benefit(caf) things in order. I advise you to go there the first thing you go to Grenoble to start getting things going. It takes couple weeks and probably several visits to the officials to get everything done. Be patient and provide the documents they ask. There is no way around it. Barely anything gets done through internet or email. You should be prepared to send documents by post and to visit the offices.

I got my bank account and home insurance at LCL that had cooperation with the welcome desk and I could get these things sarted at school during the first days. They give you further instructions how to proceed after the first meeting. When you have an apartment in France you are titled to get housing benefit called CAF. The amount depends on your apartment type and size and can be anything from 50 to 200 euro. I battled with the CAF agency for couple months before everything was settled, but eventually I got my money. I think this is worth doing. The welcome desk also organizes activities which help you to get to know the city and other exchange students. The association organizes events throughout the year including couple trips to explore Europe. This year there was Lyon, Paris and Italy. GRENOBLE ECOLE DE MANAGEMENT The school Grenoble Ecole de Management is an esteemed business school in France. I did my studies in English Track 2, in a program Advanced Global Management, It was second year of master program. The French university system is a bit different and the level of master studies is not too difficult. I was on my last year of studies in Finland and these courses felt really easy. The introduction day was 12 th of September and lectures started on the following week. We had a week off in the end of October. Final exams were during the previous week before Christmas. I took the English program because although I speak some French I can t study business with the language. About half of the students in our class were exchange students and the other half French. In the program there is a fixed list of courses you can do. If you want to obtain the certificate of Advanced Global Management you need to pass all the courses. As I did not need the 30 credits that you would get if you do all the courses, I could skip some of them. I chose to do the following six courses: International Business Law, Behaviours at work and Psychological Risks, Human Resource Management, Operations and Supply Chain Management, Strategic Management and French language course. French language course (3 ECTS) The French language course is mandatory for all exchange students. It consists of 2 hour lessons once a week. Unfortunately that is not enough to improve your French skills. If you really want to improve your French you need to do a lot of effort on your own. The school offers little options on that, but one thing you can try is to sign up for the Meet n talk program. Basically you team up with a French speaking person who wants to learn a language you are fluent in. But be aware, be active in this too. I ended up meeting my partner twice during the whole fall. I did not improve my French much at all, because the courses were in English and most of my friends were other internationals to whom I spoke English. If you want to learn French, be very active on your own.

International Business Law (4 ECTS) International Business Law was though by an American sales attorney who clearly was interested in his line of work and was a professional. He was a relatively good at teaching too, although his lectures involved a lot of slides and a bit less interaction. We did couple assignments and group work during the lectures and as homework, which were graded and part of the final evaluation in addition to the exam. The course was pretty basic; introduction to organizations and legal matters that effect doing international business. I did learn new things but it was more history and learning things by heart than getting really creative with the legal matters. The work load was not bad. Behaviours at Work and Psychological Risk (4 ECTS) Behaviours at work and Psychological Risk had 3 different teachers that were completely different. They thought different sections of the course and had their separate assignments to help their evaluation. Two of the teachers were American consultants and the third one was an Italian psychologist. They all were quite the personas, which at least made the course interesting. The subject was a bit thin, there isn t much concrete to say about it afterwards. We learnt about the dynamics of workplaces, teams and leadership by analysing case studies and discussing in class. The homework assignments were a case study and a discussion paper. There was no exam in this course. The work load was not bad, most of the assignments happened in class. In general the course was pretty interesting, mostly because of interesting teachers. Human Resource Management (7 ECTS) Human Resource Management had several teachers, who lectured maybe one or two classes on different topics. The teacher responsible was a French woman, professor at GEM. Other teachers were of multiple nationalities and various professional backgrounds. The level of English varied a lot among the lecturers. The course was a surface scrape into human resource management, major weight on the international aspects of HRM such as expatriation and workforce diversity. During the lectures there we couple in-class assignments, some homework and an exam. The course was pretty basic and not that challenging. The lecturer did most of the talking and we had some discussion in class. If you have had some Human Resource studies before, this course might be somewhat revision. Operations and Supply Chain Management (4 ECTS) Operations and Supply Chain Management was held by a Dutch consultant who had a significant work experience in this field. He was a good and interesting lecturer and kept our interest on during the whole course. With his English level many though him to be a native English speaker. We did several group and individual assignments in this course, which were part of the final grade in addition to the final exam. The work load did not seem too heavy though, the content of the course was pretty basic. In general I though the course very interesting and I learnt new things.

