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Halfway Through the French Academic Year
The French university year is divided into two semesters. The first usually runs from September to December or January and ends with exams called partiels; the second begins straight afterward, in late January, with little or no break between them. Grades arrive in January, often in the middle of the darkest weeks of the year. Many students, French or not, describe the period as a low point, and universities increasingly acknowledge it: most have student health services and counseling, and student associations organize events to break the isolation. International students often feel it more sharply, far from family and working in a second language. Feeling out of place in a program, the impostor syndrome, is common among graduate students in general, and saying so to someone is often the first step to putting it in proportion. For a weekend away from the books, Parisians have options close at hand. The forest of Fontainebleau, about an hour south of Paris by train, is a favorite for walking and for climbing on its famous sandstone boulders, and it is reachable without a car.