Moving from California to France: Toulouse Business School
Hello, my name is Jacob and I’m from Monterey, California. I’m currently in my first year working towards my Bachelors in Management at Toulouse Business School in Toulouse, France. Before university, in California I worked full time and didn’t want to jump into the rest of my life too soon, so I decided to once again enroll in school but this time overseas.
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The enrollment process was a bit different from what I’m accustomed to. For starters, they didn’t ask for my SAT or ACT scores, which was quite good for me. All that they required was my high school grades plus grades from any schooling done after high school. To get to know me better, I had an interview where I was asked typical entrance questions like “What’s your greatest achievement?”, “Who inspires you?”, and “Why TBS and how will it be a good fit for you?”.
The school itself is a small, triple accredited business school by AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS with campuses In Toulouse, Barcelona, Casablanca, and Paris. The Bachelors in Management degree is a three year degree where students are trained to be professionals in a management setting in an increasingly interconnected world.
Students take classes ranging from Accounting to Fundamentals of Marketing in their first semester to build a foundation of skills to refer to in their future endeavors. The classes themselves are in either one and a half hour, two hour, or three hour periods, and are held once or twice a week depending on the length of the periods. Students’ efforts are graded on a scale from one to twenty and anything above a ten is a passing grade. As an American who is accustomed to the A to F scale, this took some getting used to. The homework is not too overbearing, however, you are expected to spend a lot, if not most of your free time studying for the various multiple choice quizzes you will most likely have throughout the week. Also, the way that multiple choice quizzes are graded in France is quite unique. If you don’t answer a question nothing happens, it neither helps nor harms your grade. If you get a question correct, that is plus three points, but if you get a question wrong that is minus one point, which means that it is possible to get negative points on a quiz, which I found out the hard way. Each year students are required to complete an eight week minimum internship at a company of their choosing to put their newly acquired skills to use.
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The school is composed of both French and international students and classes are offered in both French and English. There are also a myriad of resources for students to utilize if they need help with anything, ranging from tech support to language services. There are also lots of parties hosted by the school’s welcome team which provide plenty of opportunities to interact and make new friends.
Overall, TBS provides an excellent education and plenty of different opportunities for its students. Since first arriving in September I’ve greatly expanded my knowledge of the business world and have made numerous meaningful connections. Toulouse has proved to be the community I was lacking back in the United States and has quickly become a second home for me.
–Jacob
