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Reflections of a Sciences-Potard

by Sarah Dalglish

When I arrived in Paris for my junior year abroad, my knowledge of French higher education, like that of most Americans, began and ended with the word “Sorbonne.” So I wasn’t prepared for the reactions elicited when I said I’d be studying at Sciences-Po, otherwise known as the Institut d’Etudes Politiques. Indeed, this may have been the moment I learned that the French actually use the expression “oh la la.” Somehow, attending this school made me impressive.

I had a hint of the rarefied universe I was to enter when the “welcome booklet” for international students came with a glossary of Sciences-Po slang: Péniche for the main hall (its namesake a long bench therein), the Grand O’ for the exit exam (which, I later learned, lacks any titillating connotations in French). And then there were the students: 16th-arrondissement boys with Oxford shirts, jackets and rakish haircuts; stylish girls who could out-talk most anyone, on most any subject. Many of them had spent a year or two at cram schools to pass the entrance exam. These were the youths who would become future presidents, prime ministers and Secretaries General of the U.N., if history was any judge.

All in all, I would spend three years at this peculiar institution. During my junior year abroad, I followed Sciences-Po’s traditional curriculum—the same sorts of political philosophy, history and social science classes that Jacques Chirac, François Mitterrand and Ségolène Royal might have taken. While my other friends from the United States scarcely attended class at their various Paris universities, I put countless hours of preparation into 10-minute oral exposés and two-page synthèses. I came to an ironic appreciation of the observation—expressed in various ways by Abraham Lincoln, T.S. Eliot and Blaise Pascal—that if I had more time, I would have made it shorter.

Of course, my schedule still allowed for the various shenanigans to be expected of a 20-year-old let loose in Paris. But simultaneously I was becoming familiar with a set of facts—on recent French history (the Third Republic to Mitterrand), big-name sociologists (Durkheim, Foucault) and European integration (with commentary by students from the former Soviet bloc)—that fit like a skeleton key into the lock of French conversation.

A year later, I returned to Sciences-Po to pursue a master’s degree in economic development. The rigid pedagogical formulas—the exposés, the synthèses—I had mastered in undergraduate studies were ill adapted to the in-depth work required in a master’s program. Restricted resources (unavailable professors, short library hours) frustrated me and my fellow grad students. But my classmates were top-notch and international—five continents were represented in my 18-member program—and I spent five months researching my thesis in French-speaking Africa, a beautiful, bewildering experience that somewhat overshadows the frustrations.

In July, I joined the ranks of France’s élite as a diplômée of Sciences-Po, a title as esteemed in France as it is unknown in the United States. As my parents will be disappointed to learn, the experience has, if anything, clouded my decision on a future career path by revealing the gamut of choices open to a bicultural, open-minded young person. On the other hand, I’ve gained fluency in another language, a not inconsiderable body of specialized knowledge and friends hailing from a dozen countries. I can dissect complicated texts, handle my red wine and speak confidently in public—for 10 minutes, at least. And if all else fails? At least I know I’m qualified to be president of France.