Nicolette Horvath had wanted to go abroad to France since she was sixteen. She initially fell in love with the country on a high school trip and knew then that she would have to go back. Keeping true to that commitment, she went abroad to France as a student twice in her degree: first as an exchange to Lille in 2016, and later to take part in e3 in the French Alps in 2017.
Lille was the perfect place for Nicolette to dip her toes into France. As it's a student city, English is more widely spoken than other areas in France, which made for a better environment for Nicolette to improve her French. Additionally, there was a wide support system readily available, as there were many other international students who were in the same situation as her that she could turn to.
What really sticks out to Nicolette when she reminisces of her time in Lille are the relationships she fostered with the other international students. While she was initially anxious about leaving her family behind, the other students quickly became a new family for her. It was an intensely communal living situation; oftentimes the students would be sharing their food with one another. As Nicolette puts it, "I realized that food was more than just food. It was a way to come together." Nicolette recalls that she would often spend up to five hours in the dining room a night so she could see each and every one of her friends.
Introducing a Canadian Tradition
At one point, Nicolette even teamed up with an American to make pancakes on a weekly basis for themselves and all their friends. "They had the flat crepes in France, but I missed the fluffy pancakes back home," she recalls. So, she made them for everyone! Both she and her friend wanted to give the other students an authentic North American pancake experience and to share what they considered a meal from their own culture. Nicolette even made sure to track down high quality, real Canadian maple syrup for these special meals.
Inspired as a Student and as a Professional
Nicolette's time in Lille was more than just the friendships she made-she feels that it was the turning point in her education. "I learned so much in Lille outside the classroom, and I had a new passion for learning," she notes."I knew I was in University for a reason, and not because I felt an obligation to be. I felt more invigorated, and I really realized how much I love to learn."
This new love for learning inspired her to return to again France with the e3 program in the summer of 2017. Nicolette looks back fondly on her time in e3, as she believes it gave her "skills and experiences that are invaluable." She believed that going to e3 would be the perfect chance to advance herself as a professional, and it ended up being exactly that. Nicolette had the chance to have an internship in a hypoxia lab in Grenoble. With her internship, she got to experience a new technique that is being used to identify the severity of certain respiratory issues, COPD in particular. This new method takes less time and is much more cost efficient-and Nicolette got to see first hand this new technique in action.
Just like her time in Lille, Nicolette became very close with the other students in the e3 program. They could all bond over the fact that they came from the same University, and experiencing a different country together. She recalls that she and her e3 friends traveled together to Marseille, and kept in contact after they got back to Canada, meeting up once every semester to catch up.
A Push to Explore the World
Even outside of the academic context, Nicolette learned about many different things while in France, but most importantly about herself and the world around her. Opening herself up to France led her to a completely different country: Argentina.
One of the friends Nicolette became very close within Lille was from Argentina, and this relationship has since ignited a new desire to learn-she developed a new curiosity in Latin America, and has begun to learn Spanish. She has since been to Argentina twice!
"I went to take part and experience one culture, but ended up getting two cultures out of it!" she jokes. Clearly, while she was in Lille, the travelling bug bit her.