DEPAYSER
~ to leave your comfort zone ~
For my first honors experience at UC, I spent a month studying the French language at the University of Caen. We spent our first three days in Paris, and after this we spent the rest of our time there attending classes and exploring the region of Normandy. I obviously improved my overall knowledge of the French language – between the classroom and just living in a French city for that long, I am much more conversationally confident. My overall vocabulary has expanded as well. But other than what I came to the country to learn, just going away and exploring a place totally foreign to me was an experience in itself. From the architecture to the food, everything had somewhat of an impact on me. And the friends I made were from all over the world, and now I have an incentive to explore their home countries and visit them. After this trip, I believe that to explore and put yourself out of your comfort zone is the most lasting form of education; I will definitely remember my first month in France for the rest of my life.
I chose to use a video as my sample because I, as well as most of my friends, are visual learners. We prefer to show what we learned or what we did than explain it – the similar principle applies to our major: architecture. We will make a living off the visual. For this reason, I created this montage. The song in the background is a French song I heard on the radio, and the chorus repeats over and over, “Rappelle-la”, which means “remember her”. Her being, in my mind, the country of France.