Strategic Management ( 4 ECTS) Strategic Management was held by two lecturers. The first part was by a PhD student in GEM, a young Chinese woman with good English skills. The other part was held by a British man who worked as a Director of International Affairs at GEM. The course was very interesting, and the second part even more so. The British teacher was a really capturing lecturer and the topics were concrete and interesting. The course involved a lot of basic strategy concepts such as 5 forces and PESTEL, but also a lot of discussion about current business atmosphere. We had to do one big assignment for the course that formed our final grade with the exam. LIFE IN GRENOBLE Grenoble is not a big city and you have seen most of during the first month. There aren t a lot of things to see around the town, only couple sights and the city centre is quite small. If you want to do shopping you might want to visit the bigger shopping centre in Grenoble that is a bit further from the city centre but easily accessible with tram. We went to the movies couple times during the spring and had dinners out in the town. There are good restaurants in the town and you can find good deals for dinners and especially at lunch time. There are cute pubs and cafes but the club scene isn t that great. The entrance fee is pretty expensive and drinks too, compared to even Finland. The best parties are usually house parties or association parties. And there is a lot of them. In the beginning of the semester the associations organise something called the Week-end d Integration(WEI), which is a week-end long party at some nearby camping resort or else. It costs couple hundred euros and is a big deal for the French students. Some of us exchangers went as well, but we were by far the minority. It was a fun experience and you get to do that once in a life-time. The price level in general in my opinion is quite close to Finland s price level. Some things are more expensive or cheaper compared to Finland, but the total of your grocery bill stays quite the same. Restaurants are a bit less expensive in France and wine of course is usually pretty cheap. The big groceries have everything from dry ingredients to meat and vegetables, but you can also be very French and pick your groceries from the special shops; meat from butcher, bread from a bakery and vegetables from the market. Sometimes it s cheaper and better quality when you do it the French way, but not always.

In the school there is a small cafeteria where you can get baguettes, salads and other small stuff. It s ok and the prices aren t bad. Then there are couple CROUS restaurants in the city that offer cheap food for students. I did go in one of those once and the level was pretty basic, a bit worse to Finnish school lunch, I d say. But there were a lot of people that went there on a daily basis. Others go for a lunch at home or some cafes surrounding the school. You can get amazing stuffed baguettes form the bakeries around the school. The public transport system in Grenoble is good with its trams and busses. Many use bikes to go around the city and I did that do. Probably the easiest way to get a bike is to rent it from Metrovelo. (http://www.metrovelo.fr/) You pay 120e deposit and for around 30 euro you get a bike for 3 months. It s a good deal and you avoid the hassle of selling your bike when you are leaving home. You can see a lot of these yellow bikes in the streets of Grenoble. A lot of people chose Grenoble for the ski possibilities and for that it is a good choice. I did not go skiing during my stay, but many went almost every week-end since the season started. The nearest ski resort is about an hour drive away, and many without a car took a 2 hour buss drive to a nearby ski resort. If you don t have equipment you find great deals for the stuff especially in the beginning of the season. The school work did not take too much time for my part at least, so you have plenty of time to explore Grenoble, its surroundings and do some travelling. During October the ESC students have a week off, which I spent travelling around Europe. The train system works really well and there are lot of cheap flights around Europe with Ryan Air and EasyJet. The weather in Grenoble changes a lot but I don t think it s any more dramatic than in Finland. The fall was unnaturally warm this year and there was a lot of sunny and warm days throughout the whole fall. You get to see all the three seasons so prepare to have shorts as well as a proper winter jacket.

CONCLUSION I am glad I went to Grenoble for my exchange; it was nice to see a bit different kind of France than just the tourist sites in Paris. To be honest the city is very small and a bit old and worn out. It s not the prettiest or the most dynamic city in France. If you want a lot out of the city as well, Grenoble might not be your choice. If you are a skier, I d definitely recommend it. The school is esteemed in France and the lecturers were clearly professionals and made the best part of the courses. The courses in general were very basic and not too challenging. Being used to studying in a Finnish university it seemed very easy. I chose Grenoble first of all to practise my French, to get away from the dark fall weather of northern Europe and a major factor was the clarity of their course selection. GEM had a good amount of courses thought in English and they were presented clearly. Despite where you go, it s going to be an amazing experience.